Country Driving : Three Journeys Across A Changing China

'Sitting behind the wheel woke me up…in Beijing alone, almost a thousand new drivers registered on average each day, the pioneers of a nationwide auto boom. Most of them came from the growing middle class, for whom a car represented mobility, prosperity, modernity. For me, it meant adventure.’

Country Driving is Peter Hessler’s engaging account of his travels through China over the past decade—from the fortified towns along the Great Wall in the north, to near-inaccessible hilltop towns and the entrepreneurial cities of the south-east, where factory start-ups are a dime a dozen. This is the story of a nation modernising at great pace, and of ordinary Chinese caught up in that modernisation. With eloquence and wit Hessler takes us on the road less travelled, showing us a China rarely glimpsed by outsiders.