Hard Times Audiobook is the most “Victorian” novel among the others by great Charles Dickens. It is the novel where under an external sentimentality there is rough furiousness of the realist writer, to whom imperfection of a human nature and darkness of a human soul are not the news, but still provoke rejection. Friendship and betrayal, love and hate, opposition of the children of the fortune and forgotten men are just some plot lines of the novel. Hard Times is a truly all embracing epoch...

Is Northeast Asia primed for peace or ripe for great-power rivalry? In this turbulent region, all the world-order challenges of arms control and disarmament, global North-South tensions, human rights and humanitarian intervention, environmental protection and eco-development, and democratization and humane governance are concentrated. More than any other part of the world, the divided Korean peninsula is the strategic crossroad where the four major regional/global powers-the United States,...

Penguin Classics presents the audiobook adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit, a tale of inheritiance and destiny and the story Dickens considered his best. Read by John Wells.The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin sets out from the Wiltshire home of his supposed champion, the scheming architect Pecksniff, to seek ...

One of Charles Dickens's most personally resonant novels, Little Dorrit speaks across the centuries to the modern audience. Its depiction of shady financiers and banking collapses seems uncannily topical, as does Dickens's compassionate admiration for Amy Dorrit, the "child of the Marshalsea," as she struggles to hold her family together in the face of neglect, irresponsibility, and ruin. Intricate in its plotting, the novel also satirizes the cumbersome machinery of government. F...

'The great poet of the city. He was created by London' Peter Ackroyd Our Mutual Friend centres on an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its legatees: young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfe...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.Join the unforgettable Mr. Pickwick and his eccentric companions on a rollicking journey through 19th-century England in The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens' delightful debut novel. From comic misadventures and absurd duels to run-ins with cunning tricksters and the harsh realities of the legal system, this charming tale brims with humor, satire, and unforgettable characters. A heartwarming and witty exploration of friendship, society,...

Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens's story of a powerful man whose callous neglect of his family triggers his professional and personal downfall, showcases the author's gift for vivid characterization and unfailingly realistic description. As Jonathan Lethem contends in his Introduction, Dickens's "genius . . . is at one with the genius of the form of the novel itself: Dickens willed into existence the most capacious and elastic and versatile kind of novel that could be, one big enough for hi...

Edwin Drood is contracted to marry orphan Rosa Bud when he comes of age, but when they find that duty has gradually replaced affection, they agree to break off the engagement. Shortly afterwards, in the middle of a storm on Christmas Eve, Edwin disappears, leaving nothing behind but some personal belongings and the suspicion that his jealous uncle John Jasper, madly in love with Rosa, is the killer. And beyond this presumed crime there are further intrigues: the dark opium dens of the slee...

"A clearheaded, multidimensional tour of China's political, economic, and social landscapes." — Current History"Packed with facts and figures, but enlivened with firsthand observations. . . . An excellent introduction to China for anyone in search of solid but concise information about that complicated country." — The New York Times Book ReviewFor more than a decade, John Bryan Starr's indispensable guide has introduced un...

Most global citizens are well aware of the explosive growth of the Chinese economy. Indeed, China has famously become the "workshop of the world." Yet, while China watchers have shed much light on the country's internal dynamics--China's politics, its vast social changes, and its economic development--few have focused on how this increasingly powerful nation has become more active and assertive throughout the world. In China Goes Global, eminent China scholar David Shambaugh deliv...

China's enormous size, vast population, abundant natural resources, robust economy, and modern military suggest that it will emerge as a great world power. Inside China's Grand Strategy: The Perspective from the People's Republic offers unique insights from a prominent Chinese scholar about the country's geopolitical ambitions and strategic thinking. Ye Zicheng, professor of political science in the School of International Studies at Peking University, examines China's interaction...

Despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. Understanding China's foreign policy means fully appreciating these geostrategic challenges, which persist even as the country gains increasing influence over its neighbors. Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell analyze China's security concerns on four fronts: at home, with its immediate neighbors, in surroundin...