Rupert's Adventures in China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife

Used
Paperback
2009
$3.25

When China's reformers eased open the communist giant's doors to the world, they found Rupert Murdoch standing outside in his best suit with a bunch of flowers. Used to being courted by those in power, Murdoch made a clumsy suitor. If the billionaire media mogul thought he could swagger into China and add the world's biggest audience to his News Corp empire, he quickly discovered that things worked differently in the Middle Kingdom. The communist leadership kept the 'ultimate capitalist' at arm's length. Nonetheless, amid many blunders and much wasted money, News Corp managed to connect China to the world through the Internet and to transform its staid television service into a popular-entertainment medium. But was Beijing simply using Murdoch to help the country modernise and to rehabilitate its image in the wake of Tiananmen Square? Bruce Dover, Murdoch's man on the ground in China for much of the 1990s, delivers a rollicking insider's account of doing deals at the highest level of business and politics. In this intimate portrait of the impulsive billionaire in his prime, Dover describes fatefully introducing his boss to Wendi Deng, the woman who would become his second wife - News Corp's future has a Chinese face after all.

Synopsis

When China's reformers eased open the communist giant's doors to the world, they found Rupert Murdoch standing outside in his best suit with a bunch of flowers. Used to being courted by those in power, Murdoch made a clumsy suitor. If the billionaire media mogul thought he could swagger into China and add the world's biggest audience to his News Corp empire, he quickly discovered that things worked differently in the Middle Kingdom. The communist leadership kept the 'ultimate capitalist' at arm's length. Nonetheless, amid many blunders and much wasted money, News Corp managed to connect China to the world through the Internet and to transform its staid television service into a popular-entertainment medium. But was Beijing simply using Murdoch to help the country modernise and to rehabilitate its image in the wake of Tiananmen Square? Bruce Dover, Murdoch's man on the ground in China for much of the 1990s, delivers a rollicking insider's account of doing deals at the highest level of business and politics. In this intimate portrait of the impulsive billionaire in his prime, Dover describes fatefully introducing his boss to Wendi Deng, the woman who would become his second wife - News Corp's future has a Chinese face after all.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Published: 05 Feb 2009
ISBN 10: 184596439X
ISBN 13: 9781845964399
Book Overview: The compelling story of how two of the world's great contemporary powers came to intersect and what came to pass when they did
Prizes: Shortlisted for Blake Dawson Prize for Business Literature 2008.

Media Reviews

A fascinating study of power, and of a man who could not bring himself to believe that anyone would stand in his way -- George Monbiot The Guardian A rare insider's account of how the Chinese got the better of the businessman who usually gets what he wants The Economist Murdoch's rivals and critics will relish this inside account of Beijing's sometimes amusing humbling of the media magnate Financial Times

Author Bio

Bruce Dover is a senior media operative who spent several years running Rupert Murdoch's 'China push'. He is now the Chief Executive of Australia Network and divides his time between Sydney and Vietnam.