Rob Gifford first went to China in 1987, as a 20- year-old undergraduate, to study the Chinese language. He has spent much of the last 20 years living in and reporting on the rise of China, most recently as Beijing Correspondent of National Public Radio. In his book, China Road, he records a two-month journey along Route 312, the Chinese equivalent of Route 66. The road flows three-thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down. Gifford tells the story of his journey through the lives of the colorful Chinese characters he meets along the way: garrulous talk show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell phone salesmen, AIDS patients and Tibetan monks. Using the road trip as a prism to view modern China, he asks bigger questions too: about where China is going, about who the Chinese people are, and about whether we in the West should be concerned about China’s rise. Now NPR's London correspondent, Gifford served as NPR's China correspondent from 1999-2005. Gifford holds degrees in Chinese Studies from Durham University (UK) and Regional Studies (East Asia) from Harvard University. A Nebraska Colloquium event.