Breakneck
China's Quest to Engineer the Future
Published on 26. August 2025
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-324-10603-6 (ISBN)
Description
For close to a decade, technology analyst Dan Wang-"a gifted observer of contemporary China" (Ross Douthat)-has been living through the country's astonishing, messy progress. China's towering bridges, gleaming railways, and sprawling factories have improved economic outcomes in record time. But rapid change has also sent ripples of pain throughout the society. This reality-political repression and astonishing growth-is not a paradox, but rather a feature of China's engineering mindset.
In Breakneck, Wang blends political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a provocative new framework for understanding China-one that helps us see America more clearly, too. While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, the United States has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad
Blending razor-sharp analysis with immersive storytelling, Wang offers a gripping portrait of a nation in flux. Breakneck traverses metropolises like Shanghai, Chongqing, and Shenzhen, where the engineering state has created not only dazzling infrastructure but also a sense of optimism. The book also exposes the downsides of social engineering, including the surveillance of ethnic minorities, political suppression, and the traumas of the one-child policy and zero-Covid.
In an era of animosity and mistrust, Wang unmasks the shocking similarities between the United States and China. Breakneck reveals how each country points toward a better path for the other: Chinese citizens would be better off if their government could learn to value individual liberties, while Americans would be better off if their government could learn to embrace engineering-and to produce better outcomes for the many, not just the few.
In Breakneck, Wang blends political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal a provocative new framework for understanding China-one that helps us see America more clearly, too. While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, the United States has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad
Blending razor-sharp analysis with immersive storytelling, Wang offers a gripping portrait of a nation in flux. Breakneck traverses metropolises like Shanghai, Chongqing, and Shenzhen, where the engineering state has created not only dazzling infrastructure but also a sense of optimism. The book also exposes the downsides of social engineering, including the surveillance of ethnic minorities, political suppression, and the traumas of the one-child policy and zero-Covid.
In an era of animosity and mistrust, Wang unmasks the shocking similarities between the United States and China. Breakneck reveals how each country points toward a better path for the other: Chinese citizens would be better off if their government could learn to value individual liberties, while Americans would be better off if their government could learn to embrace engineering-and to produce better outcomes for the many, not just the few.
Reviews / Votes
"[A] brilliant book-equal parts gripping and depressing." -- Tunku Varadarajan - Wall Street Journal "Breakneck reads as a warning. The book's title seems to refer to China's speedy growth. But it might also apply to the US; after all, it's what can happen when you slip." -- Christopher Beam - Bloomberg "[Wang] deftly mixes data-rich analysis with vivid personal anecdotes and punchy opinions. His book is both a fascinating exploration of China's strengths and weaknesses, as well as a searing critique of how a self-harming American leadership could lose the technological arms race to its rival. " -- John Thornhill - Financial Times "A landmark work. . . Wang's writing is lucid, his insights are original, and his ability to bridge empirical observation with philosophical reflection makes this book essential reading for anyone concerned with the strategic implications of China's rise." -- Jean-Thomas Nicole - The Cipher Brief "If you want to know what is driving today's China or America, Chinese-Canadian analyst Dan Wang's new book is an indispensable guide. Wang shows that the world's most urgent and challenging twenty-first-century task may be to forge a synthesis of the best of China and America, while avoiding the worst of each." -- J. Bradford DeLong - Project Syndicate "An illuminating account of China's dizzying rise and its deepening pathologies." -- Chris Miller, author of Chip War "The best recent book on China, on China and America, and arguably the best book of the year flat out. It is marvelously written and brilliantly understands the dilemmas of our modern world." -- Tyler Cowen "Dan Wang is an indispensable voice on China issues because he has the rarest combination of precious resources: deep knowledge and unflinching judgment. Half of his mind runs on philosophy; the other half runs on engineering. If Dan did not already exist, we would need to invent him for precisely this day and age." -- Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition "Dan Wang is able to illuminate China like no one else, and his annual letters have long been mandatory reading in Silicon Valley. Breakneck expands this analysis and delivers a simultaneously riveting and revelatory account of one of the most important topics of our time." -- Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe "Simply one of the best China writers out there. . . an incredibly thoughtful, holistic and engaging work on one of the biggest stories of our time." -- Tracy Alloway, co-host of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast "In analyzing China, Wang's vivid, often autobiographical reporting delivers." -- City Journal "A timely meditation on technology and governance-and a rollicking read, to boot." -- Eva Dou, author of House of Huawei "A must-read book on the intense competition between the United States and China for global leadership in the twenty-first century." -- Julian Gewirtz, former White House Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs and author of Never Turn Back "A brilliant book about how China got ahead, how the United States stagnated, and the challenges that both will face in the future." -- Odd Arne Westad, professor of history at Yale University and co-author of The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform "Dan Wang comes bearing an uncomfortable truth that Americans need to hear: China builds, while America argues. And if we don't change that situation, and learn how to build things again, China is going to win the next century." -- Noah Smith, writer at Noahpinion "Dan Wang is one of the deepest thinkers and most careful observers of the world that I know. His letters are extremely thought-provoking and worth the read." -- Ben Thompson, founder of Stratechery "China outpaces and outproduces the United States in a growing number of high-tech fields. With his trademark mix of personal observation and objective analysis, Dan Wang explains not only what is happening, but why. The result is a tour de force essential for policymakers, academics, investors and entrepreneurs." -- Rush Doshi, assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University and C.V. Starr senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
470 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-324-10603-6 (9781324106036)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2025
W. W. Norton & Company
€29.99
Available for download
Person
Dan Wang is a research fellow at the Hoover History Lab at Stanford University. He was previously a fellow at the Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center and the technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. Dan is the author of an annual letter from China and has published essays in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Financial Times, New York Magazine, and The Atlantic.