Brian Henderson

Excellent Narration for a Chilling Story

Reviewed: 09-20-21

The narrator here perfectly capture the tone of book that itself perfectly conveys the fraught and treacherous atmosphere of conflict fought as much in the minds of its participants as on the streets of Northern Ireland. A story of a deed of savage violence put perfectly in the context of a savage moment in Irish history. A must-read.

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What’s with all the Eva Peron quotes?

Reviewed: 04-10-21

A decent quick biography of its subject. But halfway through they start beginning almost every chapter with an Eva Peron quote. He met her once, and the quotes aren’t even clearly about him. Very strange.

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Movie quotes are not historical sources

Reviewed: 03-26-21

The opening chapter of this audiobook begins with a quote from the movie “Braveheart” with no clarification that it is a fictional movie quote. They just say the quote and say “Robert the Bruce” after it like this is a legitimate quote from a reputable historical text. That’s a red flag right there. Avoid this book.

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The master

Reviewed: 12-17-20

It’s Patrick Stewart performing a classic work of literature. PATRICK STEWART. Do I really need to explain this?

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Odd performance

Reviewed: 07-16-20

It goes without saying that Dune is a masterpiece of storytelling.

The main issues with this audiobook are some minor production issues. First, the use of voice actors is inconsistent. Sometimes a voice actor will appear for a character in one chapter, disappear in the next, and then return later which can be odd. Second, the production uses this desert wind sound effect at odd times for no consistent reason. It’s like the producers said “Have we used that wind effect in a while? We haven’t? Let’s use it now.” It’s strange. Next, the quotations that come at the beginning of each chapter in the book are put at the end of each chapter here and are sometimes cut off by the transition from chapter to chapter. Also some chapter are randomly combined to creat hour long sessions for no reason. I know these sound like a lot of problems but they’re really just a bunch of minor things that bugged me. I still recommend this as satisfactory audiobook version of the greatest sci-fi novel of all time.

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Overly simplitic great man ramblings

Reviewed: 10-12-19

The lecturer has a kindly grandfather demeanor that almost makes you want to give him a pass over the course of this series. But he frequently makes mistakes or fudges basic historical details and overly relies on a "great man" view of history in order to explain the events covered in this series. In fact, he leans so heavily on his "great statesmen" (all of whom are white men) view of history that he dismisses the role of social and economic forces almost entirely except when he mentions them as challenges that the great man he is discussing must overcome. He also makes ridiculous claims like "democracies always fight to the bitter end when roused" like the United States. This is a strange claim considering our treaty that ended the War of 1812 without clear resolution, the Korean War that ended in a stalemate, and our defeat in the Vietnam War. Also, his praise of some historical figures is completely nonsensical. "Jefferson was a man of principle who found ample justification for the Louisiana Purchase in the treaty clause of the U.S. Constitution" is an argument he uses to try to explain Jefferson's hypocrisy of starting out as a strict constructionist before compromising his principles in order to take advantage of an unprecedented land deal. I bought this hoping it would be a reflection on the need to study history in our current time, but this is just a bunch of sloppy historical ramblings by a well-meaning but out-of-date professor whose message seems to be "Christianity and Western Philosophy combined and found their true expression in the USA, God's chosen country of liberty and justice that always acts with selfless intentions out of a a desire to spread liberty and freedom to all." Sorry, but American exceptionalism and great man history are relics that belong in the past they claim to explain.

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3 people found this helpful