About

I’m a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Previously, I was a fellow at the Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, and before that, I covered technology at Gavekal Dragonomics. For the better part of a decade, I’ve been trying to figure out China’s technology capabilities while I lived in Hong Kong, Beijing, and then Shanghai. I go on podcasts and have written for several magazines. This site features my personal essays.

My book BREAKNECK: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future was published August 2025 by W. W. Norton in the US and Penguin in the UK. I think of it as seven annual letters — six on China, one on the US. Breakneck was a New York Times #3 bestseller and was longlisted for the FT/Schroders book of the year 2025.

I live in Ann Arbor and Palo Alto. I grew up in Canada and have lived in Toronto, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Rochester, Freiburg im Breisgau, San Francisco, Kunming, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and New Haven. I’ve also worked at Flexport, Shopify, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I studied philosophy at the University of Rochester in New York. In an earlier life, I was a Royal Canadian Army Cadet in Ottawa. The “secure transport of light” is one of my favorite phrases. It refers to both to optic cables (which make modern communications possible) and semiconductors (which make modern electronics possible). We can thank Alexander Graham Bell for allowing us to speak from one side of the Atlantic ocean to the other, through coils of sunbeams under the seas. Isn’t that a wonderful image?

Reach out and say hi: danwyd@g and @danwwang. My literary agent is Toby Mundy of Aevitas UK. For speaking inquiries, I am represented by the Stern Strategy Group: inquiries@SternStrategy.com

Letters

I write a reflection letter:

Writing

A few other favorites on this site:

I’ve also written for a few other places:

Podcasts

I go on the odd podcast:

Books I Like

The books I liked since around the time I started college. I sometimes earn an Amazon affiliate commission from links I include in my pieces.

What should I read next? Email me: danwyd@g

  • Stendhal, The Red and the Black
  • Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
  • Melville, Moby-Dick
  • Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture
  • Wharton, The House of Mirth
  • Ross, The Rest is Noise
    • Runs through the personalities of the 20th century. My favorite book on music.
  • Proust, Swann’s Way, trans. Lydia Davis
  • Thiel & Masters, CS 183 notes & Zero to One (related essay)
    • If you must pick one, read the lecture notes. The radicalism of the ideas were mainstreamed for the book.
  • Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, The Strategy of Conflict
  • Mann, 1491
  • Cowen, Discover Your Inner Economist
  • Mallaby, More Money Than God
  • Adelman, Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman
  • Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma
  • Ridley, The Rational Optimist
  • Plato, Dialogues
    • In particular Crito and Phaedo.
  • Cowen, The Great Stagnation & Average is Over
  • Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities
  • Fontane, Effi Briest (trans. Ritchie Robertson)
    • There’s so much nuance; the most exciting plot detail isn’t even described, only discussed afterwards.
  • Balzac, Cousin Bette
  • Zweig, Beware of Pity
  • Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism
    • Details the rise of the American libertarian movement. Serious study, but the personalities are so crazy that it’s fun to read.
  • Shakespeare: Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, Othello
  • Duffy, The World as I Found It
    • A novel about the interactions of Russell, Wittgenstein, and G.E. Moore. Very fun.
  • Kafka, The Castle, The Metamorphosis, assorted short stories
  • Nabokov, Lolita
  • Zola, Germinal
  • Wharton, The Age of Innocence
  • Cowen & Grandin, Thinking Differently
  • Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Monroe: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship
  • McCloskey, Bourgeois Virtues & Bourgeois Dignity
    • First 50 pages of the Apology in Virtues is most worth reading.
  • Lewis, Liar’s Poker
  • St. Aubyn, Patrick Melrose series
  • When I was little I read most of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. I really liked them, but haven’t picked any of them up again.

