RaveThe Wall Street JournalAge of Ambition is a splendid and entertaining picture of 21st-century China, painted by a young American who moves with ease around the country rather like one of Mao Zedong\'s proverbial fishes. With a sharp eye and a keen nose, Mr. Osnos...introduces us to the people living in a country ... The book is dense from start to finish...artificially held together by a small group of characters we meet only from time to time after their chapter-length story is told. If the publisher had been honest and reshaped the book, it would have worked well, because Mr. Osnos has some amazing stories to tell. Unlike most Sinologists, who focus on economies and politics, Mr. Osnos tracks down characters...and narrates from the sidelines without commentary. This gives the book a refreshing—and ultimately more deadly—take on the vast scope of official corruption, double speak, tyranny and paranoia that runs through all levels of the Communist Party.
