AMP Treatise

Just going to be writing some quick reviews/blurbs on recent China-related books that I've read over the past couple of years. One of the more recent, easy to read, and fascinating books is China Inc. by Ted C. Fishman. As far as Chinese-related books go (which due to the speed of the economy seem to go a little stale quite quickly), this one is pretty recent, published in early 2005. The main point of the book is to illustrate the rise of china with vivid descriptions and an ass load of shocking statistics. Some examples are that there are 150 cities in China with more than 1 million residents. This compares to the US which has only 9 cities with more than a million people and Europe with 33 cities populated by more than a million people. The text is quite optimistic on the long and short term prospects of China and puts a positive spin on some of the problems or negative traits of China. So in that sense it is a little "rah-rah" regarding China. Not necessarily a bad thing. What makes this book my first recommendation is that its pretty easy to read and not bogged down in complex theories and hard to follow details. Most people can pick this up and read it with no problem, unlike some other China books I've read. So file this one under "Highly Recommended." The link at the top is to Amazon.com's hardcover version, feel free to read more reviews there. And I'm NOT getting paid for the link! This is just a satisfied reader recommendation.
I picked up three more books today at Strand NYC (18 miles of books!).

The Coming Conflict of China
China Dawn
East & West

# posted by AMP @ 5/14/2005 03:44:00 AM