The Gate to China
A New History of the People's Republic and Hong Kong
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The Gate to China
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Narrated by:
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Nigel Patterson
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By:
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Michael Sheridan
About this listen
The rise of China and the fall of Hong Kong to authoritarian rule are told with unique insight in this new history by Michael Sheridan, drawing on documents from archives in China and the West, interviews with key figures, and eyewitness reporting over three decades.
The story takes the listener from the earliest days of trade through the Opium Wars of the 19th century to the age of globalization, the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China, the fight for democracy on the city's streets, and the ultimate victory of the Chinese Communist Party.
As the West seeks a new China policy, we learn from private papers how Margaret Thatcher anguished over the fate of Hong Kong, sought secret American briefings on how to deal with Beijing, and put her trust in a spymaster who was tormented by his own doubts.
The Chinese version of history, so often unheard, emerges from memoirs and documents, many of them entirely new to the foreign listener, which reveal China's negotiating tactics. The voices of Hong Kong people - eloquent, smart, and bold - speak compellingly here at every turn.
©2021 Michael Sheridan (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 362
In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Hopefully Not Prescient
- By Joshua on 01-29-22
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The Death of Democracy
- Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
- By: Benjamin Carter Hett
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 587
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 493
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 490
Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In this dramatic audiobook, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time. Benjamin Carter Hett is one of America’s leading scholars of 20th-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of the feckless politicians of the Weimar Republic show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it.
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1 out of 5 stars
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I can't trust the author's account of these events
- By Example: Mark Twain on 11-10-19
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The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom
- America and China, 1776 to the Present
- By: John Pomfret
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 30 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 191
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Indispensable for understanding the US China relationship
- By D. Keith on 03-12-17
By: John Pomfret
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All the Kremlin's Men
- Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin
- By: Mikhail Zygar
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
All the Kremlin's Men is a gripping narrative of an accidental king and a court out of control. Based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle, this book presents a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. The image of Putin as a strongman is dissolved. In its place is a weary figurehead buffeted - if not controlled - by the men who at once advise and deceive him. The regional governors and bureaucratic leaders are immovable objects, far more powerful in their fiefdoms than the president himself.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enough with the Russian accents!
- By Emma Jane Top on 12-17-17
By: Mikhail Zygar
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Asia's Reckoning
- China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century
- By: Richard Mcgregor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 155
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
Richard McGregor's Asia's Reckoning is a compelling account of the widening geopolitical cracks in a region that has flourished under an American security umbrella for more than half a century. The toxic rivalry between China and Japan, two Asian giants consumed with endless history wars and ruled by entrenched political dynasties, is threatening to upend the peace underwritten by Pax Americana since World War II.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good info to learn, but...
- By Neal on 02-24-18
By: Richard Mcgregor
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The Fate of Africa
- A History of the Continent Since Independence
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 29 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 386
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 336
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 332
Martin Meredith has revised this classic history to incorporate important recent developments, including the Darfur crisis in Sudan, Robert Mugabe’s continued destructive rule in Zimbabwe, controversies over Western aid and exploitation of Africa’s resources, the growing importance and influence of China, and the democratic movement roiling the North African countries of Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Africa: Land of Hope and Horror
- By Jeff on 03-08-14
By: Martin Meredith
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Armageddon Averted
- The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 147
Combining historical and geopolitical analysis with an absorbing narrative, Kotkin draws upon extensive research, including memoirs by dozens of insiders and senior figures, to illuminate the factors that led to the demise of Communism and the USSR. The new edition puts the collapse in the context of the global economic and political changes from the 1970s to the present day. Kotkin creates a compelling profile of post-Soviet Russia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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insightful
- By Anonymous User on 01-28-20
By: Stephen Kotkin
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Democracy
- Stories from the Long Road to Freedom
- By: Condoleezza Rice
- Narrated by: Grace Angela Henry
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 257
From the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice has served on the front lines of history. As a child, she was an eyewitness to a third awakening of freedom, when her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, became the epicenter of the civil rights movement for black Americans. In this book, Rice explains what these epochal events teach us about democracy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Case for Democracy
- By Jean on 05-18-17
By: Condoleezza Rice
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The Downfall of Money
- Germany’s Hyperinflation and the Destruction of the Middle Class
- By: Frederick Taylor
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 151
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
A hundred years ago, many theorists believed - just as they did at the beginning of our 21st century - that the world had reached a state of economic perfection, a never-before-seen human interdependence that would lead to universal growth and prosperity. Then, as now, the German mark was one of the most trusted currencies in the world. Yet the early years of the Weimar Republic in Germany witnessed the most calamitous meltdown of a developed economy in modern times.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly recommended story of German hyperinflation
- By Lance on 09-21-15
By: Frederick Taylor
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Winter Is Coming
- Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
- By: Garry Kasparov
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 983
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 882
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 881
The ascension of Vladimir Putin - a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB - to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years - as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him - Putin has grown into not only a dictator but a global threat. With his vast resources and nuclear weapons, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A polemic against Putin
- By David on 05-27-16
By: Garry Kasparov
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The Invention of Russia
- From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War
- By: Arkady Ostrovsky
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 207
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 181
The end of Communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. So how did we go from the promise of those days to the autocratic police state of Putin's new Russia? The Invention of Russia reaches back to the darkest days of the Cold War to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sad Story of Russia's Abandonment of Liberalism
- By Amazon Customer on 10-03-16
By: Arkady Ostrovsky
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The Brothers
- John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,802
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,596
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,591
John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?
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4 out of 5 stars
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A duel biography
- By Jean on 09-26-14
By: Stephen Kinzer
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Stalin, Volume I
- Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
- By: Stephen Kotkin
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 38 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 874
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 740
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 739
Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Book But First Time Listener Beware
- By Nostromo on 03-23-15
By: Stephen Kotkin
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Reset
- Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the 21st century: Turkey and Iran.
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5 out of 5 stars
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challenges stereotypes
- By R.S. on 06-14-10
By: Stephen Kinzer
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The Summit
- Bretton Woods, 1944: J. M. Keynes and the Reshaping of the Global Economy
- By: Ed Conway
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
The meeting of world leaders at Bretton Woods in 1944 was the only time countries from around the world agreed to overhaul the structure of the international monetary system. The system they set up presided over the longest, strongest, and most stable period of growth the world economy has ever seen.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Big insights, crisp and clear
- By Philo on 09-14-16
By: Ed Conway
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Lords of Finance
- The Bankers Who Broke the World
- By: Liaquat Ahamed
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,652
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,255
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,263
It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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4 out of 5 stars
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
What listeners say about The Gate to China
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tiago Flora
- 07-28-22
Thorough account of the handover
The title shines at providing the history of the Hong Kong handover from the Thatcher years to July 1, 1997. It does very well in illustrating the "psychological chasm" between the Chinese Communist Party, Hong Kongers, and British colonial officers, which explains much of the attitudes toward HK democracy on global display since 2019.
The narrator did a splendid job at communicating the subject with the gravitas it deserves.
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