-
Behind Closed Doors
- The Secret Life of London Private Members' Clubs
- Narrated by: Seth Alexander Thévoz
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $18.15
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
With a keen eye for the juicy anecdote, Thévoz tells the fascinating and entertaining story of the rise, decline and resurgence of London's private members' clubs, from the late-eighteenth century to the present day. In doing so he looks at cultural and political developments beyond the clubs, revealing how while the clubs may have been products of their city and country, they also exerted significant influence on London, Britain and places far beyond.
This is a chronicle, as informative as it is entertaining, of the ups and downs of London clubland, and how it had an impact on parts of the world far from London. It is packed with amusing anecdotes and illustrative examples of the growth of this quirky, unique institution, which grew to spread around the world. London, though, with its four hundred clubs, was always at its heart.
Thévoz reveals how everything we might have thought we knew about these clubs is wrong. They may have started out as white, male, aristocratic watering holes - but that's only part of the story. All sections of society built their own clubs and lived their lives there: highbrow and lowbrow; women and men; working-class, middle-class and upper-class; international and British. The club has been central to a distinctively British form of leisure over more than three centuries.
Behind Closed Doors is a distillation of a decade of research and notes on London clubs, based on exclusive behind-the-scenes access to archives and proceedings, as well as a love of gossip and scandal.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Fund
- Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
- By: Rob Copeland
- Narrated by: Rob Copeland, Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Dalio does not want you to listen to this audiobook. Late last year, when the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund on the planet, announced that he was stepping down from the company he started out of his apartment nearly 50 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio cultivated an aura of international admiration and fame thanks to his company’s eye-popping success, coupled with a mystique he encouraged with frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles.
-
-
Best finance book I've read in years
- By Aaron on 12-16-23
By: Rob Copeland
-
The Thirty Years War
- Europe's Tragedy
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.
-
-
Best Single-Volume History of the 30 Years' War
- By Amazon Customer on 10-09-23
By: Peter H. Wilson
-
The Wages of Destruction
- The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
- By: Adam Tooze
- Narrated by: Adam Tooze, Simon Vance
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period.
-
-
Ties the story together in an amazing way
- By Philo on 08-23-21
By: Adam Tooze
-
A Woman of Influence
- The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England
- By: Vanessa Wilkie
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Spencer was born in 1560 to a family on the rise. Her grandfather had amassed a sizeable estate of fertile grazing land and made a small fortune in sheep farming, allowing him to purchase a simple but distinguished manor house called Althorp. With her sizable dowry, Alice married the heir to one of the most powerful aristocratic families in the country, eventually becoming the Countess of Derby. Though she enjoyed modest renown, it wasn’t until her husband’s sudden death that Alice and her family’s future changed forever.
-
-
Outstanding Performance
- By Rose Hallett on 04-14-24
By: Vanessa Wilkie
-
The Middle Kingdoms
- A New History of Central Europe
- By: Martyn Rady
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region, demonstrating that Central Europe has always been more than merely the fault line between West and East. Even as Central European powers warred with their neighbors, the region developed its own cohesive identity and produced tremendous accomplishments in politics, society, and culture.
-
-
Marred by the errors in the modern section
- By Paul Boothroyd on 10-20-23
By: Martyn Rady
-
Winters in the World
- A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year
- By: Eleanor Parker
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring the festivals, customs, and traditions linked to the different seasons. Drawing on a wide variety of source material, including poetry, histories, and religious literature, Eleanor Parker investigates how Anglo-Saxons felt about the annual passing of the seasons and the profound relationship they saw between human life and the rhythms of nature.
By: Eleanor Parker
-
The Fund
- Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
- By: Rob Copeland
- Narrated by: Rob Copeland, Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Dalio does not want you to listen to this audiobook. Late last year, when the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund on the planet, announced that he was stepping down from the company he started out of his apartment nearly 50 years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio cultivated an aura of international admiration and fame thanks to his company’s eye-popping success, coupled with a mystique he encouraged with frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles.
-
-
Best finance book I've read in years
- By Aaron on 12-16-23
By: Rob Copeland
-
The Thirty Years War
- Europe's Tragedy
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.
