Question: Who did she inherit it from?

A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

Answer: her maternal great-grandmother

<hl> A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother , a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. <hl> That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from <hl> her maternal great-grandmother <hl>, a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from <hl> her maternal great-grandmother <hl> , a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it.


Question: What did the friend inherit?

Answer: Bavarian coffee set

<hl> A friend of mine inherited a  Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. <hl> That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

A friend of mine inherited a <hl> Bavarian coffee set <hl> from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.


Question: Where did the great grandmother flee from?

Answer: Europe

<hl> A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. <hl> That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled <hl> Europe <hl> in the late 1930s, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.


Question: When did she flee Europe?

Answer: late 1930s

<hl> A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the late 1930s , carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. <hl> That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the <hl> late 1930s <hl>, carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it. That family is scattered across the globe and the way of life the coffee set embodied has vanished, but the dainty china pot and matching cups remain flawless. Porcelain is like that. We all know that the sweep of a careless elbow can shatter it into unmendable bits. But take some basic precautions and in a hundred years it will look as good as new — its colors undimmed, its whites snowy — after you and your children are dead and gone. It is fragile, and it is strong.

A friend of mine inherited a Bavarian coffee set from her maternal great-grandmother, a woman who fled Europe in the <hl> late 1930s <hl> , carrying little more than the purpose-built, velvet-lined case that still holds it.


Question: Where was porcelain invented?

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Answer: China

<hl> Invented in China , about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. <hl> The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in <hl> China <hl>, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in <hl> China <hl> , about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin.


Question: When was porcelain invented?

Answer: 1,000 years ago

<hl> Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago , porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. <hl> The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in China, about <hl> 1,000 years ago <hl>, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in China, about <hl> 1,000 years ago <hl> , porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin.


Question: What city produced the most beautiful porcelain objects?

Answer: Jingdezhen

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. <hl> The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. <hl> Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of <hl> Jingdezhen <hl> produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”


Question: When was the first porcelain made in Dresden?

Answer: early 18th century

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” <hl> In the early 18th century , under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. <hl> A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the <hl> early 18th century <hl>, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, William Cookworthy, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

In the <hl> early 18th century <hl> , under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden.


Question: Who was the first person to make porcelain in England

Answer: William Cookworthy

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. <hl> A few years later, William Cookworthy , a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. <hl> He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

Invented in China, about 1,000 years ago, porcelain is a ceramic made from a varying mixture of materials, the most indispensable of which is a whitish clay, kaolin. The city of Jingdezhen produced the most beautiful of these objects: bowls, jars, vases and other items created in vast quantities for the imperial court. Porcelain was so abundant in China that when Marco Polo made the first mention of the material in Western literature, it was to marvel that the pieces he encountered in China were “so plentiful and cheap that for a Venetian groat you might buy three bowls of such beauty that nothing lovelier could be imagined.” Not so in Europe, where, for 400 years after they laid eyes on it, no one knew how to make the stuff. Aristocrats and monarchs regarded imported “china” as treasure. It was nicknamed “white gold.” Augustus II, elector of Saxony, an omnivorous collector of both mistresses and china, wrote, “The same is true for oranges as for porcelain, that once one has the sickness of one or the other, one can never get enough of the things and wishes to have more and more.” In the early 18th century, under his orders, an odd couple of proto-scientists — an urbane mathematician and a young, eccentric alchemist — finally figured out how to make porcelain in Dresden. A few years later, <hl> William Cookworthy <hl>, a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China. He became the first person to make true porcelain in England. This is the rough origin story Edmund de Waal sets out to tell in “The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession.” He would appear to be the ideal candidate for the job: A celebrated ceramist who makes austere white porcelain vessels, he is also the author of a surprise best seller: “The Hare With Amber Eyes,” published in 2010. That book followed the fate of a collection of netsuke (small Japanese carvings) acquired by his fabulously wealthy Jewish family during the belle epoque, lost when they fled Austria following the Anschluss and then recovered again when a former servant revealed that she had stealthily secreted the little objects in her mattress. What makes “The Hare With Amber Eyes” so entrancing is not the netsuke, however charming they may be, but the family, beginning with the suave cousin of his great-grandfather, one of the models for Proust’s Charles Swann and an early enthusiast and collector of Japanese art and a patron of the Impressionists. De Waal has a wicked gift for dissecting the tricky relations between artists and the rich people whose whims make it possible for them to both work and eat. He applies it to delicious effect in the strongest section of “The White Road,” which describes the travails of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus — student of Spinoza, friend of Newton and Leibniz — as he rattled around Europe seeking an aristocrat to fund his research: “If you are interested in optics or mineralogy or funding a dictionary of philosophy, you are lucky to get two minutes of the attention of a margrave who lives for killing stags or boar in inventive ways.”

