
A History of Britain: Volume 2
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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
Timothy West reads the second volume of Simon Schama's compelling chronicle of the British Isles.
The British wars began on the morning of 23 July 1637, heralding 200 years of battles. Most were driven by religious or political conviction, as Republicans and Royalists, Catholics and Protestants, Tories and Whigs, and colonialists and natives vied for supremacy. Of the battles not fought on home territory, many took place across Europe, America, India, and also at sea.
Schama's examination of this turbulent period reveals how the British people eventually united in imperial enterprise, forming 'Britannia Incorporated'. The story of that change evokes the memory of such enduringly influential people as Oliver Cromwell, as well as lesser known but equally extraordinary individuals. A story of revolution and reaction, progress and catastrophe, this is a vivid account of two centuries which changed Britain.
©2012 Simon Schama (P)2014 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Great Disappointment
- By Head Wolf on 04-27-24
By: Simon Schama
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The Birth of Britain
- A History of the English Speaking Peoples, Volume I
- By: Sir Winston Churchill
- Narrated by: Christian Rodska
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The English-speaking peoples comprise perhaps the greatest number of human beings sharing a common language in the world today. These people also share a common heritage. For his four-volume work, Sir Winston Churchill took as his subject these great elements in world history. Volume 1 commences in 55BC, when Julius Caesar famously "turned his gaze upon Britain" and concludes with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
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Birth of Britain
- By Terryl Pettengill on 02-11-07
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Six Wives of Henry VIII
- By: Antonia Fraser
- Narrated by: Emma Gregory
- Length: 21 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The six wives of Henry VIII have become defined in a popular sense not so much by their lives as by the way these lives ended. But, as Antonia Fraser conclusively proves, they were rich and feisty characters. They may have been victims of Henry's obsession with a male heir, but they displayed considerable strength and intelligence at a time when their sex supposedly possessed little of either. Inevitably there was great rivalry and jealously between them. The story Antonia Fraser tells is romantic and cruel, funny and sad, dramatic and enthralling.
By: Antonia Fraser
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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The Embarrassment of Riches
- An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Simon Schama explores the mysterious contradictions of the Dutch nation that invented itself from the ground up, attained an unprecedented level of affluence, and lived in constant dread of being corrupted by happiness. Drawing on a vast array of period documents and sumptuously reproduced art, Schama recreates in precise detail a nation's mental state. He tells of bloody uprisings and beached whales, of the cult of hygiene and the plague of tobacco, of thrifty housewives and profligate tulip-speculators.
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Great!
- By Noe on 12-05-24
By: Simon Schama
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The Napoleonic Wars
- By: Alexander Mikaberidze
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 35 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The Napoleonic Wars saw fighting on an unprecedented scale in Europe and the Americas. It took the wealth of the British Empire, combined with the might of the continental armies, almost two decades to bring down one of the world's greatest military leaders and the empire that he had created. Napoleon's ultimate defeat was to determine the history of Europe for almost 100 years. From the frozen wastelands of Russia, through the brutal fighting in the Peninsula to the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterloo, this book tells the story of the dramatic rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire.
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No description of battles
- By John Gaston on 01-15-21
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The Anglo-Saxons
- A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 - 1066
- By: Marc Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.
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"Pretty Good"
- By Stephen on 05-30-21
By: Marc Morris
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The Weimar Years
- Rise and Fall 1918–1933
- By: Frank McDonough
- Narrated by: Paul McGann
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known. The Weimar Years is a vivid narrative of a dramatic period in German history. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in both domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with developments in music, art, theatre and literature.
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Depth
- By Amazon Customer on 02-02-24
By: Frank McDonough
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Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Author and historian Tom Holland returns to his roots in Roman history and the audience he cultivated with Rubicon—his masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of the fall of the Roman republic—with Dynasty, a luridly fascinating history of the reign of the first five Roman emperors. Dynasty continues Rubicon's story, opening where that book ended: with the murder of Julius Caesar. This is the period of the first and perhaps greatest Roman emperors. It's a colorful story of rule and ruination, from the rise of Augustus to the death of Nero.
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Accessible, enjoyable history
- By Mary on 01-28-16
By: Tom Holland
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Unruly
- The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.
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Hugely Entertaining (If You Like English History)
- By Jean Ogg on 10-09-23
By: David Mitchell
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Rubicon
- The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Tom Holland
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness—the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall.
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Story of the Fall of the republic told in a very lively manner.
- By Marteinn Úlfur on 12-16-24
By: Tom Holland
Amazing!!!
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Breaks it down
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Make no mistake. This book, along with the other two volumes, is LONG; the first and second volumes clock in at 40 hours. It will take a lot of listening to get through. But I’m of the opinion that it is absolutely worth it. He obviously puts way more time into the post-Elizabethan period, and the sheer amount of information can be overwhelming.
If you’re willing to put the time in however (I’d recommend while doing labor or housework, or something along those lines) and you want a proper history of Britain with an emphasis on England, listen to these books. Absolutely fascinating narrative history, with plenty of first hand sources.
Excellent
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Schama indeed spends a great deal of time on the Union in the 17th century but his insight shows how, in his words, ‘‘The obsession with ‘union’ and ‘uniformity’ that consumed both James and Charles I turned out to guarantee hatred and schism”. He builds a strong case to show how relations between Scotland and England were a crucial catalyst for the internal wars during this time and even how the religious part of the struggle was not just a struggle between Protestant and Catholic, but also between the established church (the Anglican Church of England) and the very strict Calvinist Presbyterians in Scotland.
This was a time when the printed press began to become important politically, and Schama details how it became such a tool for information and propaganda, for good and for ill.
For an American, it was interesting to read about the American revolution from the other side of the Atlantic and in this, I felt Schama’s perspective was balanced and objective. But, what was really special was how he dealt with the empire. He doesn’t dwell on the evils of colonialism in the abstract nor the glories of the world’s greatest empire on which the sun never set. Instead, he just paints a picture of the basic paradox of a people who prided themselves on their freedom but who can then take that freedom away from others for the wealth that they can provide, both in the earlier enslavement of Africans, but even longer term in the political enslavement of whole nations. He states, “It was the condition of the empire’s success, its original sin; a stain that no amount of righteous self-congratulation at its eventual abolition can altogether wash away,” and raises the question, “Was its military power to be used to strengthen or to weaken the native government they claimed to be ‘assisting’?”
It is fitting that this volume then ends with the loss of what could have become its most profitable colony, one that would have occupied almost the entire North American continent. If anything, I liked this one even better than his first.
British Civil Wars
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From Elizabeth I to British India
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Entertaining and Mind Broadening
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A very smooth running adventure. Did not feel likde history.
A very detailed history of Great British history
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A solid second volume
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wonderful
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Wonderful
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