VIDEO: China Scholar James Fallows Speaks at Oxy

“One hundred years from now, when the West is looking at why China is where it is, historians will read Fallows.” That’s the sole blurb on the back cover of Postcards From Tomorrow Square: Reports From China, a 2009 book of essays by the renowned writer James Fallows that reminds us why so much of history would scarcely be possible without good journalism.

Few people anywhere know China better than Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic monthly magazine for the past 25 years and a former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter. Fallows gave two talks yesterday at , proving that his talent for lucid and sharply observed storytelling isn't limited to the written page. The first event, titled "Writing and Living in Asia: A Conversation With Jim and Debbie Fallows," was an informal afternoon discussion that Fallows held with his wife Deborah. The second talk, an evening lecture to a wider audience, was titled "Understanding the China Challenge."

Of the dozen essays about China in Fallows’ book—his ninth so far—the author's personal favorite is a 2007 dispatch for The Atlantic. Poetically titled “China Makes, The World Takes,” it’s a prescient and frequently brilliant account of the economic juggernaut that’s China—a theme that few people understand better than Fallows.