Think summer reading
I just read about a book that might be good summer reading for teachers.It's China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future -- and the Challenge for America. It was the Financial Times book of the year in 2006.
The author, James Kynge, a journalist in Asia for two decades, is the former bureau chief of the Financial Times in Beijing. Fluent in Mandarin, he has visited every Chinese province and is the recipient of numerous journalism awards.
The Booklist review by Gail Whitcomb says, "Kynge demonstrates how China's thirst for jobs, raw materials, energy, and new markets--and its export of goods, workers, and investments--will dramatically reshape world trade and politics.
"China's appetite, though unpremeditated and inarticulate, has become a source of major change in the world. Napoleon said, 'Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.' In the early days of the twenty-first century, China has started shaking the world with its prowess in manufacturing.
"Not all is rosy, however, because China has serious problems with its environmental resources, severe pollution, and institutionalized corruption within the government, the legal system, the police force, and the media. The question Kynge offers answers to is how the world will cope with China's extremes of both strength and weakness."
Other reviews note Kynge's use of anecdotes to illustrate his big ideas. (Maybe he's a British Thomas Friedman.)
Labels: China, economics, political culture
posted by Ken Wedding @ 1:26 PM
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