-
-
Best Single-Volume History of the 30 Years' War
- By Amazon Customer on 10-09-23
By: Peter H. Wilson
-
The Wages of Destruction
- The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
- By: Adam Tooze
- Narrated by: Adam Tooze, Simon Vance
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period.
-
-
Ties the story together in an amazing way
- By Philo on 08-23-21
By: Adam Tooze
-
A Woman of Influence
- The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England
- By: Vanessa Wilkie
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Spencer was born in 1560 to a family on the rise. Her grandfather had amassed a sizeable estate of fertile grazing land and made a small fortune in sheep farming, allowing him to purchase a simple but distinguished manor house called Althorp. With her sizable dowry, Alice married the heir to one of the most powerful aristocratic families in the country, eventually becoming the Countess of Derby. Though she enjoyed modest renown, it wasn’t until her husband’s sudden death that Alice and her family’s future changed forever.
-
-
Outstanding Performance
- By Rose Hallett on 04-14-24
By: Vanessa Wilkie
-
The Middle Kingdoms
- A New History of Central Europe
- By: Martyn Rady
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region, demonstrating that Central Europe has always been more than merely the fault line between West and East. Even as Central European powers warred with their neighbors, the region developed its own cohesive identity and produced tremendous accomplishments in politics, society, and culture.
-
-
Marred by the errors in the modern section
- By Paul Boothroyd on 10-20-23
By: Martyn Rady
-
Winters in the World
- A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year
- By: Eleanor Parker
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Winters in the World is a beautifully observed journey through the cycle of the year in Anglo-Saxon England, exploring the festivals, customs, and traditions linked to the different seasons. Drawing on a wide variety of source material, including poetry, histories, and religious literature, Eleanor Parker investigates how Anglo-Saxons felt about the annual passing of the seasons and the profound relationship they saw between human life and the rhythms of nature.
By: Eleanor Parker
-
The World for Sale
- Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources
- By: Javier Blas, Jack Farchy
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The World for Sale, two leading journalists lift the lid on one of the least scrutinised corners of the economy: the workings of the billionaire commodity traders who buy, hoard and sell the earth's resources. It is the story of how a handful of swashbuckling businessmen became indispensable cogs in global markets: enabling an enormous expansion in international trade and connecting resource-rich countries - no matter how corrupt or war-torn - with the world's financial centres.
-
-
Explains a lot!
- By jaga on 03-24-21
By: Javier Blas, and others
-
George VI and Elizabeth
- The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy
- By: Sally Bedell Smith
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 22 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A revelatory account of how the loving marriage of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth saved the monarchy during World War II, and how they raised their daughter to become Queen Elizabeth II, based on exclusive access to the Royal Archives—from the bestselling author of Elizabeth the Queen and Prince Charles.
-
-
Great telling of their lives
- By Nancy on 04-15-23
-
Gotham
- A History of New York City to 1898
- By: Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 67 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Gotham, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace have produced a monumental work of history, one that ranges from the Indian tribes that settled in and around the island of Manna-hata, to the consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898. It is an epic narrative, a story as vast and as varied as the city it chronicles, and it underscores that the history of New York is the story of our nation. The events and people who crowd this audiobook guarantee that this is no mere local history. It is in fact a portrait of the heart and soul of America....
-
-
THANK YOU!!!!!
- By Stephen F (SPFJR) on 09-29-18
By: Edwin G. Burrows, and others
-
Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
-
-
A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
-
World of Our Fathers
- The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made
- By: Irving Howe
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 35 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, two million Jewish immigrants poured into America, leaving places like Warsaw or the Russian shtetls to pass through Ellis Island and start over in the New World. Though some moved on to Philadelphia, Chicago, and other points west, many of these new citizens settled in New York City, especially in Manhattan's teeming tenements....
-
-
Spectacular but long
- By Len on 10-31-20
By: Irving Howe
-
Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
-
-
Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
-
A History of Modern Britain
- By: Andrew Marr
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 29 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A History of Modern Britain confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade political leaders think they know what they are doing but find themselves confounded. Every time the British people turn out to be stroppier and harder to herd than predicted.
