Author: Evan Osnos
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
As the Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he 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 restrains on freedom of expression? Why are millions of young Chinese professionals – fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture – 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, illuminating stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battle between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail.
(Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
