No nation on Earth is as newsworthy as 21st-century Chinaand no book could be timelier than Dragon Rising, appearing just as world attention begins to focus on the 2008 Beijing Olympics and China's all-out effort to present itself as a modern world power.
Vividly illustrated with photographs that capture the paradox of an ancient culture remaking itself into a dynamic consumer society, Dragon Rising is a wonderfully written, well-rounded, wide-ranging portrait of China's problems and prospects.