From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society / Edition 1

by Xiaotong Fei, Gary G. Hamilton, Wang Zheng

Overview

This classic text by Fei Xiaotong, China's finest social scientist, was first published in 1947 and is Fei's chief theoretical statement about the distinctive characteristics of Chinese society. Written in Chinese from a Chinese point of view for a Chinese audience, From the Soil describes the contrasting organizational principles of Chinese and Western societies, thereby conveying the essential features of both. Fei shows how these unique features reflect and are reflected in the moral and ethical characters of people in these societies. This profound, challenging book is both succinct and accessible. In its first complete English-language edition, it is likely to have a wide impact on Western social theorists.

Gary G. Hamilton and Wang Zheng's translation captures Fei's jargonless, straightforward style of writing. Their introduction describes Fei's education and career as a sociologist, the fate of his writings on and off the Mainland, and the sociological significance of his analysis. The translators' epilogue highlights the social reforms for China that Fei drew from his analysis and advocated in a companion text written in the same period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520077966
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	08/28/1992
Edition description:	First Edition, A translation of Fei Xiaotong's Xiangtu Zhongguo
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	652,572
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Gary G. Hamilton is Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. Wang Zheng is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Davis.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction: Fei Xiaotong and the Beginnings
of a Chinese Sociology, by Gary G. Hamilton
and Wang Zheng

1. Special Characteristics of Rural Society
2. Bringing Literacy to the Countryside
3· More Thoughts on Bringing Literacy to
the Countryside
4· Chaxugeju: The Differential Mode of Association
5· The Morality of Personal Relationships
6. Patrilineages
7· "Between Men and Women, There Are
Only Differences"
8. A Rule of Ritual
9· A Society without Litigation
10. An Inactive Government
11. Rule by Elders
12. Consanguinity and Regionalism
13. Separating Names from Reality
14. From Desire to Necessity

Epilogue: Sociology and the Reconstruction
of Rural China, by Gary G. Hamilton and
WangZheng
Glossary
Index