Yongnian Zheng is Professor and Director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor (2010), Technological Empowerment (2007), Globalization and State Transformation in China (Cambridge, 2004) and Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China (Cambridge, 1999). Yanjie Huang conducts his doctoral research on modern Chinese history at Columbia University, New York. He has published papers and book chapters on China's state sector, food security, and monetary history.

• Introduction; Part I. Theory: 1. Market, state and capitalism: theories of political economy and China; 2. Market in state: a theory of Chinese political economy; Part II. History: 3. The state and market in imperial China; 4. Origins of the modern Chinese political economy: geopolitics, mobilization, and state building; Part III. Contemporary Institutions: 5. Grassroots capitalism and marketization: dynamics of market reform in the contemporary era; 6. The middle-ground: the nexus between the state and private enterprises; 7. The money regimes: fiscal and monetary reforms and their limits; 8. State capitalism: the centrally-managed SOEs and economic domination; Conclusion.

'Yongnian Zheng and Yanjie Huang have produced a brilliant and unique study of the state and market in China, based on a profound knowledge of the history and modern evolution of China's economic and political institutions. Their balanced and objective study provides a thoroughly distinctive analysis of the Chinese state and its relationship to the economic system. It should be mandatory reading for anyone with a serious interest in understanding China today and its development trajectory.' Peter Nolan, Director, China Centre, Jesus College, University of Cambridge