The Burma Road

Abridged
Author: Donovan Webster
Narrator: Donovan Webster
Genres: History
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date: October 2003
Length: 6 hours
Ratings:
  • Book Rating: 3/5
Formats:
  • CD

Overview

The extraordinary story of the
China-Burma-Indiatheater of operations during World War II

As the Imperial Japanese Army swept across China and South Asia at World War II's outset -- closing all of China's seaports -- more than 200,000 Chinese laborers embarked on a seemingly impossible task: to cut a 700-mile overland route -- which would be called the Burma Road -- from the southeast Chinese city of Kunming to Lashio, Burma. But with the fall of Burma in early 1942, the road was severed, and it became the task of American General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell to reopen it, while keeping China supplied by air-lift from India and simultaneously driving the Japanese out of Burma as the first step of the Allied offensive toward Japan.

In gripping prose, Donovan Webster follows the adventures of the American "Hump" pilots who flew hair-raising missions to make food-drops in China; tells the true story that inspired the famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai; and recounts the grueling jungle operations of Merrill's Marauders and the British Chindit Brigades. Interspersed with portraits of the American General Stilwell, the exceedingly eccentric British General Orde Wingate, and the mercurial Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, The Burma Road vividly recreates the sprawling, sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and still largely unknown stories of one of the greatest chapters of World War II.

Reviews (8)

The Burma Road

Written by Charles Chillingworth from Pasadena, CA on May 19th, 2008

  • Book Rating: 2/5

Very tedious. It's a great story that needs to be read with a map and a timeline in front of you at all times.

The Burma Road

Written by Janice Church on October 16th, 2007

  • Book Rating: 4/5

Excellent book. Reading is good, but could be better.

The Road

Written by DJG on July 28th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 5/5

An excellent book, loaded with information, very well read.

Where's the director?

Written by Matthew Thomson from Indian Wells, CA on May 16th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 3/5

Filled with fascinating historical information, it could have been a magnetic presentation but for the absolute lack of any production values. The reader (also the author) had no sense of the dramatic, no inflection, had no appreciation of the value of even a periodic pregnant pause. I finally got tired of the drone; but the story kept me around a lot longer than i expected it to.

Burma Road

Written by Michael Harris from Memphis, TN on February 26th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 5/5

The author makes you feel like you were there. I listen to many books, but lose interest quickly, this is one that transported me into the jungles of Burma as an american soldier. Great book for anyone who likes World War II history and action. I found it to be a much more interesting book than Stephen Ambrose books of WWII. Narrator did a good job.

Good War Read

Written by Anonymous from Norfolk, MA on September 12th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

I can see two books that I would like to read after this book. A bio or Vinegar Joe and a history of the hump pilots. This book helped to tie togther many stories such as the bridge over the river Kwai(sp?) and how the communists took control of China.

Interesting, but...

Written by Lee Laslo on June 7th, 2005

  • Book Rating: 3/5

... the author's monotone, dry reading style was nearly unbearable at times.

Excellent

Written by Anonymous on March 22nd, 2005

  • Book Rating: 4/5

An excellent book describing the US campaign in Burma during WWII.