This slim volume, sliced into two equal parts, delivers a valuable service to those interested in China's incipient social security system. The first half offers a faithful and detailed recounting of the progressive, if regularly amended, movement of welfare provision (as marketization and lay-offs both proceed apace) away from one based upon disbursal by the firm to one grounded upon societal pooling (a goal far from having yet been met). It begins in 1985, and takes the story up to 1998.