This series, Contemporary China Studies, contains more than 100 carefully selected articles and book chapters focusing on the politics, economy and society of China since 1949. It will be grouped under two four-volume sets. Each set is self-contained with the first set dealing with politics and the second with economy and society. Each volume includes a short introduction giving a summary of the existing scholarship on the historical legacies, development trajectory and current debates concerning the particular theme. Moreover, each four-volume set has a general introduction which pulls together the various themes to offer a general overview of the nature and development of the Chinese political order and its economy and society. They aim to show how each theme fits into one another, and how developments in the political, economic and social realms become mutually constitutive or contradictory in the formation of a unique order.