Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Beyond the Heavenly Kingdom

Subtitle: Sino-American Tales, Book 2

Author: Li Bo

Narrator: Jack Nolan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-25-17

Publisher: Steven A. Leibo

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Beyond the Heavenly Kingdom is the second book in a series set in the mid-19th century and follows Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom, which traced the lives of Jason Brandt; his wife, Black Jade; and his scholar friend Wu Sek-chong during the Chinese Civil War. In this second novel, Brandt and Black Jade travel from Shanghai to Boston in the years following the American Civil War. Americans of that era, increasingly anxious about competition from lower wage Chinese immigrants, demanded an end to all immigration from China, which culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

In this novel inspired by Mark Twain's travel memoir Innocents Abroad, Brandt, a Shanghai-based American journalist, imagines writing a book that chronicles his own travels. He and Black Jade journey to Boston, where his father, a retired Christian missionary, lives. On the journey, Brandt and Black Jade learn of the Troy Female Seminary, a pioneering girls' school in Upstate New York, and dream of opening a similar school in China. Along the way, they encounter actual historical figures - including President Grant, Mark Twain, and Senator Charles Sumner - as well as literary characters such as Phileas Fogg.

Travel with them as they come to grips with a changing world that shares many parallels with our own.

Members Reviews:

The journey continues . . .

A sequel to Li Boâs Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom, this novel surpasses the first in terms of detail, research, and quality of writing. Beyond the Heavenly Kingdom picks up where the first novel left off, at the end of the Taiping Rebellion, amidst increasing tensions between the failing Qing Dynasty and Western nations in the late nineteenth century. Journalist/writer Jason Brandt and Black Jade (his wife) subsequently decide to tempt their fate by travelling to America with their children. The novel primarily traces the familyâs ocean journey from China to San Francisco, their train ride from California to New York to Massachusetts, but also includes subsequent trips between China and the US, and journeys to Europe and the Middle East. As before, we are experiencing their adventures through the eyes of Jason; however, despite being born in America, he is more comfortable and familiar with Chinaâs environment and its people. The story is fascinating and unique in its incorporation of both historical and fictional characters, all of whom interact with Jason and his family. These figures include Mark Twain, Prosper Giquel (on whom Leibo has done extensive historical research), Harriet Beacher Stowe, Ulysses S. Grant, Russell Sage, Emma Willard, Yung Wing (the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university), and Phileas Fogg (from Jules Verneâs Around the World in Eighty Days). From these interactions, readers gain insight on a number of historical topics, including the American publishing and media industries in the nineteenth century, the history and development of San Francisco, the history of womenâs education in Troy, NY, the growth of the anti-Chinese movement in the US, as well as post-Civil War race relations. Notable adventures include Jasonâs involvement in both the labor strike (broken by Chinese workers) in North Adams, Massachusetts, as well as Ulysses S. Grantâs post-presidency trip to China.