Topics covered include the rise of capitalism, post-socialist transformations, family and gender, nationalism, democracy, and civil society. Each chapter offers a comparison with other countries in East and South-Asia, Europe and the rest of the world, showing how analytic concepts have to be modified to avoid either Eurocentric or Sinocentric bias, and how ideas derived from Chinese sources and observations must be accommodated for complete understanding of the issues discussed.
Written by two well-known anthropologists of China from the London School of Economics, Stephan Feuchtwang and Hans Steinmüller, this book is a comprehensive course for postgraduate students in Chinese and Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, political economy, politics and international relations.