In "Mandate of Heaven" Orville Schell, one of America's foremost China specialists, interprets these conflicting developments and brilliantly documents the new power structures, economic initiatives, and cultural changes that have transformed China since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989. Schell takes readers on a series of journeys inside this latter-day People's Republic and introduces us to a broad spectrum of people, from students and workers to entrepreneurs, pop stars, and party officials, who, although they acted out the drama of the Square, are now playing the prominent roles in China's high-speed economic rush into the future.
As China's role on the world stage grows, it becomes increasingly important that the West acquaint itself with the people who will be leading it into the twenty-first century. "Mandate of Heaven" is the authoritative and definitive account of this generation as it moves into a capitalist economic future while still clinging to the structures of its communist past.
