The core of China: Culture and Society is the pamphlets held in the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia housed in the Carl A. Kroch Library of Cornell University. Mostly in English and published between c. 1750 and 1929, and amounting to around 1,200 items in 220 bound volumes, these rare pamphlets form part of a collection of literature on China and the Chinese in Western world.

Types of material in the collection include:

• Addresses and speeches
• Annual reports
• Assessments
• Catalogues
• Essays
• Examinations
• Guides and manuals
• Inquiries and studies
• Journals
• Lecture notes
• Letters
• Magazine articles
• Minutes of meetings
• Notes and records