Excerpt from The Chinese by Jasper Becker, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The pages that follow, however, do not concentrate on politics or ideology, or the prospects for radical change. Instead they look at how each section of society has fared during the twenty years of reform, from the poorest to the mightiest in the land. The wealthiest live, as they always have, in the big cities and along the coast and rivers. The poorest are to be found in the mountains that drop like a series of steps from the Himalayas in the west to the eastern seaboard. We start, though, in the beautiful limestone mountains of south-west China.

Copyright © 2001 by Jasper Becker.