“He (Bresnahan-a potter interviewed in the book) described a recent trip to China. In every city he visited, he witnessed alarmingly high levels of inhumanity, pollution, and industrial development 'without any stepping back and saying, "How did we get here?" and "Where are we going?" He described what he witnessed in China as the turning from the 'propaganda of communism to the propaganda of absolute consumerism with not even skipping a beat.”