A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy »

Sara Bongiorni is an experienced journalist who has worked at daily newspapers and regional business publications in California and Louisiana for the past decade. Her "beat" included international trade and its impact on local economies. Bongiorni has won local, state, and national awards for her articles, including a 2002 Best in Business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for her part in a series on the impact of out-migration on the Louisiana economy. Bongiorni graduated from the University of California, San Diego, and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Indiana at Bloomington.

"The image of China as the beast of the Far East is well entrenched. But that doesn't necessarily mean the reality matches the popular perception. So, is China really the economic steamroller we think it is? Even more importantly, could we really live without Chinese goods? That is the question asked by Sara Bongiorni in her book, A Year Without 'Made in China.'"

—From the Foreword by Joel L. Naroff, PhD

President, Naroff Economic Advisors, Inc.

Chief Economist, Commerce Bank

On January 1, 2005, Sara Bongiorni's family embarked on a yearlong boycott of Chinese products. They wanted to see for themselves what it would take, in will power and creativity, to live without the world's fastest growing economy—and whether it could be done at all.

A Year Without "Made in China" chronicles this fascinating and frustrating journey, and provides you with a thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining account of life in a vast and slippery global economy of infinite complexity. Drawing on her years as an award-winning journalist, Bongiorni fills this book with engaging stories and anecdotes of her family's attempt to outrun China's reach, and does a remarkable job of taking a decidedly big-picture issue—China's emerging status in the global economy—and breaking it down to a personal level.

Bongiorni's real-world adventure is filled with small human dramas. You'll learn how her boycott of China meant scrambling to keep her rebellious husband in line and disappointing her young son in stand-offs over Chinese-made toys. You'll also discover how shopping trips for mundane items like birthday candles as well as high-end designer clothing became grinding ordeals, while broken appliances brought on mini crises.

A Year Without "Made in China" reveals how this manufacturing colossus is quietly changing our lives, but it also addresses the realities of globalization and, more importantly, where the world economy is heading. With low wages and government subsidies fueling China's rapid production of consumer goods, countries and companies around the world will soon face the inconvenient fact that they must rely on this economic giant in order to survive—and this book offers a rare glimpse of what that could be like.

See for yourself how the most populous nation on Earth influences almost every aspect of our daily lives and why this situation is both limiting and expanding our options when it comes to the products a majority of us take for granted.

The Washington Post - Susan L. Shirk

…more Erma Bombeck than Tom Friedman. Bongiorni struggles to explain why she imposed the private boycott on her family. She insists that it is not a political protest on behalf of U.S. workers and "nothing personal" against China. Her great-great-grandfather was Chinese, so she says she can't be guilty of anti-Chinese prejudice. In the end, Bongiorni wonderfully articulates the ambivalence that many Americans feel toward China's modernization: "When I see the words Made in China, part of me says, Good for China, while another part feels sentimental about something I've lost, but I'm not sure what exactly."

Foreword     ix
Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction     1
Farewell, My Concubine     5
Red Shoes     31
Rise and China     47
Manufacturing Dissent     63
A Modest Proposal     79
Mothers of Invention     95
Summer of Discontent     111
Red Tide     127
China Dreams     141
Meltdown     155
The China Season     175
Road's End     191
Epilogue     219
About the Author     229
Index     231