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Review
'Watts unveils the human realities behind the statistics.' --Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
'Not simply an indictment of China's development path: it is a lesson for us all in the dangers of how we live.' --Isabel Hilton, Guardian
'Fascinating, engaging and beautifully written ... A masterpiece.' --George Monbiot
'Not simply an indictment of China's development path: it is a lesson for us all in the dangers of how we live.' --Isabel Hilton, Guardian
'Fascinating, engaging and beautifully written ... A masterpiece.' --George Monbiot
Book Description
Full of astonishing personal stories, this is an essential and incisive discussion on China today - a country on an environmental precipice that will affect the entire world - and a compelling look at the lives of its people.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you're even half-considering getting this book, I highly recommend you do. This will appeal to anyone even vaguely interested in China, its history and culture, or its role in the world today and in the years to come.
Divided into 16 chapters each based on a different region of China and a slightly different environmental/social issue, each section balances hard, often jaw-dropping, facts and figures with interesting, often amusing and compassionate, accounts of individual lives and interviews. The result is a persuasive, highly educational book which uses human interest to bring the issues to life and still ensure this is a genuine pleasure to read and never hard work for the reader.
It's also a very fair book. Watts presents views of differing sides of each issue and, though passionate about environmental issues and the need for humanity to change its culture, doesn't lecture the reader nor side against one factor, be it Chinese rulers, consumer culture, capitalism or historical Western practices. Not without well explained reasoning, anyway.
This is a book that could and should interest someone with an already substantial knowledge of China and the issues concerned. But it is also a book written in such a way that is very accessible to a more casual reader who has enjoyed the odd Sunday papers world news article. For the latter, if 400 plus pages seems like too much of a commitment, each chapter would stand up pretty well on its own for more casual dipping into. If you need more convincing, maybe read some of Watts's online Guardian/Observer articles as a taste. Not that they quite do justice to the scale of the project he has undertaken here.
Journalism at its best.
Divided into 16 chapters each based on a different region of China and a slightly different environmental/social issue, each section balances hard, often jaw-dropping, facts and figures with interesting, often amusing and compassionate, accounts of individual lives and interviews. The result is a persuasive, highly educational book which uses human interest to bring the issues to life and still ensure this is a genuine pleasure to read and never hard work for the reader.
It's also a very fair book. Watts presents views of differing sides of each issue and, though passionate about environmental issues and the need for humanity to change its culture, doesn't lecture the reader nor side against one factor, be it Chinese rulers, consumer culture, capitalism or historical Western practices. Not without well explained reasoning, anyway.
This is a book that could and should interest someone with an already substantial knowledge of China and the issues concerned. But it is also a book written in such a way that is very accessible to a more casual reader who has enjoyed the odd Sunday papers world news article. For the latter, if 400 plus pages seems like too much of a commitment, each chapter would stand up pretty well on its own for more casual dipping into. If you need more convincing, maybe read some of Watts's online Guardian/Observer articles as a taste. Not that they quite do justice to the scale of the project he has undertaken here.
Journalism at its best.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is travel writing at its best. Having lived in China for a number of years it is clear that Jonathan Watts knows a great deal about what he is talking about and manages to weave together one story about an emerging China with another about the unique characteristics of each region and what makes some more successful, both economically and environmentally, than others.
The book follows Jonathan Watts as he travels through regions of China, some regions being a chapter by themselves and others being combined together. Each chapter combines a potted history about the region(s) presented alongside the current state of the region(s), astounding facts and figures and personal testimonies about the effects of economic development upon the environment.
As stated by previous reviewers, this book is non-judgemental in its assessment of China. It does state the environmental pitfalls of economic development and as said, gives some astounding facts and figures in doing so, but also states quite clearly the progress that China is making towards green development. In doing so, you are allowed to come to your own conclusion about China's green credentials and whether China is seeking dominion or stewardship over their (and others) environments.
An eye-opening read.
The book follows Jonathan Watts as he travels through regions of China, some regions being a chapter by themselves and others being combined together. Each chapter combines a potted history about the region(s) presented alongside the current state of the region(s), astounding facts and figures and personal testimonies about the effects of economic development upon the environment.
As stated by previous reviewers, this book is non-judgemental in its assessment of China. It does state the environmental pitfalls of economic development and as said, gives some astounding facts and figures in doing so, but also states quite clearly the progress that China is making towards green development. In doing so, you are allowed to come to your own conclusion about China's green credentials and whether China is seeking dominion or stewardship over their (and others) environments.
