Breakneck [A Review]
Dan Wang's Breakneck is an examination of Chinese (and sometimes American) society from the point of view of a systems engineer. Along with examining both societies from a bird's eye point of view, Dan Wang breaks up chunks of analysis with moving anecdotes describing life in China. As such, I absolutely adore this book; setting aside the magnificent analysis that Dan does, as a Chinese-American citizen who feels much more American than Chinese1, Breakneck gives me glimpses of a parallel life that could've been had I been raised in China. Moreover, the analysis of contemporary China is well researched and well contextualized, and Dan weaves together a picture of China by reflecting on both the economic, the political, and the social aspects of China. This book's excellence combined with the blend of stories, statistics, and history (of both American but mainly Chinese society) and its well motivated conclusions warrants a 9.6/10. At least for the new future, Breakneck is one of the best books on China.
Breakneck was an engaging read for me in part due to the conversational tone that Wang employs and in part because the content itself (an analysis of China) is inherently interesting. While the chapters are arranged chronologically, each chapter can more or less stand on its own and the book itself is mostly focused on examining how China has developed into an 'engineering state' whilst the US transformed into a 'lawyerly society'. As Breakneck is built examination of macro trends in Chinese society, any attempt to summarize the book will inevitably miss the detailed analysis and intricacies underlying every claim. Moreover, the real value of Breakneck is its ability to accurately represent and explain Chinese society to an outsider who can then develop a more accurate worldview.
To state it explicitly, this was a very well-written book. Breakneck is of course well-researched, but more importantly, Wang's experience with China and his ability to accurately contextualize and interpret events from China's continually changing policy landscape really make this book shine. That being said, Wang's book (which was published less than a year ago) is in some sense already outdated; in Breakneck, vanishingly little is written about AI and the AI race, which is currently the premier battleground between China and the US as both countries race to be technological superior.
While of course predicting anything (especially about the future) is difficult, in some sense AI was and still is "eating the world"2 and it's slightly disappointing to see how little about the AI race is mentioned in Breakneck.
Nevertheless, Breakneck is still a great book and, and it will most likely be a while until I understand the book fully. This book has definitely changed my worldview (although I would hesitate to call it foundational), and I would highly recommend this book to anyone who
- is Chinese-American and wants to learn more about China
- wants to better understand US-China relations
- wants to fix the world's problems and wonders why the world is so crappy
- is an engineer/maker/designer
- likes reading about political affairs.
A one sentence summary that is the core theme of Breakneck can be found in its introduction:
"China is an engineering state, building big at breakneck speed, in contrast to the United States' lawyerly society, blocking everything it can, good and bad" (xv).
Viewed by other people, I am definitely a Chinese person; viewed from my point of view, I speak, read, write, and eat English whereas I can barely even speak (and understand) proper Chinese, let alone read and write. Moreover, from my point of view, I've also lost the ability to sympathize with people my age in China; I have no clue how it feels every day to live there, the weights that one carries as a Chinese citizen, the norms and the standards, the street slang and what people do all day, etc.↩
What I mean by "eating the world" is that right now, in some sense, all of human civilization is focused on AI and waiting to see what it does and can do. It's kind of like watching a highly anticipated World Cup match and seeing what happens (although in some sense the metaphorical game can last indefinitely). Moreover, for the past few months (and I would wager for the next few months also) it seems that everyone's attention has been and still is captivated by AI.↩