Author: Angela Zhang
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192561197
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
China's rise as an economic superpower has caused growing anxieties in the West. Europe is now applying stricter scrutiny over takeovers by Chinese state-owned giants, while the United States is imposing aggressive sanctions on leading Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, TikTok, and WeChat. Given the escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West, are there any hopeful prospects for economic globalization? In her compelling new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, Angela Zhang examines the most important and least understood tactic that China can deploy to counter western sanctions: antitrust law. Zhang reveals how China has transformed antitrust law into a powerful economic weapon, supplying theory and case studies to explain its strategic application over the course of the Sino-US tech war. Zhang also exposes the vast administrative discretion possessed by the Chinese government, showing how agencies can leverage the media to push forward aggressive enforcement. She further dives into the bureaucratic politics that spurred China's antitrust regulation, providing an incisive analysis of how divergent missions, cultures, and structures of agencies have shaped regulatory outcomes. More than a legal analysis, Zhang offers a political and economic study of our contemporary moment. She demonstrates that Chinese exceptionalism-as manifested in the way China regulates and is regulated, is reshaping global regulation and that future cooperation relies on the West comprehending Chinese idiosyncrasies and China achieving greater transparency through integration with its Western rivals.
Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism
Author: Angela Zhang
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192561197
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
China's rise as an economic superpower has caused growing anxieties in the West. Europe is now applying stricter scrutiny over takeovers by Chinese state-owned giants, while the United States is imposing aggressive sanctions on leading Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, TikTok, and WeChat. Given the escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West, are there any hopeful prospects for economic globalization? In her compelling new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, Angela Zhang examines the most important and least understood tactic that China can deploy to counter western sanctions: antitrust law. Zhang reveals how China has transformed antitrust law into a powerful economic weapon, supplying theory and case studies to explain its strategic application over the course of the Sino-US tech war. Zhang also exposes the vast administrative discretion possessed by the Chinese government, showing how agencies can leverage the media to push forward aggressive enforcement. She further dives into the bureaucratic politics that spurred China's antitrust regulation, providing an incisive analysis of how divergent missions, cultures, and structures of agencies have shaped regulatory outcomes. More than a legal analysis, Zhang offers a political and economic study of our contemporary moment. She demonstrates that Chinese exceptionalism-as manifested in the way China regulates and is regulated, is reshaping global regulation and that future cooperation relies on the West comprehending Chinese idiosyncrasies and China achieving greater transparency through integration with its Western rivals.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192561197
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
China's rise as an economic superpower has caused growing anxieties in the West. Europe is now applying stricter scrutiny over takeovers by Chinese state-owned giants, while the United States is imposing aggressive sanctions on leading Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, TikTok, and WeChat. Given the escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West, are there any hopeful prospects for economic globalization? In her compelling new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, Angela Zhang examines the most important and least understood tactic that China can deploy to counter western sanctions: antitrust law. Zhang reveals how China has transformed antitrust law into a powerful economic weapon, supplying theory and case studies to explain its strategic application over the course of the Sino-US tech war. Zhang also exposes the vast administrative discretion possessed by the Chinese government, showing how agencies can leverage the media to push forward aggressive enforcement. She further dives into the bureaucratic politics that spurred China's antitrust regulation, providing an incisive analysis of how divergent missions, cultures, and structures of agencies have shaped regulatory outcomes. More than a legal analysis, Zhang offers a political and economic study of our contemporary moment. She demonstrates that Chinese exceptionalism-as manifested in the way China regulates and is regulated, is reshaping global regulation and that future cooperation relies on the West comprehending Chinese idiosyncrasies and China achieving greater transparency through integration with its Western rivals.
Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism
Author: Angela Zhang
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198826567
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book explores the clash between antitrust, a body of law designed to address market failures in Western democracies, and China, an economic superpower under authoritarian control, analysing the challenges Chinese regulation poses to foreign companies and those faced by Chinese firms in complying with antitrust rules in foreign countries.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198826567
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book explores the clash between antitrust, a body of law designed to address market failures in Western democracies, and China, an economic superpower under authoritarian control, analysing the challenges Chinese regulation poses to foreign companies and those faced by Chinese firms in complying with antitrust rules in foreign countries.
