THE RISE OF A HUNGRY NATION

All pages uniformly yellowing from outside to in. Unread. 244pp incl index.

It has all happened so suddenly. Only a few years ago China loomed, for most of us, as a large but far-off presence. Now it affects almost everything. The competition for our jobs, the prospects for our economies, the things we buy, the vanishing Amazon rainforest, the price of oil, the balance of global power and many of the other trends that are remaking our world are, in some way made in China.

This book elucidates China’s rise from the inside out. It describes the people and the places behind the transformation of the world’s most populous nation and shows how the the emergence of an outsized appetite is convulsing the world. China Shakes the World recognises the manifold strengths of and industrializing power, but it also shows that not all Chineses graphs point upward. In fact many of the influences felt in Europe and America are the manifestations of profound weaknesses.

Ultimately though, the question raised by China’s ascent comes down to compatibility. Can the West accommodate a country that is in its character and convictions very different from the world created under Pax Americana since the end of World War Two?