
English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
About this listen
Here at last is a history of England that is designed to entertain as well as inform and that will delight the armchair traveler, the tourist, or just about anyone interested in history.
No people have engendered quite so much acclaim or earned so much censure as the English: extolled as the Athenians of modern times, yet hammered for their self-satisfaction and hypocrisy. But their history has been a spectacular one.
The guiding principle of this book's heretical approach is that "history is not everything that happened but what is worth remembering about the past". Thus its chapters deal mainly with "Memorable History" in blocks of time over the centuries. The final chapter, "The Royal Soap Opera", recounts the achievements, personalities, and idiocies of the royal family since the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066. English History will be a welcome and amusing tour of a land that has always fascinated Anglophiles and Anglophobes alike.
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No single invention epitomizes the Victorian era more than the black cast-iron range. Aware that the 21st-century has reduced it to a quaint relic, Ruth Goodman was determined to prove that the hot coal stove provided so much more than morning tea: It might even have kick-started the Industrial Revolution. Wielding the wit and passion seen in How to Be a Victorian, Goodman traces the tectonic shift from wood to coal in the mid-16th century - from sooty trials and errors during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the totally smog-clouded reign of Queen Victoria.
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Zombie Apocalypse
- By PeachPecan on 12-25-20
By: Ruth Goodman
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Lost Heirs of the Medieval Crown
- The Kings and Queens Who Never Were
- By: J.F. Andrews
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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When William the Conqueror died in 1087, he left the throne of England to William Rufus . . . his second son. The result was an immediate war as Rufus's elder brother Robert fought to gain the crown he saw as rightfully his; this conflict marked the start of 400 years of bloody disputes as the English monarchy's line of hereditary succession was bent, twisted, and finally broken when the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, fell at Bosworth in 1485.
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Great Listen
- By PrettyinPink on 01-03-24
By: J.F. Andrews
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Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants
- Frequently Asked Questions About the Ancient Greeks and Romans
- By: Garrett Ryan
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Why didn't the ancient Greeks or Romans wear pants? How did they shave? How likely were they to drink fine wine, use birth control, or survive surgery? In a series of short and humorous essays, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants explores some of the questions about the Greeks and Romans that ancient historian Garrett Ryan has answered in the classroom and online. Unlike most books on the classical world, the focus is not on famous figures or events, but on the fascinating details of daily life.
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Garret Ryan delivers an accessible and thoroughly entertaining deep dive
- By Rafael on 11-03-21
By: Garrett Ryan
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The Great Plague
- A People's History
- By: Evelyn Lord
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this intimate history of the extraordinary Black Plague pandemic that swept through the British Isles in 1665, Evelyn Lord focuses on the plague's effects on smaller towns, where every death was a singular blow affecting the entire community. Lord's fascinating reconstruction of life during plague times presents the personal experiences of a wide range of individuals, from historical notables to common folk. The Great Plague brings this dark era to vivid life through stories of loss and survival from those who grieved, those who fled, and those who hid to await their fate.
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Great.
- By Michael S. Henderson on 04-30-25
By: Evelyn Lord
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Scottish History for Dummies
- By: William Knox PhD
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Want to discover how a small country on the edge of Northern Europe packs an almighty historical punch? Scottish History for Dummies is your guide to the story of Scotland and its place within the historical narratives of Britain, Europe, and the rest of the world. You'll find out how Scotland rose from the ashes to forge its own destiny, understand the impact of Scottish historical figures such as William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and David Hume and be introduced to the wonderful world of Celtic religion, architecture, and monuments.
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Scottish history with no Scottish narrator :(
- By Mary Katherine Van on 10-11-21
By: William Knox PhD
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I Never Knew That About Royal Britain
- By: Christopher Winn
- Narrated by: Tim Bentinck
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Christopher Winn explores Britain's royal past, unearthing a rich legacy of castles and palaces, cathedrals and country retreats, battlefields and monuments where kings and queens lived and died. In this exploration of royal British history, discover whose heart is buried near the Tower of London, which palace was built on top of a mulberry garden, the world's oldest and largest occupied castle, and the first building in Britain to have latrines.
