An impressively comprehensive review of Chinese religions. Neither scholars from China nor the West have been able to accomplish such a comprehensive review of Chinese religions as this. No other book offers such a detailed, sustained analysis and functional interpretation of critical facts in order to reveal a pattern of relationship between religion and Chinese social life and organization. Yang's work focuses on the religious systems that have become firmly integrated parts of the Chinese culture, including Buddhism, Taoism, and the numerous cults of the classical religion. His study is primarily concerned with the recent periods of Ch'ing and the Republic--especially the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries--but because the roots of Chinese cultural traits extend deep into the past, historical data and discussion are included when clarification is necessary. Because the concept and structure of all major Chinese social institutions contained religious elements, this much-cited classic will be valuable to any reader who really wants to understand China.

杨庆堃（C.K.Yang）（1911-1999），华裔美国社会学家、原籍广东南海。1932年获燕京大学社会学学士学位，1934年获该校硕士学位。1939年获美国密歇根大学社会学博士学位。先后任纽约商报编辑、华盛顿大学助理教授。回国后，1948年起任岭南大学社会学系副教授兼系主任，并在广州近郊鹭江村从事农村社区的调查工作。1951年再度赴美，任麻省理工学院国际研究中心研究员。1953年任匹兹堡大学社会学系副教授、教授。1970年代在香港中文大学创办社会学系。