Lucid explanation of global economic trends

Jacques' book's lucid prose and textbook explanations of global economic trends is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the rise of East Asia. Jacques focuses on China as he analyzes the rise of East Asia and the competing modernities of the 21st century.

Scott Peterson's narration is sped up and edited, which compresses the content for a faster listen. I enjoyed this. What I did not enjoy, however, is that Peterson made ZERO EFFORT to PRONOUNCE CHINESE, making most words unrecognizable. It would have taken Peterson maybe an extra hour of work to learn the fundamentals of pronunciation as Simon Vance did for his narration of Lost on Planet China. Peteron's lazy, ambiguous pronunciation will be extremely frustrating for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of China.

5 stars for solid content. 2 stars for sub-par narration and lazy pronunciation.

14 people found this helpful

Excellent, Even Handed

I doubt I could be as even handed as this book. It really made me stop to consider the inevitability of China's rise to the top and how our acceptance of this or not will well determine our fate as Americans. Falling to second is never pleasant but it will happen and sooner than we think.

Will it be a soft landing or hard fall? Depends on whether can accept what is going to happen with grace.

Painful but very, very well expressed. I highly recommend this book.

7 people found this helpful

Its gets better

This book is way too long and would have benefited greatly from the eye of an editor. First, they could have removed all references to the word "inconceivable" which would have reduced the length of the book by a good 10%. Removing duplicate sentences could have reduced it by a further 35%. Elimiating the inane anecdotes would have cut a further 15%. It would still have been a bit a long winded.

However for those willing to sit through the 16.5 hours, it is quite illuminating and in the 2nd half, things do start to come together in a compelling way.

12 people found this helpful

Find another narrator, please!

The narrators, voice, accent, rhythm, and miss pronunciations of words was quite irritating. I often wanted to turn them off or switch to another narrator. The book was well written and had a lot of great information theories history etc. I enjoyed the
book but not the narration.

5 people found this helpful

Thorough and thought provoking

It was intriguing to learn about the political, economic and cultural processes involved in the development of China and of the changing status in the world compared to that of the USA. It amazes me the extent to which China has become the largest producer of goods consumed in our country and the extent to which they depend on us to buy their products. Their investment in our nation in money, students, real estate, tourism et al in my opinion will help promote a strong mutually beneficial relationship that can overcome political differences and efforts by some American zealots who see China mainly as a threat to our security. With the Russians we maintained peace with the threat of mutual destruction until the collapse of the USSR. With China, I think our economic inter-dependency provides a more durable cement for peaceful coexistence. We both have more to lose than to gain in pursuing military solutions to resolve our many differences. Our Nation is still young and although sputtering politically, is not going anywhere and I am confident, will regain her footing. This is important because the nation civilization of China and the rest of the world will need to work in better harmony to overcome the severe challenges resulting from everyone’s industrialization.

1 person found this helpful

Comprehensive and Gracefully Written

Martin Jacques manages to make a scholarly work not just readable but thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended as an introduction to modern China.

1 person found this helpful

Great Audiobook

Great audiobook! It tells in every aspect one can imagine how the global geopolitc power is shifting from the west to the east, specially to China and how that affects the western way of life.

It is a required book to understand the current situation of the planet and many major discussions like climate, technology, entrepreneurship and specially, Democracy

1 person found this helpful

Disappointing

This is an interesting topic, but the story is not told in an interesting or lively way. The author uses a lot of dubious statistics such as the GDP of China and India in the 18th and 19th century. These are both hard to take seriously and dull. Also, the cultural analysis about China, the US and Japan sound cliched and uninteresting.

6 people found this helpful

Learn a lot about China history

Thought he did a very job of explaining the history of China and the reasons why they could and wouldn’t become the the ruler of the world .

Good book marred by poor audio performance

In print form, When China Rules the World is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the civilizational fundamentals of China. Martin Jacques surveys centuries of world history and broadly analyzes China's economic take-off to offer a primer for the educated layperson, and he does this in a way that respects China on its own terms. The audiobook version, not at all. Inexpicably, the producers of this version failed to ensure that the narrator, Scott Peterson, could pronounce Chinese names in even a ballpark way. I don't mind if a Euro-American can't speak the tones central to the Chinese language, but when "Qing" is pronounced "King" this shows a serious lack of effort. The result is not useful, and represents a missed opportunity to extend Mr. Jacques admirable work in audiobook form. Listen to this excellent book, but check other sources for how to pronounce the names of Chinese cities, historical figures, concepts, etc. When China rules the world, maybe this excellent book will find a competent narrator.