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Title: China

Subtitle: A History

Author: John Keay

Narrator: Anne Flosnik

Format: Unabridged

Length: 25 hrs and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-31-16

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 78 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

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.

Crisp, judicious, and engaging, China is the classic single-volume history for anyone seeking to understand the present and future of this immensely powerful nation.

Members Reviews:

Needs new narrator

While the book itself seems great, a well researched and compact history with lively prose, the narrator clearly knows no Chinese and her frequent mispronunciation of names and places makes for difficult listening. E.g. as jong gwa, as "shee-yah", as "chew" These and many more become rather grating and make it hard to take the content itself seriously. Would gladly buy the book again with a new narration

Exactly what I was looking for in a Chinese history book

This is an excellent narration of a marathon in book format. It is difficult to speed up the narration due to the complexity of its content and I listened at 1.5 speed. China has thousands of years and millions of pages and scrolls of history compiled here in a short but furious 600 pages. With sweeping narratives, cheeky sarcasm and timely repetition of key ideas, I highly recommend this book and narration both, since the book contains graphs and important spelling of names and the narration provides pronunciation of said names. Give yourself one month to work your way through this behemoth at the pace of about one chapter per day prior to visiting China or for a better personal understanding of China's trajectory.

Beautiful story, butchering of Chinese names

Would you try another book from John Keay and/or Anne Flosnik?

I could not finish this book not because the book is poor. Keay wrote a masterful book. But the narration was just simply horrible. Flosnik has a beautiful and engaging voice, but her pronunciation of Chinese names are just wrong, at least for the Chinese audience who are fluent in Chinese. But I could envision even for non-English speakers, the pronunciation is important as they want to correctly convey the right proper nouns in their discussions.

I am quite familiar with Chinese history, but even when I know the exact person, city, or situation (proper nouns) that Keay is referring to, I still have trouble connecting the dots - name dictated in the audio to the most common Mandarin pronunciation.

Of course, I realize it's perhaps unfair to blame Flosnick. But I do blame the publisher or the recording studio. In books like this, it's far more important to find someone who can speak the local languages. Even if the rest of the English has a Chinese accent, it's still far better to pronounce the local names correctly.

What was one of the most memorable moments of China?

Difficult to tell since most of the memorable moments have Chinese names and I can barely get through them.

How could the performance have been better?

See above. Find someone who actually speaks Chinese.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment.