Book Review
I. NAME: Abdel Ahmed DATE: 11/25/2014 BOOK TITLE: When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order AUTHOR: Martin Jacques PUBLISHER: Penguin Books DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2012 PLACE OF PUB: New York, NY
II. AUTHOR’S THESIS: China is reshaping the global economy and becoming more of a challenge to the West, but if it cannot advance culturally and institutionally, it will not replace the US.
III. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: The book covers an extremely broad period of history when it discusses the rule of China. Before Jacques mentions China’s current global status, he goes over China’s past global situations, mentioning the major rulings of the Xuanzong, the Tang, the Song, the Yuan and the Ming Periods. During the Xuanzong period (712-756), China lead the time period called the “Rise of the East” and took center stage in the Global Economy. During the Tang Period (618-907), China was economically successful and politically dominant. Foreign trade was fully established by that point and territory expansion had gone to dramatic rates. The Song period (960-1279) included the most remarkable economic transformation for commercial, technological and urban economies. At this point, China had let go of some of its militarism and political domination. Shortly after, however, the Yuan era (1271-1368) restored National Unity, political strategy and militarism. Jacques argues that China and the “West” were neck and neck in the race for global economic domination until China completely veered off its track in the 1800s. While Europe and the US introduced industrial economies extremely quickly and underwent massive social and cultural reform, China stood back and continued to rely on its agriculture for too long and never culturally reformed.
IV. SUMMARY/DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS Throughout the reading of the book, the realization of a masterpiece becomes more apparent to the reader. It is truly a high-intelligence book that gives a deep insight into the scale of Global Economy. Often times when reading an economic book, the author’s political beliefs ooze out of the writing, however, Jacques has done a great job keeping his semi-conservative beliefs out of the book. Instead, he focuses highly on what China accomplished in the past, why China veered from the race of Global Economic Leader and what the US does differently that allows it to excel past China. The author also does a wonderful job of pulling up key details in government and culture that keep China restrained from reaching its Global Economic Rank. China is known as an extreme challenger to the US, economically and politically. However, Jacques goes into deep details highlighting the mistakes China has made or the policies in effect that have limited China’s growth globally. For example, the author goes into depth about how China’s schools are too governmental and China’s schooling promotes quantity over quality, in this case, number of graduates instead of level of each graduate. Also, the world’s leading academic advancement country is the US. Foreign degrees beg to be advanced in the US and surely enough, millions of global engineers and doctors pursue higher education in the US. According to the figure from a survey by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in Tennessee, ninety-two percent of the Chinese who gained a PhD in science and engineering in 2002 were still in the US in 2007. In addition, China has done a terrific job keeping its country in a sphere, however, that sphere has also blocked out all the modern influences and cultural impacts that have affected the rest of the world, leaving China just as technologically advanced, but severely backed up culturally and socially. A lot of social institutions are continued to be run by government and in top-down fashions that eliminate the process of evolution or creativity. On the other hand, the US has privatized colleges and universities allowing quality and creativity to be the source of advancement. With its creative influence, the US has graduated the brightest scholars in the world and has benefitted economically. Jacques explains how China must have a massive cultural shift that allows people not only a sense of freedom, but a desire to excel and desire surpass the current levels of its economy.
V. COMMENTARY After finishing one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read, my outlook on the scale of global economic leaders has changed. I fully believed the US was on top of the economic pyramid right now, as many do, but I wasn’t sure as to why the Chinese have been unable to catch up. Luckily, Jacques was able to display that picture exactly in the most blatant and unbiased description he could’ve written. Obviously, I fully expected some of Jacques conservative views to leak from his words, but his beliefs leaked very few times and he did a terrific job staying on topic. I one hundred percent agree with Jacques view and thesis. He brings up interested historical point that support his view as well recent accomplishments that the “West” has established that have placed the US at a higher economic rank than China and its other competitors. The author doesn’t assume anything in the book. Although the book is based off his direct beliefs, Jacques is able to find steady evidence for everything he thinks and believes. Thankfully, the book was written recently and includes even some of the most recent economic, cultural and social concepts. The concept of China being unable to catch up to the US due to cultural and social deficits is very relevant and can be seen in almost all recent Chinese news. In the background information, it’s very evident that China is a global competitor. The author portrays China as an adaptive state that remains on top for several centuries politically and economically. He goes through about half a dozen eras that the Chinese saw advancement and really pauses at the 1800s where the Chinese ran into a little bit of adaptive trouble. Ultimately, this information is some of the most solid I’ve ever come across. A few puzzling parts to the book were quickly reaffirmed after doing some minor research and Jacques proved to know what he was talking about. A passionate, economically-geared reader would thoroughly enjoy this read, but even those with the least of interest in the economic world would enjoy reading from the perspective of such a distinct expert figure.

Works Cited
Anderson, Perry. "LRB · Perry Anderson · Sinomania." London Review of Books. LRB, 28 Nov. 2010. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
Bristol. "Book Reviews – ‘When China Rules the World’ by Martin Jacques | Bristol Festival of Ideas." Bristol Festival of Ideas RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
Jacques, Martin. When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. New York: Penguin, 2009. Print.
Xu, Ting. "Book Review: When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin Jacques." LSE Review of Books. LSE, 16 June 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.