Emerging Civil Society in China, 1978-2008 is translated from the original Chinese to provide a look into how scholars in China have been assessing the development of civil organizations and analyzing them based on system reforms, the public sphere, and collective action. This volume and the others in the SSRC series, provide western scholars with an accessible English language look at the state of current scholarship in China, and as such, does not simply provide information for the direct study of socio-political issues, but also for meta-level analysis of how the domestic scholarship in China is developing and assessing the interplay of the country’s political and economic reforms with the society and daily life of its people.