Niall ferguson travels through this vast country to ask how a fifth of humanity can live under a communist system of government with what looks like a capitalist economy. He tracks down the people who can really explain the new china, from newly minted billionaires in china's megacities to survivors of the madness of chairman mao. Traveling the length and breadth of the middle kingdom, he reveals the enduring importance of confucian philosophy and imperial bureaucracy in the way that china works. But he is startled by the persistence of the mao cult, despite all the millions of lives lost in the great leap forward and the cultural revolution. Finally, after a visit to china's african empire, he answers the questions that should concern all of us will this turn out to be the chinese century? Should we be scared? Or will the red dragon crash and burn?