Summary Of Age Of Ambition

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Book Review Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos tells a story of a country going through political, economic and cultural changes while describing its effects on the lives of the people. He is able to accomplish this by interviewing different people around the country to talk their struggles in life. . It's explained that for years the people in China had no hope to better themselves because it was all denied by the government. However, one generation of people were able to change a whole country, describing the intensity in the people to succeed and improve their lives. It did not come easy to the people of China, while some succeeded, many others failed. The country faced high rates of inequalities amongst them as the government doesn’t assure…show more content…
In the first few chapter, dated on May 16, 1979, Osnos introduces us to Captain Lin Zhengyi, a soldier from the army of Taiwan. While being in the army he attained information about China knowing that it would encounter changes and prosper. He knew this and wanted to be apart of it. So when he was assigned to the island of Quemoy, just a mile away from the coast of mainland China he decided leave his country, along with his family to go back home in China. He planned his escape and swam across hoping a warm welcome, however as soon as he arrive a Chinese soldier arrested him. Some of the changes that he saw at the time included the privatization of businesses which increased the income twenty times than before. Although the government was allowing private enterprises it was still determined to not lose control over them. People everywhere were talking about politics and democracy which was something the government could not allow. Osnos states, "For China to thrive, the must be limits on…show more content…
The biggest theme throughout the novel is aspiration and authoritarianism and Osnos portrayed both aspects well. I would have like to read more stories of people in the countryside or normal middle class people rather than those intellectual or dissident individual. I believe this is one of his biggest weaknesses of Osnos' novel, not having real people talk about their struggles or their dreams and ambitions. I found that his first story of Captain Lin Zhengyi was very interesting and would have liked to read more stories similar to his, where his ambition drive him to leave his family for the pursuit of bettering his

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