The Economic Transformation of China is a collection of essays written by an eminent observer of the Chinese economy. The book covers the Chinese transformation beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the second decade of the twenty-first century. It includes an analysis of the forces that held China back before 1949, the nature of the economy as it operated under the Soviet model of development, and the transformation since 1978 into a “socialist market economy.” The essays of the post-1978 era reflect the author's view of the state of the reform effort at the time the essay was written and carries the story up to the 2012–2013 slowdown in economic growth.