Recently, The Commercial Press announcedits the Double Top 10 Books of 2025. The Evolution of European Civilization, a 16-volume series which edited by Hou Jianxin, director of the Institute of European Civilization at Tianjin Normal University, was selected as one of the Top 10 Academic Books. The series was described as a masterpiece that systematically elaborates on the evolution of European civilization, profoundly analyzes the essence of European civilization,and fully displays the diverse aspects of European civilization.

For this selection of the top ten books, The Commercial Press invited scholars from various academic institutions, as well as senior media professionals and book reviewers from major media outlets, to serve as judges. These judges came from institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,the Party History and Literature Research Institute of the CPC Central Committee, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, as well as China Media Group, People's Daily, Guangming Daily, China Reading Weekly, The Beijing News Book Review Weekly, and Beijing Radio and Television Station.

According to the official news from The Commercial Press, the academic and social circles highly appraised the academic value of the 16-volume series “The Evolution of European Civilization” in this selection activity:

It is the first multi-volume work in China that systematically studies European civilization, breaking down the content into 16 core topics that cover the key dimensions of the evolution of civilization.

European civilization is actually a secondary civilization that took shape in the Middle Ages and is the product of the long-term integration of various elements of classical, Christian, Germanic and other civilizations. This perspective breaks the stereotype that "the Middle Ages was the Dark Ages" and leads readers to re-recognize that key period which gave birth to the core of modern civilization.

The most distinctive feature of the book is the proposal of the five "meta-rules" of European civilization. It refines the core principles that run through the development of Europe-rights to property, rights to consent, rights to procedure justice, rights to self-defense, and rights to life-into the "embryos" of civilization. These deep-rootedrules determine the direction of European society and have become the foundation of modern European civilization.

The 16-volume series "The Evolution of European Civilization" was the final outcome of a major project supported by the National Social Science Fund. Mr. Hou Jianxin, a senior professor at Tianjin Normal University, served as the chief expert and editor-in-chief of the entire series. Relying on the Institute of European Civilization at the Tianjin Normal University, the book pooled the efforts of 12 universities and academic institutions both at home and abroad, including Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Renmin University of China, Nanjing University, Shandong University, Shandong Normal University, East China Normal University, Zhejiang Normal University, Sun Yat-sen University, Hebei University, and the University of Birmingham in the UK. It took more than ten years to complete. This master work was hailed as the first most systematic and comprehensive study of European civilization written by Chinese scholars outside the Western world, marking a significant achievement in the construction of an independent knowledge system in the discipline of world history in China.