Description
Product Description
Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction finalistWinner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfictionAn Economist Best Book of 2014Winner of the bronze medal for the Council on Foreign Relations’ 2015 Arthur Ross Book AwardA vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes.In Age of Ambition, Osnos describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth? Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail.
Review
“In the pages of the New Yorker, Evan Osnos has portrayed, explained and poked fun at this new China better than any other writer from the West or the East. In Age of Ambition, Osnos takes his reporting a step further, illuminating what he calls China's Gilded Age, its appetites, challenges and dilemmas, in a way few have done.” ―John Pomfret, Washington Post“Age of Ambition is… a riveting and troubling portrait of a people in a state of extreme anxiety about their identity, values and future, [and] a China rived by moral crisis and explosive frustration.” ―Judith Shapiro, New York Times“For those new to China, Mr Osnos beautifully portrays the nation in all its craziness, providing a ringside seat for the greatest show on earth.” ―The Economist“Beautifully written ... an absolute must-read.” ―Edward Steinfeld, Harvard Magazine“China's Gilded Age has been every bit as fascinating, colorful and tragic as our own -- and [Osnos] offers an engrossing account of it… [He] understands the depths of the transformations, the complexity of the contradictions, and the fragility of the overall enterprise.” ―Chicago Tribune“Evan Osnos ... has put his keen insight and intrepid research skills to use in his exploration of the internal intellectual and spiritual infrastructure of China's rise.” ―Dan Blumenthal, The National Interest“[Osnos] adeptly chronicles… China's 35-year journey from poverty and collective dogmatism to a dynamic if cut-throat era of competition, self-promotion and materialism.” ―Julie Makinen, Los Angeles Times“Age of Ambition [is] eloquent and comprehensive…” ―Jonathan Mirsky, New York Times Book Review“Age of Ambition is a splendid and entertaining picture of 21st-century China…” ―Michael Fathers, Wall Street Journal“Evan Osnos gives us twenty-first-century China the way the best American journalists gave us the Gilded Age--he introduces us to outsized characters, tells tales of aspiration, success, and defeat, rakes the muck of corruption and repression, and captures the tremendous energy, as well as the darker impulses, of a society in the throes of a historic transformation.” ―George Packer, author of The Assassins' Gate and The Unwinding“The very hardest thing to convey about modern C
Features
- Farrar Straus Giroux