{"id":4975,"date":"2026-03-25T03:17:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T03:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/chinese-characters-a-bbc-history-of-china-in-by-rana-mitter-%c2%b7-audiobook-preview\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T03:17:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T03:17:56","slug":"chinese-characters-a-bbc-history-of-china-in-by-rana-mitter-%c2%b7-audiobook-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/chinese-characters-a-bbc-history-of-china-in-by-rana-mitter-%c2%b7-audiobook-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Characters: A BBC History of China in\u2026 by Rana Mitter \u00b7 Audiobook preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_kHN3wCVSl0?autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>PURCHASE ON GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS \u25ba\u25ba https:\/\/g.co\/booksYT\/AQAAAEB8ygeKaM<\/p>\n<p>Chinese Characters: A BBC History of China in 20 Lives<br \/>\nAuthored by Rana Mitter<br \/>\nNarrated by Rana Mitter<\/p>\n<p>0:00 Intro<br \/>\n0:03<br \/>\n10:03 Outro<\/p>\n<p>#ranamitter #chinesecharactersabbchistoryofchinain20lives<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<br \/>\nGOOGLE PLAY BOOKS<\/p>\n<p>Find your next great read with Google Play Books.<\/p>\n<p>Google Play Books is a global digital bookstore offering ebooks, audiobooks, comics, and manga.  Discover book recommendations personalized just for you.<\/p>\n<p>Get the iOS app: https:\/\/goo.gle\/books-ios<br \/>\nGet the Android app: https:\/\/goo.gle\/books-android<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<br \/>\nBOOK DESCRIPTION<\/p>\n<p>Twenty audio portraits telling the story of China through key personalities \u2013 plus a bonus edition of In Our Time<\/p>\n<p>Award\u2013winning author and historian Professor Rana Mitter introduces us to some of the remarkable individuals who have shaped the arc of Chinese history. Selecting men and women from ancient times to the modern era \u2013 some rich and powerful, others poor and unknown \u2013 he explores their sensational life stories, from Mongol emperors to 19th\u2013century factory girls.<\/p>\n<p>Here is China&#8217;s only female emperor, Wu Zetian, whose path to the top was littered with elite corpses; Mao Zedong, the man who revolutionised China, but at the cost of millions of lives; and Deng Xiaoping, who enabled China&#8217;s economic miracle, but crushed protests with ferocity in 1989. Alongside them are numerous other extraordinary characters, including celebrated philosopher Confucius, Muslim sailor Zheng He, Jesuit mathematician Matteo Ricci, global film star Bruce Lee \u2013 and a pioneering TV documentary series, River Elegy, that started a national debate about regeneration and democracy.<\/p>\n<p>What can Ding Ling&#8217;s lustful literary creation, Sophie, teach us about 1920s China? What role would kidnapped monk Kumarajiva play in the future of Chinese chanting? And how did Chiang Kai\u2013shek and Soong Meiling become Asia&#8217;s first power couple? Rana Mitter reveals the answers in this engrossing series, which ranges across time and geography to zoom in on the people and ideas that have made China what it is today. Insightful, stimulating and superbly researched, it shows the astonishing diversity and complexity of Chinese society, painting a multi\u2013dimensional picture of the world&#8217;s most populous nation.<\/p>\n<p>Also included is an episode of In Our Time, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss China&#8217;s Warring States period of 400 BC\u2013200 AD, examining how this turbulent epoch sparked a Golden Age of intellectual and cultural productivity and laid the foundations for the first Chinese Empire.<\/p>\n<p>Production credits<br \/>\nPresented by Rana Mitter<br \/>\nEdited by Hugh Levinson<br \/>\nProduced by Ben Crighton<br \/>\nResearcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser<\/p>\n<p>Contents:<br \/>\n1. Wu Zetian: The Female Emperor<br \/>\n2. Chiang Kai\u2013Shek and Soong Meiling: Asian Power Couple<br \/>\n3. Kumarajiva: Translator Monk<br \/>\n4. Matteo Ricci: Jesuit and Geometrist<br \/>\n5. Ding Ling: Sophie, Sensation and Sex<br \/>\n6. Sima Qian: Grand Historian<br \/>\n7. Kublai Khan: Cosmopolitan Conqueror<br \/>\n8. Confucius: Becoming the Sage<br \/>\n9. Li Qingzhao: Patriotic Poet<br \/>\n10. River Elegy: River and Ocean<br \/>\n11. Zheng\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<br \/>\nAUDIOBOOK DETAILS<\/p>\n<p>Purchase on Google Play Books \u25ba\u25ba https:\/\/g.co\/booksYT\/AQAAAEB8ygeKaM<br \/>\nLanguage: English<br \/>\nPublisher: BBC Digital Audio<br \/>\nPublished on: February 24, 2022<br \/>\nISBN: 9781529187069<br \/>\nDuration: 5 hr, 14 min<br \/>\nGenres: History \/ Ancient \/ General, History \/ Asia \/ China, History \/ Civilization<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_kHN3wCVSl0\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PURCHASE ON GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS \u25ba\u25ba https:\/\/g.co\/booksYT\/AQAAAEB8ygeKaM Chinese Characters: A BBC History of China in 20 Lives Authored by Rana Mitter Narrated by Rana Mitter 0:00 Intro 0:03 10:03 Outro #ranamitter #chinesecharactersabbchistoryofchinain20lives \u2014 GOOGLE PLAY BOOKS Find your next great read with Google Play Books. Google Play Books is a global digital bookstore offering ebooks, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4155150807,"featured_media":4976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9930,9929],"class_list":["post-4975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-chinese-characters-a-bbc-history-of-china-in-20-lives","tag-rana-mitter","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4155150807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}