Mao
The Unknown Story
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Narrated by:
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Robertson Dean
About this listen
“Ever since the spectacular success of Chang’s Wild Swans we have waited impatiently for her to complete with her husband this monumental study of China’s most notorious modern leader. The expectation has been that she would rewrite modern Chinese history. The wait has been worthwhile and the expectation justified. This is a bombshell of a book.” (Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, in The Times, London)
Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao’s close circle in China who have never talked before - and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him - this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned and blackmailed to get his way.
After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history. In all, well over 70 million Chinese perished under Mao’s rule - in peacetime.
Combining meticulous research with the story-telling style of Wild Swans, this biography offers a harrowing portrait of Mao’s ruthless accumulation of power through the exercise of terror: his first victims were the peasants, then the intellectuals and, finally, the inner circle of his own advisors. The listeners enters the shadowy chambers of Mao’s court and eavesdrops on the drama in its hidden recesses. Mao’s character and the enormity of his behavior toward his wives, mistresses and children are unveiled for the first time.
This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach. It will astonish historians and the general listener alike.
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Critic reviews
"Sweeping." (Publishers Weekly)
"Chang and Halliday cast new and revealing light on nearly every episode in Mao's tumultuous life…a stupendous work and one hopes that it will be brought before the Chinese people, who still claim to venerate the man and who have yet to come to terms with their own history...." (Michael Yahuda, The Guardian)
"Boasts a monumental marshaling of detail and historiographically overturning revelations." (Booklist)
Featured Article: The Best Biography Audiobooks to Educate, Fascinate, and Inspire
The best biographies are ranked not only by the scale and skill of their writing, but also by the strength of their subjects. In the audiobook world, these selections are also judged for the quality of their narrative performances, making those that rise to the top all the more excellent. From lighthearted entertainment to inspirational origin stories, these titles represent the best biography audiobooks now ready for your listening pleasure.
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
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Stalin
- The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives
- By: Edvard Radzinsky
- Narrated by: David McCallum
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Abridged
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The Kremlin intrigues, the private worlds of the Soviet Empire's ruling class, Radzinsky thrillingly brings them to life. And the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might, and perhaps the greatest mass murderer in Western history, is solved.
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A Great Book About a Great Tyrant
- By Moon Man on 05-01-05
By: Edvard Radzinsky
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Cambodia
- Report From a Stricken Land
- By: Henry Kamm
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on his observations over three decades, Henry Kamm, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Southeast Asia correspondent, unravels the complexities of Cambodia. Kamm's invaluable document - a factual and personal account of its troubled history - gives the Western listener the first clear understanding of this magic land's past and present.
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A Solid Introduction, but Somewhat Dated
- By Christopher on 04-21-15
By: Henry Kamm
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The Road Not Taken
- Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam
- By: Max Boot
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War. In this epic biography of Edward Lansdale (1908-1987) best-selling historian Max Boot demonstrates how Lansdale pioneered a "hearts and mind" diplomacy, first in the Philippines, then in Vietnam. It was a visionary policy that, as Boot reveals, was ultimately crushed by America's giant military bureaucracy.
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An honest look at Vietnam Nam and USA
- By Catherine on 01-16-18
By: Max Boot
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The Fall of Heaven
- The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran
- By: Andrew Scott Cooper
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In this remarkably human portrait of one of the 20th century's most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers.
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Excellent account of a pivotal and sad time
- By Guerin Shea on 09-05-16
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Lioness
- Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel
- By: Francine Klagsbrun
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 32 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Golda Meir was a world figure unlike any other. Born in tsarist Russia in 1898, she immigrated to America in 1906 and grew up in Milwaukee, where from her earliest years she displayed the political consciousness and organizational skills that would eventually catapult her into the inner circles of Israel's founding generation. Moving to mandatory Palestine in 1921 with her husband, the passionate socialist joined a kibbutz but soon left and was hired at a public works office by the man who would become the great love of her life.
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The persistent mispronunciations of Hebrew and Yiddish words ruined this performance
- By YH-O on 12-30-18
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Prevail
- The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941
- By: Jeff Pearce, Richard Pankhurst - foreword
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
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It was the war that changed everything, and yet it's been mostly forgotten: in 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. It dominated newspaper headlines and newsreels. It inspired mass marches in Harlem, a play on Broadway, and independence movements in Africa. As the British Navy sailed into the Mediterranean for a white-knuckle showdown with Italian ships, riots broke out in major cities all over the United States.
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This is not a history, it's a package of anecdotes
- By M2 on 02-03-15
By: Jeff Pearce, and others
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Indian Summer
- The Secret History of the End of an Empire
- By: Alex von Tunzelmann
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the British Empire withdrew from India, igniting the exhilaration and turmoil of a newly free society. In this vivid, atmospheric popular history, Alex von Tunzelmann chronicles these times through the most prominent figures.
