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Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China is a non-fiction book by Evan Osnos, a staff writer at The New Yorker. The book analyses the rapid growth of China following Deng Xiaoping's rule, the conflicts between a liberal economy and an authoritarian government, and the effects of China's rapid growth through the perspectives of ordinary citizens Osnos came to know while he was in China from 2005 to 2012.

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Originally published in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Age of Ambition is Osnos's first book. It received positive reviews. Age of Ambition was awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2014 and was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

Background

Evan Osnos spent eight years in China, three as the Beijing bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune from 2005 to 2008, and five as the China correspondent for The New Yorker - from 2008 to 2013. Osnos first visited China in 1996 to spend half a year studying Mandarin. While in China, Osnos maintained a blog for The New Yorker titled "Letter from China" for 4 years; some of these stories featured in Age of Ambition.

Publication

Age of Ambition was first published in May 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US and Canada, and by Bodley Head in the UK. The book is 403 pages in length. An audiobook format was published by Brilliance Audio in 2015.

Reception

Age of Ambition was well received. It was awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2014 and was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

Tash Aw, writing for The Guardian, complimented Osnos for navigating clear of avoiding both the appearance of having a pro-western agenda and of being a Chinese government apologist. Tash added that it’s notable that Osnos avoided traditional approaches to analysing China, such as by focusing on the party or governance, and instead chose to tell stories through the eyes of ordinary people.

John Pomfret, writing for The Washington Post, said Age of Ambition "illuminates what [Osnos] calls China’s Gilded Age in a way few have done".

Ben Chu, the economics editor for The Independent, said the book was an "extended cultural and political trawl through modern China". Chu stated "it's a story, essentially, about people", adding that "Osnos tends to let the protagonists themselves do the talking, allowing the bigger picture to emerge gradually through judicious scene selection and poetic description". On the style of writing, Chu wrote that "Osnos writes beautifully and his judgement is sound too. He generally avoids the trap of generalising about China, pointing to the complexity and ambiguity of the country." Chu also noted that the book is not a complete picture of modern China, noting that Age of Ambition fails to discuss Maoism or attitudes towards race, particularly towards the Japanese. Chu summarises Age of Ambition as a "welcome corrective" to typical Western perceptions of China.

Mary Gallagher, writing in the Chicago Tribune, praised the book for "its coverage of a diverse range of people who are challenging and questioning the status quo." Gallagher noted that writing about China can be difficult, saying that it's possible to tell the same story in an optimistic light, or a pessimistic one, praising Age of Ambition for resisting this tendency and instead telling a "collection of stories that defy easy conclusions about where China is headed." Gallagher noted the theme of individualism presented throughout the book, through Osnos's interactions with people who are "shockingly self-interested, brash and desperately ambitious".

The National Post praised the book for its "deep research, superb reporting, clear prose and unflustered conclusions".

muse.jhu.edu/article/646576

External links

• Age of Ambition at Google Books