Anthropology of a Multiethnic State

In today's world, where the global system is being rebuilt and nation-states are competing fiercely, how to tell China's story well, helping citizens understand their own country and enabling the world to know China, has become an important issue with far-reaching implications. Grounded in the Chinese nation's pattern of "unity in diversity" and its cross-cultural interactions with the world's peoples, this book reviews and summarizes anthropological accounts of China. It examines the discipline's efforts to become localized after the introduction of Western learning, and also presents related case studies. These include an overview of China's multiethnic society, field research on the relationship between the Yi and the Xia, and cross-civilizational comparisons using North America, Britain, and Russia as examples.