China's Influence and American Interests
Author: Larry Diamond
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817922865
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817922865
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
While Americans are generally aware of China's ambitions as a global economic and military superpower, few understand just how deeply and assertively that country has already sought to influence American society. As the authors of this volume write, it is time for a wake-up call. In documenting the extent of Beijing's expanding influence operations inside the United States, they aim to raise awareness of China's efforts to penetrate and sway a range of American institutions: state and local governments, academic institutions, think tanks, media, and businesses. And they highlight other aspects of the propagandistic “discourse war” waged by the Chinese government and Communist Party leaders that are less expected and more alarming, such as their view of Chinese Americans as members of a worldwide Chinese diaspora that owes undefined allegiance to the so-called Motherland.Featuring ideas and policy proposals from leading China specialists, China's Influence and American Interests argues that a successful future relationship requires a rebalancing toward greater transparency, reciprocity, and fairness. Throughout, the authors also strongly state the importance of avoiding casting aspersions on Chinese and on Chinese Americans, who constitute a vital portion of American society. But if the United States is to fare well in this increasingly adversarial relationship with China, Americans must have a far better sense of that country's ambitions and methods than they do now.
The Rise of China and International Law
Author: Congyan Cai
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190073608
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
The rise of China signals a new chapter in international relations and international law. How China interacts with the international legal order--namely, how China utilizes international law to facilitate and justify its rise and how international law is relied upon to engage a rising China--has invited growing debate among academics and those in policy circles. This book, for the first time, provides a systematic and critical elaboration of the interplay between a rising China and international law.
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190073608
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
The rise of China signals a new chapter in international relations and international law. How China interacts with the international legal order--namely, how China utilizes international law to facilitate and justify its rise and how international law is relied upon to engage a rising China--has invited growing debate among academics and those in policy circles. This book, for the first time, provides a systematic and critical elaboration of the interplay between a rising China and international law.
Unlikely Partners
Author: Julian Gewirtz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497347X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
Unlikely Partners recounts the story of how Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked beyond their country’s borders for economic guidance at a key crossroads in the nation’s tumultuous twentieth century. Julian Gewirtz offers a dramatic tale of competition for influence between reformers and hardline conservatives during the Deng Xiaoping era, bringing to light China’s productive exchanges with the West. When Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors seized the opportunity to reassess the wisdom of China’s rigid commitment to Marxist doctrine. With Deng Xiaoping’s blessing, China’s economic gurus scoured the globe for fresh ideas that would put China on the path to domestic prosperity and ultimately global economic power. Leading foreign economists accepted invitations to visit China to share their expertise, while Chinese delegations traveled to the United States, Hungary, Great Britain, West Germany, Brazil, and other countries to examine new ideas. Chinese economists partnered with an array of brilliant thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, World Bank officials, battle-scarred veterans of Eastern Europe’s economic struggles, and blunt-speaking free-market fundamentalists. Nevertheless, the push from China’s senior leadership to implement economic reforms did not go unchallenged, nor has the Chinese government been eager to publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations. Even today, Chinese Communists decry dangerous Western influences and officially maintain that China’s economic reinvention was the Party’s achievement alone. Unlikely Partners sets forth the truer story, which has continuing relevance for China’s complex and far-reaching relationship with the West.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067497347X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
Unlikely Partners recounts the story of how Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked beyond their country’s borders for economic guidance at a key crossroads in the nation’s tumultuous twentieth century. Julian Gewirtz offers a dramatic tale of competition for influence between reformers and hardline conservatives during the Deng Xiaoping era, bringing to light China’s productive exchanges with the West. When Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors seized the opportunity to reassess the wisdom of China’s rigid commitment to Marxist doctrine. With Deng Xiaoping’s blessing, China’s economic gurus scoured the globe for fresh ideas that would put China on the path to domestic prosperity and ultimately global economic power. Leading foreign economists accepted invitations to visit China to share their expertise, while Chinese delegations traveled to the United States, Hungary, Great Britain, West Germany, Brazil, and other countries to examine new ideas. Chinese economists partnered with an array of brilliant thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, World Bank officials, battle-scarred veterans of Eastern Europe’s economic struggles, and blunt-speaking free-market fundamentalists. Nevertheless, the push from China’s senior leadership to implement economic reforms did not go unchallenged, nor has the Chinese government been eager to publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations. Even today, Chinese Communists decry dangerous Western influences and officially maintain that China’s economic reinvention was the Party’s achievement alone. Unlikely Partners sets forth the truer story, which has continuing relevance for China’s complex and far-reaching relationship with the West.
Regulating the Visible Hand?