A few years later, <hl> William Cookworthy <hl> , a mild-mannered Quaker apothecary living in Devon, noticed that the clay in a nearby Cornish hill resembled the kaolin described in newly published letters from China.


Question: What was Johann Friedrich Bottger's trade

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Answer: apothecary’s apprentice

<hl> Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. <hl> Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an <hl> apothecary’s apprentice <hl> who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.


Question: What did he do?

Answer: turning silver into gold

<hl> Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold . <hl> Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed <hl> turning silver into gold <hl>. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed <hl> turning silver into gold <hl> .


Question: What did Augustus order Johann Friedrich Bottger to do?

Answer: to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. <hl> Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain , he complied. <hl> Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him <hl> to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain <hl>, he complied. Together, the men succeeded, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him <hl> to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain <hl> , he complied.


Question: Did they succeed in making porcelain?

Answer: the men succeeded

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. <hl> Together, the men succeeded , whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died. <hl>

Augustus set Tschirnhaus up with a character named Johann Friedrich Böttger, an apothecary’s apprentice who came to public attention when he was observed turning silver into gold. Augustus kept him under guard for the next eight years, as Böttger alternated between promising gold by the ton and escaping. Mercurial in both the figurative and literal sense (he ingested a lot of the substance), Böttger’s tempestuous, arrogant personality made him a trying collaborator, but when Augustus ordered him to help Tschirnhaus discover how to make porcelain, he complied. Together, <hl> the men succeeded <hl>, whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.

Together, <hl> the men succeeded <hl> , whereupon the long-suffering Tschirnhaus promptly died.


Question: Who was the potentate of English pottery?

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”

Answer: Josiah Wedgwood,

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. <hl> De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. <hl> By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of <hl> Josiah Wedgwood, <hl> the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”


Question: Where did Josiah Wedgwood send someone to get white clay?

Answer: a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. <hl> De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. <hl> By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to <hl> a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas <hl> to retrieve five tons of white clay. By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”


Question: What was Cookworthy's first successful piece of porcelain?

Answer: a cider tankard

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. <hl> By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard , is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.” <hl>

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, <hl> a cider tankard <hl>, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”

By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, <hl> a cider tankard <hl> , is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”


Question: What clay did Cookworthy use in his porcelain?

Answer: the local clay

<hl> Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about the local clay they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. <hl> De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”

Not long afterward, while out for a walk, Cookworthy stopped to ask mine workers about <hl> the local clay <hl> they were using to patch the cracks in a furnace. De Waal juxtaposes Cookworthy’s small-time efforts to fire the stuff with the enterprises of Josiah Wedgwood, the potentate of English pottery, who sent a factotum all the way to a mountain in the Cherokee Nation in the Carolinas to retrieve five tons of white clay. By contrast, Cookworthy’s first successful piece, a cider tankard, is porcelain that “comes into being through walking and noticing and picking things up and feeling texture, through listening intently, openly, to men working by the side of the road.”


Question: What is the brief against standard production?

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, using slave labor, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

Answer: “The White Road”

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. <hl> “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. <hl> This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, using slave labor, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. <hl> “The White Road” <hl> eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, using slave labor, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.


Question: Where is porcelain found now?

Answer: everywhere

His dilemma is understandable. <hl> Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere , not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. <hl> It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, using slave labor, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now <hl> everywhere <hl>, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, using slave labor, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

Once precious, porcelain is now <hl> everywhere <hl> , not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices.


Question: Who made Allach porclain?

Answer: the Nazis

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. <hl> This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis , using slave labor, in Dachau. <hl> Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by <hl> the Nazis <hl>, using slave labor, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by <hl> the Nazis <hl> , using slave labor, in Dachau.


Question: How did the Nazis make Allach porcelain?

Answer: using slave labor

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. <hl> This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, using slave labor , in Dachau. <hl> Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

His dilemma is understandable. Once precious, porcelain is now everywhere, not only in your kitchen (and bathroom), but also in your mouth, if your teeth are crowned, and used as insulation in electrical devices. It has become mundane. “The White Road” eventually becomes a brief against standardized production and industrialization — the opposite of what de Waal loves in hand-potting — and the price paid for it by workers. This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, <hl> using slave labor <hl>, in Dachau. Still, the link between mass-produced porcelain and oppression hardly seems inevitable, and I can’t help remembering my friend’s coffee set, which was not handmade. Yet it is still a treasure, for reasons never quite acknowledged in “The White Road.” All of its value was acquired after its making. It embodies domesticity (an element strangely absent from what is essentially a book about dishes) and aspiration and above all the dream of holding fast to what can so easily be lost in this merciless world.

This culminates in a grim chapter on Allach porcelain, made by the Nazis, <hl> using slave labor <hl> , in Dachau.


