1914
The Year The World Ended
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Narrated by:
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Robert Meldrum
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By:
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Paul Ham
About this listen
Few years can justly be said to have transformed the earth: 1914 did.
In July that year, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain and France were poised to plunge the world into a war that would kill or wound 37 million people, tear down the fabric of society, uproot ancient political systems and set the course for the bloodiest century in human history.
In the longer run, the events of 1914 set the world on the path toward the Russian Revolution, the Treaty of Versailles, the rise of Nazism and the Cold War.
In 1914: The Year the World Ended, award-winning historian Paul Ham tells the story of the outbreak of the Great War from German, British, French, Austria-Hungarian, Russian and Serbian perspectives. Along the way, he debunks several stubborn myths.
European leaders, for example, did not stumble or ‘sleepwalk' into war, as many suppose. They fully understood that a small conflict in the Balkans - the tinderbox at the heart of the continent - could spark a European war. They well knew what their weapons could do. Yet they carried on. They accepted - and, in some cases, even seemed to relish - what they saw as an inevitable clash of arms. They planned and mapped every station on the path to oblivion. These pied pipers of the apocalypse chose war in the full knowledge that millions would follow, and die, on their orders.
1914: The Year the World Ended seeks to answer the most vexing question of the 20th century: Why did European governments decide to condemn the best part of a generation of young men to the trenches and four years of slaughter, during which 8.5 million would die?
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What if Hitler had won the war, if Japan had another sneak attack, or if the cold war turned hot? What If? provides a fascinating new perspective on history's most pivotal events. Featuring today's foremost historians speculating on what could have happened, we discover where we might be if history had not unfolded the way it did.
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For history buffs
- By Charles Elmore on 05-11-04
By: Stephen E. Ambrose, and others
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Winston's War
- Churchill, 1940-1945
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 25 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never before. Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing.
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A very different Churchill
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-03-13
By: Max Hastings
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Napoleon's Wars
- An International History, 1803-1815
- By: Charles Esdaile
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 24 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In the most definitive account to date, respected historian Charles Esdaile argues that the chief motivating factor for Napoleon was his insatiable desire for fame. More than a myth-busting portrait of Napoleon, however, this volume offers a panoramic view of the armed conflicts that spread so quickly out of revolutionary France to countries as remote as Sweden and Egypt.
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Not bad, nor what I was expecting
- By Judd Bagley on 07-18-09
By: Charles Esdaile
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The White War
- Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919
- By: Mark Thompson
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 19 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet a million and half men died in northeast Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands.
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An indispensable contribution
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-27-17
By: Mark Thompson
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The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume I: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Winston Churchill is perhaps the most important political figure of the 20th century. His great oratory and leadership during the Second World War were only part of his huge breadth of experience and achievement. Studying his life is a fascinating way to imbibe the history of his era and gain insight into key events that have shaped our time.
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Superb - Review of Both Volume I & Volume II
- By Wolfpacker on 01-23-09
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The Guns of August
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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Wonderful
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-28-08
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Forgotten Ally
- China's World War II, 1937 - 1945
- By: Rana Mitter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. The war began in China two full years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.
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Bland
- By Rodney on 01-23-14
By: Rana Mitter
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Hitler
- By: Joachim C. Fest, Richard Winstton - translator, Clara Winstton - translator
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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This masterful biography by one of Germany’s best known journalists was the leading nonfiction best seller in Germany. Fest shows Hitler as the receptacle of the dreads and resentments of a shaken social order, gifted with an uncanny instinct for all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Though a warped human being, he was neither clown nor puppet, as many liked to think; Hitler appears here as an enormously astute politician, impressing and hypnotizing Germans and foreigners alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality....
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Should be part of high school education
- By Rex Riethmeier on 12-25-18
By: Joachim C. Fest, and others
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The Boer War
- By: Martin Bossenbroek
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Boer War, winner of the Netherland's 2013 Libris History Prize and shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, the author brings a completely new perspective to this chapter of South African history, critically examining the involvement of the Netherlands in the war. Furthermore, unlike other accounts, Martin Bossenbroek explores the war primarily through the experiences of three men uniquely active during the bloody conflict.
