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The Taiwan Story
- Author
- Kerry Brown
- Narrator
- Kerry Brown
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Publish Date
- 7 November 2024
- Run Time
- 7 hours 49 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
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
Critics Review
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A compelling look at the small island caught between Chinese power and the vagaries of US politics . . . As Brown shows so compellingly, anyone who thinks the Taiwan problem can be easily solved probably hasn't thought about it for long enough
Financial Times
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An erudite primer . . . Brown's mission to educate westerners about Taiwan and why it matters is a critical one, which makes this book well worth reading
Sunday Times
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Kerry Brown has produced an authoritative primer to all things Taiwan – in eminently readable prose he tells how an island once dismissed by the Qing dynasty emperor Kangxi as a “mud ball in the sea” was transformed into a raucous democracy and economic powerhouse, as well as one of the most contested lands in the world. Brown covers how it started, how it’s going and above all, why it is urgent that we all care
Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy
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A passionate defence of the “unglamorous” and vague diplomatic fudge that, for half a century, characterised the uncomfortable triangular relationship between China, Taiwan and American. It’s precisely this ambiguity, Brown argues, that has kept the peace until now . . . Invaluable
Daily Telegraph
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Kerry Brown is one of our most perceptive and accurate foreign observers of China
John Simpson
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Brown reveals Taiwan to his readers as a place of fascinating pluralism . . . a clear-sighted assessment of international trade-offs that govern its people’s fate
Spectator
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A persuasive work of geopolitical analysis . . . A sober and fair-minded appraisal of the seemingly intractable stand-off that could bring economic and political disaster to the world in the event of escalation
Irish Times
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Few of us pay enough attention to what’s happening in the Taiwan Strait. Kerry Brown wants to change that . . . Brown passionately – and to my mind, rationally – defends ambiguity as the best stance
The Saturday Paper
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Anyone with a care to avoid a third world war – between China and the US – should read this book. It’s succinct, cogent and thoughtful. It makes the unfashionable, but crucial and, in my view, unarguable case for continuing an approach of ‘strategic ambiguity’ towards Taiwan’s international position. Kerry Brown has the added merit of knowing what he’s talking about. He’s lived and breathed China all his adult life
Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary 2001–2006
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Taiwan is one of the most dangerous hotspots in the world. This is a highly readable account of its history and the parameters of the present crisis, written with great knowledge, passion, and insight by someone who has followed Taiwan very closely for many years. Whether he is right, only time will tell.
Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Kerry Brown
- Narrator
- Kerry Brown
- Duration
- 7 hours 49 minutes
- Release Date
- 7 November 2024
- ISBN
- 9781405970570
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Penguin Books Ltd
- Genre
- Asian history, Geopolitics, Political ideologies and movements
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.An urgent, indispensable guide to why Taiwan matters – for China, the West and everyone’s futureWhen 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
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