Chen Hansheng was not only a pioneer of modern Chinese social science, remembered for the village studies he organized by teams of researchers in the 1930s. He was also a political operative whose career as an underground and aboveground Communist activist spanned the twentieth century and the globe. This book draws on unique interviews, beginning in 1979, with Chen himself, his family and associates, along with an exhaustive examination of documents, writings, and archives, to build a rounded portrait of Chen, the man, and his world.

This book is a much expanded and wholly rewritten treatment of the subject of the author's first book, Warrior Government in Early Medieval Japan, published in 1974. In this new version, the "warrior" and "medieval" character of Japan's first shogunate is significantly de-emphasized, thus requiring not only a new title, but also a new book. The author's new view of the final decades of twelfth-century Japan is one of a less revolutionary set of experiences and a smaller achievement overall than previously thought. The pivotal figure, Minamoto Yoritomo, retains his dominant role in establishing the "dual polity" of Court and Bakufu, but his successes are now explained in terms of more limited objectives. A new regime was fit into an environment that was still basically healthy and vibrant, leading not to the substitution of one government for another, but rather to the emergence of a new authority that would have to interact with the old. The book aims to present a dual perspective on the period by juxtaposing what we know against our best possible estimate of what Yoritomo himself knew. It is deeply concerned with the multiple balancing acts introduced by this ever nimble experimenter in governing, who was forever seeking to determine, and then to promote, what would work while curtailing or eliminating what would not. The author seeks to recreate step-by-step the movement from one historical juncture to another, whether this means adapting already available information, building anew, or working with combinations of materials. Throughout, the book addresses new topics and offers many new interpretations on subjects as wide-ranging as the 1189 military campaign in the north and the phenomenon of delegated authority.

In this 2001 book, Chiang narrates the origins, visions and achievements of the social sciences in China.

This book reopens and restructures the grand debate on the nature of economic development in China prior to the Communist revolution. It rejects the debate’s old contours in which quantitative data were used to argue that the trajectory of Chinese development was either “positive” or “negative.” Instead, the author combines quantitative analysis with a detailed study of local politics, culture, and gender to explain the shaping of the modern Chinese economy. Focusing on silk production in Wuxi county in the Yangzi Delta, the author argues that local elites used social dominance to build a silk industry continuum—“one industry”—fusing modern factory production with older patterns of peasant-family farming. The resulting social configuration was “two Chinas”—one populated by wealthy urban elites transformed into a new, silk-industry bourgeoisie, and the other by peasant families whose women became the workforce for cocoon production. The author describes the roles of merchant guilds and other elite organizations established to protect the silk industry from outside competition and excessive taxation; the methods and styles of elite networking and investment in building modern silk filatures; and the roles of women—elite women in sericulture reform and peasant women in silkworm raising. She also reveals the cooperation between silk-industry elites and Nationalist government officials in the 1920’s and 1930’s, which resulted in an industry that was virtually state-directed and designed to pass downward to the peasants the costs of building more competitive silk filatures. This discovery challenges the prevailing tendency to think in terms of radical ruptures between Nationalist and Communist rule.

The fall of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has affected nations throughout the world. This broad-based study examines how this major historical event has influenced the governments, societies, economies, and foreign relations of Asia. The work of 15 scholars is divided into three sections: Economic Development and Environmental Impact; Politics and Foreign Relations; and Social and Women's Issues. Chapters span the far reaches of Asia, from Japan to Pakistan, from China to the Philippines. This first thorough interdisciplinary analysis concludes that nations such as Japan, India, and the Philippines have been less influenced than China, Korea, and Vietnam. In each case, while direct impact of the end of the Cold War has been minimal, there is strong evidence of more subtle effects. The breadth of the regional coverage and the diversity of the subject matter will interest scholars and researchers alike. The authors pose as many questions as they answer, and their conclusions are certain to stimulate debate.