Toward the Future Series
Toward the Future Series, also translated into English as Walking Towards The Future Series or Toward the Future Book Series or Moving Toward the Future Series, is a set of books created in 1984 by Jin Guantao, Bao Zunxin, and others, and first published and printed by the Sichuan People's Publishing House in early 1984. In the late 1980s, Wang Qishan served as an editorial board member of the book series.
Toward the Future Series is the first popular series of Western new thoughts that had a widespread impact in mainland China. During the New Enlightenment movement in mainland China, the book series was dedicated to introducing Western thought and promoting science as a remedy for China's impeded modernization. It was of great significance to the enlightenment of Chinese thought in the 1980s.
Toward the Future Series was once banned by the Chinese Government, and was suspended after only 74 copies. After Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992, the ban was lifted. The publication of the series began in 1984 and ended in 1988. This series of books involved various aspects of social science and natural science, including foreign language translations and original works.
The authors of the Toward the Future Series gathered a group of independent thinking intellectuals in China in the 1980s, representing the frontier thinking of China's ideological emancipation at that time. The series was quite popular when it was first published, and the People's Daily, the official media of Chinese Communist Party, also gave words of praise.