Wealth and Power

“Superb . . . beautifully written and neatly structured.” —Financial Times “[An] engaging narrative of the intellectual and cultural origins of China’s modern rise.” —The New York Times Book Review “Informative and insightful . . . a must-read for anyone with an interest in the world’s fastest-rising superpower.” —Slate “It does a better job than most other books of answering a basic question the rest of the world naturally asks about China’s recent rise: What does China want?” —The Atlantic “The portraits are beautifully written and bring to life not only their subjects but also the mood and intellectual debates of the times in which they lived.” —Foreign Affairs “Excellent and erudite . . . [The authors] combine scholarly learning with a reportorial appreciation of colorful, revealing details.” —The National Interest “I know there are lots of China history books these days, but this one is really well done. It tells the story with lots of interesting historical characters and deep insights into the country. Really worth reading.” —Fareed Zakaria (Book of the Week) “In a provocative new book whose ideas have already begun stirring debate among China watchers, Orville Schell and John Delury argue that the quest for national rejuvenation, or for wealth and power, has long been at the heart of modern Chinese political and intellectual thought.” —The New York Times “I highly recommend Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century, an excellent new book from Orville Schell and John Delury. The book goes a long way to explaining what drives the current leadership, and why betting against their resolve to reform may be risky in the medium to long term.” —Bill Bishop, The New York Times “ Wealth and Power offers everything readers might expect from its two eminent authors. It is both sweeping and specific, authoritative and lively, sympathetic and critical, offering the perspective of both the hedgehog and the fox. The hardest challenge in writing about China, or finding things to read about it, is perceiving significant patterns while remaining aware of the chaos and contradictions. Orville Schell and John Delury meet that challenge in exemplary form. I only wish that they‘d written the book years ago, so that (along with other readers) I could have been taking advantage of its insights all along.” —James Fallows, national correspondent, The Atlantic “Orville Schell and John Delury have delivered a brilliantly original and essential book: the road map to China’s quest for national salvation. This is a story of ideas and the vibrant figures who shaped them: rebels, thinkers, and rivals, united by the quest for reinvention. It is required reading for anyone seeking to understand China’s motives and the future of global competition, and is, quite simply, a pleasure to read. Vivid, literate, and brimming with insights, Wealth and Power deserves to become a classic.” —Evan Osnos, China correspondent, The New Yorker “In Wealth and Power, their crisp and comprehensive introduction to the history of modern China, historians Orville Schell and John Delury present us with the historical background we need to understand the driving mechanism that lies at the center of China today. By no longer presenting China’s past two centuries as a record of recurrent failures and humiliations, they give us a portrait of a nation in the making, and of leaders with the skills and determination to redirect China’s energies on a global scale. The change of perspective is valuable and challenging.” —Jonathan D. Spence, author of The Search for Modern China