Evan Osnos

Evan Osnos's new book is Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.

From his interview with Fareed Zakaria:

ZAKARIA: What are the Chinese people really like? Do they adhere to all the stereotypes put on them by the West? Are they steadfast and loyal to the Communist Party? Are they either poor farmers or rich businesspeople with very few in between? And are they really good at math? Of course, not, but my next guest Evan Osnos takes me much deeper into just who today's Chinese really are, what their dreams are. It's his new book "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China." Osnos was the "New Yorker's" China correspondent for years. He's now based in Washington for the same magazine. Evan, you say that it's actually very easy to understand China in a sense if you can imagine the Gilded Age in America?

EVAN OSNOS: It's true. If you make a comparison to the United States experience, we're living right now through - American about 1890 - think about it. You know, we were coming out of the Civil War which in China's case means the Cultural Revolution, means pulling the country back together again. And one of the things you are also doing was building the country up. You know, we laid railroad tracks across the United States. China, as we know, has built more high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined. So, there is this incredible sense of what's possible. But at the same time, that means that you're generating huge amounts of wealth and it's going off into some people's hands and not into others.

ZAKARIA: And the real story of your book is the rise of Chinese individualism?

OSNOS: Yeah?

ZAKARIA: Right?

OSNOS: Yeah, that's right. I mean what interested me most was...[read on]

Visit Evan Osnos's website.

--Marshal Zeringue