In 1962, Edward Wong's father, disillusioned with Communism, fled China for Hong Kong and later the USA. From then on, he rarely spoke of his homeland, or his years crisscrossing the country in Mao's People's Liberation Army. Much later, Edward became Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, and was drawn into investigating his father's past even as he assessed a resurgent China under Xi Jinping.

Witnessing civil rights struggles in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, Wong reached a deeper understanding of his family and the nation. This chronicle of nearly a century of momentous change reveals China as it catapulted into the superpower age.