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The World Turned Upside Down
- A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 26 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
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.
Following his groundbreaking and award-winning history of the Great Famine, Tombstone, Yang Jisheng here presents the only history of the Cultural Revolution by an independent scholar based in mainland China, and makes a crucial contribution to understanding those years' lasting influence today.
The World Turned Upside Down puts every political incident, major and minor, of those 10 years under extraordinary and withering scrutiny, and arrives in English at a moment when contemporary Chinese governance is leaning once more toward a highly centralized power structure and Mao-style cult of personality.
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
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Iron Curtain
- The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 26 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete.
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Important story, imperfectly executed
- By jackifus on 12-08-12
By: Anne Applebaum
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The Jakarta Method
- Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World
- By: Vincent Bevins
- Narrated by: Tim Paige
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the 20th century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.
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Great book, but the narration has serious flaws
- By Prof. Neil Larsen on 08-03-20
By: Vincent Bevins
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Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
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The Coming of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.
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Compelling and depressing
- By Tad Davis on 06-30-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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The Bhutto Dynasty
- The Struggle for Power in Pakistan
- By: Owen Bennett-Jones
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day.
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Excellent coverage of the dynasty
- By Junaid Qurashi on 04-26-21
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Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 28 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I.
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The heart of evil
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-20-14
By: Ian Kershaw
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America and Iran
- A History, 1720 to the Present
- By: John Ghazvinian
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 27 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the 18th century - the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams - and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government.
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Distortions Galore
- By Chuck S. on 03-15-21
By: John Ghazvinian
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The Third Reich in Power
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.
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Great book, annoying narrator
- By Maria on 08-14-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs
- The Syrian Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance
- By: Elizabeth F. Thompson
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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When Europe's Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against the Turks. The British supported the Arabs' fight for an independent state and sent an intelligence officer, T. E. Lawrence, to join Prince Faisal, leader of the Arab army and a descendant of the Prophet. In October 1918, Faisal, Lawrence, and the Arabs victoriously entered Damascus, where they declared a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. At the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal won the support of President Woodrow Wilson.
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Good listen
- By Amazon Customer on 08-09-24
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The Unfathomable Ascent
- How Hitler Came to Power
- By: Peter Ross Range
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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On the night of January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler leaned out of a spotlit window of the Reich chancellery in Berlin, bursting with joy. The moment seemed unbelievable, even to Hitler. After an improbable political journey that came close to faltering on many occasions, his march to power had finally succeeded. While the path of Hitler's rise has been told in books covering larger portions of his life, no previous work has focused solely on his eight-year climb to rule: 1925-1933.
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The best account of Hitler’s rise to power.
- By Deal W. Hudson on 08-26-20
By: Peter Ross Range
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The content is good but the narrator is terrible
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for a 22 hour book I feel like it should have been more comprehensive then it was.
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I don't believe this is read by a real person
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The content is good but the narrator is terrible
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for a 22 hour book I feel like it should have been more comprehensive then it was.
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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!
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Since the founding of the People's Republic of China over seventy years ago, five paramount leaders have shaped the fates and fortunes of the nation and the ruling Chinese Communist Party: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Under their leaderships, China has undergone an extraordinary transformation from an undeveloped and insular country to a comprehensive world power. In this definitive study, renowned Sinologist David Shambaugh offers a refreshing account of China's dramatic post-revolutionary history through the prism of those who ruled it.
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Very informative
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Michael Wood has travelled the length and breadth of China, the world's oldest civilization and longest lasting state, to tell a thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity, and deep humanity that stretches back thousands of years.
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Well researched, balanced, and informative
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Many nations define themselves in terms of territory or people; China defines itself in terms of history. Taking into account the country's unrivaled, voluminous tradition of history writing, John Keay has composed a vital and illuminating overview of the nation's complex and vivid past. Keay's authoritative history examines 5,000 years in China, from the time of the Three Dynasties through Chairman Mao and the current economic transformation of the country.
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Needs new narrator
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Emperor of Japan
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Little has been written about the strangely obscured figure of Meiji himself, the first Japanese emperor ever to meet a European. But now, Donald Keene sifts the available evidence to present a rich portrait not only of Meiji but also of rapid and sometimes violent change during this pivotal period in Japan's history. Emperor of Japan conveys in sparkling prose the complexity of the man and offers an unrivaled portrait of Japan in a period of unique interest.
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Great book. Terrible narration.
