Book excerpt: This book provides a chronological record of the development of Chinese thoughts on public finance over its 4,000 years of history, ranging from the Xia Dynasty to the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It addresses the onset and evolution of Chinese thoughts on public finance across the different periods, such as thoughts on public finance during the Xia, Shang and Western Zhou dynasties, and thoughts from the early feudalistic period; offers an account about the thriving and declining of China's ancient thoughts on public finance; and deals with the emergence of capitalistic theories from the late Qing Dynasty to the founding of the People's Republic of China.