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Interesting and engaging view of the War
- By Douglas on 04-17-18
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The War That Ended Peace
- The Road to 1914
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I.
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Detailed review of 1882 to 1914
- By smarmer on 04-06-14
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Catastrophe 1914
- Europe Goes to War
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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From the acclaimed military historian, a new history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles - the Marne, Ypres, Tannenberg - that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches. In Catastrophe 1914, Max Hastings gives us a conflict different from the familiar one of barbed wire, mud, and futility.
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I thought I knew the battle of the frontiers
- By Anonymous User on 04-02-21
By: Max Hastings
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Christmas 1913: In Britain, people are debating a new dance called ‘the tango’. In Germany, they are fascinated by the wedding of the Kaiser’s daughter to the Duke of Brunswick. Little did they know that their world was on ‘The Eve of War’, a catastrophe that was to engulf the continent, cost millions of lives, and change the course of the century. And yet behind the scenes, the Great Powers were marching towards what they thought was an inevitable conflict.
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This is What Wasn't Taught in School.
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What listeners say about 1914
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- Jean
- 02-24-14
How the war started
Over the past four years I have read many books on World War One. This year (2014) marks the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI and many books are coming out about WWI. I have read quite a few of them already. This book, “1914: The Year the World Ended”, is by the Australian Historian Paul Ham. The book is mostly about how the world went to war and very little about the battles. Recently a number of books by other writers have covered the same ground and done so in a much more enjoyable fashion. Ham tells the story leading up to the war from Austria-Hungarian, Russian, German, Serbian, British, French and Ottoman perspectives. The author follows the ebb and flow of diplomacy in Europe in the years leading up to The Great War. He highlights the feeling of inevitability of war going back a decade that served to cloud everyone’s judgment. He points out that 1914 was a pivotal year in human history. It led to the Russian Revolution, the cold war and was the seed that allowed Nazism and World War II to grow. It changed societies and countries around the globe. It was the beginning of the end of empires and monarchies as the world had known them. At the end of the book Ham relates briefly some of the battles but only covered one “the miracle on the Marne” in any detail. Despite some flaws the author performs an important role in attempting to distill historical work for the broader audiences. As there is a number of books out on this subject I wish Ham would have covered the role of the Australians played in World War One, I think that would have make a more unique book. Robert Meldrum did a good job narrating this 23 hour book.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Meg Cronin
- 08-26-14
Historically Detailed - ad nauseum
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
When they say this is 'unabridged', they mean it!! You get 22+ hours of details. I couldn't bear it. There's got to be a happy medium between this and a Readers Digest version of the Great War.
Would you ever listen to anything by Paul Ham again?
Yes. But would get the abridged version.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
Yes - both a bit dull, given the content.
Was 1914 worth the listening time?
No.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Nica Lorber
- 12-22-20
One of my favorite books
I think I've read this book 3 times. It's one of the first history books I've read that really made history feel human, and relatable.
I like how the author almost humanizes nations as beings. Like the way he talks about Germany feeling inferior and that that psychology does as a motivator on the global stage. I think these types of factors matter and help explain how and why the war started.
This book helped me understand the modern world way better. I feel like it's impossible to understand the world we live in today without understanding WW1. This book made it all relatable and understandable.
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1 person found this helpful
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- rbergen
- 08-01-16
keep your opinion out of it
moralizing bore. tell the history and not what you think of it won't buy him again.
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- Sam
- 04-25-24
Unlimited simulacreage to colonize
If you liked "The Sleepwalkers" or "The Guns of August," then...read them again?
"1914" cites both explicitly, in a text lacking any of the features that made those books interesting to read or discuss.
(Meldrum is an excellent narrator, but struggles terribly with foreign words. Bless him, he tried.)
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Overall
- Rupert Murdock
- 04-07-20
Garbage
Big in British xenophobic obfuscation and half truths. Small in significant insight and human truths.
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