Beijing
Capital of China.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakneck | Dan Wang | subject | Dreary, controlling capital that stands for the engineering state. |
| Not the End of the World | Hannah Ritchie | subject | The chapter opens on Beijing’s ‘airpocalypse’. |
Sub-places
Breakneck — Dan Wang (2025)
Source: Readwise highlight
Beijing enthralls not because it is nice but because it isn’t. By most measures, life in Beijing is dreary.
- Role: subject
- In the book: The introduction starts in Beijing as China’s most riveting city: dusty, arid, laid out with avenues fit for army parades and with its liveliest places bricked up, yet a city of gravity that draws the country’s smartest people. For the rest of the book it stands for the Party and the central government.
- Why it matters: It sets up the book’s picture of the engineering state and its urge to control the future.
Not the End of the World — Hannah Ritchie (2024)
Source: Not the End of the World · Readwise highlight
For years, Beijing was near the top of the list for ‘most polluted city in the world’. It had become the poster child for global air pollution, especially in the Western media.
- Role: subject
- In the book: The chapter opens on Beijing’s ‘airpocalypse’. It describes the 2008 Summer Olympics, the temporary measures taken beforehand, public anger by 2013, and the 2014 ‘war on pollution’ after which pollution fell 55% between 2013 and 2020.
- Why it matters: Beijing is the chapter’s opening case study of how a citizenry can force rapid air-quality improvement; the author returns to it at the chapter’s end. Another city would change the specifics but the lesson would stand.