The price, the real China price, lies at the core of this meticulously researched and wonderfully readable book. Lots of others, like Harney, with long experience in and around China, knowledge of the language and the grit to scramble beneath the curtains that disguise so much in Chinese life, have written on conditions in Chinese factories. Books and articles have exposed the deadly toys now withdrawn in their millions, the poisonous toothpaste and pet food and the horrifying realities of Chinese factories. There is a superb book on Chinese pollution, Elizabeth C. Economy’s The River Runs Black and another (not cited by Harney) on the toy scandal, Eric Clark’s The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for Britain’s Youngest Consumers.

But Harney, who represented the Financial Times in Hong Kong and China, draws everything together: the gigantic scale of Chinese manufacturing, its international extent, the sometimes genuine, often bogus, attempts to control its corruption and vileness, the similarly dodgy extent of much international monitoring, the vast pollution Chinese manufacturing spews out that damages the health or takes the lives of its workers and many others. She writes, as they used to say, like an angel, and, uniquely, has spent hours with the men and very young women working in China’s William Blake-like world to bring you those cheap knickers.

The extent of Chinese manufacture, like everything else in China, staggers the mind. In 1984 China exported $26 billion-worth of goods. In 2006 that climbed to $969 billion. One company alone, employing 450,000 people, manufactures for Apple, Motorola, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. This year China will become the world’s largest exporter. $287.8 billion of those exports went to America in 2006 (this book is aimed at Americans) while American exports to China that year amounted to $55.2 billion. This trade deficit has cost Americans 1.8 million jobs since 2001.

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP