Osnos, Evan. 2014. Age of ambition: Chasing fortune Book Review

Due Date: November 15, 2020, at 11:59 p.m.
Book Title: Osnos, Evan. 2014. Age of ambition: Chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China. Macmillan.
Book Access: you can read the book at the Internet Archive. It allows you to borrow the book on an hourly basis or with a 14-day permit. It is completely up to you on the reading pace as long as you can complete the Review and upload it onto Canvas by the due time.
Instruction on accessing the book in the Archive: https://archive(dot)org/ (Links to an external site.)
Sign up to the website for free
Log in with your sign-up account
Look up the book, or simply paste the link below to your browser to open the e-book
Borrow it on an hourly basis or for 14 days to read the whole book
Book link: https://archive(dot)org/details/ageofambitioncha0000osno/page/12/mode/2up (Links to an external site.)
Format: 1300-1500 words, single-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12 font size, Times New Roman. Write the Review in a Word document and upload it onto the designated drop-box on Canvas in the format of Word or PDF.

An Excellent Book Review:

Completes No.2 to 4 tasks with high quality and within the length limit

Demonstrates sound reasoning/argumentation. Ideas are convincingly developed and supported with concrete evidence to address the topics

Evidence, examples and ideas should be drawn from all three parts of the Book; those reviews that only focus on either one of the three Parts will be penalized

Correctly interprets and effectively integrates at least three course materials including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and documentaries.

Considers full complexity and avoids oversimplifying

___ / 70

Structure

Includes both a strong introduction and conclusion

Introduction captures the readers' attention in a thoughtful presentation of topics and ideas.

Conclusion achieves a culmination of principal ideas.

Well organized with smooth flow, topic sentences, transitions, and paragraphs advance a complex series of ideas, claims, and evidence.

Each paragraph has a reasonable length; too long or too short a paragraph will result in point deduction

___/ 13

Writing Mechanics

Few to no grammar or spelling errors. No sentence fragments or run-on sentences. Points taken off for repeated grammar or spelling errors.

1300-1500 words, single-spaced, 12-point font size, 1-inch margins, Times New Roman

Word count below or beyond the limit will be penalized

___/ 7

Sources, bibliography, citations

Use designated courses materials and reliable and reputable external sources

Correct in-text citations, and full references/bibliography are needed

Avoid both excessive under- and over- in-text citations

All items in the bibliography must be cited in text. In-text citations must be appropriately integrated into the text’s main arguments

Direct quotes that are lengthy or unnecessary will result in point deductions; paraphrasing evidence from sources with appropriate in-text citations is almost always preferable

Page number should be included in in-text citations for direct quotes and specific ideas

___/ 10

Total points

___ / 100

Introduction

This course has shown you a picture of the physical, socioeconomic, and political spaces and processes of China through peer-review articles, book chapters, documentaries, news articles, and lectures. It also provides you a set of specific vocabulary (i.e. terms, definitions, concepts, and phrases) to discuss China. In fact, these spaces and processes are more nuanced, complex, and dynamic than those we are able to cover in this course. From this perspective, Evan Osnos’s book Age of ambition will give you a different perspective on China and Chinese people. Evan Osnos (Links to an external site.) was a Beijing-based journalist from 2005 to 2013 and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 2008. This book was written based on his eight-year experience in Beijing as well as extensive reports and interviews with his protagonists.

The point of a book review is not to summarize the content of the book, but to situate the historical merit of the book and to critically evaluate the author's purpose, thesis, contentions, and methods of analysis. Hence, the bulk of the body of your review essay will be an evaluation of how convincing and creative the presentation of his thesis was, and a commentary on the book's contribution to one's understanding of important issues on China. An essential feature of a good book review is the reviewer's ability to write concisely so that a comprehensive evaluation of the book can be obtained from a brief reading. So, do not write more, write more concisely -- find creative ways to communicate your critical evaluation of the book in a short essay.

Guideline

Due Date: November 15, 2020, at 11:59 p.m.

Book Title: Osnos, Evan. 2014. Age of ambition: Chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China. Macmillan. 

Book Access: you can read the book at the Internet Archive. It allows you to borrow the book on an hourly basis or with a 14-day permit. It is completely up to you on the reading pace as long as you can complete the Review and upload it onto Canvas by the due time.

Instruction on accessing the book in the Archive: https://archive.org/ (Links to an external site.)

Sign up to the website for free

Log in with your sign-up account

Look up the book, or simply paste the link below to your browser to open the e-book

Borrow it on an hourly basis or for 14 days to read the whole book

Book link: https://archive.org/details/ageofambitioncha0000osno/page/12/mode/2up (Links to an external site.)

