This collection of essays by Ma Jianzhong, a close adviser to the powerful Qing government official Li Hong-zhang between 1878 and 1890, add to the late nineteenth-century Chinese discourse on the state and the economy, and provides a deeper understanding of the origins and circulation of reform ideas in the late Qing.

Introduction, Paul Bailey; Chapter 1 A Letter to Li Hongzhang on Overseas Study (1878); Chapter 2 Reply from Marseille to a Friend (1878); Chapter 3 A Discussion of Railroads (1879); Chapter 4 On the Use of Loans to Build Railroads (1879); Chapter 5 On Enriching the People (1890);