
A History of Britain: Volume 1
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Thorne
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By:
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Simon Schama
About this listen
The story of Britain from the earliest settlements in 3000 BC to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. To look back at the past is to understand the present. In this vivid account of over 4,000 years of British history, Simon Schama takes us on an epic journey which encompasses the very beginnings of the nation's identity, when the first settlers landed on Orkney.
From the successes and failures of the monarchy to the daily life of a Roman soldier stationed on Hadrian's Wall, Schama gives a vivid, fascinating account of the many different stories and struggles that lie behind the growth of our island nation. Simon Schama's major BBC2 series has shown him to be one of our most original and exciting historians.
©2012 Simon Schama (P)2014 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Fingerprints of the Gods is the revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of listeners throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the history behind modern society. An intellectual detective story, this unique history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.
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Classic in Historical Mysteries
- By Kelly on 09-05-19
By: Graham Hancock
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Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon
- Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops, and the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
- By: David McGowan
- Narrated by: Bill Fike
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day.
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My first review. This book changed me.
- By Robert on 06-30-19
By: David McGowan
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Napoleon's Hemorrhoids…And Other Small Events That Changed History
- By: Phil Mason
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Hilarious, fascinating, and a roller coaster of dizzying, historical what-ifs, Napoleon's Hemorrhoids is a potpourri for serious historians and casual history buffs. In one of Phil Mason's many revelations, you'll learn that Communist jets were two minutes away from opening fire on American planes during the Cuban missile crisis, when they had to turn back as they were running out of fuel. You'll discover that before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's painful hemorrhoids prevented him from mounting his horse to survey the battlefield.
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They just throw the facts too fast
- By Concerned_llama on 12-11-20
By: Phil Mason
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Great Disappointment
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Lack of language skills an irritation
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Audio Skips!!
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
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This IS COMPLETE
- By Amber Youngblood on 06-04-18
By: H. E. Marshall
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Citizens
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Overall
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Performance
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From one of the truly preeminent historians of our time, this is a landmark book chronicling the French Revolution. Simon Schama deftly refutes the contemporary notion that the French Revolution represented an uprising of the oppressed poor against a decadent aristocracy and corrupt court. He argues instead that the revolution was born of a rift among the elite over the speed of progress toward modernity and science, social and economic change.
By: Simon Schama
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Roman History, Volume 1
- By: Dio Cassius
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Dio Cassius was a Roman statesman and historian of Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the subsequent founding of Rome (753 BC), the formation of the republic (509 BC), and the creation of the empire (31 BC). The history continues until AD 229.
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Charlton Griffin is amazing as usual!
- By Placeholder on 07-12-18
By: Dio Cassius
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Thomas Jefferson and His Time, Volume 1
- The Virginian
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This is the first volume of distinguished historian Dumas Malone's Pulitzer Prize-winning six-volume work on the life and times of Thomas Jefferson. Based on a myriad of sources, it covers Jefferson's ancestry, youth, education, and legal career; his marriage and the building of Monticello; the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Notes on Virginia; his rich, fruitful legislative career; his highly controversial governorship; and his early services to the development of the West.
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thoroughly satisfying
- By Robert on 01-22-08
By: Dumas Malone
What listeners say about A History of Britain: Volume 1
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-28-21
The real history of England
I new that the early history of England was more complicated than I thought but boy was I wrong. man what a History.
This is a well written Book.
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- Michael D. Johas Teener
- 06-17-19
Good history, fantastic reading
Do, to answer many questions I had about British history (from watching all those PBS Masterpiece shows), I added this to my list. ... and it’s great so far. Yes, there are gaps (like the cursory treatment of the Wars of the Roses, which I knew little about and learned little more), but overall it’s fascinating. Lots on pre-Norman invasion (Roman Britain was quite a thing!), and the rise of the Tudor’s. Fun stuff. BUT, on top of the content, the style of the prose, and the way it was read was wonderful. Dang, those Brits are educated! Reminds me of the various times I’ve had to deal with graduates of British universities in my working career, where sometimes I felt like applauding after one of them just made an extemporaneous talk about an obscure point of history or technology.
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- David
- 03-31-13
A History of the English Monarchy from 1066-1603
Schama is a talented writer, and his narrative flows easily, but it is really just a popular history of the English Monarchy from William the Conqueror through Elizabeth 1. Even then, while he hits on all of the major points of that time frame, he obviously felt that there were really only a few Monarchs who deserved more than a cursory mention, leaving this very much a book in the Great Man of History tradition.
William I, Edward I, Henry II and Beckett, Henry III and Eleanor and the Tudors all get lots of press. Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Chaucer, Shakespeare, the War of the Roses, Richard III, the Crusades and many other aspects of British history are given scant mention.
Thorne does a fine job as narrator, and it is a well written book, with a sly wit, but the subtitle is a bit misleading.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Natalie Bartels
- 12-23-16
Intriguing introduction
Would you listen to A History of Britain: Volume 1 again? Why?
Yes. The information is so packed in there. I finished this a few months ago, and I am afraid I have retained probably less than a 10th of the information.
Who was your favorite character and why?
King Alfred the Great. Brilliant.
Any additional comments?
Probably written for a British audience. Had the feeling that I was pretending to know what was happening half the time because I got disoriented in time and eras.
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3 people found this helpful
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- P. Gorman
- 06-10-22
dense but interesting
narration was good, well written history, but, and this may be an issue with me, an American, I had a tough time caring about the leaders, who pretty much seemed to jerks across the board. Glad I didn't live back then.
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- amazon purchaser
- 04-09-18
great story
easy to listen to. relaxing book. told in vignettes that make the content very digestible
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- Ian Erikson
- 09-24-19
great reader, story jumps around
there are times when this is amazing, there are other times where it just skips ahead wildly.. especially the war of the roses era.
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- zentara
- 04-09-22
Schama is one of the great English wordsmiths
The History of Britain is well explained, in an honest manner, dirty secrets and all, but the true pleasure of listening to these 3 books is the outstanding writing of Simon Schama. The words flow like poetry and I find myself just enjoying the performance, sentence grammar, and perfect style. These 3 books are definitely the best English writing I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. I will listen to these books many times again just for the quality of the writing. I can't compliment him enough, and the narrator has a wonderful delivery. I'm so glad I discovered these books.
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- William
- 05-29-22
Good political history for most of us
This is the first volume of A History of Britain and takes us from the the earliest civilization on the islands to the end of the reign of Elizabeth I. It includes the 300 years of the Roman Empire in Britain and shows how the remnants of Roman culture played a part in molding the history for centuries later. The time period also includes the Norman Conquest, the Black Plague (which reduced the population of Europe by nearly half), the reign of Edward I, the various intrigues of the Tudors, and the continuing clash between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. It was made into a TV series on the History Channel as well.
Professor Schama deserves kudos for making history interesting, even in this non-TV version. Though this starts out in prehistoric times of the beginning of civilization, that portion of the book is covered quite briefly. He slows down and goes into more detail when the Romans arrived, naturally, since there are written records from that time period. Those 300 years seem to be a relatively peaceful time and certainly the great building boom bears that out. The later arrival of the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, and finally the Normans was much more violent when the land seemed to be the focal point of conflict between various foreign forces and peoples. He does a good job of explaining the development of the history, particularly from a political, i.e. royal perspective. Though it also attempts to help us understand the life of the “civilian” population at times, that may be its weakest area, though it may have made the book much too long to deal with the lives of ordinary people. And one may also criticize its focus on England at the expense of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland since it calls itself “A History of Britain.”
Although at the end of this first book, there was still no united Britain, one of the themes is the events that laid the foundations for the formation of a nation state in the next century.
Much more time was spent on the era after the arrival of the Normans, particularly of the Plantagenet kings (1145 – 1485) and the Tudors (1485 – 1603), a very violent time, at least for royals and other nobles, when the Tower would have quickly filled to capacity were it not for the many beheadings, hangings, and quartering (look that up) that seemed to be the equivalent or reality TV for the middle ages.
But, some of those excesses also set the stage for the evolution of Britain into a constitutional monarchy (over many more centuries) and eventually the experiment in a constitutional democratic republic in the independent American colonies. The Magna Carta (1215) was signed by King John of England to solve a political crisis of his own making and was later ignored many times but kept coming back in modified form to limit the power of the monarchy.
One thing that is ofen ignored in history is the recurrence of anti-Semitism and Professor Schama does not ignore this part of history. He recounts its prevalence in various incidents in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries including massacres in York in 1190 and the Edict of Expulsion issued by Edward I in 1290.
If you have any interest in History, this is a good one to read. I suspect that it won’t offer any new revelations to a scholar, but for someone who just wants to understand without being bored, this is a good start.
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- gwilsonmd
- 10-17-16
Very engaging
Although the narrator did a wonderful job, I was slightly disappointed that Mr. had not narrated. I enjoy his style!!
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2 people found this helpful