Author: Benjamin L. Liebman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190250267
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
The economic and geopolitical implications of China's rise have been the subject of vast commentary. However, the institutional implications of China's transformative development under state capitalism have not been examined extensively and comprehensively. Regulating the Visible Hand? The Institutional Implications of Chinese State Capitalism examines the domestic and global consequences of Chinese state capitalism, focusing on the impact of state-owned enterprises on regulation and policy, while placing China's variety of state capitalism in comparative perspective. It first examines the domestic governance of Chinese state capitalism, looking at institutional design and regulatory policy in areas ranging from the environment and antitrust to corporate law and taxation. It then analyses the global consequences for the regulation of trade, investment and finance. Contributors address such questions as: What are the implications of state capitalism for China's domestic institutional trajectory? What are the global implications of Chinese state capitalism? What can be learned from a comparative analysis of state capitalism?
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190250267
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
The economic and geopolitical implications of China's rise have been the subject of vast commentary. However, the institutional implications of China's transformative development under state capitalism have not been examined extensively and comprehensively. Regulating the Visible Hand? The Institutional Implications of Chinese State Capitalism examines the domestic and global consequences of Chinese state capitalism, focusing on the impact of state-owned enterprises on regulation and policy, while placing China's variety of state capitalism in comparative perspective. It first examines the domestic governance of Chinese state capitalism, looking at institutional design and regulatory policy in areas ranging from the environment and antitrust to corporate law and taxation. It then analyses the global consequences for the regulation of trade, investment and finance. Contributors address such questions as: What are the implications of state capitalism for China's domestic institutional trajectory? What are the global implications of Chinese state capitalism? What can be learned from a comparative analysis of state capitalism?
China Dreams
Author: William A. Callahan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199339546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
After celebrating their country's three decades of fantastic economic success, many Chinese are now asking, "What comes next?" How can China convert its growing economic power into political and cultural influence around the globe? William A. Callahan's China Dreams gives voice to China's many different futures by exploring the grand aspirations and deep anxieties of a broad group of public intellectuals. Stepping outside the narrow politics of officials vs. dissidents, Callahan examines what a third group--"citizen intellectuals"--think about China's future. China Dreams eavesdrops on fascinating conversations between officials, scholars, soldiers, bloggers, novelists, film-makers and artists to see how they describe China's different political, strategic, economic, social and cultural futures. Callahan also examines how the PRC's new generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings is creatively questioning "The China Model" of economic development. The personal stories of these citizen intellectuals illustrate China's zeitgeist and a complicated mix of hopes and fears about "The Chinese Century," providing a clearer sense of how the PRC's dramatic economic and cultural transitions will affect the rest of the world. China Dreams explores the transnational connections between American and Chinese people, providing a new approach to Sino-American relations. While many assume that 21st century global politics will be a battle of Confucian China vs. the democratic west, Callahan weaves Chinese and American ideals together to describe a new "Chimerican dream."
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199339546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
Book Description
After celebrating their country's three decades of fantastic economic success, many Chinese are now asking, "What comes next?" How can China convert its growing economic power into political and cultural influence around the globe? William A. Callahan's China Dreams gives voice to China's many different futures by exploring the grand aspirations and deep anxieties of a broad group of public intellectuals. Stepping outside the narrow politics of officials vs. dissidents, Callahan examines what a third group--"citizen intellectuals"--think about China's future. China Dreams eavesdrops on fascinating conversations between officials, scholars, soldiers, bloggers, novelists, film-makers and artists to see how they describe China's different political, strategic, economic, social and cultural futures. Callahan also examines how the PRC's new generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings is creatively questioning "The China Model" of economic development. The personal stories of these citizen intellectuals illustrate China's zeitgeist and a complicated mix of hopes and fears about "The Chinese Century," providing a clearer sense of how the PRC's dramatic economic and cultural transitions will affect the rest of the world. China Dreams explores the transnational connections between American and Chinese people, providing a new approach to Sino-American relations. While many assume that 21st century global politics will be a battle of Confucian China vs. the democratic west, Callahan weaves Chinese and American ideals together to describe a new "Chimerican dream."
