This pathbreaking study analyzes traditional and modern Chinese beliefs about and reactions to education, discipline, human improvement, and social control. Although these reactions to modernity have a Chinese coloring, they are not exclusive to the Chinese culture. By describing the terra incognita of China, The Exemplary Society also describes something about ourselves.

Børge Bakken is Senior Researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) in Copenhagen. He has previously been Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oslo and Research Fellow in the Norwegian Research Council.