Asia Audiobooks | Travel

Battle of Red Cliffs, The: The History and Legacy of the Decisive Battle Fought Near the Start of An

At the forefront of the Three Kingdoms was one of ancient China’s most famous battles, fought in late 208 CE. An area of the Yangtze River located near modern Chibi City in the central Chinese province of Hubei was filled with ships as far as the eye could see. They were swift wooden vessels, built for speed and filled with hard faced men, arrows strung on their backs, ready to be released on the enemy. Massive warships with imposing war towers piled high with soldiers were also anchored in the river. These military ships were part of the mightiest naval invasion ever seen in China, but on the ships, the sailors were weary. Contrary to their imposing facade, these men were unfamiliar with the trials of river combat – they were northerners, more familiar with the frigid weather and the flat plains of northern China than being marooned on wooden ships in the water. Some of the men were ill, seasick from the prolonged exposure to life on the water. To combat this, Cao Cao, the supreme warlord of the northern Wei Kingdom and leader of the fleet, had ordered his men to tie their ships together to limit the swaying and to alleviate the sea sickness. It seemed to help, ironically, this seemingly simple solution would also spell doom for the invaders. The ensuing Battle of Red Cliffs changed Chinese history. It marked the end of the Han Dynasty, one of the greatest in China’s history, and pushed China into the era of the Three Kingdoms, an era of perpetual warfare and chaos. Furthermore, the battle also had a dramatic effect on Chinese culture, media, and literature, and the battle and its major participants remain legendary in China. Even today, movies, videogames, and comic books about this battle can be found in China, from the blockbuster film Red Cliff in 2009 to the video game series Dynasty Warriors. Clearly, the ramifications of this period of Chinese history can still be felt nearly 2,000 years later.

Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Hare (Narrator)

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Battle of Sekigahara, The: The History and Legacy of the Battle that Unified Japan under the Tokugaw

On October 21, 1600, two massive Japanese armies, totaling an estimated 200,000 soldiers armed to the teeth with swords, yari (spears), arrows, muskets and cannons, faced off on a battlefield near the town of Sekigahara. A bitter fight to the death ensued, and the results would determine the course of Japanese history for the next 250 years. On the battlefield was the warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa, a man desiring domain over the entire island of Japan, but standing in his way was Ishida Mitsunari, a warlord controlling vast swaths of western Japan. Moving with his armies from the east, Ieyasu maneuvered into a position at Sekigahara. Ieyasu was relying heavily on the legendary Japanese samurai, but contrary to popular belief, the samurai warriors of that era were avid firearm users, and this battle would be no exception, as both armies bristled with muskets and cannons. Ieyasu was outnumbered, but he had a trump card: traitors placed in the enemy army. These treacherous warlords would join Ieyasu in the midst of the battle, turning it in his favor. When Ieyasu became shogun (military dictator) of Japan, he presided over the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, which brought peace and stability to all of Japan if only by ending the constant civil wars. Many changes took place, most notably in the capabilities of the samurai, Japan’s ruling military class, who were no longer active combat participants. Instead, most of these warriors were fighters in name only, ruling, instead, as privileged bureaucrats. They served the Tokugawa Shogunate, a military government that moved to isolate Japan from the rest of the world, for more than two centuries, and military service became the exclusive domain of a privileged warrior class that combined the military with an intricate network of social status and vassalage to feudal lords.

Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Hare (Narrator)

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Battle of Shanghai, The: The History and Legacy of the Battle that Started the Second Sino-Japanese

