As one might expect from a novel based on the collapse of the Chinese feudal system and the subsequent Communist takeover, Spring Moon successfully presents the inevitable clash between two value systems, in this case the old Confucian ideals symbolized by the ancient philosophy of yielding and the modern ideals born of Western thought and communism and epitomized by confrontation. As an aid to the average reader (who is more likely than not to have little knowledge of Chinese history) Bette Bao Lord provides in an appendix a useful chronology of significant events in China from around 1990 B.C. to A.D. 1981.

Through the drama of the rising and falling fortunes of the House of Chang, a mandarin clan of landowning scholars, Lord chronicles the crucial period of the evolution of China through the long chaotic years of political turmoil and social unrest, beginning with the...