The First “Wealth of Nations” in China

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive study of the earliest, missionary-mediated translations of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in late Qing China (1840-1895). Moving beyond the iconic 1902 translation by Yan Fu, it uncovers a formative half-century of conceptual co-production when Western missionaries and Chinese literati collaboratively refracted Smithian ideas. Through meticulous analysis of neglected texts, the book demonstrates how selective excerpting and the traditional hermeneutic strategy of ge-yi ("concept matching") forged a hybrid economic lexicon. This process embedded core concepts such as value, labor, and wealth within indigenous discourses of state strength (fuqiang, ¿¿, fù qiáng, "seeking wealth and power"), creating a mediated "first Wealth of Nations" for China.

Methodologically bridging Translation Studies, Conceptual History, and Global History of Economic Thought, this work offers a new model for analyzing the transnational journey of canonical texts. It resolves the longstanding gap in understanding how Smith's foundational ideas were initially made accessible and relevant in a non-Western context. Timely in this 250th anniversary of Smith's masterpiece, the book reshapes understanding of the origins of modern Chinese economic thought and the global circulation of economic knowledge.