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Such an interesting piece of History made easy
- By Diego on 01-23-12
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The General
- Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved
- By: Jonathan Fenby
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 28 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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No leader of modern times was more uniquely patriotic than Charles de Gaulle. As founder and first president of the Fifth Republic, General de Gaulle saw himself as "carrying France on [his] shoulders." In his 20s, he fought for France in the trenches and at the epic battle of Verdun. In the 1930s, he waged a lonely battle to enable France to better resist Hitler's Germany. Thereafter, he twice rescued the nation from defeat and decline by extraordinary displays of leadership, political acumen, daring, and bluff, heading off civil war and leaving a heritage adopted by his successors of right and left.
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Book Great Read. Narrator Horrible-slow dead voice
- By marigoyle on 10-23-13
By: Jonathan Fenby
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A Savage War of Peace
- Algeria 1954-1962
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 29 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. From the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one.
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Excellent history of France's Viet Nam
- By David on 04-10-16
By: Alistair Horne
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Midnight's Furies
- The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition
- By: Nisid Hajari
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Nobody expected the liberation of India and birth of Pakistan to be so bloody - it was supposed to be an answer to the dreams of Muslims and Hindus who had been ruled by the British for centuries. Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi's protégé and the political leader of India, believed that Indians were an inherently nonviolent, peaceful people. Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a secular lawyer, not a firebrand.
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Amazingly detailed account of this tragedy i gigan
- By BG on 10-09-15
By: Nisid Hajari
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Stalin
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Accurate, moving and chilling
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Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World
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A balanced view of Mao's life and legacy
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Fascinating reading
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
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Accurate, moving and chilling
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Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
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As a major political event and a crucial turning point in the history of the People's Republic of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) marked the zenith as well as the nadir of Mao Zedong's ultra-leftist politics. Reacting in part to the Soviet Union's "revisionism" that he regarded as a threat to the future of socialism, Mao mobilized the masses in a battle against what he called "bourgeois" forces within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This 10-year-long class struggle on a massive scale devastated traditional Chinese culture as well as the nation's economy.
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Soooo much info...
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The Tragedy of Liberation
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Following the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, after a bloody civil war, Mao hoisted the red flag over Beijing's Forbidden City, and the world watched as the Communist revolution began to wash away the old order. Due to the secrecy surrounding the country's records, little has been known before now about the eight years that followed, preceding the massive famine and Great Leap Forward. The Tragedy of Liberation bears witness to a shocking, largely untold history.
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I don't believe this is read by a real person
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Mao Zedong
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Born in rural China in 1893, Mao Zedong led his country through "a long-drawn-out adventure in upheaval". In the process he became one of the monumental figures of the 20th century. He died in 1976, just as China was entering detente with the U.S.
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Excellent analysis
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Maoism
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For decades, the West has dismissed Maoism as an outdated historical and political phenomenon. Since the 1980s, China seems to have abandoned the utopian turmoil of Mao’s revolution in favor of authoritarian capitalism. But Mao and his ideas remain central to the People’s Republic and the legitimacy of its Communist government. With disagreements and conflicts between China and the West on the rise, the need to understand the political legacy of Mao is urgent and growing. And the power and appeal of Maoism have extended far beyond China.
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Occasional Bias Revealed
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Stalin
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In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research, brilliant synthesis and narrative élan, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the life and lives of Stalin’s court from the time of his acclamation as “leader” in 1929, five years after Lenin’s death, until his own death in 1953 at the age of 73. Through the lens of personality - Stalin’s as well as those of his most notorious henchmen, Molotov, Beria and Yezhov among them - the author sheds new light on the oligarchy that attempted to create a new world by exterminating the old.
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Stalinist Tyranny
- By Kindle Customer on 12-28-19
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Red Famine
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In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization - in effect a second Russian Revolution - which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief, the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem.
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Horrifying
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China After Mao
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Award-winning historian Frank Dikötter explores how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle.
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This guy's writing style is trash
- By L YS on 10-06-24
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Party of One
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From one of the most admired reporters covering China today comes a vital new account of the life and political vision of Xi Jinping, the authoritarian leader of the People’s Republic whose hard-edged tactics have set the rising superpower on a collision with Western liberal democracies. Party of One shatters the many myths that shroud one of the world’s most secretive political organizations and its leader. Many observers misread Xi during his early years in power, projecting their own hopes that he would steer China toward more political openness, rule of law, and pro-market economics.
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Worrisome
- By Kelley A. Arasim on 10-30-23
By: Chun Han Wong
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Mao's Great Famine
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Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake the West in less than fifteen years. It led to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known. Dikotter's extraordinary research within Chinese archives brings together for the first time what happened in the corridors of power with the everyday experiences of ordinary people, giving voice to the dead and disenfranchised. This groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.
