Abstract: CHEN Xu-lu, who has shown his talents since his college days, is a historian with deep insights and a thinker with strong academic background. Since he shifted his focus from ancient Chinese civilization to modern Chinese history in the end of 1940s and the beginning of 1950s, CHEN has engaged in the study of the complicated and rapidly changing modern society, exploring the social and mental development of the past century as well as its future. Even in the tough time of "mass criticism", CHEN still made great efforts to diagnose the national crisis by himself. After the "Cultural Revolution", CHEN, with his serious reflection on the tortuous development of the past century, he finally accomplished the systematic re-construction of modern Chinese history based on the concept of "metabolism".

Key words: CHEN Xu-lu, modern Chinese history, the change of the time, theoretical thinking, metabolism