Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China

“Americans need not be hostile toward China's rise, but they should be wary about its eventual effects. The United States is the only nation with the scale and power to try to set the terms of its interaction with China rather than just succumb. So starting now, Americans need to consider the economic, environmental, political, and social goals they care about defending as Chinese influence grows.”
—from “China Makes, the World Takes”

Since December 2006, The Atlantic Magazine's James Fallows has been writing some of the most discerning accounts of the economic and political transformation occurring in China. The ten essays collected here cover a wide-range of topics: from visionary tycoons and TV-battling entrepreneurs, to environmental pollution and how China subsidizes our economy. Fallows expertly and lucidly explains the economic, political, social, and cultural forces at work turning China into a world superpower at breakneck speed. This eye-opening and cautionary account is essential reading for all concerned not only with China's but America's future role in the world.

James Fallows is The Atlantic Monthly's national correspondent, who has been based in China since 2006. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report and a former chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter. His previous books include Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq; Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy; Free Flight; Looking at the Sun; More Like Us; and National Defense, which won the American Book Award for nonfiction. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award four times, and his article about the consequences of victory in Iraq, “The Fifty- first State?” won that award in 2003.