An examination of how people around the world live through personal communities: their networks of friends, neighbours, relatives and work colleagues. Each article, written by a resident, aims to show how living in a country affects the ways in which people use networks to access resources.

Preface -- The Network Community: An Introduction -- The Elements of Personal Communities -- The Network Basis of Social Support: A Network Is More Than the Sum of Its Ties -- Neighbor Networks of Black and White Americans -- Social Networks Among the Urban Poor: Inequality and Integration in a Latin American City -- The Diversity of Personal Networks in France: Social Stratification and Relational Structures -- Network Capital in Capitalist, Communist, and Postcommunist Countries -- Getting a Job Through a Web of Guanxi in China -- Personal Community Networks in Contemporary Japan -- Using Social Networks to Exit Hong Kong -- Net-Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities