China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power - Softcover

Gifford, Rob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747588929 ISBN 13: 9780747588924

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2007

Synopsis

China is a country on the move, and Route 312 - China's Route 66 - is the artery along which 150 million Chinese are daily travelling in search of work and a better life. Running 3,000 miles from the east-coast boomtown of Shanghai to the border of Kazakhstan in the northwest, crossing many ethnic and provincial boundaries, it is the transcontinental road that Rob Gifford has always wanted to travel. 'As I prepare to set off on my journey along Route 312, there's one big question that I want to answer. Which is it going to be for China, greatness or implosion? Can the country really become the twenty-first-century superpower that many predict? Or could it all collapse, like the Soviet Union, weighed down by the legacies of the past and the contradictions of the present? And if it does go on to greatness, what kind of country will China be? Can it ever make the transition to a modern, democratic state?' Part personal pilgrimage, part reportage, Gifford's book cuts right through the middle of the turmoil. Sometimes poignant, often funny but always engaging, the author's quest to get to the heart of the new China and his ability to talk to everyone across the social spectrum - from truckers and prostitutes to yuppies and travelling salesmen - makes China Road an outstanding travel narrative.

About this title

About the Author

Rob Gifford first went to China in 1987 as a twenty-year-old undergraduate, to study the language. A fluent Mandarin speaker and former BBC producer, he has spent twenty years studying, visiting and reporting on China. From 1999 to 2005 he was Beijing correspondent for the US network, National Public Radio. During that time he travelled all over China, from Tibet to the Russian border, and from the Muslim northwest to North Korea. He is now NPR's London bureau chief.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747588929
• ISBN 13: 9780747588924
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352