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 (1806-1873) by partly grasping Mill’s ideas, partly misunderstanding and projecting onto them indigenous Chinese values, and partly criticizing or resisting them. Rather than bending Western liberalism to the purposes of Chinese nationalism, Yan initiated a distinctively Chinese liberal tradition that became a major strand of China’s modern political culture.