-
-
Masterful in focus, pace, content, performance
- By Philo on 11-10-16
By: Andrew Marr
-
Socialism Sucks
- Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World
- By: Robert Lawson, Benjamin Powell
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The bastard step-child of Milton Friedman and Anthony Bourdain, Socialism Sucks is a bar crawl through former, current, and wannabe socialist countries around the world. Free-market economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, and Sweden to investigate the dangers and idiocies of socialism - while drinking a lot of beer.
-
-
I learned more than I anticipated in a 4 + hr book
- By J D Rossi on 08-06-19
By: Robert Lawson, and others
-
Bobos in Paradise
- The New Upper Class and How They Got There
- By: David Brooks
- Narrated by: David Brooks
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois worked for corporations, wore gray, and went to church. The bohemians were artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the liberated 1960s; the bourgeois were the enterprising yuppies of the 1980s.
-
-
A magazine article stretched to book length
- By Brian on 08-17-03
By: David Brooks
-
Harlem
- The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America
- By: Jonathan Gill
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harlem is perhaps the most famous, iconic neighborhood in the United States. A bastion of freedom and the capital of black America, Harlem's 20th-century renaissance changed our arts, culture, and politics forever. But this is only one of the many chapters in a wonderfully rich and varied history. In Harlem, historian Jonathan Gill presents the first complete chronicle of this remarkable place.
-
-
Very Interesting.
- By Joyce Mirowski on 06-05-20
By: Jonathan Gill
-
The Almost Nearly Perfect People
- Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than 10 years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely audiobook, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another.
-
-
Obsessed with bad politics
- By Erik on 09-07-20
By: Michael Booth
-
A History of Future Cities
- By: Daniel Brook
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Every month, five million people move from the past to the future. Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?
-
-
Engaging and Memorable
- By Marcus Vorwaller on 04-15-14
By: Daniel Brook
Related to this topic
-
Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
-
-
A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
-
The Man in the Glass House
- Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century
- By: Mark Lamster
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster's The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A roller-coaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.
-
-
Disappointing!
- By David G Dempsey on 07-12-19
By: Mark Lamster
-
The Germans and Europe
- A Personal Frontline History
- By: Peter Millar
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.
-
-
One of the best books I have listened to on here
- By Shaun on 05-17-18
By: Peter Millar
-
"The Rest of Us"
- The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.
-
-
Book 3 of 3
- By Etoile NEOhio on 11-15-22
-
The Italians
- By: John Hooper
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Looking at the facts that lie behind and often belie the stereotypes, his revealing book sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism, and the reason Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger yet none for a hangover.
-
-
Mi piace molto!
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-30-16
By: John Hooper
-
Korea
- The Impossible Country
- By: Daniel Tudor
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.
-
-
Amazing book
- By Antoine on 12-14-18
By: Daniel Tudor
-
Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
-
-
A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
-
The Man in the Glass House
- Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century
- By: Mark Lamster
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning architectural critic and biographer Mark Lamster's The Man in the Glass House lifts the veil on Johnson's controversial and endlessly contradictory life to tell the story of a charming yet deeply flawed man. A roller-coaster tale of the perils of wealth, privilege, and ambition, this book probes the dynamics of American culture that made him so powerful and tells the story of the built environment in modern America.
-
-
Disappointing!
- By David G Dempsey on 07-12-19
By: Mark Lamster
-
The Germans and Europe
- A Personal Frontline History
- By: Peter Millar
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.
-
-
One of the best books I have listened to on here
- By Shaun on 05-17-18
By: Peter Millar
-
"The Rest of Us"
- The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.
-
-
Book 3 of 3
- By Etoile NEOhio on 11-15-22
-
The Italians
- By: John Hooper
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Looking at the facts that lie behind and often belie the stereotypes, his revealing book sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism, and the reason Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger yet none for a hangover.
-
-
Mi piace molto!
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-30-16
By: John Hooper
-
Korea
- The Impossible Country
- By: Daniel Tudor
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.
-
-
Amazing book
- By Antoine on 12-14-18
By: Daniel Tudor
-
The Rothschilds
- A Family Portrait
- By: Frederic Morton
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No family in the past two centuries has been as constantly at the center of Europe's great events, has featured such varied and spectacular personalities, has had anything close to the wealth of the Rothschilds. To this day they remain one of the most powerful and wealthy families in the world. In Frederic Morton's classic tale, the family is brought vividly to life.
