Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Evan Osnos

May 2014 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction finalist
Winner of the 2014 National Book Award in nonfiction.

As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval.

Age of Ambition provides a vibrant, colorful, and revelatory inner history of China during a moment of profound transformation.

From abroad, we often see China as a caricature: a nation of pragmatic plutocrats and ruthlessly dedicated students destined to rule the global economy-or an addled Goliath, riddled with corruption and on the edge of stagnation. What we don't see is how both powerful and ordinary people are remaking their lives as their country dramatically changes.

In Age of Ambition, Osnos describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party's struggle to retain control. He asks probing questions: Why does a government with more success lifting people from poverty than any civilization in history choose to put strict restraints on freedom of expression? Why do millions of young Chinese professionals-fluent in English and devoted to Western pop culture-consider themselves "angry youth," dedicated to resisting the West's influence? How are Chinese from all strata finding meaning after two decades of the relentless pursuit of wealth?

Writing with great narrative verve and a keen sense of irony, Osnos follows the moving stories of everyday people and reveals life in the new China to be a battleground between aspiration and authoritarianism, in which only one can prevail.

An Economist Best Book of 2014.
Winner of the bronze medal for the Council on Foreign Relations’ 2015 Arthur Ross Book Award

Ratings and reviews

This was an exceptional book, especially for someone who follows international news but doesn't follow China to in too much depth. It gave a great sense of overall cultures and national moods while delving deep into topics and events I had only read a passingly read Economist or NYT articles about.

And believe me, I have read very many.

F

About the author

Evan Osnos is a staff writer at The New Yorker, a CNN contributor, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Based in Washington D.C., he writes about politics and foreign affairs. He was the China Correspondent at The New Yorker from 2008 to 2013. His first book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, won the 2014 National Book award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2020, he published the international bestseller, Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, based on interviews with Biden, Barack Obama, and others. Prior to The New Yorker, Osnos worked as the Beijing bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune, where he contributed to a series that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Before his appointment in China, he worked in the Middle East, reporting mostly from Iraq. He and his wife, Sarabeth Berman, have two children.