On the evening of January 4, 2021, the 31st "Duyan" Reading workshop of the Institute for Central Asian studies of Lanzhou University was held . Total of 28 teachers and students from the School of Politics and International Relations and the School of Marxism of Lanzhou University attended this activity. The reading material is “After Defeat: how the East learned to live with the West”.

At the beginning, Mr. Luo Jin gave a brief introduction to the author and the content of the book. Dr. Aye Zarakol is of Turkish origin. He is a teacher in the Department of Political and International Studies at Cambridge University and a researcher at Emmanuel College. Dr. Zarakol's main research direction is international security (especially social theory and historical sociological methods), and he is committed to exploring the evolution of East-West relations in the international order, especially focusing on the rise and fall of major powers and non- Western powers.

Then,participants discussed the content of the book and expressed their own views. On the one hand, students were inspired in the process of reading this book. For example, in this book, the author not only uses a lot of theoretical knowledge of political science, but also interprets concepts with rich knowledge of sociology and history, which provides reference for students for academic innovation. On the other hand, students expressed doubts about the book's research problems, main points and case selection.

Finally, Professor Zeng discussed with students and summarized.He evaluated the book from the perspectives of appreciation, criticism, questioning sense and academic norm. He hopes that students can improve the ability to combine the issues in the book with own researches and think independently.