On October 29, 1937, a large crowd of people gathered on the bank of the Wusong River in Shanghai to watch a spectacle, a life and death struggle unfolding directly in front of them across the river. The crowd was a curious blend of Chinese, European, and American civilians and journalists. Their focus was on the Sihang Warehouse across the river, but it wasn’t the warehouse itself that fascinated the onlookers. Instead, it was the men inside the warehouse, the men of the 524th Regiment, the 88th Division of the Chinese Nationalist Army. The soldiers were elite, and they were widely considered the best of the Nationalist Army. They proudly called themselves “the Generalissimo’s Own,” after Jiang Jieshi, the generalissimo of the Nationalist government and leader of China. The Chinese soldiers were prepared to fight and die to the last man, and they were making their last stand there. The Battle of Shanghai was a brutal testament to a new era of modern warfare which, according to many historians, signified the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and hence World War II. Despite the stand, China was a nation broken into petty warlord fiefdoms and wracked by civil war between Nationalist and Communist forces. This civil war became inextricably intertwined with the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, and the sheer scale of the horrors of the conflict remain hard to believe today, even as action in that theater is often overlooked because of events in Europe. Indeed, the Japanese launched a brutal campaign across the fragmented realms that made up China, committing atrocities just as horrendous as their Axis ally in Europe.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Johnston (Narrator)

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Battle of Shiroyama, The: The History and Legacy of the Samurai’s Last Stand in Japan

On September 25, 1877, on a rain-soaked, muddy field in Kagoshima, Japan, a small group of proud samurai warrior rebels prepared for one last stand. It was early morning, 6:00 a.m., and the remaining 40 samurai warriors still capable of fighting prepared themselves for the glory of death on the battlefield. They had been shelled by powerful artillery guns and naval cannons relentlessly through the night, and the rebels had no real shelter or protection. Instead, they cowered like rats in small, rain-filled mud holes, showered by a torrent of steel shells and shrapnel. For seven months, the samurai rebels had fought a losing battle against the army of Emperor Meiji, the new ruler of Japan’s central government. It was a modern army, filled with conscripts, armed with rifles, and trained in European tactics. The samurai rebels were also armed with rifles, but months of fighting had stripped them of ammunition. They still possessed their distinctive personal weapons – their katana swords - and they intended to use them one last time. Despite the overwhelming firepower and numbers advantage wielded by the central government, the rebels, led by Saigō Takamori, a samurai warrior and proud defender of the samurai tradition, remained stoic in their final moments. By early morning, the last capable samurai drew their swords and launched a final suicidal charge into the rapidly firing rifles of 30,000 conscript troops, members of Japan’s modern imperial army. It would be the samurai’s last stand.

Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Hare (Narrator)

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Behind the Beautiful Forevers

In this brilliant, breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees a fortune beyond counting in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi's most-everything girl, might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds and into the hearts of families impossible to forget. Winner of the National Book Award | The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award | The Los Angeles Times Book Prize | The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award | The New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times The Washington Post O: The Oprah Magazine USA Today New York The Miami Herald San Francisco Chronicle Newsday NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker People Entertainment Weekly The Wall Street Journal The Boston Globe The Economist Financial Times Newsweek/The Daily Beast Foreign Policy The Seattle Times The Nation St. Louis Post-Dispatch The Denver Post Minneapolis Star Tribune Salon The Plain Dealer The Week Kansas City Star SlateTime Out New York Publishers Weekly NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A book of extraordinary intelligence [and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking. Junot Díaz, The New York Times Book ReviewReported like Watergate, written like Great Expectations, and handily the best international nonfiction in years. New YorkThis book is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece. Judges' Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award [A] landmark book. The Wall Street Journal A triumph of a book. Amartya Sen There are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc [A] stunning piece of narrative nonfiction . . . [Katherine] Boo's prose is electric. O: The Oprah Magazine Inspiring, and irresistible . . . Boo's extraordinary achievement is twofold. She shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care. People

Katherine Boo (Author), Sunil Malhotra (Narrator)

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Beijing Bastard: Into the Wilds of a Changing China

Raised in a strict Chinese-American household, Val Wang dutifully got good grades, took piano lessons, and performed in a Chinese dance troupe—until she shaved her head and became a leftist. But Val's true mutiny was when she moved to China, the land her parents had fled. In 1998, Val arrives in Beijing expecting to find freedom . . . but she finds her traditional relatives instead. She discovers a city rebelling against its roots, struggling to find a new, modern identity like her. A thriving avant-garde subculture makes art out of the chaos in Beijing's gritty outskirts. Brilliantly observed and winningly told, Beijing Bastard is a compelling story of a young woman finding her place in the world and of China, as its ancient past gives way to a dazzling but uncertain future.

