"It's doubtful that someone like Ronald Laing, whose name is still disdained 22 years after his death, would have made so many new advances, were he not proud, boastful, angry and unconventional." "Breaking ground" is the term used when the first shovel full of soil is dug for the construction of a new building. It is often used as an analogy to mean the start of something new or a new discovery. "Arrogant" simply means proud and boastful. The sentence is saying that Ronald Laing was probably able to make his new discoveries in the study of psychiatry, because he was a proud, boastful, angry and unconventional man. (unconventional means he did things in an unusual way) The sentence also tells us that people didn't like Ronald Laing and still don't, 22 years after he died.

I nothing understand

I'll try to tackle the question about "were he not blah blah..". For historical reasons and for comparison with other languages, I think, we call this kind of construction an example of the future subjunctive. You won't really see this kind of clause in conversation, but in this case it basically means "if he were not proud, boastful, etc." I think the following kind of substitution should help you learn how to use the future subjunctive mood, if you need to. example 1: If I were rich, I would go traveling/travelling. -> Were I rich, I would go traveling. example 2: If I (*in the future*) cheated on my homework, I would be ashamed -> Were I to cheat on my homework, I would be ashamed. Sometimes, the difference between grammatical tense, aspect, and mood is not so clear, so I guess it would be more important to focus on the meaning and not the tense/aspect/mood. For example, I don't know if "were I to be happy" is closer in meaning to "if I were happy" or "if I were going to be happy", although one is a present conditional and the other is a future conditional. Subtle grammatical differences tend to result in even more subtle semantic differences. Sorry if I confused you more because I'm pretty sure I just confused myself typing this out.

The two native english speakers gave perfect explanation. For us chinese english-learners there may be 4 perplexing points in your sentence. 1 ' it...that...' sentence pattern. The 'it' is a form subject and the 'that clause' is a substantial. 2 an non-instrictive attributive clause,( sometimes a long parenthesis or appositive, say, those with subordinate clauses, can also complecate a sentence) 3 a phrasal verb ' to break ground' = to begin a new construction / to make new achievement 4 a special possible subjuctive for the very verb ' to be' If a single confusing factor of the 4 appears in a sentence, we can usually manage to clarify the structure and meaning of the sentence, but when they come in the same time it often mixes us up. I myself is often undergo the hardship of complicated sentence structure ----- it is said even native speakers suffer the same, especially when the sentence is badly constructed. I would like to share an alleged trick with you, my dazuimeimei: the core point is to quickly find the framework, i.e. the subject, verb (and object), then you'd be able to easily make out the grammatical purpose and the sense of each part of the rest.

The two native english speakers gave perfect explanation. For us chinese english-learners there may be 4 perplexing points in your sentence. 1 'it...that...' sentence pattern. The 'it' is a form subject and the 'that clause' is a substantial. 2 an non-instrictive attributive clause,( sometimes a long parenthesis or appositive, say, those with subordinate clauses, can also complecate a sentence) 3 a phrasal verb ' to break ground' = to begin a new construction / to make new achievement 4 a special possible subjuctive for the very verb ' to be' If a single confusing factor of the 4 appears in a sentence, we can usually manage to clarify the structure and meaning of the sentence, but when they come in the same time it often mixes us up. I myself is often undergo the hardship of complicated sentence structure ----- it is said even native speakers suffer the same, especially when the sentence is badly constructed. I would like to share an alleged trick with you, my dazuimeimei: the core point is to quickly find the framework, i.e. the subject, verb (and object), then you'd be able to easily make out the grammatical purpose and the sense of each part of the rest.