A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons
Brief Histories
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Narrated by:
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Eleanor David
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By:
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Geoffrey Hindley
About this listen
Starting AD 400 (around the time of their invasion of England) and running through to the 1100s (the 'Aftermath'), historian Geoffrey Hindley shows the Anglo-Saxons as formative in the history not only of England but also of Europe. The society inspired by the warrior world of the Old English poem Beowulf saw England become the world's first nation state and Europe's first country to conduct affairs in its own language, and Bede and Boniface of Wessex establish the dating convention we still use today. Including all the latest research, this is a fascinating assessment of a vital historical period.
About the author: Geoffrey Hindley is an acclaimed Medievalist. His many books include The Shaping of Europe, Saladin: a Biography, The Book of Magna Carta, and A Brief History of the Crusades.
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The definitive history of a powerful family dynasty who dominated Europe for centuries - from their rise to power to their eventual downfall.
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An Excellent and Interesting History
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To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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Excellent overview of the Classical World
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Inca Apocalypse
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Previous accounts of the fall of the Inca empire have played up the importance of the events of one violent day in November 1532 at the highland Andean town of Cajamarca. To some, the "Cajamarca miracle" - in which Francisco Pizarro and a small contingent of Spaniards captured an Inca who led an army numbering in the tens of thousands - demonstrated the intervention of divine providence. To others, the outcome was simply the result of European technological and immunological superiority.
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A Comparison
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Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans?
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Excellent
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Charlemagne
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When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.
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I really wanted to enjoy this -
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The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic Asian antithesis of the Christian European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage.
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Great except for pronunt of Turkish names
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For more than 1,000 years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era.
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Gripping but not tidy
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A captivating true story that chronicles the exploits of Sir Francis Walsingham - the first great English spymaster and the man who saved Elizabeth's regime and the country's independence. Elizabeth I came to the throne at a time of insecurity and unrest. Rivals threatened her reign; England was a Protestant island, isolated in a sea of Catholic countries. Spain plotted an invasion, but Elizabeth's Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her. He ran a network of agents in England and Europe who provided him with information about invasions or assassination plots.
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The Power Behind the Throne
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The Roman Emperors
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This guide will guide you to the right knowledge about all the historical details you need to know about Nero, Caligula, Hadrian, Commodus, Constantine the Great, Caracalla, Marcus Aurelius, Julius Caesar, Augustus, and others. Some were pure evil, abusive, and sheer dictators with their own self-interest that was their only focus. Others had the best intentions for the empire. These emperors left their mark on the people, the history of the entire empire, and the cultural influence the Romans had on us.
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Great book
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Emperors of Rome: Julius Caesar, Constantine, Nero, Caligula, and More
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What do you know about the emperors of Rome? Rome had good and bad emperors, selfish and selfless ones. Some were wise, others were foolish. And each left their legacy and their imprint on historical concepts of the Roman empire itself. In this book, we will explore the details of a number of these emperors, especially some of the best-known ones that have been hand-picked by the editors of this book.
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That's interesting
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Among the extensive writing available about the history of ancient Greece, there is precious little about the city-state of Thebes. At one point the most powerful city in ancient Greece, Thebes has been long overshadowed by its better-known rivals, Athens and Sparta. In Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, acclaimed classicist and historian Paul Cartledge brings the city vividly to life and argues that it is central to our understanding of the ancient Greeks' achievements - whether politically or culturally.
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Why is this author considered an expert scholar of Ancient Greece?
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What listeners say about A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ryan
- 11-29-15
Hard to follow for the uninitiated.
Eleanor Davis is excellent! the material is hard to follow though without some background on the events of and preceding 1066
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1 person found this helpful
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- Herr
- 03-08-15
Get a map.
I love the history but this is a book where locations and generations. Move around so fast your head will spin.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ambrose
- 07-23-19
Great overview
Really enjoyed the history. It honestly made me wonder if this is the main source that Bernard Cornwell used for his Saxon series. So much seems lifted right from these pages.
I was amused that the reader used ancient Latin pronunciation rather than medieval, which would have been more appropriate. And why Latinize English words? “Carolingian” should use a soft ‘g’ just as if it were an English word—because it is! Also, I think she could have listened to Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf to at least get an approximation of correct Old English pronunciation. Some serious butchery there. 😂
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3 people found this helpful
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- Ky
- 06-27-19
interesting
Very interesting telling of a group of people who are familiar but not known in modern times
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- Jolene
- 09-22-17
A Fair Narrative Saved By Good Narration
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Possibly. If the friend had an earnest desire to learn more about Anglo-Saxon England, then yes, I would recommend it to them. I would not recommend it to someone as their first exposure to the subject matter.
What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
Well, any good student of history knows who the Anglo-Saxon Age ends... and it's OK to blame it on the Normans.
Have you listened to any of Eleanor David’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
The narration was excellent. While the narrative lagged at points, Eleanor David's narration made to possible to continue through these rather 'dry' points.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No extreme reactions to report.
Any additional comments?
All in all the book was fair to good. Geoffrey Hindley is an author with good credentials on the subject matter to be sure, which makes it disappointing that he belabored the telling of this history with chronologies and lineages to the point it becames almost painful to the listener. As a study of the period, the book is academically solid and well-researched. This last point is the reason for an overall rating of 4 stars.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Neil Chisholm
- 07-23-13
A very dry history of the Ethels
I know only a little about the history of Britain before the Norman conquest and now I understand why - very little is actually known. There are a few chronicles that have historical information and this is what this book tends to regurgitate.
Unfortunately this book as a result ends up being a listing of kings and their reigns with brief suggested activities they undertook while on the throne. Nothing is known for certain until after 900ish and then all the kings seemed be named Ethel this or Ethel that so it got very confusing.
I know about as much about Anglo Saxon Britain as I did before I listened to this book so I can only really recommend this book to someone who knows nothing about Anglo Saxon Britain and has a interest in learning something about it!
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14 people found this helpful
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- Jared Jensen
- 04-11-15
More a Religious History
The book's organization is hard to follow. I wish the author would have chosen an easier narrative to follow - it is organized both topically and chronologically, which makes it hard to follow for someone not already familiar with the subject (the target audience for this book). He covers each area geographically in a rough chronology, which makes it hard to follow when he refers to people and events in other regions that we don't learn about until later. He also spends far too much time in my opinion focusing on religious matters, including long excursions on the continent following famous Anglo-Saxon émigrés that became saints. How this helps someone understand Anglo Saxon England is beyond me - if I wanted to really understand the history of the West Indies in the colonial period, I would not look for it in a biography of Alexander Hamilton. A religious focus is somewhat understandable given that the bulk of primary source material from the period comes from religious chroniclers, but I still would have preferred more descriptions of ordinary lives and culture and local government. Counties, shires, courts are all mentioned but not very well described. A brief history should give a reader an overall sense for the key events and the lives of the people who lived it. This book did not accomplish that goal
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3 people found this helpful