Fei-Ling Wang is Assistant Professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology.

• List of Tables and Figures Preface Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Institutions, Institutional Changes and Modernization: A Conceptual Framework Modernization: The Arguments Human Needs, Behaviours and Institutions: An Institutional Approach to the Study of Modernization An Institutional Understanding of Modernity and Modernization Timing and Other Remaining Methodological Issues Summary Notes A Theory on the Patterns of Labour Allocation Labour Allocation Patterns: The Notion The Ideal Types of LAP Summary Notes A Historical Review of the Chinese Domestic Organizational Structure: A Peculiar Premodernity Labour Allocation in China: From Qin to Qing (Third Century B.C.- Nineteenth Century A.D.) The Era of Changes (1840-1949) Leaping Forward to the Past (1949-1978) The Chinese Premodernity: Messages from the Reading of History Summary Notes Institutional Reconfiguration: Labour Allocation Patterns and Chinese Modernization To Observer Chinese Modernization: Assertions and Hypotheses Mixed LAPs in the 1990s: Institutional Continuities and Changes Summary Notes Conclusion: the Dragon Enters the Nets Institutions and Institutional Changes: To Understand Modernization To Emerge from Premodernity: China and the Chinese Modernization The Dragon in the Nets: An Epilogue Notes Appendix. A Methodological Discussion on Chinese Statistical Data Bibliography Index