From the Soil The Foundations of Chinese Society

My answer is, read the English translations of essays by the Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong. His last name is spelled F-E-I. There's one book that's very popular. It's called From the Soil, The Foundations of Chinese Society. This book might seem unrelated to modern China, which is highly industrialized, but it's actually the best text to understand China because for thousands of years, China was an agrarian society. Many of the political systems, the social customs and norms evolved and emerged out of agrarian conditions. Because they have been in place for thousands and thousands of years, they endure until this day. And they coexist in tension with a modern China.