
Country Driving
A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
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Narrated by:
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Peter Berkrot
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By:
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Peter Hessler
From the best-selling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy, on the human side of the economic revolution in China.
In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people - farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs - who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history.
Country Driving begins with Hessler's 7,000-mile trip across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau. He investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast.
Next, Hessler spends six years in Sancha, a small farming village in the mountains north of Beijing, which changes dramatically after the local road is paved and the capital's auto boom brings new tourism.
Finally, he turns his attention to urban China, researching development over a period of more than two years in Lishui, a small southeastern city where officials hope that a new government-built expressway will transform a farm region into a major industrial center.
Peter Hessler, whom The Wall Street Journal calls "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China", deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.
©2010 Peter Hessler (P)2010 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















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Great listen even if you don't have an interest in automotive topics.
Thoroughly enjoyable look at a growing nation!
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Never drive in China!
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However, the narrator was ridiculous! I can't tell if he enhances the book by adding unintentional humor, or if he completely derails it. All of his renderings of the Chinese people quoted in the book make it sound like they are born-and-bred New Yorkers, and possibly chain-smoking New Yorkers. (I suppose born-and-bred New Yorkers might disagree with me — this is an opinion of someone not from there.) Still, I wish the publisher had hired someone who is more familiar with Chinese accents, and who could have reproduced subtle and diverse voices for the many different people featured in this book.
Hilariously bad narrator
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As far as the content, I think that this is a great introduction about China and I've learned a lot about things that I probably wouldn't have been able to learn anywhere else. For example, I've learned weird details about geography, about rural village life, laws, and a lot about the transportation system and the auto industry. I don't feel as much of a pull to listen as for a novel, but that is how nonfiction tends to be. After finishing this book, I think that I'd like to listen to his other books about China as well.
Better and more interesting than I thought
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Haunting
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After reading (listening to) this book, you will find yourself much more aware of the Chinese traditions and cultural norms of the time the book was written. Without even realizing it, you will have learned so much and been entered while gaining that valuable education.
educational entertainment at it's finest
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amazing view into China!
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The Best Book I have read in a long time
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a whole lot of detail
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the large home i lived in housed other doctors and teachers
while there, i met a young business law professor from china
as the time came for me to leave, he recommended a book
he said it was " a truthful introduction " to the people of china
peter hessler's book more than lives up to that assessment
hessler's fearless life in china gives him a unique authority
he drives their roads, eats their food and lives in their villages
his rugged resilience is rewarded with their kindness and insight
at this point, even the chinese don't believe in communism
they will, in time, throw off the corrupt shell of party bureaucracy
at that point, we'll see the true character of the chinese people
peter hessler's book is an honest preview to that moment
people of china > nation of china
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