In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia Karl Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China’s competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China’s rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world. This change is already well under way. China has become the world’s largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.

葛凯(Karl Gerth) 2000年获哈佛大学历史学博士学位，，师从著名的中国研究权威学者孔非力教授，专业方向为近现代中国史。现为英国牛津大学大学历史系副教授。作者与中国的情缘始自1986年，当时他作为一个大学生在南京大学和北京大学学习中文。此后他几乎每年都到访中国，或游学或研究。其间为研究民国史，他在台湾生活了三年。此外，为完成博士论文，他还到日本东京大学专门学习、研究了两年的中国近现代史。

葛凯主要研究现代中国的消费主义与消费文化，一方面集中考察消费文化在20世纪中国的变迁；另一方面则以1950年代为关注焦点，考察中国的城市市场文化在这一阶段是如何被摧毁的，并揭示这一阶段的国际冷战如何反映在中国人的日常生活中。

他的第一本著作《制造中国：消费文化与民族国家的创建》2003年在哈佛大学出版之后，好评如潮，去年由北京大学出版社出版了中文版，受到了学界和读者的一致好评。目前他在继续研究1950年代和1980年代以来中国的消费文化，从历史的层面考察在不同的历史时期中国的消费文化与冷战或全球化的关系。