王船山的《黃書》在繼承歷代史家對於黃帝形象塑造的基礎上，又突出塑造了黃帝作為民族始祖、治世聖王的圖像，《黃書》遂成為清季國族建構的重要凝聚人心之資源。維新派主要利用《黃書》刻畫的黃帝實現了「軒轅之治」的治世聖王的圖像，摭拾《黃書》中「軒轅之治」所呈現的「治道」資源，企圖作為興民權、實行君主立憲可資借鑒的理論依據，以此繼續憧憬「軒轅之區畫」；革命派則利用《黃書》描繪的黃帝作為「拒閒氣殊類之災」以「扶長中夏」的民族始祖圖像，採借《黃書》中「族類自固」、「同類主中國」和「可禪、可繼、可革，不可使異類間之」等思想，作為「排滿革命」的思想武器，《黃書》成為革命派統合人心、強植族類、建構國族認同、反對異族的侵略和統治的重要法寶。《黃書》在中國政治思想史中具有重要的歷史地位，是維新派、革命派在實現中國政治思想的近代轉型中的重要的可資借鑒的本土思想資源。

In The Yellow Book, not only did Chuanshan Wang create the image of Emperor Yellow in accordance with the description of him by the historians in the past, but he also highlighted his portrait of Emperor Yellow as the earliest ancestor of the Chinese nation and as a wise emperor with profound ruling philosophy. Therefore, The Yellow Book became an important ideological resource that the anti-Qing nation (referring to the Hans) in late Qing dynasty used to win political support among people for the sake of nation construction. Mainly by drawing on the image of Emperor Yellow as a great ruler whose successful governing had been called “the government of Xuanyuan,” as was depicted in The Yellow Book, the Weixin Group (or the Reformists) sorted out and adopted the ruling philosophy presented in “the government of Xuanyuan,” in an attempt to making it the theoretical basis for the advocacy of rights of people and the implementation of constitutional monarchy so that they could go on looking forward to the prospect of “Xuanyuan’s great political plan”; while the Revolutionary Group mainly drew on the image of Emperor Yellow as the earliest ancestor of the Chinese nation who “fought against alien nations” in order to “maintain the government of the central China,” and they borrowed from The Yellow Book the ideas that “nations should defend themselves against invasions,” that “one nation governs China” and that “the throne can be abdicated, succeeded or overthrown, but mustn’t be gained by alien nations ” which were regarded as the ideological weapon for the anti-Manchu revolution, so that The Yellow Book became the Revolutionary Group’s treasured weapon for their practice in winning people’s hearts, in imposing their ideas of the distinctions among nations, and in gaining people’s recognition of the legitimate ruling nation so as to fight against the invasion and the government of alien nations. Therefore, The Yellow Book has great historical significance in the political thought of China, being an important indigenous ideological resource that both the Weixin Group and the Revolutionary Group used for reference in completing the modern transition of the political thought of China.