The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Amy Chua raised her own daughters in America: starting from the premise that the Chinese parenting model got better results than its Western counterpart. Given that Sophia and Louisa (Lulu) were polite, interesting and helpful girls with perfect school marks and exceptional musical abilities, this seemed to be borne out. But what happens when you won't tolerate disobedience, and yet your daughter still says no?

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is not a child-rearing manual but a tale of culture clash and what happens when your own convictions are seriously challenged.

Encouraged by the young Sophia's musical precocity, Amy turns her attentions to Lulu. But when she sits her down at the piano -things don't turn out quite the way she planned.

Amy Chua is the John M Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her first book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability was a New York Times bestseller, was selected by both the Economist and the Guardian as one of the Best Books of 2003 and translated into eight languages. Her second book, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall was a critically-acclaimed Foreign Affairs bestseller. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review and the Wilson Quarterly. She lives with her husband, two daughters and two Samoyeds in New Haven, Connecticut.

Abridged by Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Liz Sutherland

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
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