Chinese Awakenings: Life Stories From the Unofficial China
The authors are correspondents for The Christian Science Monitor who speak Chinese, understand Chinese history, and spent five years reporting from China. This is a unique analysis of how the Deng Xiaoping reforms are affecting Chinese society at the grass roots. The authors traveled all over China, held in-depth, face-to-face interviews with ordinary Chinese people, and managed to elude the government officials assigned to monitor foreign correspondents. Thus they show the human side of the reforms--both the accomplishments in improving living standards and social mobility and social tensions over inequality and the distribution of power. The book is admirably free of cant and sentimentality.
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