Confucius taught that “propriety and righteousness” were the foundations of the state, and “power and profit” were its enemies. The history of modern China, culminating in the wealth-creating reforms unleashed by Deng Xiaoping, has been dedicated to proving him wrong.

In their superb book, Orville Schell and John Delury, scholars of China, chart the intellectual struggles of the nation’s great modern thinkers. They conclude that a “common chord rings through all their work”: how to make China strong and wealthy after its 19th-century collapse under foreign assault and internal putrefaction.

“Wealth and power” is a concept dating back 2,500 years, to before China was unified under the brutally pragmatic Qin emperor in 221BC. A group known as the Legalists had emerged as critics of Confucius, rejecting the ancient philosopher’s idea of a harmonious society and advocating what we might call realpolitik. Legalist philosopher Han Feizi put it in a nutshell: “If a wise ruler masters wealth and power, he can have whatever he desires.”