After living in China for five years, and learning the language, Peter Hessler decided to undertake an even more complicated endeavor: he acquired his Chinese driving licence. An eye-opening, often hilarious, at times maddening challenge, it enabled him to embark on an epic journey driving across this most enigmatic of countries. Over seven years, he travels to places rarely explored by those outside China, into the factories exporting their goods to the world and into the homes of their workers. Full of extraordinary encounters and details of life beyond Beijing, it is an unforgettable, unique portrait of the country that will likely shape all our lives in the century to come.