Fifteen Years of Wanli can be said to be a very popular history book in recent years, and the douban score of 9.0 is not low. The author of this book, Huang Renyu, is a Chinese American. He originally studied science and engineering, and later joined the Indian Expeditionary Force as a captain's staff during his stay in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Later, he received a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan. In fact, he mainly studied the morale, finance, taxation and other history of the Ming Dynasty in the16th century.

In the book "Fifteen Years of Wanli", Mr. Huang Renyu mainly wanted to use several representatives from different fields to spy on the development of the Ming Dynasty. He used Zhang to talk about politics, promoted the economy of Harry, used Qi Jiguang to represent the military, and wrote Li Zhi to introduce the ideological circle. The most important thing in the book is his "grand view of history", which emphasizes the connection and causal relationship between the background of the event and many reasons, and holds that the appearance of a historical event is a changing process from quantitative change to qualitative change after numerous preconditions.

Perhaps it is his view of history, the use of historical materials, the expression of language, and the conclusion in the discussion process of this book that has aroused the debate among professional historians, and some scholars disagree. There are probably the following aspects:

First of all, there are many discourses in his book that are not supported by historical data, and there are even many places that are inconsistent with historical facts. The interpretation of some China classical historical materials and characters' thoughts is rough and even wrong.

Secondly, in terms of language expression, most people stand in the perspective of modern people and completely evaluate the ancients with modern standards. There is not enough "understanding and sympathy" for the ancients in history.

In terms of historical view, his "grand historical view" has been questioned by many scholars, who think that too much emphasis on causal analysis and historical rationality explanation has led to some far-fetched character combinations and historical development trends.

Generally speaking, many scholars in the field of history think that this book is not so much an academic work as a popular science book.