This new book provides an accessible and wide-ranging introduction
to the main features of Chinese society. Drawing on a wealth of
material, the author offers a fresh understanding of a unique
society that has undergone continuous transformation and upheaval
throughout the twentieth century.
Understanding Chinese Society looks in all its richness
at the society with the largest population on earth. In order to
explore long-term change and continuity, the book examines China
from pre-revolutionary times to today’s rapidly modernising
society, although the focus is on recent change. Particular
attention is paid to China’s cultural traditions and hierarchical
relationships in familial and wider social settings, and their fate
in the modern world. Successive chapters investigate changes in the
relations of rural and urban sectors of society; in the structure
of families; in political and economic power; in cultural hegemony,
education and the media; and in patterns of social inequality. A
final chapter asks whether Chinese society is becoming more complex
and differentiated in the course of modernisation and considers
recent debates on the growth of civil society and
democratisation.
This book will be indispensable for anyone studying Chinese
society, Asian societies and comparative sociology.

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