Midland, Texas

A fishing village in southern China revolts against corrupt Communist Party rule and holds democratic elections. A top Chinese leader is deposed and whisked to an undisclosed location after his wife is accused of murdering a British expatriate, exposing fissures among China's top autocrats. Thousands of protests, the vast majority unreported in the West, erupt daily. A blind Chinese human-rights lawyer escapes after years of house arrest, treks 20 hours, injures his foot, but finds his...