Philippe Chavanne

Very difficult to listen to

Revisado: 05-22-24

Low-quality, raw production of a Bible study lecture probably not intended to be published as-is. All kinds of distracting noises (swallowing, breathing, mouth mannerisms) were recorded by a lapel mic wrongly placed on the speaker, and not clipped by the editor. Shame.

Dr. Missler’s heavy accent makes it even more difficult to understand: he eats a third of his words, and makes no effort to articulate more clearly the Word of God. You can’t follow what he talks about without opening your Bible.

This is not a criticism of the core teachings. These lectures were probably not designed to be published widely to an international audience. Dr. Missler likely addressed an American crowd used to his heavy accent. For the foreign listener, this type of quickly-packaged production is a let-down. Shame on the publisher.

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Plenty of good lessons, great narration

Revisado: 06-18-22

Thr book was recommended to me by our Pastor, who said it was transformative. I bought it on this recommendation, and really enjoyed the life lessons and the examples, I will listen to it several times actually to,mqke the most of it. The narrator’s voice is pleasant and rich in deep tones, his narration interesting, captivating even. Really pleased with this purchase.

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"A tough, extremely well documented account"

Revisado: 02-15-22

This book HAD to be written. The staggering cost in terms of human lives of Mao Ze Dong's folly (estimated between 35 and 53 million dead in just 4 years!) HAD to be documented. The horrors and terror inflicted upon the Chinese people by the demented cadres of the Communist Party of China HAD to be denounced for the posterity.

Frank Dikötter's work is remarkable in the way it precisely documents at the macro level the total policy disaster known as the "Great Leap Forward", and then unpacks its inhumane effects in the daily lives of a defenseless population.

To this day, the Chinese government refuses to open its archives to allow the world to peer into the full details of a tragedy 5-7 times bigger than the Holocaust, with 2-3 times the death toll of the Stalin era. Just like the Nazis blew up the gas chambers of the extermination camps to hide who they really were, the secrecy maintained by the Chinese Communist Party around the catastrophic events of 1958-62 betrays the magnitude of their infamy.

Mao's Great Famine clearly demonstrates how, in a police state practicing terror to keep its population in line, policy makers and enforcers at all levels of power will actively contribute to the oppression and killings for their own selfish ambitions and perverted motivations. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, any country, any ideology.

I have read dozens of history books on the concentration camps, the gulags, the Third Reich, Bolshevism, Nazism... This is by far the toughest book I have ever read. But it was time wisely spent. We have to know these things.

The only downside of the Audible version is its narration. I didn't care for the high-pitched voice of the narrator, but this is a matter of personal preference. I find regrettable however that the narrator would flub most Chinese names and nouns. I lived in China, I had trouble identifying the provinces and the political leaders mentioned in the book. His pronunciation got me so frustrated at times that I had to stop listening. Dikötter's outstanding work would have deserved a much better narration.

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So much good data

Revisado: 12-18-21

This book flies in the teeth of the politically correct narrative. It goes to the basic data that disprove or challenge the climate alarmists’ theories, and clearly draws the line between actual data and computer models. This simple approach, amply exemplified, enables the average listener (me) to sort the wheat from the chaff, and be more discerning when listening or reading whatever propaganda we are fed.
I feel the need to listen to the book several times with a pen and paper to take notes and do additional research.
It’s a book I will recommend around me. Excellent narration.

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I wanted the book to continue...

Revisado: 08-28-21

As much as we could vainly wish Vladimir Ilitch had never become Lenin -- history can't but happen, whoever its actors are -- the end of the story had me wanting to hear more of it. 20 hours of listening... and I wanted 20 more. The story told by Viktor Sebestyen captures how the introvert child of a petit-bourgeois family in rural Russia finds himself at the crossroads of History with a sense of personal destiny. In the maelstrom of catastrophic political events that marked the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, what were the chances a would-be revolutionary zealot, financially supported by his mother, could become in the space of 25 years the head of the Bolchevik party and the founding father of the Soviet Union? Sebestyan weaves masterfully Lenin's personal life, his political convictions and struggles, his character, and the larger tapestry of the end-times of Tsarist Russia. His book leads its readers through Lenin's life and gives a fascinating account of his views through letters, diaries, Party documents, media articles (Pravda, Izvestia), as well as accounts and anecdotes told by those who fought with him or against him. It is a well-researched read, full of interesting details, always mindful of History with a capital H. It won't make you like Lenin (fortunately), but it reveals the man in his complexity and will give your mind something to chew on for a long time.

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As gripping and revealing as it was in '67

Revisado: 08-28-21

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a formidable storyteller. But to the difference with foreign historians describing some aspect of the political system or life in the Soviet Union, years after and from an outside perspective, Solzhenitsyn lived the reality of it from the inside of a concentration camp. The Gulag Archipelago is not just a historical account of the Soviet hard-regime labor camps, how they came into being and how they served the Soviet authorities as a tool of repression. It offers its readers avenues to consider the absurdity of the ideological utopia of Lenin's and Stalin's Socialism. If millions of human beings had not perished there in untold sufferings, and tens of million others suffered by proxy because of the Soviet regime, one could find some aspects of the tale almost comical. Solzhenitsyn never commiserate; he tells the story as those who lived it told it, and adds his own touch of sarcastic Russian humor. He speaks for the Zekes, the prisoners, and because he does, he also speaks for us today. The Gulag Archipelago starts with a warning: we think it happened there and couldn't happen here. But history has demonstrated many times that it could happen anywhere.

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