Chinese State Owned Enterprises and Eu Merger Control
Author: ALEXANDR. SVETLICINII
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367513252
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This book analyzes the specifics of corporate governance of China's State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and their assessment under EU merger control, which is reflected in the EU Commission's screening of the notified economic concentrations. Guided by the going global policy and the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese SOEs have expanded their global presence considerably. Driven by the need to acquire cutting edge technologies and other industrial policy considerations, Chinese SOEs have engaged in a series of corporate acquisitions in Europe. The main objective of this book is to demonstrate the conceptual and regulatory challenges of applying traditional merger assessment tools in cases involving Chinese SOEs due to the specifics in their corporate governance and the regulatory framework under which they operate in China. The book also explores the connection between the challenges experienced by the merger control regimes in the EU and the recent introduction of the EU foreign direct investment screening framework followed by a proposal concerning foreign subsidies. The book will be a useful guide for academics and researchers in the fields of law, international relations, political science, and political economy; legal practitioners dealing with cross-border mergers and acquisitions; national competition authorities and other public bodies carrying out merger control; policy makers, government officials, and diplomats in China and the EU engaged in bilateral economic relations.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367513252
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This book analyzes the specifics of corporate governance of China's State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and their assessment under EU merger control, which is reflected in the EU Commission's screening of the notified economic concentrations. Guided by the going global policy and the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese SOEs have expanded their global presence considerably. Driven by the need to acquire cutting edge technologies and other industrial policy considerations, Chinese SOEs have engaged in a series of corporate acquisitions in Europe. The main objective of this book is to demonstrate the conceptual and regulatory challenges of applying traditional merger assessment tools in cases involving Chinese SOEs due to the specifics in their corporate governance and the regulatory framework under which they operate in China. The book also explores the connection between the challenges experienced by the merger control regimes in the EU and the recent introduction of the EU foreign direct investment screening framework followed by a proposal concerning foreign subsidies. The book will be a useful guide for academics and researchers in the fields of law, international relations, political science, and political economy; legal practitioners dealing with cross-border mergers and acquisitions; national competition authorities and other public bodies carrying out merger control; policy makers, government officials, and diplomats in China and the EU engaged in bilateral economic relations.
Zucked
Author: Roger McNamee
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525561366
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
One of the Financial Times' Best Business Books of 2019 The New York Times bestseller about a noted tech venture capitalist, early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook investor, who wakes up to the serious damage Facebook is doing to our society—and sets out to try to stop it. If you had told Roger McNamee even three years ago that he would soon be devoting himself to stopping Facebook from destroying our democracy, he would have howled with laughter. He had mentored many tech leaders in his illustrious career as an investor, but few things had made him prouder, or been better for his fund's bottom line, than his early service to Mark Zuckerberg. Still a large shareholder in Facebook, he had every good reason to stay on the bright side. Until he simply couldn't. Zucked is McNamee's intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world's most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing. It's a story that begins with a series of rude awakenings. First there is the author's dawning realization that the platform is being manipulated by some very bad actors. Then there is the even more unsettling realization that Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are unable or unwilling to share his concerns, polite as they may be to his face. And then comes the election of Donald Trump, and the emergence of one horrific piece of news after another about the malign ends to which the Facebook platform has been put. To McNamee's shock, even still Facebook's leaders duck and dissemble, viewing the matter as a public relations problem. Now thoroughly alienated, McNamee digs into the issue, and fortuitously meets up with some fellow travelers who share his concern, and help him sharpen its focus. Soon he and a dream team of Silicon Valley technologists are charging into the fray, to raise consciousness about the existential threat of Facebook, and the persuasion architecture of the attention economy more broadly—to our public health and to our political order. Zucked is both an enthralling personal narrative and a masterful explication of the forces that have conspired to place us all on the horns of this dilemma. This is the story of a company and its leadership, but it's also a larger tale of a business sector unmoored from normal constraints, just at a moment of political and cultural crisis, the worst possible time to be given new tools for summoning the darker angels of our nature and whipping them into a frenzy. Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Roger McNamee happened to be in the right place to witness a crime, and it took him some time to make sense of what he was seeing and what we ought to do about it. The result of that effort is a wise, hard-hitting, and urgently necessary account that crystallizes the issue definitively for the rest of us.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525561366
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
One of the Financial Times' Best Business Books of 2019 The New York Times bestseller about a noted tech venture capitalist, early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, and Facebook investor, who wakes up to the serious damage Facebook is doing to our society—and sets out to try to stop it. If you had told Roger McNamee even three years ago that he would soon be devoting himself to stopping Facebook from destroying our democracy, he would have howled with laughter. He had mentored many tech leaders in his illustrious career as an investor, but few things had made him prouder, or been better for his fund's bottom line, than his early service to Mark Zuckerberg. Still a large shareholder in Facebook, he had every good reason to stay on the bright side. Until he simply couldn't. Zucked is McNamee's intimate reckoning with the catastrophic failure of the head of one of the world's most powerful companies to face up to the damage he is doing. It's a story that begins with a series of rude awakenings. First there is the author's dawning realization that the platform is being manipulated by some very bad actors. Then there is the even more unsettling realization that Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are unable or unwilling to share his concerns, polite as they may be to his face. And then comes the election of Donald Trump, and the emergence of one horrific piece of news after another about the malign ends to which the Facebook platform has been put. To McNamee's shock, even still Facebook's leaders duck and dissemble, viewing the matter as a public relations problem. Now thoroughly alienated, McNamee digs into the issue, and fortuitously meets up with some fellow travelers who share his concern, and help him sharpen its focus. Soon he and a dream team of Silicon Valley technologists are charging into the fray, to raise consciousness about the existential threat of Facebook, and the persuasion architecture of the attention economy more broadly—to our public health and to our political order. Zucked is both an enthralling personal narrative and a masterful explication of the forces that have conspired to place us all on the horns of this dilemma. This is the story of a company and its leadership, but it's also a larger tale of a business sector unmoored from normal constraints, just at a moment of political and cultural crisis, the worst possible time to be given new tools for summoning the darker angels of our nature and whipping them into a frenzy. Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Roger McNamee happened to be in the right place to witness a crime, and it took him some time to make sense of what he was seeing and what we ought to do about it. The result of that effort is a wise, hard-hitting, and urgently necessary account that crystallizes the issue definitively for the rest of us.
