State, Market, And Religions in Chinese Societies

Nine essays, most presented at the 2004 annual meeting either of the Association for the Study of Religion or of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, describe some of the religious changes in Chinese societies. Historians, scholars of religion and language, sociologists, and anthropologists consider such aspects as the effects of the tourist political economy on a minority Buddhist community in southwest China, commitment mechanisms in a Chinese sect, the moral sustaining function of morality books in Taiwan, and the fate of Confucianism as a religion in socialist China. There is no index. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Joseph B. Tamney is Professor Emeritus in the Sociology Department, Ball State University (USA). He received his B.S. and M.A. from Fordham University and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He was a member of the editorial Board for the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society, editor of Sociology of Religion (1994-2000), and president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (2003-4). His published works include: The Resilience of Christianity in the Modern World (State University of New York Press, 1992), American Society in the Buddhist Mirror (Garland 1992), The Struggle Over Singapore’s Soul: Western Modernization and Asian Culture (Walter de Gruyter 1996), The Resilience of Conservative Religion (Cambridge University Press 2002), and, with Linda Hsueh-Ling Chiang, Modernization, Globalization, and Confucianism in Chinese Societies (Praeger 2002).
Fenggang Yang received his BA from the Hebei Normal University (Shijiazhuang, China), MA from Nankai University (Tianjin, China), and Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC). He is an Assistant Pprofessor of Sociology at Purdue University. He is the author of Chinese Christians in America (Penn State University Press 1999) and the co-editor, along with Tony Carnes, of Asian American Religions: The Making and Remaking of Borders and Boundaries (New York University Press 2004). His articles have been published in various books and in the American Sociological Review, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociology of Religion, and Journal of Asian American Studies. His current research focuses on the political economy of religion in China, Christian ethics and market transition in China, and Chinese Christian churches in the United States.