Focus on China

China explores the history, culture, and people of a nation that spans vast regions of Asia and, with its population of 1.3 billion people, serves as home to one-fifth of the world's population. China's landscapes include almost every feature imaginable - mountains, high plateaus, deserts, forests, and river plains, and its natural resources are abundant. One of the world's oldest civilizations - its dynasties stretch back to the third century B.C. - China has for centuries been a source of some of the most admired art, architecture, literature, and cuisine the world has known. Since becoming the People's Republic of China after World War II, the world's largest communist society has undergone huge social, political, and economic changes. Boasting one of the world's largest economies and showing itself increasingly capable of surviving and succeeding in a world dominated by capitalist economies, China continues to face the challenge of providing its own increasingly urban population with food and services. Book jacket.