A BBC History of China in 20 Lives

Chinese Characters

Twenty audio portraits telling the story of China through key personalities - plus a bonus edition of In Our Time 
 
Award-winning author and historian Professor Rana Mitter introduces us to some of the remarkable individuals who have shaped the arc of Chinese history. Selecting men and women from ancient times to the modern era - some rich and powerful, others poor and unknown - he explores their sensational life stories, from Mongol emperors to 19th-century factory girls. 
 
Here is China's only female emperor, Wu Zetian, whose path to the top was littered with elite corpses; Mao Zedong, the man who revolutionised China, but at the cost of millions of lives; and Deng Xiaoping, who enabled China's economic miracle, but crushed protests with ferocity in 1989. Alongside them are numerous other extraordinary characters, including celebrated philosopher Confucius, Muslim sailor Zheng He, Jesuit mathematician Matteo Ricci, global film star Bruce Lee - and a pioneering TV documentary series, River Elegy, that started a national debate about regeneration and democracy. 
 
What can Ding Ling's lustful literary creation, Sophie, teach us about 1920s China? What role would kidnapped monk Kumarajiva play in the future of Chinese chanting? And how did Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Meiling become Asia's first power couple? Rana Mitter reveals the answers in this engrossing series, which ranges across time and geography to zoom in on the people and ideas that have made China what it is today. Insightful, stimulating and superbly researched, it shows the astonishing diversity and complexity of Chinese society, painting a multi-dimensional picture of the world's most populous nation. 
 
Also included is an episode of In Our Time, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss China's Warring States period of 400 BC-200 AD, examining how this turbulent epoch sparked a Golden Age of intellectual and cultural productivity and laid the foundations for the first Chinese Empire. 
 
 
Production credits 
Presented by Rana Mitter 
Edited by Hugh Levinson 
Produced by Ben Crighton 
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser 
 
Contents: 
1. Wu Zetian: The Female Emperor 
2. Chiang Kai-Shek and Soong Meiling: Asian Power Couple 
3. Kumarajiva: Translator Monk 
4. Matteo Ricci: Jesuit and Geometrist 
5. Ding Ling: Sophie, Sensation and Sex 
6. Sima Qian: Grand Historian 
7. Kublai Khan: Cosmopolitan Conqueror 
8. Confucius: Becoming the Sage 
9. Li Qingzhao: Patriotic Poet 
10. River Elegy: River and Ocean 
11. Zheng He: The Admiral Goes to Africa 
12. Robert Hart: Chinese Customs 
13. Lu Xun: Compassionate Cynic 
14. Wang Jingwei: Revolutionary Renegade 
15. Hong Xiuquan v Zeng Guofan: The Duellists 
16. Cixi: Ambivalent Empress 
17. Factory Girls: Modern Girls, Modern Dreams 
18. Mao Zedong: The Man Who Made Modern China 
19. Bruce Lee: Screen Warrior 
20. Deng Xiaoping: Black Cat, Yellow Cat 
21. In Our Time: China's Warring States Period 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Twenty audio portraits telling the story of China through key personalities - plus a bonus edition of In Our Time 
 
Award-winning author and historian Professor Rana Mitter introduces us to some of the remarkable individuals who have shaped the arc of Chinese history. Selecting men and women from ancient times to the modern era - some rich and powerful, others poor and unknown - he explores their sensational life stories, from Mongol emperors to 19th-century factory girls. 
 
Here is China's only female emperor, Wu Zetian, whose path to the top was littered with elite corpses; Mao Zedong, the man who revolutionised China, but at the cost of millions of lives; and Deng Xiaoping, who enabled China's economic miracle, but crushed protests with ferocity in 1989. Alongside them are numerous other extraordinary characters, including celebrated philosopher Confucius, Muslim sailor Zheng He, Jesuit mathematician Matteo Ricci, global film star Bruce Lee - and a pioneering TV documentary series, River Elegy, that started a national debate about regeneration and democracy. 
 
What can Ding Ling's lustful literary creation, Sophie, teach us about 1920s China? What role would kidnapped monk Kumarajiva play in the future of Chinese chanting? And how did Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Meiling become Asia's first power couple? Rana Mitter reveals the answers in this engrossing series, which ranges across time and geography to zoom in on the people and ideas that have made China what it is today. Insightful, stimulating and superbly researched, it shows the astonishing diversity and complexity of Chinese society, painting a multi-dimensional picture of the world's most populous nation. 
 
