بريكنيك: سعي الصين لهندسة المستقبل (سبع رسائل سنوية)

A must-read for the Next Big Ideas Club in August 2025. An engaging and straightforward investigation of China's tremendous progress, its human costs, and what it means for America. For nearly a decade, technology analyst Dan Wang — “the consummate observer of contemporary China” (Ross Douthat) — has witnessed the country’s astonishing and manifold progress. Towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories helped improve China's economic conditions in record time. However, this rapid change also had negative effects on society. This fact - political repression and astonishing growth - is not a paradox, but rather a feature of the Chinese engineering mentality. In Breakneck, Wang combines political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a thought-provoking new framework for understanding China, one that also helps us see America more clearly. While China is an engineering nation that relentlessly pursues huge projects, the United States has stopped developing. America has turned into a legal society that automatically obstructs everything, whether good or bad. In a style that combines careful analysis with engaging storytelling, Wang presents a captivating portrait of a nation in transition. Breakneck tours major cities like Shanghai, Chongqing, and Shenzhen, where the engineering state has not only created impressive infrastructure but also cultivated a sense of optimism. The book also reveals the downsides of social engineering, including the surveillance of ethnic minorities, political repression, and the effects of the one-child policy and the “zero Covid” policy. In an era of hostility and mistrust, Wang reveals the shocking similarities between the United States and China. Breakneck shows how each country points a better path to the other: Chinese citizens will be better off if their government learns to value individual freedoms, while Americans will be better off if their government learns to embrace engineering — achieving better outcomes for everyone, not just a few.