Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives

Abstract: Fei was my thesis supervisor while I was studying for my master’s degree from 1982 to 1984. I was very pleased to accept Dr Xiangqun Chang’s invitation to write an article about Professor Xiaotong Fei’s lost manuscript, ‘The Relationship between Protestantism and the Spirit of Capitalism’, for the special issue of the Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives dedicated to ‘Max Weber and China’. The discovery of this manuscript was very fortuitous: according to the account by Professor Wang Mingming (2015) from Peking University, this manuscript had ended up together with the remaining writings of Professor Wu Wenzao stored at the Research Centre for Chinese Society and Development. A constructor stumbled upon them by chance as the office was undergoing refurbishment many years ago, and at first wanted to dispose of them, thinking they were waste paper. But then some professors, including Pan Naigu, heard the news, rushed to the dump just in time and ‘snatched’ them, and immediately sent them directly to the Centre (they are currently stored in the library of the Department of Sociology at Peking University)’.