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A Brief History of China
- Dynasty, Revolution and Transformation: From the Middle Kingdom to the People's Republic
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
A Brief History of China tells of the development of a rich and complex civilization where the use of paper, writing, money, and gunpowder were widespread in ancient times and where silk, ceramics, tea, metal implements, and other products were produced and exported around the globe. It examines the special conditions that allowed a single culture to unify an entire continent spanning 10 billion square kilometers under the rule of a single man - and the unbelievably rich artistic, literary and architectural heritage that Chinese culture has bequeathed to the world. Equally fascinating is the story of China's decline in the 19th and early 20th century - as Europeans and Americans took center stage - and its modern resurgence as an economic powerhouse in recent years.
In his retelling of a Chinese history stretching back 5,000 years, author and China-expert Jonathan Clements focuses on the human stories which led to the powerful transformations in Chinese society - from the unification of China under its first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi, to the Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan and the consolidation of Communist rule under Mao Zedong. Clements even brings listeners through to the present day, outlining China's economic renaissance under Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping.
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Hard to take a break from it!
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A History of the World
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- Narrated by: Andrew Marr, David Timson
- Length: 26 hrs and 28 mins
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Performance
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From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century: a global journey through human history, published alongside a landmark BBC One television series. Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey, Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories, from classical Greece and Rome to the rise of Napoleon, but surrounds them with less familiar material, from Peru to the Ukraine, China to the Caribbean.
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25 hours of enjoyment
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God's Shadow
- Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Alan Mikhail
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
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Performance
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Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520).
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Entertaining narrative, but poor scholarship
- By Yosemite on 09-15-20
By: Alan Mikhail
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The Greeks
- A Global History
- By: Roderick Beaton
- Narrated by: Anna Crowe
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek city-states, led by Athens and Sparta, laid the foundation for much of modern science, the arts, politics, and law. But the influence of the Greeks did not end with the rise and fall of this classical civilization. As historian Roderick Beaton illustrates, over three millennia Greek speakers produced a series of civilizations that were rooted in southeastern Europe but again and again ranged widely across the globe.
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An Ethnography of the Greeks
- By gmurphy92 on 03-27-22
By: Roderick Beaton
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A Brief History of the Vikings
- Brief Histories
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans?
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Excellent
- By Jean on 05-09-13
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Arabs
- A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes, and Empires
- By: Tim Mackintosh-Smith
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 hrs and 34 mins
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This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia.
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Good book bad narration
- By Anonymous User on 09-18-19
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The Ottomans
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic Asian antithesis of the Christian European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage.
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Great except for pronunt of Turkish names
- By Anonymous User on 11-04-22
By: Marc David Baer
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The Shortest History of China
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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!
- By Emma on 10-23-24
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Vanished Kingdoms
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Overall
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Performance
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There is something profoundly romantic about lost civilizations. Davies peers through the cracks in the mainstream accounts of modern-day states to dazzle us with extraordinary stories of barely remembered pasts, and of the traces they left behind. This is Norman Davies at his best: sweeping narrative history packed with unexpected insights. Vanished Kingdoms will appeal to all fans of unconventional and thought-provoking history, from listeners of Niall Ferguson to Jared Diamond.
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needs a good editor.
- By Ryan Anderson on 09-25-21
By: Norman Davies
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The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
- By: Toby Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this landmark work, one of the world's most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption into the Roman Empire - 3,000 years of wild drama, bold spectacle, and unforgettable characters. Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavish pomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohs but for the first time reveals the constant propaganda and repression that were its foundations.
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Well Written and Detailed
- By Matthew G. on 01-26-18
By: Toby Wilkinson
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Fifth Sun
- A New History of the Aztecs
- By: Camilla Townsend
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Overall
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Performance
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For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes.
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Ethnocentric ethnohistory
- By Jeffrey D on 03-24-21
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China
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Overall
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Performance
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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
- By Betty on 10-16-16
By: John Keay
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The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.
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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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so informative for a new student of Japan
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What listeners say about A Brief History of China
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Wilson Taylor
- 02-15-22
Great Story, Painful and Distracting Narration
The story is great, it’s an excellent comprehensive book of the history of China, but the narrator’s absolute butchery of the Chinese language is wildly distracting from the story being told. If he was going to spend countless hours recording and editing a story with lots of Chinese words and names, why on earth could they not have given him a 10-min crash course on basic Chinese pronunciation??
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- Selinasmiley
- 03-07-23
Good info, poor narration
While I don't expect literal chinese pronunciation by the narrator, there are closer english approximates to chinese sounds. It sounds like he just read it as-is without consulting basic phonetics in a book filled with Chinese names. If you have any familiarity with chinese history it makes it hard to follow.
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- Chip L.
- 03-28-23
A coherent, unified narration of 5000 years of history
I really like Jonathon Clements because his history books articulate a few persistent historical themes/ patterns that he used throughout the book. The resulting narration becomes more than just random facts, and more like a story. (Given his academic chops I assume it’s historically accurate.)
This “story” of China is not as compelling as his similar book on Japan, but I imagine that’s simply due to the far-greater challenge of a unified telling of Chinese history given its vastly more diverse time, people, lands, etc.
I don’t speak a word of Chinese, so the apparently botched pronunciations (see other reviews) didn’t bother me a bit. His enunciation was clear and consistent so I knew what he was saying.
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- SMJ
- 05-18-23
Accessible and entertaining
Moves quickly and provides a digestible history of China for otherwise non-academic audience like me. Great narration.
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- Stephen Sheafer
- 08-19-20
Succinct and detailed overview of a huge topic
The book does a great job of outlining the major periods of history in China from ancient to modern. Importantly, it also provides small vignettes with details about what life was like for a person in those eras. This makes it much easier to understand the context of the larger historical changes. "Brief" is an accurate description as there is too much material to cover any topic in depth.
I was particularly impressed at how the book uses archaeological and climatological evidence to support historical political changes. The Further Reading section at the end details the sources that the author drew from. It's clear that the author is quite knowledgeable about the field, and I found the writing style far more gripping than a lecture. I think this book is a great introduction to any of the topics within.
The narration was pleasant and easy to follow. I had to turn the speed down from my usual 1.3 to 1.0 as it proceeds at a good pace. I believe this is more a quality of the succinct writing than the narration speed.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Oskar Lorentzi Wall
- 01-05-22
Fantastic, harmonized
Loved this, don’t read much history but this had me captivated all the way through. I thought I’d stop listening before the communists because I was mostly interested in the old stuff, but it turns out the ending was most exciting of all! Gave us a true experience of China’s control over anything written in it or - apparently - about it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bryan
- 03-03-24
A good brief history
Exactly what I was hoping for. If you're looking for a brief but comprehensive history of China, then I recommend this book to you. It serves its purpose effectively and if there is a specific part of Chinese history that you learn about from here, then you can dive deeper elsewhere.
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