Ye Haiyan is labeled a trouble maker by the Chinese government. Someone who embarrasses the state, for example, with public protests involving the civil rights of sex workers. She travels to Hainan Province to protest a case in which sexual mistreatment of elementary-age school girls by their principal has gone unprosecuted.

The danger is palpable as maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues travel to Hainan Province in southern China to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers'...

Michael Wood has traveled the length and breadth of China, the world's oldest civilization and longest lasting state, to tell a thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity, and deep humanity that stretches back thousands of years. After a century and a half of foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution, China has once again returned to center stage as a global superpower and the world's second largest economy. But how did it become so dominant?...