IMPERIAL TWILIGHT The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age

At nearly 18 listening hours, this history of China's relationships with Britain and the United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries might seem a bit esoteric, intended only for history buffs. But Mark Deakins's flawless narration of Platt's epic story deserves the widest possible audience, if for no other reason than it makes perfectly clear why the Chinese might take the attitude they do today toward trade relations with the West. As a historian and storyteller, Platt is at the top of the game, and Deakins delivers a fluent reading that is a model of narrator affinity and invisibility. Together they illuminate one of history's most dastardly episodes, whose reverberations continue to trouble us today. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2018]