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how it describes the horrors with anecdotes and then uses stats to show bot only did it happen but also that it was common
- By Donald on 06-28-24
By: Frank Dikötter
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Empress Dowager Cixi
- The Concubine Who Launched Modern China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Jolene Kim
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the age of 16, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor's numerous concubines. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband and made herself the real ruler of China - behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male.
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An insult to audiobooks. Get a print version.
- By Reademandweep on 02-23-15
By: Jung Chang
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Imperial Twilight
- The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age
- By: Stephen R. Platt
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to "open" China even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage.
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Balanced readable narrative about the Opium Wars
- By Carl A. Gallozzi on 09-05-18
By: Stephen R. Platt
What listeners say about Mao
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- jmk
- 12-31-20
Banned for a reason!
A great book about the (in my opinion) worst human to have ever lived. Down with the CCP!
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- Onesimus
- 05-13-12
A Revealing Look into a Very Nefarious Character
If you could sum up Mao in three words, what would they be?
Mao is "complex", "sophisticated", and "Nefarious".
What did you like best about this story?
I felt the story was told from an objective first hand experience.
What does Robertson Dean bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
The depth and understanding that Robertson Dean brought to the story is something that would take a great deal of effort to bring out from the written text alone.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The moment that particularly moved me was more like a gradual realization of the momentum of the story as a whole that brought me to the point of understanding that Mao was the culmination of what happens when a mind accepts no principles but his own. Left to rule himself by his own desires, Mao caused the deaths of millions of people in China and left a nation wrecked by moral degradation: the country we now see before us today.
Any additional comments?
Mao may have been one of the most influential people in the modern world because of the profound effect he had on the political philosophy of China, and even beyond. Anyone wishing to gain a deeper insightful understanding of China should listen to this book!
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- Jordan Bennett
- 03-03-21
Revelatory and amazing. Highly recommend
Content you have never heard before, but will wonder why you haven't when you do
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- Someone
- 03-27-15
Good, but for the names
Why does it seem to be so difficult to find someone who can pronounce Chinese names properly?
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- Neil
- 01-21-19
Loved it
Great read that I highly recommend. He learned from Stalin how to kill enemies. Mao had several wives and children and didn't care about any of them. If the Chinese really know who Mao was they would rethink Communism. Mao was in my view worse than Hitler.
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- Anna
- 06-26-19
Desperately needing re-recording.
This is 2019. China has long emerged as a world power. It is shameful that the reader selected to read this book was chosen though he lacks any ability to read or pronounce the Chinese words using the official romanization system, pinyin. Should these have been Spanish words interspersed throughout a reading, it is hard to imagine that Audible would carry a recording of it that butchered the Spanish pronunciation, rendering it nearly incomprehensible. In this reading, nearly unintelligible place names and historical figures at pivotal points in the book take away from the story on the whole. The book stands on its own and I won’t comment on it. It is definitely not a book for the faint of heart and it details many atrocities in great detail. Much of it goes against most histories of that period of time and challenges popular notions. I am so appalled at the disrespect that carrying this butchered recording of this book shows. Re-Record the book.
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- eoyunlin
- 02-17-20
Great book but a little hard to understand at times...
I love this book! Super helpful in understanding history. Overall I think the author does a great job reading however, his pronunciation of Chinese names and cities is not accurate at all and is a little painful to listen to at times. I feel like I’m miss out on which cities and people he is actually referring to at times. I think a book like this needs a reader who is a mandarin speaker, or someone a little more familiar with how things are pronounced to read it.
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- Paul Stevenson
- 06-10-24
Sweeping but depressing
I congratulate the authors on their vast research and deep dedication to this work. I am old enough to remember when Nixon went to China. I had no idea how poorly he performed. More importantly, I had no idea how profoundly and deliberately selfish Mao was. He happily condemned many millions of Chinese people to slow, miserable deaths just so he could aggrandize himself and chase pipe dreams. He reveled in cruelty for cruelty's sake. What an utter beast! His name will live in infamy.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-09-19
Great Story from a Lesser-Known Communist-Feminist
Mao Zedong is a bit of a mystery in the west. Sure, we are told he did a lot of bad things but do we really know the person. Where did he come from? Who is he? What did he do? All of these questions will be answered when reading this book.
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- Jenna
- 03-08-08
Well written, well read & VERY interesting
Enjoyable even for someone like me who knew NOTHING about Mao or China prior to diving into this book. The book is lengthy and I have to admit that I did zone out in a couple places but this in no way detracted from my enjoyment or understanding of the story. There's a lot to take in here, but rather than being daunted by the length and detail of the book, I would highly recommend giving it a listen and taking in what you can.
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