From AudioFile

Want to learn more about a country that will increasingly impact our lives for years to come? Ride along with Gifford as he travels from Shanghai to Kazakhstan on Chinas longest road. Youll think its the writer himself talking--so closely does Simon Vance approximate his age, British nationality, and dexterity with the Chinese language. He helps make you see the vibrant modernity of Shanghai and the beauty of the Gobi Desert, the pollution, cookie-cutter factories, and ubiquitous karaoke bars and enlivens conversations with construction workers, bus passengers, and population control personnel. At the end of this valuable listening experience, Gifford predicts Chinas chances of making it as a major power. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, AudioFile Best Audiobook of 2007 © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist

National Public Radio China correspondent Gifford journeyed for six weeks on China's Mother Road, Route 312, from its beginning in Shanghai for nearly 3,000 miles to a tiny town in what used to be known as Turkestan. The route picks up the old Silk Road, which runs through the Gobi Desert to Central Asia to Persia and on to Europe. Along the way, Gifford meets entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on China's growing economy, citizens angry and frustrated with government corruption, older people alarmed at changes in Chinese culture and morality, and young people uncertain and excited about the future. Gifford profiles ordinary Chinese people coping with tumultuous change as development and commerce shrink a vast geography, bringing teeming cities and tiny towns into closer commercial and cultural proximity; the lure of wealth is changing the Chinese character and sense of shared experience, even if it was common poverty. Gifford notes an aggressive sense of competition in the man-eat-man atmosphere of a nation that is likely to be the next global superpower. Vanessa Bush

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