China's quest to engineer the future — the most talked-about book on China in years, now in paperback.
Why can China build a high-speed rail network, whole cities and entire industries at breakneck speed — while America struggles to lay a single line of track? Dan Wang's answer is a framework that has already entered the conversation: China is an engineering state, run by people who build first and ask questions later, while America has become a lawyerly society, superb at blocking and litigating, poor at making.
Drawing on years living in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kunming and Beijing, Wang shows both the awesome power of the engineering mindset — the infrastructure, the manufacturing miracle, the technological ambition — and its human costs, from zero-Covid lockdowns to the one-child policy. Neither a panegyric nor a hit piece, it is the rare China book that makes you understand both superpowers better — essential reading from India's vantage point between them.
Praise
“The best recent book on China, America, and, arguably, the best book of the year flat out.” — Tyler Cowen
About the author
Dan Wang spent years in China as a celebrated technology analyst; his annual letters on China were essential reading in policy and business circles worldwide. He is now a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.
