Imperial China's Last Classical Academies describes the Confucian educational revival in the Yangzi Delta from the Tongzhi Restoration to the Xinhai Revolution and looks into the institutions where reform and revolution began. The revival of classical academies between 1864 and 1900 generated its own social, political, and intellectual effects that provided groundwork for all future reforms. Keenan focuses on three academies in the Lower Yangzi region: Zhongshan Academy in Jiangning (later Nanjing), Longmen Academy in Shanghai, and Nanjing ("Southern Quintessence") Academy in Jiangyin.