102 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Peter Hessler Does It Again, February 16, 2010
This review is from: Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (Hardcover)
Mr. Hessler's 3rd book on China continues his tradition of excellent writing and reporting. His tales of his travels driving through China are illuminating, as are his village and factory narratives. He truly provides insight into a time, people and place in China that most of us will never meet, see or experience. His previous books,
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.) and
Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (P.S.), have become must-reads for anyone who wants to learn about modern China and this book might be his best yet.
His humor, insight and empathy are as extraordinary as his ability to pack so much information into such a compelling narrative. I pre-ordered the book and once it arrived I couldn't put it down until I finished it. If you are trying to understand China for work, study, travel or just personal interest - this should be right at the top of your reading list. You won't be disappointed.
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46 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Useful insights into modern China, February 21, 2010
This review is from: Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (Hardcover)
As a long time "New Yorker" reader, it's been a joy to follow Peter Hessler's discovery of the complexities of modern China in a series of his articles published over the past 12 or so years. This is probably his best book on China, and I found it fascinating.
Hessler was born in 1969 in Missouri and became a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to China. He learned the language well and does not rely on interpreters unlike other journalists. As a result, his writing has a very attractive conversational style.
Like many other "New Yorker" writers, Hessler publishes much of his work first in the magazine and later in a book: his first,
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, covered education and cultural matters; and his second,
Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present, focused on ancient history.
Hessler's third book starts out as a road trip roughly paralleling the Great Wall, on superhighways, local paved roads, and dirt paths. An experienced driver himself, among many other things he had to contend with Chinese drivers who had recently learned to drive as adults and who rarely spent much time learning the principles of safe driving.
Hessler learned about the Chinese highway system, of course, driving alone in his rental cars, but he also learned about a pervasive business development culture. His book breaks into three sections: highway development in section one, retail development in a village in section two and industrial development in larger and growing cities in section three.
In the village of Sancha, which became a suburb of Beijing because of better roads, Hessler buys a house. He becomes especially friendly with a couple who open a restaurant to serve the increasing number of tourists.
The third section describes factory development in Lishui, a small city becoming a manufacturing center; it specializes in a small ring used in making bras.
Hessler is a wonderful traveller; his website describes a bit of how he got started:
"... I saw little of the world outside of America, until 1992, when I received a scholarship to attend graduate school at Oxford. That was really the start of my international experiences -- I lived cheaply at Oxford and picked up odd jobs and the occasional freelance writing gig, and this allowed me to travel extensively in Europe and Asia. During those two years I visited something like 30 countries -- Oxford was very generous with its vacation time, and I traveled cheaply, using rail-passes and camping a lot. I finished in '94 and decided to go home around the world -- an unplanned trip that started in Prague and continued by land and boat all the way to Thailand, via Russia and China. After returning from that trip, I freelanced and took other trips, including a long hike across Switzerland -- in the summer of '95 I received a grant to hike across the country, and I spent two months camping and hiking in the mountains, from the French border to the Italian border."
His books on China are wonderful examples of how well he becomes a part of the societies he visits and how well he brings his experiences alive. I look forward to reading more of his "New Yorker" pieces -- they may reach the heights of the experiences in this fine travelogue.
Robert C. Ross 2010
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious and terrifying, in a way, June 8, 2010
This review is from: Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory (Hardcover)
Peter Hessler wrote an excellent book about the hazards of driving in China and while doing so he became a close observer about the (micro)-economic development in China. I found his book hilarious because the many anecdotes he tells should make you laugh out loud. What I found terrifying about this tale are the author's observations about economic life in China. This book should be compulsory reading for a lot of people in the west, if only to understand what is really going on in China.
Part One of the Book deals with Hessler's road trip along the wall and back. Given that foreigners are not supposed to leave Beijing Municipality, this is quite a feat. I couldn't decide whether the many questions he quotes from the Chinese driving exam are for real or if he made them up. I have no idea if it is allowed to bring small amounts of explosive material into a taxi but I would instinctively answer "Yes". Hessler tells many stories about the Chinese style of driving and if you have been to China none of these will be unfamiliar to you. I read somewhere that Peter Hessler was terrified of the Chinese style of driving. I would wager that the Americans were probably more terrified of him, when he re-joined traffic in the US.
In Part Two, Hessler rents a house in some village north of Beijing and it is incredible to observe through his eyes how the place develops with his "Family" developing from a level of poverty hardly any of us would be able to imagine into "the entrepreneur" of the village. One might be inclined to believe that this development was exceptional but as you read on it becomes quite clear that this sort of thing is happening all over China. In Part Three, Hessler writes about a development zone in Southern Zhejiang in general and about a bra ring production plant in particular. And again it is incredible to observe how this development takes place.
All told I found this book a real page turner and I can only highly recommend it.
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