China Wakes

Husband-and-wife reporters Kristof and WuDunn were the Beijing correspondents for The New York Times from 1988 to 1993 and won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  They offer here a profoundly important study on the current state of affairs in China in a time of seismic change. They encapsulate in human terms the exhilarating and terrifying paradoxes of contemporary China as it rises to economic and political power, bringing their own personalities and experiences into the narrative, especially WuDunn's perspective as a Chinese-American reporter. They produce a canvas that takes in peasants and real estate speculators, dissidents and corrupt officials. Insightful, affecting, and bursting with color on every page, China Wakes is an exemplary work of reportage.

"Nick Kristof's and Sheryl WuDunn's work as correspondents in China was beyond compare, and now they have written a book every bit as astonishing. China Wakes is filled with anecdote, detail, and analysis of the highest order...This book demands reading, and yet it is a pleasure as well as an education."
--David Remnick

"Every page of China Wakes is trenchant, and I cannot think of a reportorial book on China so zealous in investigation and so painstaking in probing issues from every angle."
--Ross Terrill, Foreign Affairs

"Thought-provoking and absorbing...Few books on China have done so much to further our understanding. Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn share with the readers their wealth of information, keen observation and intelligent interpretation."
--Nien Cheng, author of Life and Death in Shanghai

Contents

1. Flying Pigeon
2. What Kind of Chinese Are You, Anyway?
3. Ghosts
4. Red Emperors
5. The Dynastic Cycle
6. The Good Earth
7. The Rotting State
8. Where Have All the Babies Gone?
9. Castrating the Thinkers
10. A Room of One's Own
11. Marching Toward Money
12. The God of Wealth
13. Blood and Iron
14. Taming the Dragon
15. The Taiwan Option
16. The Next Dynasty
Afterword