This book, as a monograph devoted to the concept of right, takes as its vantage point the historical transformation of human society from agricultural civilization to commercial–industrial civilization. It traces the formation and evolution of the concept of right, analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the right‑related thought of three major Western jurisprudential traditions and their representative figures, repudiates the intellectual constraints that existing Western notions of right have imposed upon the Chinese legal academy, and develops a theoretical system of right supported by such core concepts as the constitution of right, the ontological foundation of right, the bearer of right, the function of right, and the semantic transformation of right.

Zhang Hengshan (male, born November 1954 in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province, Han ethnicity) is Distinguished Professor at Tianjin University, Vice President of the China Behavior Law Society and Chair of its Academic Committee, former Director of the Department of Politics and Law of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, First‑Grade Professor, doctoral supervisor, and member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

His primary research areas are jurisprudence, the politics of law, and the history of legal thought. He has published two monographs and co‑authored thirteen other volumes. His representative works include An Introduction to Jurisprudence (monograph) and The Doctrine of Duty as Prior (monograph). He has published more than 120 professional academic papers in journals such as Social Sciences in China, China Legal Science, Chinese Journal of Law, and Peking University Law Journal. His original scholarly viewpoints include: a theory of evaluative jurisprudence grounded in the triadic social model; the doctrine of duty as prior, premised upon moral conscience; an ontological theory of right founded on the idea of justness as its primary meaning; and a theory of legal transformation in commercial–industrial civilization from the perspective of civilizational transition.