Question: What is the median salary for a worker with a bachelor's degree?

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

Answer: $69,260

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. <hl> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260 , compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. <hl> Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned <hl> $69,260 <hl>, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned <hl> $69,260 <hl> , compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma.


Question: What is the lifetime wage difference between a worker with a bachelor's degree and one with only a high school diploma?

Answer: $1.5 million

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. <hl> Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million . <hl> Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about <hl> $1.5 million <hl>. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about <hl> $1.5 million <hl> .


Question: What is the median salary for a worker with only a high school diploma?

Answer: $34,540

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. <hl> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. <hl> Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with <hl> $34,540 <hl> for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?


Question: What is the main institution that turns unskilled individuals into skilled ones?

Answer: College

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. <hl> College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. <hl> Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. <hl> College <hl> is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. What gives?


Question: How much has tuition and fees increased over the last 20 years?

Answer: 70 percent

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. <hl> The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by 70 percent over the last 20 years. <hl> What gives?

Today’s economy leaves little doubt about the value of college. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014 the median worker with a bachelor’s degree (and no advanced degree) earned $69,260, compared with $34,540 for the median worker with only a high school diploma. Over a lifetime, that difference accumulates to about $1.5 million. Increasing educational attainment is also the best way to combat growing income inequality. Over the last 40 years, the wages of skilled workers have increased substantially compared with the wages of the unskilled. Most economists agree that a leading cause is skill-biased technological change — the tendency of new technologies to increase the relative demand for skilled workers. College is the main institution that can offset this trend by turning unskilled individuals into skilled ones. Even those who do not attend college benefit when more of their fellow citizens do so. A person who becomes educated leaves the pool of the unskilled. Those left behind face fewer competitors. With fewer unskilled workers vying for the available jobs, wages at the bottom of the economic ladder are bid up. Although increasing college attendance makes a lot of sense, both for individuals and for the nation, the financial hurdle to doing so is higher than ever. The College Board reports that published tuition and fees at a typical private, nonprofit college, adjusted for overall inflation, have increased by <hl> 70 percent <hl> over the last 20 years. What gives?


Question: What have colleges done to prices?

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

Answer: raising published prices

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. <hl> Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. <hl> I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by <hl> raising published prices <hl> and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.


Question: Business charge different prices to different consumers based on what?

Answer: their willingness and ability to pay

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. <hl> Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay . <hl> Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on <hl> their willingness and ability to pay <hl>. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on <hl> their willingness and ability to pay <hl> .


Question: Movie theaters charge adults more than who?

Answer: children

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. <hl> Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. <hl> Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge <hl> children <hl> less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.


Question: What institution was the author joking that should raise the tuition to $1 billion a year?

Answer: Harvard

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. <hl> I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. <hl> But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that <hl> Harvard <hl> should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.


Question: What is the third force at work that the economists referenced to?

Answer: price discrimination

<hl> The third force at work is what economists call price discrimination . <hl> Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

The third force at work is what economists call <hl> price discrimination <hl>. Businesses of all sorts have an incentive to charge different prices to different consumers based on their willingness and ability to pay. Movie theaters, for example, charge children less than adults for a ticket. Colleges have increasingly followed this practice by raising published prices and offering more financial aid based on a family’s resources. I often joke that Harvard should complete the process by setting tuition at $1 billion a year. But that sticker price applies only to the children of Bill Gates. Everyone else gets a special price, just for you.

The third force at work is what economists call <hl> price discrimination <hl> .


Question: Does the Cambodian govenment oppose the case against Ao An?

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

Answer: The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. <hl> The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government , the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. <hl> Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. <hl> The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government <hl>, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

<hl> The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government <hl> , the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal.


Question: How many guilty verdicts has the decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal given?

Answer: three

<hl> The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. <hl> The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only <hl> three <hl> defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.


Question: What other authorities have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal?

Answer: the police and the national investigating judge

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. <hl> The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge , who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. <hl> Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, <hl> the police and the national investigating judge <hl>, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, <hl> the police and the national investigating judge <hl> , who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal.


Question: What political figures fear implication in the defendants' testimony?

Answer: high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. <hl> Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. <hl> Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say <hl> high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics <hl> fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.


Question: What challenge could further delay the tribunal?

Answer: Any legal challenge

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. <hl> Any legal challenge could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress. <hl>

The decade-old United Nations-backed tribunal has delivered guilty verdicts to only three defendants. The case against Ao An is strongly opposed by the Cambodian government, the police and the national investigating judge, who have been unwilling to cooperate with the tribunal. Experts say high-profile figures in present-day Cambodian politics fear that they could be implicated in the defendants’ testimony. <hl> Any legal challenge <hl> could further delay the tribunal, which has already been criticized for its slow progress.