The Man Who Changed China : The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: This is a book worth the effort to take in, if only for the information about the state of modern China. The author has a unique vantage point, being a paid economics advisor to the Chinese government. He does effectively make the point that the Chinese government has morphed from a Mao-dictatorship to an oligarchy, although he would probably prefer to term it a corporate board-based government. The number of recited facts and anecdotes about the present state of China is valuable but the book is not a terribly deep work. It reads quickly and is often interesting. It also crosses way over the line separating biography from hagiography in the first hundred pages or so. Thankfully, the author's parroting of Chinese government press releases and official bios is not so pronounced after that point, when Jiang begins his government career. But it unfortunately veers back to that all-too-noticeable problem periodically in the pages that follow. This would have been a very good book had the editor assigned by the publisher actually done some editing. Kuhn is obviously knowledgeable but needs the help that any other writer as accomplished (and busy) as he obviously is. Still, I recommend the book because there simply aren't that many in English available on the subject it covers and Kuhn has something to say.