Apple does a marvelous job of weaving a narrative for its customers: buy our product and your life will be transformed. And in some ways, it may be true. For many Apple customers, that promise and its fulfillment are enough to keep them firmly inside the Apple ecosystem. But what McGee so masterfully explains in his book is that Apple’s ability to deliver on that promise, across multiple products over more than two decades, rests on a sort of Faustian bargain it has made with China Inc. The CCP and hundreds of provincial and local officials enabled a product and manufacturing strategy that is simply not possible anywhere else on the globe. That strategy has helped catapult Apple to the loftiest position in capitalist economies. But as McGee explains, the nearly invisible but dark underside of this bargain is a requirement for Apple to continue to transfer extraordinary tech knowledge and expertise to the Red Supply Chain, a group that also supports Apple’s competitors. Worse, it appears that attempts by Apple to extricate itself from this relationship will not only be difficult. It may be impossible. McGee tells this story not with mind numbing tech speak but with the engaging prose of a mystery writer. I read the book in two days. I simply couldn’t put it down. You’re probably reading this review on an iPhone. Read this book to more fully understand why your phone has the capability it does, sells for what it does, and why the nearly 20 year run of iPhone success probably won’t last.