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Last Boat Out of Shanghai
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The dramatic real-life stories of four young people caught up in the mass exodus of Shanghai in the wake of China's 1949 Communist revolution. Benny must decide either to escape to Hong Kong or navigate the intricacies of a newly Communist China. Annuo, forced to flee with her father, a defeated Nationalist official, becomes an unwelcome exile in Taiwan. The financially strapped Ho fights deportation from the US in order to continue his studies while his family struggles at home. Bing, given away by her poor parents, faces the prospect of a new life among strangers in America.
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Wild Swans
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From kung-fu to tofu, tea to trade routes, sages to silk, China has influenced cuisine, commerce, military strategy, aesthetics, and philosophy across the world for thousands of years. Chinese history is nothing if not messy. Heroes are also villains; prosperity mingles with violence; cultural vibrancy coexists with censorship and repression. Modern China is seen variously as an economic powerhouse, an icon of urbanization, a propaganda state, and an aggressive superpower seeking world domination.
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Loved it!
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China in Ten Words
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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
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The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom
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Our relationship with China remains one of the most complex and rapidly evolving and is perhaps one of the most important to our nation's future. Here, John Pomfret, the author of the best-selling Chinese Lessons, takes us deep into these two countries' shared history and illuminates in vibrant, stunning detail every major event, relationship, and ongoing development that has affected diplomacy between these two booming, influential nations.
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Indispensable for understanding the US China relationship
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Stalin in Power
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- By: Robert C. Tucker
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 34 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In 1929, Stalin plunged Soviet Russia into a coercive "revolution from above", a decade-long effort to amass military-industrial power for a new war. He forced 25 million peasant families into state-run collectives and transformed the Communist Party into a servile instrument. In 1939, he concluded the pact with Hitler that enabled him to grasp at Eastern Europe while Hitler made war in the West.
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How to become a dictator
- By Kindle Customer on 09-22-21
By: Robert C. Tucker
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Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler
- The Age of Social Catastrophe
- By: Robert Gellately
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature.
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Incredible research as important now as then
- By Jason on 12-30-21
By: Robert Gellately
What listeners say about The World Turned Upside Down
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JOE
- 11-01-24
Eyes opening
The story is very informational and has many long lists of names and places. As a result, it might be a bit of a difficult read/listen if you are not a history buff.
The narration/performance/reading was good. No complaints there.
This book covers a VERY eye opening event in Chinese history. If you ever wanted to know more about China and its history, you should consider this book. This book has incredible detail on the cultural revolution.
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- Willy Wonka
- 08-17-22
Essential for understanding modern China.
An excellent and horrific look at modern Chinese marxism. Animal farm meets The Last Emperor.
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1 person found this helpful
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An exceptional (albeit quite dry) history.
A thorough history of the politics of the cultural revolution. It's packed with insights into the final years of Mao's reign and the struggles inside the communist party.
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- BenRias
- 05-26-21
Soooo much info...
I was really looking for a book that gave an overview of China’s cultural revolution, and what exactly was it. Also, i wanted to get an overview of Mao and his driving principles and philosophies.
This book does that, but also delves way into the minutiae. The benefits of this was a realistic image of Mao and life under his rule— as opposed to a politically polished image or overly hyped Western demonization. The drawbacks are that i come away from this book still thinking, “so what was the cultural revolution?!”
But maybe that’s the point. The eleven years of the cultural revolution was such mayhem that you cannot really define it. It truly was a period of seesawing conflicts with no defined missions nor accomplishments.
One final word of warning, despite the book’s forward stating that the book has been edited down to eliminate unnecessary numbers and figures, the book is still full of them. The book could easily be 8 hours shorter if footnotes were appropriately used. I don’t need to know the twelve names of high school students who wrote a character poster one night. I would prefer to read such info in a footnote when needed. I don’t need to know the number of people that died from each conceivable way of dying—a simple tally for all would suffice. I don’t need to know the names of each politician in attendance at a given meeting. Again... footnote that info.
I learned a lot, but i would’ve gotten more from a book that followed a few main players, and not digressed into the details of each and every possible person
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13 people found this helpful
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- Carter McKendry
- 04-21-21
Comprehensive, but fairly dry
This was a mixed bag. The author is clearly extremely knowledgeable and the content was well researched, but the prose was extremely academic in tone and it was a struggle to form a meaningful picture in the sea of names and dates. Commendable that the audiobook was produced, since the topic is important, but the text seems more like a reference book than a historical narrative.
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2 people found this helpful
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- mcg
- 09-21-24
Needs an editor
Too much information, not enough of it in footnotes, and this book desperately needs an editor to narrow it down to the most salient and details
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