The Rise and Fall of the East
How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Lam
About this listen
Chinese society has been shaped by the interplay of the EAST—exams, autocracy, stability, and technology—from ancient times through the present. Beginning with the Sui dynasty's introduction of the civil service exam, known as Keju, in 587 CE—and continuing through the personnel management system used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—Chinese autocracies have developed exceptional tools for homogenizing ideas, norms, and practices. But this uniformity came with a huge downside: stifled creativity.
Yasheng Huang shows how China transitioned from dynamism to extreme stagnation after the Keju was instituted. China's most prosperous periods, such as during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and under the reformist CCP, occurred when its emphasis on scale (the size of bureaucracy) was balanced with scope (diversity of ideas).
Considering China's remarkable success over the past half-century, Huang sees signs of danger in the political and economic reversals under Xi Jinping. The CCP has again vaulted conformity above new ideas, reverting to the Keju model that eventually led to technological decline. It is a lesson from China's own history, Huang argues, that Chinese leaders would be wise to take seriously.
©2023 Yasheng Huang (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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By: David Daokui Li
-
The Political Thought of Xi Jinping
- By: Steve Tsang, Olivia Cheung
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lam
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Over the course of the last half dozen years, China's supreme leader Xi Jinping has made extraordinary changes which have profound implications not only for the Chinese people but nations throughout the world. Given how swiftly and fundamentally China's relations with the rest of the world are changing under Xi's rule, it is imperative that we know what Xi Jinping Thought is, how it evolved, and why it is so important.
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An excellent work, well written and superbly read
- By MM@CC on 06-02-24
By: Steve Tsang, and others
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The New China Playbook
- Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
- By: Keyu Jin
- Narrated by: Jenapher Zheng
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
China's economy has been booming for decades now. A formidable and emerging power on the world stage, the China that most Americans picture is only a rough sketch, based on American news coverage, policy, and ways of understanding. Enter Keyu Jin: a world-renowned economist and a professor at the London School of Economics. A person fluent in both Eastern and Western cultures, and a voice of the new generation of Chinese who represent a radical break from the past, Jin is uniquely poised to explain how China became the most successful economic story of our time.
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Good content but missing important information
- By Anonymous User on 07-03-23
By: Keyu Jin
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Party of One
- The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future
- By: Chun Han Wong
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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At the Edge of Empire
- A Family's Reckoning with China
- By: Edward Wong
- Narrated by: Edward Wong, Will Dao
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People’s Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao’s promise of a powerful China. His astonishing journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier.
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Well written, investigative
- By barbara on 11-24-24
By: Edward Wong
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Beijing Rules
- How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World
- By: Bethany Allen
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An acclaimed journalist on contemporary China lays bare the country's two-decade quest for global dominance and how the Chinese Communist Party coopted what Western leaders have long considered their most powerful tool in the fight for liberal democracy—capitalism—to expand its influence worldwide.
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The new cold war and racist double standards
- By Burkay on 04-10-24
By: Bethany Allen
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China's World View
- Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict
- By: David Daokui Li
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Writing in response to the growing anti-Chinese sentiment and alarmed by the threat of war, Dr. David Daokui Li pulls from his wealth of firsthand experience to demystify contemporary Chinese society and advocate for understanding between China and the West. In this urgently needed and fascinating book, he explains the inner workings of a rising superpower to help the world understand how it works-and how to work with it.
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The spirit of this book is critically important.
- By Mike Turner on 06-21-24
By: David Daokui Li
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The Political Thought of Xi Jinping
- By: Steve Tsang, Olivia Cheung
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lam
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the last half dozen years, China's supreme leader Xi Jinping has made extraordinary changes which have profound implications not only for the Chinese people but nations throughout the world. Given how swiftly and fundamentally China's relations with the rest of the world are changing under Xi's rule, it is imperative that we know what Xi Jinping Thought is, how it evolved, and why it is so important.
-
-
An excellent work, well written and superbly read
- By MM@CC on 06-02-24
By: Steve Tsang, and others
-
The New China Playbook
- Beyond Socialism and Capitalism
- By: Keyu Jin
- Narrated by: Jenapher Zheng
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
China's economy has been booming for decades now. A formidable and emerging power on the world stage, the China that most Americans picture is only a rough sketch, based on American news coverage, policy, and ways of understanding. Enter Keyu Jin: a world-renowned economist and a professor at the London School of Economics. A person fluent in both Eastern and Western cultures, and a voice of the new generation of Chinese who represent a radical break from the past, Jin is uniquely poised to explain how China became the most successful economic story of our time.
-
-
Good content but missing important information
- By Anonymous User on 07-03-23
By: Keyu Jin
-
Party of One
- The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future
- By: Chun Han Wong
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Worrisome
- By Kelley A. Arasim on 10-30-23
By: Chun Han Wong
-
At the Edge of Empire
- A Family's Reckoning with China
- By: Edward Wong
- Narrated by: Edward Wong, Will Dao
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People’s Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao’s promise of a powerful China. His astonishing journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier.
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Well written, investigative
- By barbara on 11-24-24
By: Edward Wong
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Beijing Rules
- How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World
- By: Bethany Allen
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An acclaimed journalist on contemporary China lays bare the country's two-decade quest for global dominance and how the Chinese Communist Party coopted what Western leaders have long considered their most powerful tool in the fight for liberal democracy—capitalism—to expand its influence worldwide.