America Through Foreign Eyes
Author: Jorge G. Castañeda
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190224495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
"Foreigners have been writing about the United States ever since its foundation. Now it is my turn. But please don't hold this against me: the United States itself is at fault. Like a great many people on earth, I've long been fascinated by this remarkable phenomenon which calls itself America. My fate -or perhaps good fortune- has been that of a foreigner who for half a century lived the American experience-as a child, as a student, as an author, as a recurrent visitor and as a university professor. Being Mexican places me in a special category: having lost half its territory to the United States in the 19th century, having found itself caught up in the maelstrom of America's current identity crisis, Mexico can never ignore what happens north of the border. Further, while serving as Mexico's Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2003, I had the privilege of peeping inside the machinery of power that makes this great nation tick. That said, this book is not written from a Mexican perspective but rather from that of a sympathetic foreign critic who has seen the United States from both inside and outside. And its hope is to contribute something to how Americans view themselves and are viewed by the world. Before embarking on this journey, I naturally looked back at some of my forebears, earlier foreigners who were drawn to visit or live in the United States and who then went on to offer their version of America to their home readers. Some like the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the early 19th century classic, Democracy in America, felt European nations had much to learn from the American democratic experiment. Others like Charles Dickens left dismayed by what he considered to be the country's singular obsession with money. But they are just two of dozens who have tried-and continue to try- to find a magic key that unlocks the complexities and contradictions of American society. Indeed, it is as if the United States seeks to challenge foreign writers to explain it, confident they will fail. And in taking it on, these outsiders have variously experienced frustration, hope, anger, excitement, disappointment and enlightenment- but never indifference"--
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190224495
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
"Foreigners have been writing about the United States ever since its foundation. Now it is my turn. But please don't hold this against me: the United States itself is at fault. Like a great many people on earth, I've long been fascinated by this remarkable phenomenon which calls itself America. My fate -or perhaps good fortune- has been that of a foreigner who for half a century lived the American experience-as a child, as a student, as an author, as a recurrent visitor and as a university professor. Being Mexican places me in a special category: having lost half its territory to the United States in the 19th century, having found itself caught up in the maelstrom of America's current identity crisis, Mexico can never ignore what happens north of the border. Further, while serving as Mexico's Foreign Minister from 2000 to 2003, I had the privilege of peeping inside the machinery of power that makes this great nation tick. That said, this book is not written from a Mexican perspective but rather from that of a sympathetic foreign critic who has seen the United States from both inside and outside. And its hope is to contribute something to how Americans view themselves and are viewed by the world. Before embarking on this journey, I naturally looked back at some of my forebears, earlier foreigners who were drawn to visit or live in the United States and who then went on to offer their version of America to their home readers. Some like the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the early 19th century classic, Democracy in America, felt European nations had much to learn from the American democratic experiment. Others like Charles Dickens left dismayed by what he considered to be the country's singular obsession with money. But they are just two of dozens who have tried-and continue to try- to find a magic key that unlocks the complexities and contradictions of American society. Indeed, it is as if the United States seeks to challenge foreign writers to explain it, confident they will fail. And in taking it on, these outsiders have variously experienced frustration, hope, anger, excitement, disappointment and enlightenment- but never indifference"--