Also included is an episode of In Our Time, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss China's Warring States period of 400 BC-200 AD, examining how this turbulent epoch sparked a Golden Age of intellectual and cultural productivity and laid the foundations for the first Chinese Empire. 
 
 
Production credits 
Presented by Rana Mitter 
Edited by Hugh Levinson 
Produced by Ben Crighton 
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser 
 
Contents: 
1. Wu Zetian: The Female Emperor 
2. Chiang Kai-Shek and Soong Meiling: Asian Power Couple 
3. Kumarajiva: Translator Monk 
4. Matteo Ricci: Jesuit and Geometrist 
5. Ding Ling: Sophie, Sensation and Sex 
6. Sima Qian: Grand Historian 
7. Kublai Khan: Cosmopolitan Conqueror 
8. Confucius: Becoming the Sage 
9. Li Qingzhao: Patriotic Poet 
10. River Elegy: River and Ocean 
11. Zheng He: The Admiral Goes to Africa 
12. Robert Hart: Chinese Customs 
13. Lu Xun: Compassionate Cynic 
14. Wang Jingwei: Revolutionary Renegade 
15. Hong Xiuquan v Zeng Guofan: The Duellists 
16. Cixi: Ambivalent Empress 
17. Factory Girls: Modern Girls, Modern Dreams 
18. Mao Zedong: The Man Who Made Modern China 
19. Bruce Lee: Screen Warrior 
20. Deng Xiaoping: Black Cat, Yellow Cat 
21. In Our Time: China's Warring States Period 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd 
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Christopher Harding

Alex Bellos

Rana Mitter

David Peace

SF Said

Natasha Pulley

Matthew Sweet

Richard Lloyd Parry

Roy Jenkins

Philip Dodd

Various

A BBC documentary collection

A captivating anthology of programmes, painting a multi-faceted portrait of a unique country 
 
Japan is a land of complexity, contrast and contradictions. The world's third-largest economy, it is a powerhouse of innovation and a pioneer in technology, fashion and pop culture. But it also has a rich, ancient heritage and a deep reverence for custom, ritual and tradition. This illuminating 2-part radio collection traverses the different aspects of this fascinating country, from its famous historical figures to its diverse cultural landscape. 
 
Part 1: History opens with Japan in Five Lives, in which cultural historian Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from the country's past to answer the question 'Who are the Japanese'? In Killing Time in Imperial Japan, he explores early 20th Century Tokyo, a bustling, cosmopolitan capital where the meaning of 'time' was hotly contested. Dark Blossoms sees him examining the doubts and misgivings accompanying Japan's rapid embrace of modernity, while in Japanese Tsunami, broadcasters Richard Lloyd Parry and Matthew Sweet discuss the devastating natural disaster that rocked the country in 2011. In Land of the Rising Sums, Alex Bellos visits Kyoto to ask why Asian cultures seem so much better at maths; in Japan and Religion, Roy Jenkins discusses the place of religious traditions in modern Japan; and in Supernatural Japan, Christopher Harding looks at how the Japanese have used ghosts and ghost stories to make sense of their world. 
 
Part 2: Culture celebrates Japan's art, literature and film. In Japan Now 2020, Philip Dodd talks to writers Hiromi Ito and Yukiko Motoya and photographer Tomoko Sawada about women's roles in Japanese culture today. Meanwhile, in Images of Japan, illustrator Fumio Obata and manga translator Jocelyne Allen discuss Japanese comic book imagery, and we join novelists Kyoko Nakajima and Yuya Sato in conversation with Christopher Harding. Landmark: Seven Samurai and Landmark: Rashomon see Matthew Sweet and Rana Mitter investigating the stories behind Akira Kurosawa's two most influential films, in the company of guests including film scholar Ian Christie and authors SF Said, David Peace and Natasha Pulley. The Tale of Genji takes us into the shimmering world of mediaeval Japan, as Rana Mitter explores Murasaki Shikibu's masterpiece, widely considered to be the world's first novel. Finally, in Godzilla and Hayao Miyazaki, Christopher Harding considers cinematic depictions of Japanese fear, as exemplified by the legendary monster king and the 2013 animated film The Wind Rises. 
 
Contents 
Japan in Five Lives 
Killing Time in Imperial Japan 
Dark Blossoms 
Japanese Tsunami 
Land of the Rising Sums 
Japan and Religion 
Supernatural Japan 
Japan Now 2020 
Images of Japan 
Landmark: Seven Samurai 
Landmark: Rashomon 
The Tale of Genji 
Godzilla and The Wind Rises 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Rana Mitter

Books by Rana Mitter

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter