He believes that China is bound for great things. For example, the story of Justin Lin (Lin Yifu) runs through the book, from his dramatic decision to 'defect' from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China in 1979 to his appointment as the chief economist of the World Bank in 2008.Īs a military officer based on the island of Quemoy less than a mile from PRC territory, Lin must make his break for communism at night and by sea. But even some of the more famous ones are probably not widely known outside some academic circles. I preferred the profiles of the more anonymous people over those of the truly famous, perhaps because those stories were being told for the first time. It's a good combination of learning something in general about China by examining how it affects an individual directly. He tells the story of contemporary China via those profiles. Osnos is interested in the 'unrecorded experiences of life under authoritarianism.' The book is made up of profiles: some of famous people, some not some patriots, some dissidents some are good examples of a 'type,' while others are unique personas. China's age of ambition is also an age of anxiety. Given this perspective and eight years of living in and reporting on China for the Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker, he understands the depths of the transformations, the complexity of the contradictions, and the fragility of the overall enterprise. The government was signaling to the population that political reform was off the table, but liberalization of every other kind - economic, consumer, sexual - was on. However, he happened to arrive in China as a student just as the post-Tiananmen crackdown was ending. Evan Osnos, author of 'Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China,' is too young to have known Maoist China or even the early reform era.

Age of ambition book