In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force, that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia, Karl Gerth, shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China's competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China's rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world.
This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
"Due to the very nature of China--huge, complicated, full of historical nuance-- picking up a book that attempts to explain even a fragment of it can be downright daunting, even to the China enthusiast. But in this shrinking world, China is a country worth understanding and Gerth provides a wealth of information in a digestible, provocative format . . . As China Goes, So Goes the World is an impor
Jenna Fisher, The Christian Science Monitor
"As China Goes, So Goes the World offers a vivid portrait of contemporary China."
Richard McGregor, The Nation
"A worthy introduction to key facets of Chinese consumer culture. It should prove beneficial to readers from executives looking to break into the China market to sociologists keen to understand how consumerism is changing China."
