One hundred years ago, the Great Qing Empire came to an end. I was heartened while  browsed bookstores in Beijing last summer by the growing body of work on Qing history and efforts to move away from the trite politically correct discourse that the dynasty was nothing but a calamity.  We will see whether 2011 can bring about civilized and reflective debate about the relevance of the dynasty to contemporary China.  In the 1960s, Mao responded to André Malraux that was still too early to fully judge the impact of the French Revolution. Hopefully,  a century gives us enough distance to think seriously about the 辛亥革命 revolution.