Since December 2006, The Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows has been writing some of the most discerning accounts of the economic and political transformation occuring in China. The twelve essays collected here cover a wide range of topics: from visionary tycoons and TV-battling entrepreneurs to environmental pollution and how China subsidizes our economy. Fallows expertly and lucidly explains the economic, political, social and cultural forces at work turning China into a world superpower at breaknech speed. This eye-opening and cautionary account is essential reading for all concerned not only with China's but America's future role in the world.

"One hundred years from now, when the West is looking at why China is where it is, historians will read Fallows." --- Dan Harris, China Law Blog

James Fallows is The Atlantic Monthly's national correspondent, who has been based in China since 2006. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report and a former chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter. His previous books include Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq; Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy; Free Flight; Looking at the Sun; More Like Us; and National Defense, which won the American Book Award for nonfiction. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award four times, and his article about the consequences of victory in Iraq, "The Fifty-first State?" won that award in 2003.