这部百万字的访谈录实际是郭罗基的回忆录。他在访谈的基础上，补充了他在各个时期发表和发布的重要文章和发言、信件、以及有关法律诉讼的相关文件。内容涵盖了反右、文革、拨乱反正思想解放、否定"两个凡是"、真理标准大讨论、西单民主墙、反自由化、清除精神污染、八九民运，等各个政治节点的中国思想界和政界的风风雨雨。到1992年底开始在美国从事研究和教学，继续参与海外华人的民运活动。
出生于1932年的郭罗基，童年时遭逢战乱，少年时追求自由民主，旋即投身革命，成为勇敢的中共地下党员。中共建国后，他先就学后就职于北京大学，并在这个中共最重视的学府，也是政治斗争标杆式的园地，亲历历次政治运动。独立思考的他在文革后拨乱反正中成为引领思想解放大潮的一员，数次发布令那个人云亦云的社会震惊的开拓性言论， 一时为当权者所器重，也最终被邓小平称为"资产阶级自由化的冒尖人物"，先被发配南京（1982年），后放逐海外，有国不能归。
郭罗基用"一生充当反对派"总结自己的一生，在教学和学术研究中、在政治运动和社会活动中，他践行以独立思考坚持原则来探求真理、参与和引领五四以后的思想解放运动；身体力行依法申诉来争取人权。即使到了自由的美国，在民运组织"中国人权" 和 "独立中文笔会" 中，继续充当对其中的腐败滥权的尖锐批评者。郭罗基对海外民运组织的批评，伴随了以往三十年海外追求自由宪政的中国异见人士成立的组织在权力和金钱的游戏中的凋零。本著作著述的作者的人生经历是近百年来中国人探求真理和道路的缩影，启示后来者深思和反省。
This million-word interview is actually Guo Luoji's memoir. On the basis of the interviews, he supplemented it with important articles and speeches, letters, and relevant documents related to legal proceedings that he published and released at various times. The content covers the ups and downs in China's ideological and political circles at various political nodes such as anti-rightism, the Cultural Revolution, ideological emancipation, negation of the Two Whatevers, truth standards discussion, Xi-Dan Democracy Wall, anti-liberalization, "removal of spiritual pollution", the 1989 democracy movement, and other political nodes. By the end of 1992, he began to engage in research and teaching in the United States and continued to participate in overseas Chinese democracy movements.
Born in 1932, Guo Luoji suffered from war in his childhood. He pursued freedom and democracy as a teenager, and soon joined the revolution and became a brave underground member of the Chinese Communist Party. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he first studied at Peking University and then worked at Peking University. At this institution, which is the most valued institution of the CCP and a benchmark venue for political struggles, he personally experienced various political movements. As an independent thinker, he became a member of the leading tide of ideological emancipation in bringing order to the chaos after the Cultural Revolution. He issued several pioneering remarks that shocked the society that was lacking independent expression. He was valued by those in power for a while, and was eventually called a "leading figure in bourgeois liberalization" by the CCP leader Deng Xiaoping. He was first dispatched to Nanjing (1982), and then exiled overseas, unable to return to his country.