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At the Edge of Empire
- A Family's Reckoning with China
- Narrated by: Edward Wong, Will Dao
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's summary
“This book’s power comes from Wong’s broad sense of the patterns of Chinese history, reflected in the lives of a father and son, and from his ability to toggle effortlessly between the epic and the intimate.”—Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic
“Edward Wong’s exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America’s finest reporters on China could deliver. In tracing his father’s journey—from Hong Kong to Xinjiang to America—Wong gives us a profound story of modern China itself. Anyone who once was absorbed by the power of Wild Swans will savor this meditation on memory, history, and belonging.”—Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award
One of Foreign Policy’s Most Anticipated Books of 2024
An epic story of modern China that weaves a riveting family memoir with vital reporting by the New York Times diplomatic correspondent
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. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he made plans for a desperate escape to Hong Kong.
When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father’s mysterious past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation’s astounding economic boom and global expansion—and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father’s footsteps, he witnessed ethnic struggles in Xinjiang and Tibet and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And he had an insider’s view of the world’s two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads.
Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans decades of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today.
Critic reviews
“[A] fascinating, ambitiously textured narrative. . . . Wong capably interweaves intimate details with broader truths. A well-written, multilayered work of poignant familial memories and personal reflection.”—Kirkus Reviews (STARRED review)
“Edward Wong’s exquisite family chronicle achieves a level of humane illumination that only one of America’s finest reporters on China could deliver. In tracing his father’s journey—from Hong Kong to Xinjiang to America—Wong gives us a profound story of modern China itself. Anyone who once was absorbed by the power of Wild Swans will savor this meditation on memory, history, and belonging.”—Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition, winner of the National Book Award
“At the Edge of Empire is a splendid journey through 80 years of Chinese history told from the viewpoint of a nonagenarian Chinese American and his son, the former New York Times bureau chief in Beijing. Edward Wong is about as knowledgeable a guide to China as a reader could ever hope to find, and the interweaving of the highly personal accounts bring it all vividly to life in a way no other book on China has for me.”—Barbara Demick, author of Eat the Buddha and Nothing to Envy
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Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet is based on interviews, letters, and an extraordinary collection of unpublished papers that had never before been examined. Delmore Schwartz was only 24 in 1938 when his first book, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, was published. He received praise from T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams.
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An exceptional book
- By Stephen Werk on 05-04-21
By: James Atlas
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The Talented Mr. Ripley
- By: Patricia Highsmith
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal, but he grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante.
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Patricia, Phil, and Pathology
- By Mel on 04-24-13
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Alexander at the End of the World
- The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great
- By: Rachel Kousser
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world.
By: Rachel Kousser
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Among the Thugs
- By: Bill Buford
- Narrated by: Bill Buford
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now, Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure.
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Riveting
- By Matthew & Nina iles on 10-22-19
By: Bill Buford
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The Damascus Events
- The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
- By: Eugene Rogan
- Narrated by: Ronan Summers
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawn from never-before-seen eyewitness accounts of the Damascus Events, eminent Middle East historian Eugene Rogan tells the story of how a peaceful multicultural city came to be engulfed in slaughter. He traces how rising tensions between Muslim and Christian communities led some to regard extermination as a reasonable solution. Rogan also narrates the wake of this disaster, and how the Ottoman government moved quickly to retake control of the city, end the violence, and reintegrate Christians into the community.
By: Eugene Rogan
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I Will Tell No War Stories
- What Our Fathers Left Unsaid About World War II
- By: Howard Mansfield
- Narrated by: Howard Mansfield
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When Howard Mansfield grew up, World War II was omnipresent and hidden. This was also true of his father’s time in the Air Force. Like most of his generation, it was a rule not to talk about what he’d experienced in war. “You’re not getting any war stories from me,” he’d say. Cleaning up the old family house the year before his father's death, Mansfield was surprised to find a short diary of the bombing missions he had flown. Some of the missions were harrowing. Mansfield began to fill in the details, and to be surprised again, this time by a history he thought he knew.
By: Howard Mansfield
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