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Daniel Shenk

  • 6
  • reviews
  • 13
  • helpful votes
  • 205
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Great Social-Military History

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 04-02-23

Focuses on the daily reality of European war for common people, both soldiers and civilians.

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China After Mao Audiobook By Frank Dikötter cover art

Fantastic Book, Terrible Production

Overall
4 out of 5 stars
Performance
4 out of 5 stars
Story
4 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 02-10-23

Frank Dikotter is easily my favorite historian of modern China, and this book is a great resource for learning about the last 40 years of Chinese history. Dikotter's trademark of using sources that no one else has investigated (and that are often no longer available because of new restrictions) is used to show a far more grim history than Chinese propaganda, and many Western analysts, would have you believe.

Unfortunately, it is marred by the worst production I have ever heard on an Audible book. Sentences are cut off in the middle, words and phrases are often repeated in a loop that lasts several seconds. The narrator is great, and the book is well worth it all the same, but this entire audiobook needs re-edited.

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4 people found this helpful

Fantastic!

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 03-21-20

This is one of the best books I have listened to in a long time! I have read almost everything I can find on why "the West" reached modernity before the rest of the world. Scheidel approaches this question from a completely original angle. He also provides the best, most accessible overview of the current theories that I have found. Definitely one of my all-time favorite history books.

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1 person found this helpful

The most comprehensive Lincoln biography ever

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-06-18

This is a review for volumes 1 and 2. This book is not for the casual listener. It is very long and sometimes repetitive (because Burlingame cites never before used sources that often say the same thing), but extremely thorough. No other book will give you as much knowledge about Lincoln and his life.

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5 people found this helpful

The most comprehensive Lincoln biography ever

Overall
5 out of 5 stars
Performance
5 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-06-18

This is a review for volumes 1 and 2. This book is not for the casual listener. It is very long and sometimes repetitive (because Burlingame cites never before used sources that often say the same thing), but extremely thorough. No other book will give you as much knowledge about Lincoln and his life.

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1 person found this helpful

Excellent book, but very out of date

Overall
2 out of 5 stars
Performance
3 out of 5 stars
Story
5 out of 5 stars

Reviewed: 08-23-16

J.M. Roberts is a fantastic author and I look forward to reading everything else he has written.This is probably the best introduction you world history I have read. But contrary to Audible's description, this recording is not updated. The latest edition of Roberts' book was published in 2007, but the first 52 hours of this recording are entirely from the 1987 edition. It includes obsolete terms like USSR, and discussions of the implications of a world population of 5 billion, soon to be 6 billion. The postwar era, one of the most important in history, is analyzed without any knowledge of how it ended. Though the recording covers the end of the Cold War and September 11 by tacking the end of the 2003 edition onto the 1987 edition, this is done so poorly that you have to listen to Roberts' conclusion twice; it is repeated at the end of both the1987 edition and the 2003 edition almost word for word.

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1 person found this helpful