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Churchill's Secret War
- The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the tradition of The Rape of Nanking and A Problem from Hell, this account will change the way we think of Churchill and World War II.
In 1943 Winston Churchill and the British Empire needed millions of Indian troops, all of India's industrial output, and tons of Indian grain to support the Allied war effort. Such massive contributions were certain to trigger famine in India. Because Churchill believed that the fate of the British Empire hung in the balance, he proceeded, sacrificing millions of Indian lives in order to preserve what he held most dear. The result: the Bengal Famine of 1943-44, in which millions of villagers starved to death.
Relying on extensive archival research and first-hand interviews, Mukerjee weaves a riveting narrative of Churchill's decisions to ratchet up the demands on India as the war unfolded and to ignore the corpses piling up in the Bengali countryside. The hypocrisy, racism, and extreme economic conditions of two centuries of British colonial policy finally built to a head, leading Indians to fight for their independence in 1947.
Few Americans know that World War II was won on the backs of these starving peasants; Mukerjee shows us a side of World War II that we have been blind to. We know what Hitler did to the Jews, what the Japanese did to the Chinese, what Stalin did to his own people. This story has largely been neglected, until now.
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Amazingly detailed account of this tragedy i gigan
- By BG on 10-09-15
By: Nisid Hajari
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The British Empire
- By: Stephen W. Sears
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 30 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the story of how the English acquired their vast domain; how they ruled, maintained, and exploited it; and how, within decades, they presided over its dissolution. Here are Britain's triumphs and also her stinging defeats, her heroes and her scoundrels. It is a full and fascinating chronicle of the growth of the British Empire and its people and of the impact that empire had on the rest of the world.
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Great presentation of a broad historical narrative
- By MiamiMe on 03-27-18
By: Stephen W. Sears
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The Thirty-Year Genocide
- Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924
- By: Benny Morris, Dror Ze'evi, Claire Bloom
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Between 1894 and 1924, three waves of violence swept across Anatolia, targeting the region's Christian minorities, who had previously accounted for 20 percent of the population. By 1924 the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks had been reduced to two percent. Most historians have treated these waves as distinct, isolated events, and successive Turkish governments presented them as an unfortunate sequence of accidents. This is the first account to show that the three were actually part of a single, continuing, and intentional effort to wipe out Anatolia's Christian population.
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Pay Close Attention to This Stunning Achievement
- By J.Brock on 06-25-20
By: Benny Morris, and others
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City of Dreams
- The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York
- By: Tyler Anbinder
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams provides a vivid sense of what New York looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like over the centuries of its development and maturation into the city we know today.
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Even as a history, not engaging
- By Patrick Kelly on 12-03-16
By: Tyler Anbinder
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Prague Winter
- A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrated by: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Before Madeleine Albright turned twelve, her life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia—the country where she was born—the Battle of Britain, the near total destruction of European Jewry, the Allied victory in World War II, the rise of communism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright's experiences, and those of her family, provide a lens through which to view the most tumultuous dozen years in modern history.
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History from a Personal Perspective
- By Jeanette Finan on 02-22-13
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The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong
- The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet
- By: Gyalo Thondup, Anne F. Thurston
- Narrated by: Lane Nishikawa, Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 2010 residents of Kalimpong, a town on the Indian border with Tibet, turned out en masse to welcome the Dalai Lama. It was only then they realized for the first time that the neighbor they knew as the noodle maker of Kalimpong was also the Dalai Lama's older brother. The Tibetan spiritual leader had come to visit the Gaden Tharpa Choling monastery and join his brother for lunch in the family compound.
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Very interesting
- By BlueSky on 12-07-15
By: Gyalo Thondup, and others
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Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom
- China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
- By: Stephen R. Platt
- Narrated by: Angela Lin
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Stephen R. Platt is widely respected for his incisive nonfiction, particularly in regard to his knowledge and understanding of China. With Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, Platt details the absorbing narrative of the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in the loss of 20 million lives. Occurring in the 1850s, this is the story of a cultural movement characterized by intriguing personages such as influential military strategist Zeng Guofan and brilliant Taiping leader Hong Rengan.
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InTOLerable Reader
- By Adam on 07-07-12
By: Stephen R. Platt
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Gandhi & Churchill
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fast-paced epic, best-selling historian and master storyteller Arthur Herman spotlights two giants of the 20th century. Gandhi & Churchill shows how their 40-year rivalry revolutionized India and the British Empire, paving the way for a new era. Gandhi championed India's independence, Churchill the British Empire.
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A motif that works well
- By Maine Dave on 11-30-09
By: Arthur Herman
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The Lemon Tree
- By: Sandy Tolan
- Narrated by: Sandy Tolan
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly 20 years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.
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Steeping The Lemon Tree
- By Faithfull Fan on 04-11-18
By: Sandy Tolan
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The German War
- A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945; Citizens and Soldiers
- By: Nicholas Stargardt
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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As early as 1941, Allied victory in World War II seemed all but assured. How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years? In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials - personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence - to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people to vivid life.
