China

A History

By: John Keay

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

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.

©2009 John Keay (P)2016 Tantor

Enjoyable and Exhausting

Narration was fine, there were a few places were the recording blurred, overall I learned a lot and will continue to broaden my understanding of eastern countries

A great history book, HORRIBLE narration

I love this book - I’ve read it a few times in the past and I would have enjoyed listening to it as a refresher. However I can’t stand the narration - I have lived in China for several years now and I’m fairly knowledgeable about Chinese history… but whenever this narrator mentions a person or place I barely know what they’re talking about, it is so horribly mispronounced. Never mind getting a Chinese speaker, the producers could have at least found someone who can correctly read pinyin. Such a pity for a book that otherwise gets so much right.

Probably a great book, but worst performance ever

Couldn’t listen for more than a few hours: the narration is HORRENDOUSLY monotone and dull.

great book, terrible narrator

Were the producers trying to be ironic by casting an ESL narrator who misses all the tonal subtleties of English to read a history of a place with highly tonal languages? Might as well have been computer generated narration. The John Keay history of India had a pitch perfect narrator. Hopefully the production company fixes its mistake and rerecords with him.

Good, but a little out of order

The narrative kept moving forward and back in time. The information was good, but it was tough to know when events described were occurring.