1. Notes on Contributors 2. Foreword 3. Introduction Part 1: The Nature of the Imperial System which includes 4. Ranking of Bureaucrats and Aristocrats in Imperial China: A Primer by Yan Buke 5. The Theory of Agro-Commercial Society: Core Concepts Foundations and Potential Areas of Research by Ge Jinfang 6. Imperial Autocracy from the Qin to the Qing: An Economic History Perspective by Li Zhenhong and 7. Methods of Observing History: Insights from Urban Development in the Song Dynasty by Bao Weimi.

Part 2: The Working Mechanism of Social Structure contains 8. A History of Public Opinion: Public Opinion and Political Order in Chinese History by Zhan Long 9. The Economy of Jiangnan during the Kaiyuan-Tianbao Age of Prosperity by Zhang Jianguang 10. Survival Order and Power Structure in Song China's Rural Society: A Case Study of Corvée-Related Disputes by Geng Yuanli and 11. Modern Fiscal Transformation in the Qing Dynasty by Ni Yuping. Part 3: The Lives of Officials and Ordinary People includes 12. The Yi Ying Stele and the Creation of a New Clerk Position by Hou Xudong 13. Truth and Fiction in Chuanqi Stories and Epitaphs about Tang Scholars' Reinterment Efforts by Qiu Luming 14.

Song Women's Level of Literacy by Cheng Minsheng and 15. Institutions Order and Fate: Stories from Three Lives in the Ming Dynasty by Peng Yong 16. Afterword to the Chinese Edition.