Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How It Got There, and Where It Is Heading - Hardcover

Fenby, Jonathan

3.69

228 ratings by Goodreads

9781468303414: Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How It Got There, and Where It Is Heading

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1468303414 ISBN 13: 9781468303414

Publisher: Abrams Press, 2012

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But despite the endless stream of soothsayers, there has been no single book that pulls together the whole of the China story, linking its very disparate elements to present a coherent portrait that explains what China is and why it matters so much. In this compelling and lucid account based on years of research and first-hand experience, rooted in on-the-ground reporting, interviews, observations, analysis of data and a viewpoint that sees the country from the inside out, Jonathan Fenby links the myriad features of today's rapidly evolving China. "Fast-moving, informed, and illuminating" (The Guardian), Tiger Head, Snake Tails brilliantly demonstrates that the binary approach so often applied to China -- the country is either good or bad, set to reach the stars or collapse in chaos -- often boils down to the prejudices of its authors. By seeing China as a whole -- especially its history and involvement with the West -- and connecting the dots, Jonathan Fenby intelligently looks into its future, both internally and in its impact on the rest of the world.

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About the Author:

Jonathan Fenby is a former editor of the Observer and of the South China Morning Post. He is the author of such books as the acclaimed The Penguin History of China, On the Brink, and Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-Shek and the China He Lost.

From Booklist:

Journalist, consultant, and all-around China-expert Fenby (The Penguin Modern History of China, 2009) offers a panoramic overview of a nation moving at breakneck speed toward world dominance or total domestic chaos—or perhaps both. The tiger head is the China of the headlines: the China of exponential growth, unquenchable thirst for resources, and unstoppable quantities of increasingly high-quality goods. This is the China that, we are told, will one day define the future of post-American globalization. Fenby doesn’t suggest that this won’t happen. But he does remind us that, in the long run, the biggest obstacle to China’s success may be China itself, for China’s impressive growth statistics hide fundamental imbalances, inefficiencies, and structural weaknesses (the snake tails) that lessen the nation’s resilience and will ultimately require China to devote a disproportionate amount of its attention to domestic problems, at the expense of international leadership. Fenby’s analysis of current trends stands out in its vastness of scope and eye for telling detail. --Brendan Driscoll

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