An eye-opening read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
China overtook the US as the world's biggest emitter of carbon this year, and has doggedly stood by its rights to develop and industrialize, and nobody is going to tell China what to do. At the same time, China has more installed solar capacity than any other country, has the biggest high speed rail network, and is pioneering green technologies from carbon capture and storage to electric car batteries.
'When a Billion Chinese Jump' is the book that makes sense of China's role in a world of climate change, and what an excellent book it is too. The title comes from the author's childhood fear that if everyone in China jumped at once, the earth would tilt off its axis. Now, he reasons, a billion Chinese have jumped - economically speaking - and the earth needs to rebalance.
The book is written as a travelogue. Jonathan Watts makes his way across the country from West to East, investigating a variety of environmental issues along the way. It's a great travel book in itself, full of local characters and exotic places, both pleasant and unpleasant. Watts travels to disaster zones, goes down coal mines, and is shown around eco-city building sites and model communist villages. Each chapter in the book covers a different region of China, and also a different issue: deforestation, pollution, erosion, conspicuous consumption, carbon emissions. It is at times a little terrifying, more often tragic - the price of China's industrial success is misery for millions of ordinary people.
Watts puts this all in its historical context, from the peasant culture of rural China to Mao's 'Great Leap Forward', and teases out the cultural trends behind China's actions. He also sees China's role as crucial to the future of the planet. "The planet's problems were not made in China," he writes, "but they are sliding past the point of no return here."
China can never extend an American way of life to every one of it's billion citizens - the climate would be destabilised in the process, and resource limits breached. If it is to succeed, China must re-invent industry and follow a different development path. With its huge reserve of labour and remarkable ability to pull off national projects, it may well pull it off. Through that great project, the book's tagline suggests, `China will save the World - or destroy it'.
'When a Billion Chinese Jump' is the book that makes sense of China's role in a world of climate change, and what an excellent book it is too. The title comes from the author's childhood fear that if everyone in China jumped at once, the earth would tilt off its axis. Now, he reasons, a billion Chinese have jumped - economically speaking - and the earth needs to rebalance.
The book is written as a travelogue. Jonathan Watts makes his way across the country from West to East, investigating a variety of environmental issues along the way. It's a great travel book in itself, full of local characters and exotic places, both pleasant and unpleasant. Watts travels to disaster zones, goes down coal mines, and is shown around eco-city building sites and model communist villages. Each chapter in the book covers a different region of China, and also a different issue: deforestation, pollution, erosion, conspicuous consumption, carbon emissions. It is at times a little terrifying, more often tragic - the price of China's industrial success is misery for millions of ordinary people.
Watts puts this all in its historical context, from the peasant culture of rural China to Mao's 'Great Leap Forward', and teases out the cultural trends behind China's actions. He also sees China's role as crucial to the future of the planet. "The planet's problems were not made in China," he writes, "but they are sliding past the point of no return here."
China can never extend an American way of life to every one of it's billion citizens - the climate would be destabilised in the process, and resource limits breached. If it is to succeed, China must re-invent industry and follow a different development path. With its huge reserve of labour and remarkable ability to pull off national projects, it may well pull it off. Through that great project, the book's tagline suggests, `China will save the World - or destroy it'.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
must read for everybody in environment!
this is an amazing book - the way it is written and the content it conveys. if there were 6 or 7 start rankings the book would deserve more than five stars. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Fwm Van Steenbergen
Vital reading
If you read Watts' Guardian articles then much of this will be familiar, but it's still worth buying as an important and very readable summary of at least one aspect of modern... Read more
Published 8 months ago by tracksterman
lets hope
my goodness it would be a funny thing if people were reading this book on their chinese manufactured kindle, from amazon!
Published 9 months ago by N. Robertson
Neutrality is the key to understanding.
Part travelogue, part academic writing, Jonathan Watts proves his expertise on a variety of Sino-industrial issues affecting modern China today in When a Billion Chinese Jump:... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Peter B.
Great
A great read for anyone who likes travelogs. The environment does not have to be of interest to the reader to enjoy this books which is filled with fasanating facts & figures. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Stenners
Michael Wadge of Bristol
This is a fascinating and horrifying book about the determination of the Chinese authorities to achieve massive economic growth regardless of the dreadful consequences for the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Michael Wadge
Facinating and troubling
I have been spellbound by this book- and my heart wrenched by the stories and the hypocrisy it reveals. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Rich Clarke
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