John Chaffee is Distinguished Service Professor of History and Asian and Asian American Studies and directs the Institute for Asia and Asian Diaporas at Binghamton University. He received his BA from Swarthmore College and his MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations (1985, 1995), The Branches of Heaven: a History of the Sung Imperial Clan (1999) and co-editor of Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Stage (1989). He is currently writing a book on the history of the Muslim maritime communities on the southeast coast of China from the Tang to early Ming. He has taught at Binghamton University since 1980.

This is the second of two volumes on the Sung Dynasty, which together provide a comprehensive history of China from the fall of the T'ang Dynasty in 907 to the Mongol conquest of the Southern Sung in 1279. With contributions from leading historians in the field, Volume 5, Part Two paints a complex portrait of a dynasty beset by problems and contradictions, but one which, despite its military and geopolitical weakness, was nevertheless economically powerful, culturally brilliant, socially fluid and the most populous of any empire in global history to that point. In this much anticipated addition to the series, the authors survey key themes across ten chapters, including government, economy, society, religion, and thought to provide an authoritative and topical treatment of a profound and significant period in Chinese history.