Val Wang (Author), Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator)

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Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds

“Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times.... Your ability to thrive depends, in the end, on your attitude to your life circumstances. Take everything in stride with grace, putting forth energy when it is needed, yet always staying calm inwardly.” (Ping Fu’s “Shanghai Papa”) Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year. To be a friend and mentor to some of the best-known names in technology. To build some of the coolest new products in the world. To give speeches that inspire huge crowds. To meet and advise the president of the United States. It sounds too unbelievable for fiction, but this is the true story of a life in two worlds. Born on the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution, Ping was separated from her family at the age of eight. She grew up fighting hunger and humiliation and shielding her younger sister from the teenagers in Mao’s Red Guard. At 25, she found her way to the United States; her only resources were $80 in traveler’s checks and three phrases of English: 'thank you', 'hello', and 'help'. Yet Ping persevered, and the hard-won lessons of her childhood guided her to success in her new homeland. Aided by her well-honed survival instincts, a few good friends, and the kindness of strangers, she grew into someone she never thought she’d be - a strong, independent, entrepreneurial leader. A love of problem-solving led her to computer science, and Ping became part of the team that created NCSA Mosaic, which became Netscape, the Web browser that forever changed how we access information. She then started a company, Geomagic, that has literally reshaped the world, from personalizing prosthetic limbs to repairing NASA spaceships. Bend, Not Break depicts a journey from imprisonment to freedom, and from the dogmatic anti-capitalism of Mao’s China to the high-stakes, take-no-prisoners world of technology start-ups in the United States. It is a tribute to one woman’s courage in the face of cruelty and a valuable lesson on the enduring power of resilience.

Meimei Fo, Meimei Fox, Ping Fu (Author), Robin Miles (Narrator)

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Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival

In Bending Adversity, Financial Times Asia editor David Pilling presents a fresh vision of Japan, drawing on his own deep experience, as well as observations from a cross section of Japanese citizenry, including novelist Haruki Murakami, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, industrialists and bankers, activists and artists, teenagers and octogenarians. Through their voices, Pilling captures the dynamism and diversity of contemporary Japan. Pilling's exploration begins with the 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. His deep reporting reveals both Japan's vulnerabilities and its resilience and pushes him to understand the country's past through cycles of crisis and reconstruction. Japan's survivalist mentality has carried it through tremendous hardship, but is also the source of great destruction: It was the nineteenth-century struggle to ward off colonial intent that resulted in Japan's own imperial endeavor, culminating in the devastation of World War II. Even the postwar economic miracle-the manufacturing and commerce explosion that brought unprecedented economic growth and earned Japan international clout might have been a less pure victory than it seemed. In Bending Adversity Pilling questions what was lost in the country's blind, aborted climb to #1. With the same rigor, he revisits 1990-the year the economic bubble burst, and the beginning of Japan's "lost decades"-to ask if the turning point might be viewed differently. While financial struggle and national debt are a reality, post-growth Japan has also successfully maintained a stable standard of living and social cohesion. And while life has become less certain, opportunities-in particular for the young and for women-have diversified. Still, Japan is in many ways a country in recovery, working to find a way forward after the events of 2011 and decades of slow growth. Bending Adversity closes with a reflection on what the 2012 reelection of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and his radical antideflation policy, might mean for Japan and its future. Informed throughout by the insights shared by Pilling's many interview subjects, Bending Adversity rigorously engages with the social, spiritual, financial, and political life of Japan to create a more nuanced representation of the oft-misunderstood island nation and its people.

