CHECK IT OUT:

Soon, the world’s attention will focus on Beijing, site of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

China is hoping the games will act as a showcase for the country’s remarkable economic growth. Last year, China’s gross domestic product was nearly $7 trillion, second only to the United States.

This figure represents a 10-fold increase since the 1970s, when China embarked on its present course of market-oriented reforms.

Critics contend that this progress comes at a steep price. Among the many challenges facing the Chinese central government are: human rights abuses in Tibet and elsewhere, massive amounts of air and water pollution, depletion of natural resources and a huge population shift from the countryside to cities.

How China responds to these problems will have profound implications for all of us.

Those wishing to learn more about this emerging global superpower would do well to check the shelves of the Newport Beach Public Library. Here are four titles that offer glimpses of the changing social, cultural and political landscape of this country of 1.3 billion people.

In “China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power,” Rob Gifford travels 3,000 miles from Shanghai to Kazakhstan along China’s longest road. He is not alone during this journey.

China is in the midst of the largest migration in human history. Gifford introduces us to peasants, prostitutes, entrepreneurs, factory workers and Tibetan monks. We learn much about their struggles as they move in search of work. Gifford’s account helps to humanize this floating city of millions.

As part of the effort to “clean up” Beijing for the Olympics, many traditional neighborhoods, or hutongs, have been replaced with high-rise apartments and gleaming new stores. One million residents have been displaced.

Michael Meyer lived in a hutong for two years as a Peace Corp volunteer. “The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Backstreets of a Changing City” is his account of a way of life that may soon disappear. Meyer makes palpable the sense of lost community buried in the rubble of these ancient structures.

In “Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present,” Peter Hessler uncovers clues from the past that may help explain present-day China. His narrative is woven together from archaeological findings of written artifacts with stories from neighbors, former students and his own personal observations.

The resulting tapestry depicts the ways in which ordinary Chinese have been both empowered and set adrift from their own history.

In 1994, Fuchsia Dunlop traveled to China as a student, determined to eat everything offered to her, no matter how strange. So enthralled by this experience, she later returned to study at a renowned Sichuan cooking school.

Now a professional chef and food writer, Dunlop has written “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper,” a memoir of her culinary travels in China. Her reflections on Chinese food and culture are even more fascinating given the dramatic changes during her time there.

Food for thought as you watch the competition during the next few weeks.

CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library. This week’s column is by Steven Short. All titles may be reserved from home or office computers by accessing the catalog at www.newportbeachlibrary.org. For more information on the Central Library or any of the branches, please contact the Newport Beach Public Library at (949) 717-3800, option 2.