Try free for 30 days
-
Agents of Subversion
- The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $29.24
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Lost in the Cold War
- The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW
- By: John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, Jack Lee Downey
- Narrated by: Jonathan Beville, Abbey Gregory, Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1952, John T. “Jack” Downey, a 23-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard “Dick” Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next 20 years, they were harshly interrogated, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns.
-
Spies and Lies
- How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World
- By: Alex Joske
- Narrated by: James Daniel Burkdoll
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spies and Lies a groundbreaking expose of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present, and future.
-
The Political Thought of Xi Jinping
- By: Steve Tsang, Olivia Cheung
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lam
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the last half dozen years, China's supreme leader Xi Jinping has made extraordinary changes which have profound implications not only for the Chinese people but nations throughout the world. Given how swiftly and fundamentally China's relations with the rest of the world are changing under Xi's rule, it is imperative that we know what Xi Jinping Thought is, how it evolved, and why it is so important.
-
Overreach
- How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
- By: Susan L. Shirk
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendance, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions. Then, as Susan Shirk shows, something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese politics, argues that we are now fully embroiled in a new cold war.
-
Surveillance State
- Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control
- By: Josh Chin, Liza Lin
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Surveillance State tells the gripping, startling, and detailed story of how China’s Communist Party is building a new kind of political control: shaping the will of the people through the sophisticated harnessing of data. It is a story born in Silicon Valley and America’s “War on Terror,” and now playing out in alarming ways on China’s remote Central Asian frontier. As a minority separatist movement strains against Party control, China’s leaders have built a dystopian police state that keeps millions under the constant gaze of security forces armed with AI.
-
-
Bias
- By Sean on 29-09-2022
-
Cold Rivals
- The New Era of US-China Strategic Competition
- By: Evan S. Medeiros - editor
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leading authorities analyze growing tensions in US-China relations and what this means for the future.
-
Lost in the Cold War
- The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW
- By: John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, Jack Lee Downey
- Narrated by: Jonathan Beville, Abbey Gregory, Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1952, John T. “Jack” Downey, a 23-year-old CIA officer from Connecticut, was shot down over Manchuria during the Korean War. The pilots died in the crash, but Downey and his partner Richard “Dick” Fecteau were captured by the Chinese. For the next 20 years, they were harshly interrogated, put through show trials, held in solitary confinement, placed in reeducation camps, and toured around China as political pawns.
-
Spies and Lies
- How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World
- By: Alex Joske
- Narrated by: James Daniel Burkdoll
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spies and Lies a groundbreaking expose of elite influence operations by China's little-known Ministry of State Security. Revealing for the first time how the Chinese Communist Party has tasked its spies to deceive the world, it challenges the conventional account of China's past, present, and future.
-
The Political Thought of Xi Jinping
- By: Steve Tsang, Olivia Cheung
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lam
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the last half dozen years, China's supreme leader Xi Jinping has made extraordinary changes which have profound implications not only for the Chinese people but nations throughout the world. Given how swiftly and fundamentally China's relations with the rest of the world are changing under Xi's rule, it is imperative that we know what Xi Jinping Thought is, how it evolved, and why it is so important.
-
Overreach
- How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
- By: Susan L. Shirk
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For three decades after Mao's death in 1976, China's leaders adopted a restrained approach to foreign policy. To facilitate the country's inexorable economic ascendance, and to prevent a backlash, they reassured the outside world of China's peaceful intentions. Then, as Susan Shirk shows, something changed. China went from fragile superpower to global heavyweight. Combining her decades of research and experience, Shirk, one of the world's most respected experts on Chinese politics, argues that we are now fully embroiled in a new cold war.
-
Surveillance State
- Inside China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control
- By: Josh Chin, Liza Lin
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Surveillance State tells the gripping, startling, and detailed story of how China’s Communist Party is building a new kind of political control: shaping the will of the people through the sophisticated harnessing of data. It is a story born in Silicon Valley and America’s “War on Terror,” and now playing out in alarming ways on China’s remote Central Asian frontier. As a minority separatist movement strains against Party control, China’s leaders have built a dystopian police state that keeps millions under the constant gaze of security forces armed with AI.
-
-
Bias
- By Sean on 29-09-2022
-
Cold Rivals
- The New Era of US-China Strategic Competition
- By: Evan S. Medeiros - editor
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leading authorities analyze growing tensions in US-China relations and what this means for the future.
-
China After Mao
- The Rise of a Superpower
- By: Frank Dikötter
- Narrated by: Daniel York Loh
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning historian Frank Dikötter explores how the People’s Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle.
-
-
An engaging jaunt through China's economic rise
- By Naoise McDonagh on 21-10-2023
-
The Peacemaker
- Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink
- By: William Inboden
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With decades of hindsight, the peaceful end of the Cold War seems a foregone conclusion. But in the early 1980s, most experts believed the Soviet Union was strong, stable, and would last into the next century. Ronald Reagan entered the White House with no certainty of what would happen next, only an overriding faith in democracy and an abiding belief that Soviet communism—and the threat of nuclear war—must end. The Peacemaker reveals how Reagan’s White House waged the Cold War while managing multiple crises around the globe.
-
-
A masterful recounting of a complex era
- By Mr Mathew G Jones on 04-03-2024
-
Danger Zone
- The Coming Conflict with China
- By: Hal Brands, Michael Beckley
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the twenty-first century. But both history and China's current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s. The Chinese challenge will most likely prove more manageable than many pessimists currently believe—but during the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real.
