The modern history of China is phenomenally interesting. If you want a good overview, read "China Since 1919: Revolution and Reform". It covers the last centu

The modern history of China is phenomenally interesting. If you want a good overview, read "China Since 1919: Revolution and Reform". It covers the last century using almost entirely primary source texts--interesting primary source texts--since there's surely no better way to learn what Mao was saying than to read what Mao was saying. For a more analysis-based approach, there's also Schoppa's "Revolution and its Past." Today's China, regardless of its successes, is in part the result of many years of mistakes, some avoidable, some not, which have led to all sorts of problems. A somewhat telling example is the case of scientific research. The Communists were always obsessed with science and technology, especially Mao, as they realized its critical importance in terms of becoming a world power, and it fit their worldview in terms of the importance of production. But Mao was also deeply distrusting of intellectuals, which didn't fit well with the concept of institutionalized science for obvious reasons. Mao also strongly disagreed with the concept of "basic research"--that is, research that advances the core knowledge of science--research necessary for future, more-applied research. Today, despite decades of attempts to increase the number of graduates in technical fields and improve science, the current system is surprisingly awful. They spend enormous sums of money on new facilities and then don't even have the funds to staff them. Scientists quickly learn to focus on publishing as many papers as possible for recognition, even if it means making each individual one nearly useless. There are very very few first-class scientists relative to the number of researchers as a whole--and much like the situation 60 years ago, many of these first-class researchers were trained abroad anyways. Despite enormous expenditures, Chinese science is still, to some extent, going nowhere. One theory is that the Chinese government still doesn't fully understand how science works--that you cannot merely throw money at big, expensive labs and have discoveries just "happen." Often it seems like here in America the politicians don't understand this either...