Country Driving (2024)

From the New York Times –bestselling author of Oracle Bones , a look at the human-side of China's economic revolution via a seven,zero-mile road trip—An Economist Best Book of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. "Hessler, a modern Marco Polo crossing China in a rented Jeep Cherokee, has witnessed signs and wonders worthy of a Coen brothers film. . . . Every so often, I read a book that upends my perceptions about a place. This is one of them." — Bloomberg News In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people—farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs—who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history. Country Driving begins with Hessler's seven,zero-mile trip across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau. He investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast. Next…

Published
2024
Pages
438