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The new cold war and racist double standards
- By Burkay on 04-10-24
By: Bethany Allen
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Overreach
- How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
- By: Susan L. Shirk
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendance, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions. Then, as Susan Shirk shows, something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese politics, argues that we are now fully embroiled in a new cold war.
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Performance is poor
- By Paul Reviewer on 01-28-24
By: Susan L. Shirk
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The World According to China
- By: Elizabeth C. Economy
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An economic and military superpower with twenty percent of the world's population, China has the wherewithal to transform the international system. Xi Jinping's bold calls for China to "lead in the reform of the global governance system" suggest that he has just such an ambition. But how does he plan to realize it? And what does it mean for the rest of the world? In this compelling book, Elizabeth Economy reveals China's ambitious new strategy to reclaim the country's past glory and reshape the geostrategic landscape in dramatic new ways.
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Excellent Book on China Expansionism
- By WLC on 08-19-22
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China
- Fragile Superpower
- By: Susan L. Shirk
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Susan L. Shirk, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for China, knows many of today's Chinese rulers personally and has studied them for three decades. She offers invaluable insight into how they think—and what they fear. In this revealing book, you will see the world through the eyes of men like President Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin. We discover a fragile communist regime desperate to survive in a society turned upside down by miraculous economic growth and a stunning new openness to the greater world.
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Out of date
- By OCreviewer on 12-12-22
By: Susan L. Shirk
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Sparks
- China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future
- By: Ian Johnson
- Narrated by: Ian Johnson
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The past is a battleground in many countries, but in China it is crucial to political power. In traditional China, dynasties rewrote history to justify their rule by proving that their predecessors were unworthy of holding power. Marxism gave this a modern gloss, describing history as an unstoppable force heading toward Communism's triumph. The Chinese Communist Party builds on these ideas to whitewash its misdeeds and glorify its rule. But in recent years, independent writers, artists, and filmmakers have begun challenging this state-led disremembering.
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brilliant
- By Yangsian on 06-02-24
By: Ian Johnson
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China in Ten Words
- By: Yu Hua, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From one of China’s most acclaimed writers, his first work of nonfiction to appear in English: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades, told through personal stories and astute analysis that sharply illuminate the country’s meteoric economic and social transformation. Characterized by Yu Hua’s trademark wit, insight, and courage, China in Ten Words is a refreshingly candid vision of the “Chinese miracle” and all its consequences, from the singularly invaluable perspective of a writer living in China today.
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Best Popular Book on China
- By taylor storey on 09-21-14
By: Yu Hua, and others
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Solidarity
- The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
- By: Leah Hunt-Hendrix, Astra Taylor
- Narrated by: Veronica Giguere
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Solidarity is often invoked, but it is rarely analyzed and poorly understood. Here, two leading activists and thinkers survey the past, present, and future of the concept across borders of nation, identity, and class to ask: how can we build solidarity in an era of staggering inequality, polarization, violence, and ecological catastrophe?
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We all owe a debt to one another as human beings.
- By Colin on 07-04-24
By: Leah Hunt-Hendrix, and others
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The Great Transformation
- China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
- By: Chen Jian, Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.
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Information without commenting.
- By Anonymous User on 01-13-25
By: Chen Jian, and others
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Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
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Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
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Why Liberalism Failed
- By: Patrick J. Deneen
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Of the three dominant ideologies of the 20th century - fascism, communism, and liberalism - only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism's proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions.
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a fine idea stuffed in a dead horse and beat
- By David on 09-26-18
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Other Rivers
- A Chinese Education
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
More than two decades after teaching English during the early part of China’s economic boom, an experience chronicled in his book River Town, Peter Hessler returned to Sichuan Province to instruct students from the next generation. At the same time, Hessler and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners. Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with many of the people he had taught in the 1990s.
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From education to surviving politics, reflecting firsthand experience
- By smitka on 01-05-25
By: Peter Hessler
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Mao
- The Unknown Story
- By: Jung Chang, Jon Halliday
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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 biography of Mao ever written.
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Fills many gaps! Very good..but!
- By Jene on 08-07-06
By: Jung Chang, and others
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Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor; shocking atrocities against civilians in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere; and rampant abuses of prisoners of war in notorious incidents such as the Bataan death march.
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Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
What listeners say about The Rise and Fall of the East
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Wyatt
- 03-11-24
Thought provoking
I'm far from qualified to evaluate the correctness of the hypothesis but it was thought provoking and illuminating in any case.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Andrea
- 09-07-24
Appalling business-speak
It's an okay read, though nothing exceptional. The book centers on two main arguments:
1. China lagged technologically because it wasn't divided into smaller kingdoms, unlike post-Roman Western Europe.
2. The imperial examination system (Keju) suppressed creativity.
The first point isn't new-many scholars have made similar observations. The second argument, however, is more compelling. Huang provides extensive details about the Keju system, showcasing its complexity. The fact that few modern nations could implement such an intricate system also highlights the Imperial China's impressive organizational capacity.
When discussing recent developments, Huang sticks to mainstream views but peppers his narrative with interesting anecdotes. He seems to view the 1990s-2000s as an ideal period and is entirely critical of Xi Jinping's leadership (which is understandable from a certain point of view). The writing style occasionally resembles that of business consultants, with some sections reading like PowerPoint slides, and that's what really irked me. This came out of an academic press and yet the writing would occassionally devolve into corporate lingo making it feel more like your average pop-business book rather than a scholarly work.
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