The Problem of China: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Problem of China, credited to Bertrand Russell, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Problem of China by Bertrand Russell. Read in English by Nicholas Clifford In 1920-21 Bertrand Russell lived and taught in Peking (Beijing), publishing this book on his return to England. In 1920 he had visited Bolshevik Russia, talked to Lenin, and was unimpressed by what he had seen. China, however, was another matter. Like many travelers, he often saw what he wanted to see, and after Europe’s Great War, he found many signs of hope in China. In that country, he was welcomed by the young intellectuals who saw him as a representative of modern and scientific thought. They, however, were trying to cast off much of the old tradition that they thought held China back, and they were often opposed to Russell’s urging that they hold on to much of their own tradition, which he saw as superior to that of Europe, particularly after the terrible slaughter of 1914-18 on the continent. His work is very much a product of its time, and today, almost a century later, many are still trying to explain China -- a very different China from Russell's -- to an outside world. (Nicholas Clifford)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Problem of China
• Author credits: Bertrand Russell
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 17
• Listed recording duration: 8:18:38

Catalogue topics

• politics
• history
• china

Track guide

1. 01 - chap. 1 — 22:33
2. 02 - chap. 2 part i — 32:35
3. 03 - chap. 2 part ii — 27:37
4. 04 - chap. 3 — 30:31
5. 05 - chap. 4 — 43:48
6. 06 - chap. 5 — 22:06
7. 07 - chap. 6 — 42:12
8. 08 - chap. 7 — 25:40
9. 09 - chap. 8 — 40:04
10. 10 - chap. 9 — 19:02
11. 11 - chap.10 — 51:48
12. 12 - chap. 11 — 27:06
13. 13 - chap. 12 — 28:09
14. 14 - chap. 13 — 25:09
15. 15 - chap.14 — 31:05
16. 16 - chap. 15 — 23:03
17. 17 - Appendix — 6:10

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.