-
-
A pertinent read.
- By Love it on 04-09-2022
-
The Rise and Fall of the East
- How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline
- By: Yasheng Huang PhD
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lam
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chinese society has been shaped by the interplay of the EAST—exams, autocracy, stability, and technology—from ancient times through the present. Beginning with the Sui dynasty's introduction of the civil service exam, known as Keju, in 587 CE—and continuing through the personnel management system used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—Chinese autocracies have developed exceptional tools for homogenizing ideas, norms, and practices. But this uniformity came with a huge downside: stifled creativity.
-
White Sun War
- The Campaign for Taiwan
- By: Mick Ryan
- Narrated by: Joshua Saxon
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After decades of poising on the brink, the United States and China finally go to war when China invades the island of Taiwan. Deploying their most futuristic technologies in this grand strategic competition of the twenty-first century, the stakes could not be higher. Not only the future of the Taiwanese people but the fate of the world lies in the balance. In an era when humans no longer just use machines, but partner with them in all aspects of military operations, this fictional account views this future war through the eyes of the American, Chinese, and Taiwanese caught up in the maelstrom.
-
-
AI narration?
- By Anonymous User on 13-03-2024
-
Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden
- Two Sisters Separated by China’s Civil War
- By: Zhuqing Li
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scions of a once-great southern Chinese family that produced the tutor of the last emperor, Jun and Hong were each other’s best friends until, in their twenties, they were separated at the end of the Chinese Civil War. One became a model Communist, the other a model capitalist. On Taiwan, Jun married a Nationalist general, established a trading company, and emigrated to the United States. On the Communist mainland, Hong built her medical career under a cloud of suspicion about her family and survived two waves of “re-education” before she was acclaimed for her achievements.
-
Homegrown
- Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism
- By: Jeffrey Toobin
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Toobin
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement. Speaking to his lawyers days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War veteran expressed no regrets: killing 168 people was his patriotic duty. New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, who once declared, “I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it.” But that doesn’t mean his army wasn’t there. With news-breaking reportage, Toobin details how McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001.
-
-
Worth a listen
- By Mark Daniel on 31-05-2023
-
Fire and Rain
- Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia
- By: Carolyn Woods Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 29 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fire and Rain is a compelling, meticulous narrative of the way national security decisions formed at the highest levels of government affect the lives of individuals at home and abroad. By drawing these connections, Carolyn Woods Eisenberg brings to life policy decisions about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, conveying their significance to a new generation. She breaks fresh ground in contextualizing Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger's decisions within a wider institutional and societal framework.
-
Never Give an Inch
- Fighting for the America I Love
- By: Mike Pompeo
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Complete with a road map of the trends and players shaping the world today, Never Give an Inch is more than a historical review of the Trump Administration's greatest victories. It is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the challenges of the future. And it is an inspirational story of leadership through dangerous times that will leave you with a greater appreciation for America.
-
-
good read ... recommend it.
- By Hank on 27-04-2023
-
Putin's Wars
- From Chechnya to Ukraine
- By: Mark Galeotti
- Narrated by: David Sibley
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Putin's Wars is a timely overview of the conflicts in which Russia has been involved since Vladimir Putin became prime minister and then president of Russia, from the First Chechen War to the two military incursions into Georgia, the annexation of Crimea and the eventual invasion of Ukraine itself. But it also looks more broadly at Putin's recreation of Russian military power and its expansion to include a range of new capabilities, from mercenaries to operatives in a relentless information war against Western powers.
-
Need to Know
- World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence
- By: Nicholas Reynolds
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The entire vast modern American intelligence system—the amalgam of three-letter spy services of many stripes—can be traced back to the dire straits that Britain faced at the end of June 1940. Before World War II, the US had no organization to recruit spies and steal secrets or launch secret campaigns against enemies overseas. It was only through Winston Churchill’s determination to mobilize the US to help in their fight against Hitler that the first American spy service was born, one that was built by scratch in the background of WWII.
-
The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War
- By: Alexander J. Field PhD
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many believe that despite its destructive character, war ultimately boosts long-term economic growth. For the United States this view is often supported by appeal to the experience of the Second World War, understood as a triumph of both production and productivity. Alexander Field shows that between 1941 and 1945 manufacturing productivity actually declined, depressed by changes in the output mix and resource shocks from enemy action, including curtailed access to natural rubber and, on the Eastern Seaboard, petroleum.
Publisher's Summary
In the winter of 1952, at the height of the Korean War, the CIA flew a covert mission into China to pick up an agent. Trained on a remote Pacific island, the agent belonged to an obscure anti-communist group known as the Third Force based out of Hong Kong. The exfiltration would fail disastrously, and one of the Americans on the mission, a recent Yale graduate named John T. Downey, ended up a prisoner of Mao Zedong's government for the next twenty years.
Unraveling the truth behind decades of Cold War intrigue, John Delury documents the damage that this hidden foreign policy did to American political life. The US government kept the public in the dark about decades of covert activity directed against China, while Downey languished in a Beijing prison and his mother lobbied desperately for his release.
Mining little-known Chinese sources, Delury sheds new light on Mao's campaigns to eliminate counterrevolutionaries and how the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party used captive spies in diplomacy with the West. Agents of Subversion is an innovative work of transnational history, and it demonstrates both how the Chinese Communist regime used the fear of special agents to tighten its grip on society and why intellectuals in Cold War America presciently worried that subversion abroad could lead to repression at home.