This volume presents contemporary anthropological perspectives on Chinese kinship, and documents in rich ethnographic detail its historical complexity and regional diversity. The collection's analytical emphasis is on the modern 'metamorphoses' of kinship in the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, but the essays also offer ample historical documentation and comparison.

Includes bibliographical references.

First published in 1983. Professor Paul Chao writes Chinese Kinship in the line of the Chinese tradition; it is in this tradition that cultural complexes, such as family structure and kinship in relation to religious, political and economic organizations, are expounded by analysis of concepts and supported by historical documents. For the anthropological study of kinship is indispensable as a supplement to important historical work on basis of written documents. Professor Chao has made, in the main, a study of kinship in China of all known periods. He has taken the points of view of social anthropology and has also given a history of his topic.

Presenting a new approach to the history of Chinese kinship, this book attempts to bridge the gap between anthropological and historical scholarship on the Chinese lineage. It explores the historical development of kinship in the villages of the Fuzhou region of southeastern Fujian province.

The violence of war and sacrifice were not the antithesis of civilization at Shang Anyang, but rather its foundation.

Zhang argues that property institutions in preindustrial China and England were a cause of China's lagging development in preindustrial times.