
The Search for Modern China
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $25.76
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Frederick Davidson
The history of China is as rich and strange as that of any country on earth. Yet for many, China’s history remains unknown, or known only through the stylized images that generations in the West have cherished or reviled as truth.
With his command of character and event - the product of 30 years of research and reflection in the field - Spence dispels those myths in a powerful narrative. Over four centuries of Chinese history, from the waning days of the once-glorious Ming Dynasty to Deng Xiaoping’s bloody suppression of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, Spence fashions the astonishing story of the effort to achieve a modern China. Through the ideas and emotions of its reformist Confucian scholars, its poets, novelists, artists, and visionary students, we see one of the world’s oldest cultures struggling to define itself as Chinese and modern.
©1990 Jonathan D. Spence (P)2000 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...


















Don’t read tables please
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
bad narrator!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have one complaint: The pronunciation of most of the Chinese names is so wrong that the reader might as well be making up random noises. For example, "zhou" is pronounced "joe," not "zoo," and it matters because "zhou" appears in the names of most Chinese geographic locations outside Beijing and Shanghai. It would take 10 minutes for the reader to learn the absolute basics of how to pronounce Chinese names. By being too lazy to take those 10 minutes, the next 20? 30? hours of audio lose much of their value for any listener who hopes actually to learn something.
Excellent book, lazy narrator
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great Narration, Bad Pronunciation
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great history, distractingly terrible pronunciatio
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Good book, Horrible Narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It is extremely disappointing this audio version uses a narrator who does not know how to pronounce Chinese names and locations. Clearly the narrator does not need to be fluent in Chinese, but you would assume that either the narrator or the producer would take the time to learn the basics of Chinese pronunciation.
If there was another book even remotely comparable, I would return this and buy it. Unfortunately, I have not found a better option.
Disappointing narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
great book, but poor pronunciation of Chinese
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Its a wonderful book... ruined by an incompetent for this purpose narrator.
Expect a cringe at every name of a place or person
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Classic for a reason
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.