Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook5 hours
Mao Zedong
Written by Jonathan Spence
Narrated by Alexander Adams
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Born in rural China in 1893, Mao Zedong led his country through "a long-drawn-out adventure in upheaval." In the process, he became one of the monumental figures of the twentieth century. He died in 1976, just as China was entering a détente with the United States. This excellent biography illuminates Mao's family life, his early years as a revolutionary, and his brief paradoxical flirtation with capitalism. Jonathan Spence, author of 11 books on Chinese history, provides both a panoramic portrait of China and a private portrait of the man at the center of so many historic events. Using sources not readily available, he penetrates the complex persona of Chairman Mao to provide an intimate view of a chilling enigma.
"Spence is the best known and most talented historian of China writing in English today . . . displaying an inventive ability to derive both meaning and narrative from episodes of Chinese history that are little known in the West."-Los Angeles Times
"Spence is the best known and most talented historian of China writing in English today . . . displaying an inventive ability to derive both meaning and narrative from episodes of Chinese history that are little known in the West."-Los Angeles Times
Unavailable
Related to Mao Zedong
Related audiobooks
Notes From China Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalin: Passage to Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin's Secret Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War • July 1937–May 1942 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stalin as Warlord Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalin: The Kremlin Mountaineer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Storm Clouds over the Pacific, 1931-1941 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brushstrokes in Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Soviet Sixties Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St James's, 1932-1943 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gulag: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCold War Exiles and the CIA: Plotting to Free Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Putin's Wars and NATO's Flaws: Why Russia Invaded Ukraine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soviet Union during the Brezhnev Era: The History of the USSR Under Leonid Brezhnev Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStalin, Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Odessa With Love: Political And Literary Essays from Post-Soviet Ukraine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKhrushchev: The Man and His Era Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Asian History For You
In the Enemy's House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Japan's Infamous Unit 731: Firsthand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shogun: The Life and Times of Tokugawa Ieyasu: Japan's Greatest Ruler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cold War: A New History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ancient Aliens®: The Official Companion Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Code of the Samurai: A Modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu of Taira Shigesuke Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Short History of Russia: How the World's Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler's Bunker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Putin Interviews: Oliver Stone Interviews Vladimir Putin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Spy Who Knew Too Much: An Ex-CIA Officer’s Quest Through a Legacy of Betrayal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Mosque: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Krakatoa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women's Voices from the Gulag Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gulag: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Mao Zedong
Rating: 3.301728275862069 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
58 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A rather slim book, Jonathan Spence offers a brief window into the world of Mao, one of the most influential people of the 20th Century. Sadly however, this brevity is this books greatest weakness. Names, places and events, especially events in the latter half of Mao's life, fly by quickly. Rather than a primer on Mao, this book serves more as a vague introduction, lacking detail on the few events that general readers might actually know about Mao.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good but it is short and there aren't many details
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A somewhat unbalanced biography: It opens with an abundance of personal detail during Mao's youth, gives a too brief account his rise to leadership during of the Long March, and then distances itself from its subject during the long years of Mao's chairmanship. It's a decent way of getting an outline of Mao's life, but it is too brief to give a complete portrait.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A rather slim book, Jonathan Spence offers a brief window into the world of Mao, one of the most influential people of the 20th Century. Sadly however, this brevity is this books greatest weakness. Names, places and events, especially events in the latter half of Mao's life, fly by quickly. Rather than a primer on Mao, this book serves more as a vague introduction, lacking detail on the few events that general readers might actually know about Mao.