Format: 1300-1500 words, single-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12 font size, Times New Roman. Write the Review in a Word document and upload it onto the designated drop-box on Canvas in the format of Word or PDF.

Five Required Components for the Review: In this book review, you are required to complete the five components below. The number of paragraphs indicates the required length of writing and partially determine the weight they are for your total score.

In your book review, please include:

No. 1. in one decent paragraph

An intriguing introduction that grabs the readers’ attention and shows what you intend to do

No. 2. in one decent paragraph or two shorter paragraphs

An explanation of the type of sources the author utilized, and the methods the author employed in choosing and organizing those sources (i.e. many questions such as who were his interviewees, their representation, in what ways they can represent Chinese, in what ways they can not, and other questions you would like to address regarding the methods and interviewees)

An explanation of the structure and organization of the book.

No. 3. in four-six decent paragraphs

A discussion of the author's main theses/arguments/contentions based on the whole book

An assessment of the strong points or shortcomings of the book

No. 4. in one decent paragraph or two shorter paragraphs

How does this book change the way you think about China: i.e. compare and contrast the book to the materials of this course; compare your understanding of China in three phases: before this course, after the course, and after you read the book

No. 5. in one decent paragraph

 A conclusion that synthesizes your review

Throughout your review, you will want to make references to specific portions of the book to illustrate your evaluation (and make sure to include in-text citation with page number or page range). The challenge will be to do as much of this as possible and yet not let it interfere with the restricted length of the Review. In other words, find creative ways to give examples from the book in a limited space. Obviously, direct quotations should be kept to a minimum.

Incorporating the course materials: Please cite at least three course materials in your review. They can be peer-review articles, book chapters or documentaries. There are many ways you can integrate course materials. You can use the course materials to provide historical contexts when you discuss No. 3 above. You can compare and contrast what you learn from the book and from our course while answering No. 4. You can discuss how different methods, such as journalistic interviews in Osnos’s book, academic interviews in peer-reviewed articles, and visual aid in documentaries, contribute to your understanding of China while responding to No. 2….Or any other ways you prefer. Be creative! You are required to incorporate the course materials in a concrete and material manner. Please see the examples below for reference:

An insufficient incorporation: Based on Chan's (2018) article on hukou, it is understandable that [name of one protagonist] suffered a lot.

A concrete and material incorporation: Chan (2018) discusses that the hukou system enables the coastal industries to exploit the migrant workers especially from the West and the Rural through subsistence-level wages and poor working and living conditions. Osnos documents consistent phenomena as represented by [names of two protagonists]'s experiences during the 1990s in Guangdong and Beijing respectively. [name of one protagonist]'s wage was only 300 Yuan per month, barely enough for her daily expense (2014, 100-120), while [another protagonist] was inflicted with lung cancer due to his dirty and smoky work environment without appropriate protective equipment (2014, 218-230) [Some of the above are make-up information for demonstration purpose]

Other citations: You are not required to cite resources outside this book and the three course materials you choose, but you can cite external resources when they are appropriate. Only reputable and reliable sources will be accepted, such as peer-review articles and news articles from reputable media; sources such as wikipedia and baidu will not be accepted. It is OKAY if you read some summaries and reviews on this book to help you understand it better. However, if you use any thoughts or ideas from those summaries and reviews, you should cite them! Plagiarism is not acceptable in this course.

Organization: Please feel free to structure and organize the Review in the order that you like. You do NOT have to follow the order I have for No.2 - No. 4. But you will not want to change the locations for No.1 and No. 5, which are at the beginning and the end respectively. You would like to have a very clear structure with topic sentences up front in each paragraph and transitions within and between the sentences, so that your Review flows smoothly and clearly.

Two sample Reviews for reference: You can see from the two examples below that reviews on the same book can be very different. Please note that they are not meeting all of the requirements for this assignment. However, there are many things you can learn from them, such as their insights in the author’s intention and their evaluation of his contribution. You will realize that these two reviews are for people who already have an in-depth understanding of China, so they don’t include as many specific examples and evidence as this assignment requires you to have. You are required to provide a more solid review of the book than they did, aided with more specific examples and evidence.

Aw, Tash. 2014. Age of Ambition review – an intimate portrait of China. Accessed at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/31/age-of-ambition-evan-osnos-review-china (Links to an external site.).

Steinfeld, Edward. S. 2014. “Chorus of Soloists”: The Chinese people’s individual acts of self-transformation. Accessed at: https://harvardmagazine.com/2014/07/chorus-of-soloists