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China Road
- A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
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Loved this-Great combo:Story and History Explained
- By Jeremy on 07-10-14
By: Simon Winchester
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The Almost Nearly Perfect People
- Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than 10 years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely audiobook, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another.
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Obsessed with bad politics
- By Erik on 09-07-20
By: Michael Booth
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Street of Eternal Happiness
- Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road
- By: Rob Schmitz
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies.
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Deserving of better audio
- By Rachael on 02-19-18
By: Rob Schmitz
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Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
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Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
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A Continent for the Taking
- The Tragedy and Hope of Africa
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In A Continent for the Taking, Howard W. French, a veteran correspondent for The New York Times, gives a compelling firsthand account of some of Africa's most devastating recent history. While he captures the tragedies that have repeatedly befallen Africa's peoples, French also opens our eyes to the immense possibility that lies in Africa's complexity, diversity, and myriad cultural strengths.
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A story to pay your attention to
- By George on 04-30-13
By: Howard W. French
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The International Bank of Bob
- Connecting Our World One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time
- By: Bob Harris
- Narrated by: Bob Harris
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Hired by ForbesTraveler.com to review some of the most luxurious accommodations on Earth, and then inspired by a chance encounter in Dubai with the impoverished workers whose backbreaking jobs create such opulence, Bob Harris had an epiphany: He would turn his own good fortune into an effort to make lives like theirs better.
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Wonderfully entertaining and accessible book
- By Tim on 01-15-14
By: Bob Harris
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Children of Jihad
- By: Jared Cohen
- Narrated by: Jason Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Classrooms were never sufficient for Jared Cohen; he wanted to learn about global affairs by witnessing them firsthand. While studying on a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford, he took a crash course in Arabic, read voraciously on the history and culture of the Middle East, and in 2004 he embarked on the first of a series of incredible journeys to the Middle East. In an effort to try to understand the spread of radical Islamist violence, he focused his research on Muslim youth.
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Awakens hope
- By Diane on 09-23-08
By: Jared Cohen
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Indonesia, Etc.
- Exploring the Improbable Nation
- By: Elizabeth Pisani
- Narrated by: Jan Cramer
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Bewitched by Indonesia for twenty-five years, Elizabeth Pisani recently traveled 26,000 miles around the archipelago in search of the links that bind this impossibly disparate nation. Fearless and funny, Pisani shares her deck space with pigs and cows, bunks down in a sulfurous volcano, and takes tea with a corpse. Along the way, she observes Big Men with child brides, debates corruption and cannibalism, and ponders "sticky" traditions that cannot be erased.
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Bill Bryson channels Margaret Mead
- By John S. on 09-01-14
By: Elizabeth Pisani
What listeners say about China Road
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- W. Quigley
- 07-05-10
Makes China come alive
His knowledge of the people, culture, and language makes this a rare find. If you like the travel-history genre (like Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts) I think you will like this as well.
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- John
- 04-16-12
pretty good.
Would you recommend China Road to your friends? Why or why not?
not sure i'd go out of my way to recommend this book, but i wouldn't stop someone from reading it either. gifford is clearly quite knowledgeable about china, and the book is filled with interesting anecdotes, cultural highlights, and historical facts and explanations. there seems to be a bit of a tension within gifford on china. he's clearly fascinated with the place, and has a deep respect for it, but he also has a tendency to make sweeping generalizations about the people as a whole that end up making the chinese people sound like a science project. i think this is mainly a result of his perspective, which is something akin to a close family friend. he knows china very, very well, but as an outsider can never truly understand it. having spend an extended amount of time in china, i can understand that. that said, i also appreciate the objective criticisms that he is able to give as an outsider. in the end, this is a good crash course on modern china. it gives both a historical perspective and a ground-level journalistic perspective, and it is far more interesting than reading a text book.
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Overall
- Gary
- 05-31-10
Excellent book read by my favorite reader
I haven't read/heard a good travel book in some time but this is a total winner. I gained a lot of insights into China. Simon Vance provides just the right tone to the reading. Highly recommended for anyone prepping for a China trip. You won't be sorry.
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Overall
- CT Chase
- 12-28-09
Captures China as it is today
Loved the insight and view of China away from the glamour of the major cities.
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- Samantha H.
- 09-08-21
I've held onto this book for years
I had to read the first few chapters for a study abroad program, but kept the book afterwards. I eventually got the audiobook to finish reading it and I love it. I have never been so inspired to travel the silk road as he did before returning to England. Such great writing about China and Chinese people as he traveled through different areas and demographics of China.
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- Rahni
- 02-06-18
Read this book!
Upon finishing traveling Route 312 with the droll and perceptive Rob Gifford, all I am is sad to call it an end. I immediately searched for more titles from him, but have been disheartened not to find any other books by him available. Not shocking, I suppose, as he is a reporter/journalist, not a novelist/writer. But still. I’ll have to keep looking.
With traditionally dry British wit, and a canny eye that understands the culture, Gifford effortlessly switches from using a wide lens to encompass the vast empire, then zooming in, region by region, weaving in and out between informative historical background and pertinent modern day observations and concerns.
Broad of scope and broadly appealing, this book really brought China into the 21st century for me. If you read one book on China this year (or decade), read this one.
Wonderful, wonderful narration (as always) by one of my favorite narrators, Simon Vance. I came across this book "serendipitously" because I was paging through books he narrated, looking for another of his. The man's got good taste!
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- michael
- 01-14-12
Beautifully Written
This is a really great and still fairly relevant analysis of China. Also it is one of the most interesting travelogues I have ever read.
Whatever your current opinion is about the rise of China, be it a good thing or bad thing for America and Europe, this book will leave you with mixed emotions on the subject. As for me, I would love it if the whole world had plenty. The only problem is that if the whole world goes through the process needed to obtain plenty, there won't be much of the world left, afterwards.
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Overall
- Andy
- 06-08-11
Great insight into Western China
A large part of this book focuses on the author's travels through and past the Gobi desert as he follows a highway from East to West China. He has a number of encounters with Uyghurs, a population of Muslim Chinese whose plights and struggles rarely get mentioned in Western press. Gifford doesn't write a book about the Uyghurs, but rather integrates them into a larger narrative that depicts an expanding and hegemonistic Chinese future.
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- oikhuy
- 03-12-18
Modern China and Personal Stories.
narrator is great as his other performances. if you know basic modern Chinese history than the begining will be a refresher on it all. the rest is a mixture of the author's personal journey through the heartland of china, stories of the myriad of people he encounters, and the political landscape of modern China with a western viewpoint.
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- Paige Woodruff
- 08-08-14
fabulous writing
This is an amazing journey down the old China Road with the well known journalist who does an outstanding job bringing Chinese culture to life. The book is written with great
attention to detail so the listener can easily visualize the scenery and people. I was fascinated as the author befriended people along the road who helped him "get further" in the journey. I must confess I am a bit fascinated by the lifestyle of the international journalist so this may influence my review. I think if you are interested to learn more about the real China this book is for you.
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