In Breakneck (2025), tech analyst Dan Wang dissects the dramatic contrast between two superpowers—China, racing ahead with breathtaking infrastructure and manufacturing might, and the United States, mired in legal red tape and stagnation. Drawing on years spent living in China, Wang offers a rare, firsthand account of an “engineering state” that can build entire cities in a decade—yet controls its people with chilling precision. Meanwhile, America’s “lawyerly society” protects individual rights but struggles to build bridges, both literal and metaphorical. Wang argues that each country holds the key to what the other lacks: China must embrace freedom, while the U.S. must rediscover its will to build. Through stories of bridges, factories, lockdowns, and exodus, Breakneck exposes the human cost of progress—and the race to define the 21st century.
Would you trade liberty for speed—or safety for stagnation? Wang’s exploration shows why both choices come with a price.
