China has awakened, and Shanghai, its showpiece metropolis, is fully caffeinated. The city's skyline is a whimsical world of bizarre structures, ranging from skyscrapers shaped like giant bottle openers and ballistic missiles, to luxury hotels topped with flowered crowns and flying saucers.

Shanghai places China's development and its effects on the world into context, offering insight into how the country arrived where it is today and why it is building massive infrastructure projects with tremendous social and environmental impact. This is the story of a city straining toward tomorrow, and of an American trying to understand China by observing how its citizens live and what they want. Set against a backdrop of eye-popping urban transformation, as the city scrambles to reinvent itself for the World Expo, Shanghai offers readers a glimpse beyond the spectacle and into the lives of the people.