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Great read for history buffs
- By marykk on 05-12-16
What listeners say about Churchill's Secret War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Rajesh
- 11-04-11
Churchill and the case of 3 million dead Indians.
Extremely well researched book that lays out an air tight case of Churchill's beastiality towards his Indian subjects. A must read/listen for any one who wishes to learn about the Indian history under British clonial rule. Narration is top notch with few minor flubs. Highly recommend!
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11 people found this helpful
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- Mandar
- 03-28-11
Excellent Listen!!
I usually don't write reviews but this book compelled me to write one. After reading this book and how Churchill treated Indians during the World War II era, Hitler and his atrocities seem less cruel. A kind of sad book but stating historical facts and heinous war crimes committed by Churchill. A tad bit longer but definitely a must read for all the history buffs out there!!
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11 people found this helpful
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- scmathew
- 06-25-14
A fascinating narrative with a flawed narration
Where does Churchill's Secret War rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
It's a pretty good audiobook. I've just listened to all of Simon Schama's "History of Britain" which ended off with some scathing commentary on the mismanagement of the Raj so it's interesting to move from that to an in-depth exploration of the Bengal Famine and India in the war effort.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of James Adams?
Probably Madhav Sharma, who did a superb job with Kim. Mr Adams isn't a bad narrator per se, but the main problem is that he can't code switch accents when pronouncing a number of Indian terms and names which means that they sound tortured and very odd in his rather plummy British accent. This is, I suppose forgivable in the first couple of chapters where we get fleeting references to "die-wanns" (diwans) and so forth but in a book dealing primarily with India in the Inter-War period, the Second World War and it's aftermath, an inability to pronounce "satyagraha" or "Bose" (protip- it's not "Bo-Say") can be really jarring and jerks one out of the flow. It's as if I were listening to a history of the American Revolution and kept hearing about "George Wossingteen" (not that I'm trying to equate Bo-say with General Wossingteen) and the "Con-TINE-ental Congroos".
Any additional comments?
I wouldn't choose not to buy this audiobook just because of the narrator- in all else he's reasonably easy to listen to and Mukarjee's narrative itself is compelling and well written.
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10 people found this helpful
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- tuningfork
- 10-12-11
Revealing story, bad pronunciation.
It's very interesting to hear Mukerjee's analysis of the Bengal famine of 1943. The narrator was annoying with his constant mispronunciation of Indian names ("Bosay" instead of "Bose" being the most common error), and constantly refering to dates as, for example, "twenty-two February" instead of "twenty-second February". No names of British origin were mispronounced though!
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9 people found this helpful
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- SK
- 09-04-11
an eye opener
Churchill is no less evil than Hitler, this historic narration is an eyeopener for folks interested in Indian History
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6 people found this helpful
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- another know it all
- 08-11-15
tedious at times
I did learn a lot about India and its colonization by Brittan. the book is full of numbered statistics which are hard for me to absorb just hearing them. this might have between a better read than a listen.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Rana De
- 01-26-17
Horrible reading of book destroys the story
Would you try another book from Madhusree Mukarjee and/or James Adams?
No.
What did you like best about this story?
Good story, great research.
How could the performance have been better?
Which genius hired a pom to read a book about the British Raj? Granted this is English but most of the world finds a pom accent horribly rude, disgusting and incredibly out of touch with the modern world - "Gandheee" for Gandhi and Ayab for Ayub, Jeinah for Jinnah and so on - wrong choice of person to read the book.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
Good research by the author.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Shaz
- 03-13-13
Unknown history for me
What did you love best about Churchill's Secret War?
I was not aware of this part of WWII history and it is certainly something I should have been aware of. While parts of the book are hard to listen to, particularly the suffering and dying of the starving, it is compelling listening.
Which scene was your favorite?
When Churchill met Indira Ghandi during the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
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- Anniebligh
- 12-12-12
Madhusree Mukarjee has a great heart
This is a record that had to be told.
Please remember though that the mindset that Churchill had expressed in his own words is still held today by others about others.
While this is mostly about World War Two, the history of British Colonial Rule is important.
The English company that opened India to Colonial Rule also had been supported by the British Government in their drug running into China that led to the Opium Wars. The Free Traders were not only British.
This is not an easy listen.
How much more difficult was it to research and write?
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2 people found this helpful
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- Sid Suryanarayanan
- 04-06-21
Detailed deconstruction of the myth of Churchill’s greatness
A great nonfiction work of historical proportions. Little do people outside of India know about the atrocities committed against Indians by the HMG and Winston Churchill in the name of war effort. This book reveals it much life the one by Roy Moxham on the great Indian hedge. The reading in the audio version is miserable—with poorly enunciated Indian names. I’ve would consider that micro aggression. Couldn’t the publisher find someone who could actually pronounce these words correctly?
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1 person found this helpful