David Pilling (Author), Tim Andres Pabon (Narrator)

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Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China

Bernardine Szold Fritz arrived in Shanghai in 1929 to marry her fourth husband. Only thirty-three years old, she found herself in a time and place like no other. Political intrigue and scandal lurked on every street corner. Art Deco cinemas showed the latest Hollywood flicks, while dancehall owners and jazz musicians turned Shanghai into Asia's top nightlife destination. Yet from the night of their wedding, Bernardine's new husband did not live up to his promises. Instead of feeling sorry for herself or leaving Shanghai, Bernardine decided to make a place for herself. Like other Jewish women before her, she started a salon in her home, drawing famous names from the world of politics, the arts, and the intelligentsia. And when Hollywood stars Anna May Wong, Charlie Chaplin, and Claudette Colbert passed through Shanghai, Bernardine organized gatherings to introduce them to their Shanghai contemporaries. When Bernardine's salon could not accommodate all who wanted to attend, she founded the International Arts Theater to produce avant-garde plays, ballets, lectures, and visual arts exhibits, often pushing audiences beyond their comfort zones. As civil war brewed and World War II soon followed, Bernardine's devotion to the arts and the people of Shanghai brought joy to the city just before it would change forever.

Susan Blumberg-Kason (Author), Nancy Wu (Narrator)

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Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China

Brought to you by Penguin. The best-known modern Chinese fairy tale is the story of three sisters from Shanghai, who for most of the twentieth century were at the centre of power in China. It was sometimes said that 'One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country', but there was far more to the Soong sisters than these caricatures. As China battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, each sister played an important, sometimes critical role, and left an indelible mark on history. Red Sister, Ching-ling, married Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Chinese republic, and later became Mao's vice-chair. Little Sister, May-ling, was Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of the pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right. Big Sister, Ei-ling, was Chiang's unofficial main adviser. She made herself one of China's richest women - and her husband Chiang's prime minister. All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant attacks and mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. The relationship between them was highly charged emotionally, especially once they had embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters' world. Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, exile, intrigue, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a monumental journey, from Canton to Hawaii and New York, from exiles' quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. In a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape the history of twentieth-century China.

Jung Chang (Author), Joanna David (Narrator)

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Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empires

The world's ninth-longest river, the Amur serves as a large part of the border between Russia and China. Journalist Dominic Ziegler journeys from the river's top to its bottom, and in weaving together the Amur's history, ecology, and peoples he shows how an apparently empty region is in fact steeped in the past-a region that holds a key to the complex and critical relationship between Russia and China today. The known story of the river begins with Genghis Khan and the rise of his great Mongol empire a millennium ago; the history of the region has been one of expansion and conquest ever since-especially Russia's push eastward across the Eurasian landmass until it met the Chinese empire. The quest to seize the Amur from China was to be Russia's route to greatness, replacing an oppressive European identity with a vibrant one that faced the Pacific. Russia launched a grab in 1854 and took a chunk of territory nearly equal in size to France and Germany combined. It instantly regretted its decision, and later the region proved to be the site for atrocities meted out on the Russian Far East during the Russian civil war and under Stalin. Even today, a long shared history on the Amur has conditioned the way China and Russia behave toward each other-and toward the outside world. To understand Vladimir Putin's imperial dreams, we must comprehend Russia's relationship to its Far East and how it still shapes the Russian mind. Not only is the Amur a key to Putinism, its history is also embedded in an ongoing clash of empires with the West.

Dominic Ziegler (Author), Steve West (Narrator)

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Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts

On the afternoon of 12 March 1993, a series of explosions cut a swathe of terror and destruction through Bombay. The toll: 257 killed or missing, 713 injured, and a city in a shambles. In Black Friday, S. Hussain Zaidi takes us into the heart of the conspiracy which spanned several countries, and the massive investigation that ensued. A product of four years of meticulous research, the book gives chilling insights into the criminal mind, through interviews with close associates of Dawood Ibrahim and Tiger Memon, among others. The characters we meet are compelling: the terrorists, the corrupt law enforcement agents who abetted the plot, the investigators who would stop at nothing, and, above all, the people of Bombay of whose resilient spirit this book is a celebration.

Hussain Zaidi (Author), Tavish Bhattacharyya (Narrator)

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