"In recent decades, as China has laid down vast networks of high-speed rail and thrown up shimmering cities, Americans have developed a deepening sense that their own country struggles to get things done. In this ambitious account, Wang, a technology analyst with a journalist's eye for color, uses studies of Chinese innovation to show how the two countries' diverging paths and pathologies can be traced to their political cultures."
"Chinese leaders tend to be engineers who are capable of grand projects but liable to run roughshod over individual rights. The U.S., on the other hand, has become a society of lawyers, better at miring public infrastructure in proceduralism than at creating it. China's example can remind Americans to treasure their country's pluralism, Wang suggests, while also teaching them something about how to build."
"Carpets are "some of the world's greatest symbols of authority and control," Armstrong, a scholar of material culture, argues in this vivid history. She makes her case through profiles of twelve noteworthy specimens, including one frozen in the tomb of a Scythian chieftain; one photographed under the feet of Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference, in 1945; and one crafted into a coat for a feudal Japanese warlord."
"including one photographed under the feet of Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference, in 1945; and one crafted into a coat for a feudal Japanese warlord. The stories are fraught with violence and colonialism: Persian rugs, for instance, gained their glittering reputation in part from Victorian-era racial hierarchies. But Armstrong draws attention to the carpets' original weavers, often female and illiterate, whose artistry remains a source of awe."
In recent decades China has built vast networks of high-speed rail and new cities, producing a sense that the United States struggles to accomplish large projects. Chinese political culture favors leaders with engineering backgrounds who can execute grand undertakings but may override individual rights. U.S. political culture has professionalized legalism, producing procedural obstacles that mire infrastructure projects. China’s example highlights the value of pluralism while offering lessons about construction and coordination. Carpets function as potent symbols of authority and control, with histories that include violence, colonialism, and Victorian racial hierarchies, yet preserve the often-overlooked artistry of predominantly female, often illiterate, original weavers.
Read at The New Yorker
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