The Chinese by Jasper Becker; New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary Cityby Pamela YatskoReview by: Lucian W. PyeForeign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2001), p. 174Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20050307 .

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Recent Books

should ignore the market and rely on

state planning and import substitution.

Finally, as head of Procter & Gamble

India, he was harassed by a bureaucratic

state that saw profits as sinful, hindered

entrepreneurs, and favored poorly run,

state-owned industries. By juxtaposing his personal story with India's economic

journey, Das avoids abstractions and

focuses on the particular individuals who

were leading India into trouble with its "mixed economy." This may be the first

book to ask why America's leading economists were so wrong in their policy advice for India in the 1950s and 1960s.

Das is understandably enthusiastic about

India's current economic reforms, but his

key argument?that India can quickly become the world leader in the information

revolution?seems to stray into fantasy.

The Chinese, by jasper becker. New

York: Free Press, 2000,480 pp. $27.50. New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of

China s Legendary City,

by pamela

yatsko. New York: John Wiley, 2001,

298 pp. $24.95. The Chinese is a superb book for anyone who wants to be updated

on contemporary China. Becker, a journalist who has

covered China since 1985, has the unique

ability to weave together his personal observations with clear summary analyses of China's many accomplishments and its

persisting problems. For good measure,

he gracefully adds a great deal of appropriate and informative historical material. He

systematically reviews all levels and di

mensions of Chinese society, from the

poorest peasants to local despots to elite

politics. And he fully treats both the factors

contributing to the success of economic

reforms and the serious problems that

remain. His is a reliable and lively guide to understanding a very complex society that has yet to achieve a new state

of equilibrium. Yatsko is also a veteran China reporter,

but her work concentrates on the key city of Shanghai. She has a solid base for

measuring the achievements of the current

reforms: in the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was the preeminent cosmopolitan city in

Asia?the "Paris of the East"? and a

leader in trade and finance. Although the

city has scored impressive achievements

since the Mao era, it still lags far behind what it was before World War II, especially in cultural and intellectual spheres. (The old Shanghai had a world-class symphony and more newspapers than Bombay and

Calcutta combined; in the 1930s, it pub lished more book titles each year than the entire American book industry.) As

with Becker, Yatsko finds that behind all the signs of exciting progress, serious

problems still need to be overcome before

Shanghai and China can realize their

full potential.

The Great Hedge of India: The Search for the Living Barrier That Divided a

Nation, by ROY moxham. New York:

Carroll & Graf, 2001, 256 pp. $22.00.

Globalization has made theorizing about

the significance of borders fashionable.

Here is an implausible example of border

maintenance that readers should not over

look. In the nineteenth century, eccentric

Englishmen in India thought of con

structing a 2,500-mile-long impenetrable

hedge, requiring up to 14,000 men to

maintain, as a way to stop salt smuggling. Moxham first heard of the Great Hedge

in an old book purchased at an antique bookstore. His imagination captured, he

[174] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume 80 No. s

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