More than twenty-one years have passed since Deng Xiaoping started economic reforms in 1978. Since then significant social changes have occurred in China. Despite the lack of major changes in its political system, China has experienced and sustained rapid economic growth and a profound transformation of social and economic institutions far beyond the initial scope of the reforms. Before 1978, China had no room for private business and different political opinions. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party was in the hands of revolutionary veterans with little education. The centrally planned economy guaranteed state workers permanent employment and social security. The pattern of income distribution was characterised by egalitarianism. China in the Reform Era covers a wide spectrum of issues that have emerged in China in the 1990s, ranging from China's impetus for reforming state enterprises to the emergence of self-help organisations of people with disability in urban China.

Zang Xiaowei earned a PhD from UC Berkeley in Sociology, MA in East Asian studies in UC Berkeley, BA in history in Xiamen University. He has taught in department of sociology in the Flinders university of South Australia, Australia; Department of Asian and international studies in City University of Hong Kong; Now he is professor in China studies and school head in East Asian school in the University of Sheffield, UK.