(Chronological from here…)

  • Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
    • A lot of science wrapped in a thrilling story.
  • Cowen, An Economist Gets Lunch
  • Cirincione, Bomb Scare
  • Rilke, Duino Elegies, trans. Stephen Mitchell
  • Judt, Memory Chalet
    • Excellent essays on growing up in ’50s/’60s Europe.
  • Mann, The Magic Mountain, trans. J.E. Woods
    • First 150 pages or so are boring, but it picks up. The ruminations on death/dying make it worth it.
  • Glass, Music Without Words: A Memoir (related essay)
  • Stephenson, The Diamond Age
    • Far better I feel than Snow Crash
  • Palaver, René Girard’s Mimetic Theory (related essay)
  • George, Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping
    • I love ships and ships love me back. This is pretty much the perfect nonfiction book: many, many interesting facts weaved into a narrative story; and it’s slim, and doesn’t go overboard with too much detail.
  • PKD, The Man in the High Castle
  • Stargardt, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945
    • The war from the perspective of the German population. One interesting fact: A quarter of Goebbel’s budget was spent on theatre, which was about as much as he spent on propaganda, and more than twice as much on film.
  • Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat
    • A remarkable book; this is how you write about opera.
  • Tombs, The English And Their History
  • Liu, The Three Body Problem (related essay)
  • Liu, The Dark Forest
  • Foldenyi, Melancholy (related essay)
  • Liu, Death’s End
  • Kroeber, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know
  • Shepherd, Hitler’s Soldiers: The German Army in the Third Reich
  • Studwell, How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region
  • McPhee, La Place de la Concorde Suisse
  • Cowen, The Complacent Class (related essay)
  • Stephenson, Seveneves
  • Stephenson, Snow Crash
  • Arthur, The Nature of Technology: What it is and How it Evolves
  • Cartledge, A System Apart: Hong Kong’s Political Economy from 1997 Until Now
  • Mann, Buddenbrooks
    • Much easier to get through than Der Zauberberg
    • A very Chinese novel… shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in four generations
  • Lewis, The Tang Dynasty
    • What’s important about Tang? Drainage projects in the south (Jiangnan and Lingnan), making it the permanent economic center of the empire; institutionalization of the Sui Codes; breaking of the aristocratic families.
  • Bernhard, The Loser
  • Hanson, The Second World Wars
  • Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.: Tales
  • Shakespeare, King Lear
    • The heaps of suffering make it feel a little bit ridiculous by the end. Otherwise, it is very good.
  • Kuhn, The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China
  • Brook, The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties
    • The best in the HUP History of Imperial China series; most analytically-driven, a focus on the right topics, and most cleverly written. It’s helpful to learn the impact of the Little Ice Age on the Ming.
  • Leys, The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays
    • Very good reflections on Chinese aesthetics, with a focus on painting and calligraphy
  • Rowe, China’s Last Empire: The Great Qing
  • Lee, Pachinko
  • Cao, Dream of the Red Chamber
  • Sigmund, Exact Thinking in Demented Times
    • An excellent book about some extraordinary people. It’s as demented as advertised.
  • Caro, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson
  • Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China
  • Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
  • Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
  • Dyson, Disturbing the Universe
  • PKD, Ubik
  • Williams, On Opera
  • Ferrante novels
  • PKD, Valis
  • Shan, Out of Gobi
  • PKD, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
  • Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
    • A fantastic history
  • Kater, Culture in Nazi Germany
    • Michael Kater watched a lot of movies and read many contemporary books to tell us about the cultural policies and outputs of the Third Reich
  • St Aubyn, Dunford
    • It’s fun to read St Aubyn’s accounts of how really rich people can be really mean to each other, but it’s fine to stop with the Patrick Melrose series, which are hard to surpass, and which indeed Dunford fails to surpass
  • Stapledon, Last and First Men & Star Maker
    • A Hegelian presents two astonishing science fiction novels written in the ’30s. The plot is breathtaking, this is one of my favorite science fiction books.
  • PKD, The Divine Invasion
  • Walder, China Under Mao
    • This book is conceptually driven, not simply a grim recitation of facts
  • Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production 1800-1932
    • An excellent technical history of the development of American interchangeable parts
  • Ellroy, American TabloidFlaubert, Madame Bovary
  • Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century
  • Shalamov, Kolyma Tales
  • Stephenson, Anathem
    • So much nerd pleasure
  • May & Neustadt, Thinking In Time: The Uses Of History For Decision Makers
  • Paine, The Wars for Asia 1911-1949
    • At last, a conceptually-organized history of these wars
  • Milton, Paradise Lost
  • PKD, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
  • Tufte, Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style
  • Houellebecq, Submission
  • Proust, À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
  • Crow, 400 Million Customers
    • A delight
  • Proust, The Guermantes Way
  • Douthat, The Decadent Society
  • Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah
  • Fishman, One Giant Leap
    • Very good for putting into perspective all the challenging problems that NASA had to solve for Apollo
  • Dickens, Bleak House
  • Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
  • Swafford, Mozart: The Reign of Love
  • Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command
    • A model book for the study of a system
  • Sophocles, Antigone
  • Tolstoy, War and Peace
  • Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
  • Mill (John Stuart), Autobiography
  • Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  • Shakespeare, The Tempest
  • Abbate and Parker, A History of Opera
    • The best general introduction to this subject, and well-written to boot, featuring sentences that sparkle
  • Lem, Solaris
  • Barmé, In The Red
    • Excellent on Chinese culture in the ’90s
  • Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
    • Exhilarating, as good as Stephenson, and more zany
  • Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
  • Funder, Stasiland
    • What a skilled storyteller the author is
  • Kimbell, Italian Opera
  • Osterhammel, Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment’s Encounter with Asia
  • Burnham, Mozart’s Grace
  • Hunter, Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Venice
  • Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life
  • Chapoutot, The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi
  • Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler
  • Krepinevich and Watts, The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy
  • von Glahn, The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
  • Lindtner, Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation
  • Kushner, The Mars Room
  • Niederhoffer, The Education of a Speculator
  • Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
    • So much better than War & Peace: only society scenes, no boring slogs through war
    • But rather reason thus, with reason fetter; philosophy is good, but society is better
  • Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World
  • Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia
    • Tempted to say this is my favorite book about Asia
  • Gates, China’s Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism
  • Rundell, Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
    • Rundell writes my favorite series in the LRB: profiling delightful animals like the golden mole. And I think this biography works so well because she writes John Donne as a delightful animal.
  • Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World
    • A very original work about the madness of scientists
  • Howard, The First World War
  • Scott, Two Cheers for Anarchism
  • Friedrich, The Jesuits
  • Farnsworth, Classic English Style
  • Scott, Against the Grain
  • Dunlop, Every Grain of Rice
  • Rundell, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
  • Elliott, Imperial Spain
    • Excellent, helped to answer my big questions on Spain: how did it conquer the Americas and then so quickly fall?
  • Farrell & Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy
  • Knausgaard, The Morning Star
    • Much of the best parts of My Struggle, without the tedium
  • Dunlop, Invitation to a Banquet
    • I was pleased to join Fuchsia around a banquet table to record an episode of Conversations with Tyler
  • Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
    • Everyone warned me how filthy this book is, but no one prepared for how funny
  • Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
    • I wish there were more economic geographies like this book
  • Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants
  • Caro, The Power Broker
    • The work is magnificent, but reading it makes me feel that Moses is now underrated
  • Crumb, The Book of Genesis
  • Rundell, The Golden Mole: And Other Vanishing Wonders
  • Kennedy, Engineers of Victory
  • Westad, The Cold War: A World History
  • Clarke, Piranesi
  • Hessler, Other Rivers: A Chinese Education
    • Maybe the best single book to someone curious about China
  • Kay Johnson, China’s Hidden Children
  • Schmitt, Dialogues on Earth and Space
  • Kotkin, The Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization
  • Yang, How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control
  • Haushofer, The Wall
  • Sabin, Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism
  • Westad and Chen, The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
  • Lloyd, The Eastern Front
  • Lloyd, The Western Front
  • Gioia, Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry
    • One mark of a great writer is one who can write well on music
  • Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
  • Kotkin, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power
  • Desai, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
  • Bolaño, 2666
  • Da, The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear
  • Illies, 1913: The Year Before the Storm
  • Li, Things in Nature Merely Grow
    • This memoir inspired me to write a few journal entries
  • Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat (re-read)
  • Van Reybrouck, Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
  • Gillingham, Mexico: A 500-Year History
  • Eliot, Middlemarch
  • Bloch, Strange Defeat
  • Gavin, Amorous or Loving?
    • A charming history of the English language
  • Wooldridge, Centrists of the World Unite!
  • Rodger, The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain: 1815 – 1945
    • superb
  • Knight, Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization Of Victory
  • Shakespeare, As You Like It

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