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Peter Hessler

    June 14, 1969

    Peter Hessler is an author whose work delves into the depths of Chinese society and culture. His reportage is valued for its authenticity, detailed observational skills, and profound understanding of human destinies within the context of a rapidly changing world. Hessler captures daily life and significant societal transformations with remarkable empathy and precision, offering readers a fascinating glimpse into contemporary China.

    Other Rivers
    Strange stones : dispatches from East and West
    Oracle Bones
    River town: Two years on the Yangtze
    Country driving
    The Buried
    • 2024

      Other Rivers

      A Chinese Education

      • 464 pages
      • 17 hours of reading

      This intimate eyewitness account explores the experiences of two generations of students in China's heartland, revealing how the country's education system reflects its tumultuous changes. Through personal narratives, the book delves into the challenges and transformations faced by students, offering a unique perspective on the broader societal shifts occurring in China.

      Other Rivers
    • 2019

      The Buried

      • 480 pages
      • 17 hours of reading
      4.4(103)Add rating

      Drawn by an abiding fascination with Egypt's rich history and civilization, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo to explore a place that had a powerful hold over his imagination. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, research ancient history, and visit the legendary archaeological digs. After years of covering China for "The New Yorker," friends warned him it would be a much quieter place. But just before his arrival, the Arab Spring had reached Egypt and the country was in chaos. In the midst of the revolution, he attached himself to an important archaeological dig at a site rich in royal tombs known in as al-Madfuna, or "The Buried." He and his wife set out to master Arabic, striking up an important friendship with their language instructor, a cynical political sophisticate named Rifaat. And a very different kind of friendship was formed with their garbage collector, an illiterate neighborhood character named Saaed, whose access to the trash of Cairo would be its own kind of archaeological excavation. Along the way, he meets a family of Chinese small business owners who have cornered the nation's lingerie trade; their pragmatic view of the political crisis is a bracing counterpoint to the West's conventional wisdom. Through the lives of these and other ordinary people in a time of tragedy and heartache, and through connections between contemporary Egypt and its ancient past, Hessler creates an astonishing portrait of a country and its people. What emerges is a book of uncompromising intelligence and humanity -- the story of a land in which a weak state has collapsed but its underlying society remains in many ways painfully the same

      The Buried
    • 2018

      Networked Public

      Social Media and Social Change in Contemporary China

      • 318 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      This book coins the term “Networked Public” to describe the active social actors in new media ecology. The author argues that, in today’s network society, Networked Public Communication is different than, yet has similarities with, mass communication and interpersonal communication. As such it is the emergent paradigm for research. The book reviews the historical, technological and social context for the rising of Networked Public, analyzes its constituents and characteristics, and discusses the categories and features of social media in China. By analyzing abundant cases from recent years, the book provides answers to the key questions at micro, meso and macro-levels, including how information flows under regulation in the process of Networked Public Communication; what its features and models are; what collective action strategies and“resistance culture”have been developed as a result of Internet regulate; the nature of power games among Networked Public, mass media, political forces and capital, and the links with the development of Chinese civil society.

      Networked Public
    • 2013

      Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage—a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions. This unusual perspective distinguishes Strange Stones, which showcases Hessler’s unmatched range as a storyteller. “Wild Flavor” invites readers along on a taste test between two rat restaurants in South China. One story profiles Yao Ming, basketball star and China’s most beloved export, another David Spindler, an obsessive and passionate historian of the Great Wall. In “Dr. Don,” Hessler writes movingly about a small-town pharmacist and his relationship with the people he serves. While Hessler’s subjects and locations vary, subtle but deeply important thematic links bind these pieces—the strength of local traditions, the surprising overlap between apparently opposing cultures, and the powerful lessons drawn from individuals who straddle different worlds.

      Strange stones : dispatches from East and West
    • 2010

      Country driving

      • 550 pages
      • 20 hours of reading
      4.3(6657)Add rating

      From the bestselling author of "Oracle Bones" and "River Town" comes the final book in his award-winning China trilogy, reporting on the human side of the economic revolution in China.

      Country driving
    • 2006

      Oracle Bones

      • 528 pages
      • 19 hours of reading
      4.2(6245)Add rating

      A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China's transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

      Oracle Bones
    • 2001

      River town: Two years on the Yangtze

      • 416 pages
      • 15 hours of reading
      4.3(12192)Add rating

      When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex process of understanding that takes place when one is thrust into a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial consturction of the Three Gorges Dam have affected even the people of a remote town like Fuling. Poignant, thoughtful and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a place caught mid-river in time, much like China itself - a country seeking to understand both what it was and what it will one day become.

      River town: Two years on the Yangtze
    • 1996

      This introductory management text distills core management topics into 13 user-friendly chapters. Content is augmented by experiential exercises (one per chapter) and "in-basket" exercises.

      Management Responsibility for Performance