October 12, 2008
FROM MY BOOKSHELF: China: Refreshing, Intriguing, Confusing, Unsettling
By LeRoy Lawson Rob Gifford, China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power (New York: Random House, 2007). Rob Gifford, National Public Radio”s China correspondent, closed out his six-year tour of duty there by sending his family off to London ahead of him, stuffing his backpack, and setting out to explore Route 312 (the old Silk Road, treasured today like America”s Route 66) from Shanghai in the east to Korgaz at the Kazakhstan border in the west, a trek of more than 3,000 miles. Along the way he took in the contrasts and conundrums that define contemporary
