Princeton Studies in Contemporary China⁶

Mary Gallagher and Yu Xie, Series Editors

The Princeton Studies in Contemporary China aims to publish books from leading scholars across the social sciences that examine a wide range of critical issues in contemporary China, including social inequality, family, government, education, health care, aging, migration, environment, religion, urban development, and culture.

The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development Yuhua Wang
China was the world’s leading superpower for almost two millennia, falling behind only in the last two centuries and now rising to dominance again. What factors led to imperial China’s decline? The Rise and Fall of Imperial China...
Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition Yi-Lin Chiang
Study Gods offers a rare look at the ways privileged youth in China prepare themselves to join the ranks of the global elite. Yi-Lin Chiang shows how these competitive Chinese high schoolers first become “study gods” (xueshen), a...
A Decade of Upheaval: The Cultural Revolution in Rural China Dong Guoqiang and Andrew G. Walder
A Decade of Upheaval chronicles the surprising and dramatic political conflicts of a rural Chinese county over the course of the Cultural Revolution. Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources—including work diaries, interviews...
Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution Xuefei Ren
Urbanization is rapidly overtaking China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. One-sixth of humanity now lives in either a Chinese or Indian city. This transformation has unleashed enormous pressures on land use...
The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China Ya-Wen Lei
Since the mid-2000s, public opinion and debate in China have become increasingly common and consequential, despite the ongoing censorship of speech and regulation of civil society. How did this happen? In The Contentious Public Sphere...
China's Urban Champions: The Politics of Spatial Development Kyle A. Jaros
The rise of major metropolises across China since the 1990s has been a double-edged sword: although big cities function as economic powerhouses, concentrated urban growth can worsen regional inequalities, governance challenges, and...