Rong Ma is a widely respected demographer and professor of sociology at Peking University. He spent five years in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution, and was one of the first Chinese students to study in the US after Deng Xiaoping's reforms, receiving his doctorate degree from Brown University.

A key consultant to the Chinese government, and a social scientist of international reputation, Rong Ma is a leading expert on the relationship between ethnic integration and development in modern. Building on the methodology and approach of his mentor, the distinguished anthropologist, Fei Xiaotong, Ma has introduced population studies to a new generation of Chinese students. He was the first scholar to undertake a serious sociological survey of Tibet, focusing on education, poverty and migration. Population and Society in Contemporary Tibet builds on this survey and on Ma's later studies. It also incorporates important new material, including data from his recent survey of temporary migration in. This comprehensive and balanced account of the people of Tibet provides authoritative and fact-based background to key social issues affecting today. Its publication now is especially timely in the light of recent inter-ethnic tensions and as world interest in continues to be strong. -- Sidney Goldstein, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Brown University