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Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
by: Jung Chang

List Price: £9.99

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Used Price: £2.99
Collectible Price: £4.98
Third Party New Price: £3.39

Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780007176151
ISBN: 0007176155
Label: HarperPerennial
Manufacturer: HarperPerennial
Number Of Pages: 720
Publication Date: April 05, 2004
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Studio: HarperPerennial
Sales Rank: 1686

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A fable for the twentieth century, brimming with pain and sorrow
This haunting personal odyssey through the political and social convulsions of twentieth century China should carry a health warning: This book will linger in the mind for months to come. Jung Chang recounts through personal memoirs and memories the turbulent and tragic lives of her grandparents and parents in Manchuria early in the century as the country desperately tries to shake off the brutality of the feudal warlord government. But no sooner had the Kuomintang arrived to unify most of China than the hapless population of Manchuria fell under the nightmare of Japanese occupation. Several years later and the brief and cruel `liberation' by the Russians is followed by the Kuomintang-Communist civil war. During the Japanese occupation many ... Read More:

Rating:

- The most amazing history lesson I have ever had!!
I've never felt so sad to reach the end of a book in all my life. This book is truely amazing and is well and truely the best book I've ever read! I even had the urge to start reading it all over again as soon as I'd finished.

Wild Swans follows the journey of three generations of women, from the same family, through the tragic history of twentieth century China.

I felt almost ashamed that I wasn't aware of hardly any of China's recent history. I picked the book up as I was doing a charity trek along the Great Wall in August 2008 and felt I should brush up on the history of the country. Although I had read wonderful things about this book I was prepared for a dull history lesson, one that I felt I had to put myself ... Read More:

Rating:

- An accessible history
One of the best books I have ever read.
Touching and heartfelt, yet matter of fact and never sentimental. This book is remarkably easy to read, I found it hard to put down. At once, this is the epic story of a family and a country. I could never have believed the amount of knowledge I accumulated from this book. The writing style of Jung Chang made it effortless.

Rating:

- worth it
Firstly I will admit it's been a few years since I read this and a friend has it now so I can't skim through it to refresh my memory.

The story travels through china before communist rule to the present. Most of the book is in the time of the Mao rule but I found it never really thought of this government as a bad thing, or a good thing. I never got an impression that the author blamed this government for what happened. I think this is one of the best things about this book, you see more the mindset of the people at the time.

As I had said a friend has it now, it got passed around and all of us loved the book. It even gave two the idea of going to China on holiday.

I picked this book up for a fiver because ... Read More:

Rating:

- An emotionally gripping, roller-coaster ride through the lives of three fascinating women
This is without doubt one of the best books I've ever read. It is a powerful, gripping story that takes you through act after act of what human beings are capable of doing on this Earth, sometimes in the most brutal fashion.

Based on the lives of three generations of women, it starts in turn of the 20th century China, when the Qing dynasty was starting to crumble and that way of life was coming to an end, taking you through the civil war, Mao coming to power, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution before ending in the 70s when the author leaves for Britain.

This is a "no holding back" story of survival with frequent scenarios detailing the worst and most brutal of human suffering. Reading through makes you realise ... Read More:

Books : Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China