THE MEANING OF FREEDOM: YAN FU AND THE ORIGINS OF CHINESE LIBERALISM

This book is about how one of the leading intellectual architects of Chinese modernization, Yan Fu (1854–1921), introduced the Chinese intellectual world to the liberalism of John Stuart Mill partly by grasping Mill's ideas, but also by misunderstanding and projecting them onto indigenous Chinese values, which in turn led to criticism and resistance. Rather than bending Western liberalism to the purposes of Chinese nationalism, Yan initiated a distinctively Chinese liberal tradition that became a major component of China's modern political culture.

Max Ko-wu Huang is a Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taipei. He specializes in the intellectual history of China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His books include The Rejected Path: A Study of Liang Qichao’s Accommodative Thinking and The Raison d’étre of Freedom: Yan Fu’s Understanding and Critique of John Stuart Mill’s Liberalism.