Explore New Full Audiobooks in History, Asia

Return to Sri Lanka by Razeen Sally

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/806690 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/806690] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Return to Sri Lanka Author: Razeen Sally Narrator: Razeen Sally Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 15 minutes Release date: January 2, 2025 Genres: Asia Publisher's Summary: A blend of travel writing, memoir, history and current affairs that tells the story of Sri Lanka. A perfect read for first-time visitors, Sri Lankans abroad or at home, or anyone looking to deepen their understanding of one of the world’s most fascinating and paradoxical countries. Razeen Sally was born to a Sri Lankan Muslim father and a Welsh mother. Just before his teens, a political conflict tore his family apart and he left Sri Lanka, barely going back for thirty years. When he finally returned ‘home’, he spent much of the next decade crisscrossing the island, trying to understand this paradoxical place. Blessed with nature’s bounty and an easy, pleasure-loving people, it was nevertheless scarred by ethnic conflict and the violence of civil war. As a native and a tourist, Sally makes an ideal guide to Sri Lanka’s past and present. He won’t tell you which restaurant has the best reviews or the price of a hotel room. Instead, he will accompany you like a learned friend, sharing his journeys, pointing out the unmissable gems beyond the obvious spots, and unpacking the nation’s culture and history. Insightful, intimate and moving, Return to Sri Lanka is an indispensable book, whether you're already familiar with this spectacular country, or planning your first visit.

The Apathy of Empire: Cambodia in American Geopolitics by James A. Tyner

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/818424 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/818424] to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Apathy of Empire: Cambodia in American Geopolitics Author: James A. Tyner Narrator: Jonathan Yen Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 13 hours 54 minutes Release date: December 24, 2024 Genres: Asia Publisher's Summary: The Apathy of Empire reveals just how significant Cambodia was to U.S. policy in Indochina during the Vietnam War, broadening the lens to include more than the often-cited incursion in 1970 or the illegal bombing after the Paris Peace Accords in 1973. This theoretically informed and thoroughly documented case study argues that U.S. military intervention in Cambodia revealed America's efforts to construct a hegemonic spatial world order. James Tyner documents the shift of America's post-1945 focus from national defense to national security. He demonstrates that America's expansionist policies abroad, often bolstered by military power, were not so much about occupying territory but instead constituted the construction of a new normal for the exercise of state power. And yet America's grand strategy was one of contradiction: to build a sovereign state (South Vietnam) based on democratic liberalism, it was necessary to protect its boundaries—in effect, to isolate it—through both covert and overt operations in violation of Cambodia's sovereignty. Questioning reductionist geopolitical understandings of states as central or peripheral, Tyner explores this paradox to rethink the formulation of the Cambodian war as sideshow, revealing it instead as a crucial site for the formation of this new normal.

Beyond the Call of Duty: The Life of Colonel Robert Howard, America's Most Decorated Green Beret by Stephen L. Moore

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/772038 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/772038] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Beyond the Call of Duty: The Life of Colonel Robert Howard, America's Most Decorated Green Beret Series: Part of American War Heroes Author: Stephen L. Moore Narrator: Johnny Heller Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 9 minutes Release date: December 3, 2024 Genres: Asia Publisher's Summary: As a child, Robert Howard was taught by his Granny Callie to always face his threats head-on. Some thirty years later, he emerged from the Vietnam War as America’s most decorated Green Beret. For the first time, Robert Howard’s story is being told in full. Respected military historian Stephen L. Moore takes readers into the heart of the Vietnam War's covert Special Ops jungle warfare in this immersive, suspenseful read. Through family sources, National Archives documents, and dozens of testimonials from the Green Berets who fought alongside him, this “one-man army” will finally be given the recognition he deserves. Robert Howard grew up in poverty in a small town in Alabama, with a strong sense of faith and determination. When he enlisted in the army at age seventeen, his Granny Callie’s words echoed in his head, and he pledged to follow them to the bitter end. In the most dire of combat experiences, Howard ran directly toward his opponents, sacrificing his body to protect others and to complete the mission above all else. Time and time again, he survived battles that should have claimed his life, suffering countless bullets, a spinal injury, and shrapnel and blast wounds. Recon commanders who ran missions with him declared him to be the bravest man they had ever met. In return, Howard received a staggering number of awards and ribbons for valor and distinctive service in combat—over fifty in all, including the Medal of Honor, eight Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, and four Bronze Stars. He holds the distinction of being the only soldier nominated for the Medal of Honor three times in only a thirteen-month period. In total, Howard spent a grueling, treacherous forty months in combat duty in Vietnam, including over two years with MACV-SOG’s elite covert group.

Mission to Mao: US Intelligence and the Chinese Communists in World War II by Sara B. Castro

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/812622 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/812622] to listen full audiobooks. Title: Mission to Mao: US Intelligence and the Chinese Communists in World War II Author: Sara B. Castro Narrator: Eric Jason Martin Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 9 hours 26 minutes Release date: November 26, 2024 Genres: Asia Publisher's Summary: From 1941 to 1947, the United States planted a liaison mission in the headquarters of Chinese Communist forces behind the lines. Nicknamed the 'Dixie Mission,' for its location in 'rebel' territory, it was an interagency delegation that included intelligence officers from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Mission to Mao is a social history of the OSS officers in the field that reveals the weakness of United States intelligence diplomacy in the 1940s. Drawing on over 14,000 unpublished records from five archives as well as white papers and memoirs from the participants, Sara B. Castro demonstrates how the OSS officers clashed with political appointees and Washington over the direction of the United States relationship with the Chinese Communists. Initially, the OSS officers were sent to gather intelligence that would help the war effort against Japan, but interagency and political conflicts erupted over whether the mission would later involve operations with the Communists. Castro shows how potential benefits for the war effort were thwarted by politicization and the OSS officers' own biases and blind spots. Mission to Mao is a fresh look at United States intelligence in World War II China and takes listeners beyond the history of 'China hands' versus American anticommunists, introducing more nuance.

The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island Will Dictate the Global Future by Kerry Brown

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/751776 [https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/751776] to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Taiwan Story: How a Small Island Will Dictate the Global Future Author: Kerry Brown Narrator: Kerry Brown Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 48 minutes Release date: November 7, 2024 Genres: Asia Publisher's Summary: Brought to you by Penguin. An urgent, indispensable guide to why Taiwan matters – for China, the West and everyone’s future When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born. Mao’s Communists won and took China’s mainland; Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan island. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities. Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy. It is a free and vibrant society. For the United States and the West, the island is a bastion of freedom against China’s assertive presence in the region. And yet China, increasingly bellicose under Xi Jinping, insists Taiwan is part of its territory and must be returned to it. Should China blockade the island and mount an invasion, it would set off a chain reaction that would pitch it against the US – escalating a regional war into a global one. Taiwan is thus a geopolitical powder keg. The Taiwan Story helps us understand how and why we’ve arrived at this dangerous moment in history. With unparalleled access to Taiwan’s political leaders and a deep understanding of the island’s history and culture, Professor Kerry Brown provides a new reading of Taiwan, its twenty-three million people, and how they navigate being caught in this frightening geopolitical standoff. This is the essential book delving into Taiwan’s unique story, buried beneath the headlines, told in an accessible, expert and urgent way. ‘Kerry Brown is one of our most perceptive and accurate foreign observers of China’ JOHN SIMPSON ‘Thorough and nuanced’ MICHAEL BOOTH ‘Compelling’ ELLIOT ACKERMAN ‘Factual, thoughtful and very well-written’ SIR MALCOLM RIFKIND © Kerry Brown 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024