胡寅，字明仲，号致堂，胡安国之子，官至礼部侍郎。本书是作者晚年流放岭南之作，成书于南宋绍兴二十五年，其内容是作者阅读《资治通鉴》的心得。作者认为司马光《资治通鉴》“事虽备而立义少”，没有像《春秋》经那样“立褒贬之法”。胡寅阅读《资治通鉴》，“用经义以断往事”，即用《春秋》的价值标准为尺度来衡量历史，对历史进行义理化诠释，对历史事件和人物作出是非界定和褒贬。宋代陈振孙《直斋书录解题》称本书“议论宏伟严正”。南宋朱熹著《通鉴纲目》，引用本书七十七处，节录本书多达三百四十一处。近人陈寅恪说：“胡致堂之史论，南宋之政论也。”本书《四库全书总目提要》存目，称作者论史“严苛”，“其论人也，人人责以孔颜思孟，其论事也，事事绳以虞夏商周，名为存天理、遏人欲、崇王道、贱霸功，而不近人情，不揆事势，卒至于窒碍而难行”。这种评价未免带有乾嘉朴学的偏见，且这种偏见影响了本书的传播，使得清代以来本书刻本稀见。本次出版是首次对本书进行标点断句，以明代张溥校订本为底本，以宋衡阳郡斋残本配元刻本和宋宛陵郡斋本为校本整理排印。( Hu Yin, courtesy name Mingzhong, styled himself Zhitang. He was the son of Hu Anguo and used to serve as deputy Minister of Rites.The book was observations of Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance written during his exile in Lingnan and finished in the 25th year of Shaoxing in Southern Song.The author believed that in the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, Sima Guang “succeeded more in comprehensiveness than in insights” and failed to “establish criteria of judgement” as the Spring and Autumn Annals did.Whereas his own reading “judges historical affairs according to principles in the classics”, namely to reassess history from the perspective of values in the Spring and Autumn Annals, in order to offer rationalized interpretation of history and define the merits and demerits of historical events and figures.In his Commented Library Catalogue of the Zhizhai Studio Chen Zhensun praised the books as “featuring magnificence and integrity”.In the String and Mesh of Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, Zhu Xi cited the book for 77 times and included as many as 341 excerpts from the book.Chen Yinque, a scholar in early modern China said,“Hu Zhitang’s comments on history were actually discourses on politics.” Annotated Catalog of the Complete Imperial Library observed that the author’s historical criticism was “too rigorous”: “judging people against saints like Confucius, Yan Hui, Zisi and Mencius, and events against those in pre-Qin golden times, seeking to preserve the heavenly reason and eliminate human desires, uphold the benevolent rule and denounce military achievements. Due to its departure from common sense and ignorance of the inner mechanism of historical affairs,the book is limited and cannot go far.”This comment smacks of the evidential scholarship during the rule of Qianlong and Jiaqing Emperors of the Qing dynasty, and had a negative impact on the transmission of the book, making its copies hard to find since Qing.For the first time the book is edited in terms of punctuation based on the revised version of Zhang Pu in Ming dynasty with reference to the combination of the aberrant copy and the original copy of Hengyangjun Studio in Song dynasty as well as the copy of Wanglingjun Studio in Song dynasty.)