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Title: Mao's Great Famine

Author: Frank Dikötter

Narrator: David Bauckham

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-01-12

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 94 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million Chinese people were worked, starved or beaten to death. Mao Zedong threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward. It lead to one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known. Dikotter's extraordinary research within Chinese archives brings together for the first time what happened in the corridors of power with the everyday experiences of ordinary people. This groundbreaking account definitively recasts the history of the People's Republic of China.

Members Reviews:

Seminal book on Mao's failures

This audiobook will expose what most of us never knew: the People's Revolution hid a devastating loss of life through starvation and exhaustion. I also learned about the cult of personality and the role the Soviets played in this disaster. My only complaint was that the listing of data became tiresome, like steel tonnage exported, etc.

The best part of the story if the narration by David Bauckham. Clearly a well trained speaker of Mandarin, his articulation and inflection was spot on, and I never tired of his voice. Excellent book overall.

Great book, terrible audio reading

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator clearly has no background whatsoever in reading texts with Chinese words, and it seems he couldn't be bothered to learn even approximate pronunciations. I'm not a language snob, and by no means expect perfection in this regard, but the pronunciations were so bad that I often had no clue what he was talking about. For example, Guangzhou became "Gwang-zoo," Liu Shaoqi became "Liu Shao-kee." And those were just some of the ones I was able to figure out based on context. Virtually every name and place was pronounced incorrectly, and these incorrect pronunciations weren't even consistent. I could figure out most of the time what he meant to say by the context, but it was very annoying when I had no clue what place or person was being discussed because of the abysmal pronunciations. It undermines the value as a learning tool. Save your money and buy the print version.

Engaging history, bad pronunciation

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Parts of this recording may grate on the ears of anyone who speaks Chinese or has a firm idea of how Chinese names and places ought to be pronounced. At best, it's distracting, at worst it is hard to understand what names the narrator is attempting to pronounce. David Bauckham is otherwise a very competent and fluid narrator, which perhaps makes the Chinese pronunciation problems more noticeable.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of David Bauckham?

Any narrator of similar competence, but who could pronounce the Chinese names and places mentioned in the text, would be a massive improvement.

Any additional comments?

There's plenty of available discussion about the importance of Dikotter's work in challenging Chinese orthodoxy regarding the Great Famine and Great Leap Forward. It's worth reading, as is the more thoughtful criticism of his arguments and methods in reaching his final figure of 45 million dead due to the famine.

Too many stats

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I would add more first hand accounts to humanize the story. It's hard to relate to a list of endless statistics.