-
-
Engaging read but dubious sentiment
- By T.G. on 04-23-20
By: Frederic Morton
-
Ireland - Culture Smart!
- The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
- By: John Scotney
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The island of Ireland is famous for its timeless beauty, the variety of its landscape, its quiet towns and lively cities, the poetic and literary genius of so many of its citizens, its music and folklore, and its colorful and bloody history. Businesspeople and visitors who don't know Ireland will find this book an invaluable introduction to the people, the country, and the economic opportunities it offers, while if you think you know Ireland and the Irish, you will find plenty here to broaden and deepen that knowledge, and plenty that will surprise you.
-
-
Good baseline for a trip to Ireland.
- By Vincent Collins on 07-24-17
By: John Scotney
-
Three Tigers, One Mountain
- A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.
-
-
Not much new here if you are already familiar
- By Anonymous User on 07-13-20
By: Michael Booth
-
Roll The Bones: The History of Gambling (Casino Edition)
- By: David G. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roll the Bones tells the story of gambling: where it came from, how it has changed, and where it is now. This is the new Casino Edition, which updates and expands the global history of gambling to include a greater focus on casinos, from their development in European spas to their growth in Reno and Las Vegas. New material chronicles in greater depth the development of casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and their spread throughout the United States.
-
-
Everything you ever wanted to know about Gambling.
- By cosmitron on 03-28-18
-
The Library
- A Fragile History
- By: Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident.
-
-
Stays on point
- By Alex on 04-29-23
By: Andrew Pettegree, and others
-
Empire of Things
- How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
- By: Frank Trentmann
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 33 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British Empire to the present.
-
-
An exhaustive attempt to get the story right
- By John on 03-09-16
By: Frank Trentmann
-
New York, New York, New York
- Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
- By: Thomas Dyja
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Thomas Dyja - introduction
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dangerous, filthy, and falling apart, garbage piled on its streets and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble; New York’s terrifying, if liberating, state of nature in 1978 also made it the capital of American culture. Over the next thirty-plus years, though, it became a different place - kinder and meaner, richer and poorer, more like America and less like what it had always been.
-
-
OMG...right on 👍👍👍👍👍
- By howie wine on 04-04-21
By: Thomas Dyja
-
Weimar Germany
- Promise and Tragedy, Weimar Centennial Edition
- By: Eric D. Weitz
- Narrated by: Robert G. Slade
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Weimar Germany brings to life an era of unmatched creativity in the 20th century - one whose influence and inspiration still resonate today. Eric Weitz has written the authoritative history that this fascinating and complex period deserves, and he illuminates the uniquely progressive achievements and even greater promise of the Weimar Republic. Weimar Germany also shows that beneath its glossy veneer lay political turmoil that ultimately led to the demise of the republic and the rise of the radical right.
-
-
Ended up returning this one
- By Amazon Customer on 04-22-21
By: Eric D. Weitz
-
Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
-
-
Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
-
A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain
- By: Michael Paterson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.
-
-
Brief, But Insightful
- By Troy on 07-17-13
By: Michael Paterson
-
The Season
- A Social History of the Debutante
- By: Kristen Richardson
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kristen Richardson, from a family of debutantes, chose not to debut. But as her curiosity drove her to research this enduring custom, she learned that it, and debutantes, are not as simple as they seem. The story begins in England 600 years ago when wealthy fathers needed an efficient way to find appropriate husbands for their daughters. Elizabeth I's exclusive presentations at her court expanded into London's full season of dances, dinners, and courting, extending eventually to the many corners of the British empire and beyond.
-
-
Interesting Facts But Reads Like A College Paper
- By Megan Dorsey on 12-14-19
-
1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War
- By: Charles Emerson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features last summers in grand aristocratic residences or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of revolution, violence in the Balkans.
-
-
Good book ruined by bad read
- By GANESHi on 08-02-13
By: Charles Emerson
What listeners say about Behind Closed Doors
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sophie
- 06-26-24
The best research about private clubs.
That is the only and the best told story about private clubs. A great research and details about the daily life behind close doors.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!