By: Christopher Winn
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Crown & Sceptre
- A New History of the British Monarchy, from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Tracy Borman
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Since William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, crossed the English Channel in 1066 to defeat King Harold II and unite England’s various kingdoms, 41 kings and queens have sat on Britain’s throne. “Shining examples of royal power and majesty alongside a rogue’s gallery of weak, lazy, or evil monarchs,” as Tracy Borman describes them in her sparkling chronicle, Crown & Sceptre.
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Great book for those new to the monarchy
- By Chris Corsini on 04-05-22
By: Tracy Borman
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Medieval Bodies
- Life and Death in the Middle Ages
- By: Jack Hartnell
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love, and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different from our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or where the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.
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I really wanted to love this book, but...
- By Annie Fitt on 05-18-21
By: Jack Hartnell
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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
Wonderful!
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enjoyable funny and objective
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Worth listening to!!
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Enjoyable!
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Like many Americans, my knowledge of British/English/United Kingdom history was limited to 3 sentences prior to 1650 AD. Following 1700, we fought 2 wars against England. 100 years later, we allied with them to save Europe, twice. At the end of World War Two, the world watched England downsize.
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So, what did I learn? The Romans brought their civilizing ways to Britain. Roads, baths, architecture and civilian government. They were unable to tame the Scots, so they built and manned a wall, to keep the Scots out. They went to Ireland, but, found the Irish, Celts, to be as wild as the Scots and let the sea serve as a natural barrier.
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(This is not covered in this book. The fall of Rome allowed the Norse people to move Southwest, into the British Isles, West to Iceland and Greenland and South, into central and southern Europe. The Norsemen generally were in Britain after the fall of Rome.)
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So, what did I learn? The British archipelago was frequently visited by the Scandinavians. The Scandinavians had on and off settlements and used it as a way station to Iceland and Greenland. Why is this important? If it weren't for the Norsemen, Led Zeppelin would not have written the "Immigrant Song". On their third album, Led Zeppelin III, they wrote a song about early Norse visitors to Britain. I've listened to LZ since they started selling albums. I never made the connection, until Joel Veitch put out a video, featuring the Viking Kittens, singing the "Immigrant Song". It all turned into a copyright brouhaha, which is too bad. I think the people in LZ and Mr. Veitch could have worked together and made this work.
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What else did I learn? Why the English and French were at war, on and off for 700 years. I came to the conclusion it was a bad marriage, culminating in a seven centuries divorce. As it turns out, Northern France, Normandy, was ceded to the Vikings, in an effort to keep them out of the rest of France. As the Vikings traveled between England and France, they mixed and mated with the locals, such that, the ruling families were typically cousins. A familial dynastic that continued into the 20th Century.
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There is a brief rundown of the Royal Family and it's progenitors. About half are good, the other half, not so much. I would think the English do not find it easy to keep them all straight, so, if you can't, don't worry. There is a description of the class system. Most historians would say England began to lag behind the world, after their rocketing head start at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, by resting on their laurels. The wealthy industrialists sent their sons to the best schools. However, there is little evidence the best schools made them the best prepared. They finished school, having mastered a distinguishing characteristic, the presence of ''effortless superiority.''
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Overall, I think this would be on the shortlist of sources to begin learning about English history. The author explains the differences between England, Britain and the United Kingdom. There is a brief discussion on the English currency. The English measure of weight, when not in kilograms, can be measured in "stone". 14 pounds is 1 Stone. I've only seen this when movie stars gain or lose a lot of weight. "She's lost 15 stone. She looks fantastic."
He ate, drank and wenched himself to death.
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Good cheeky overview of English history
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Excellent and English
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It was filled with information I hadn't known.
It did move quickly and I plan to listen to it again in order to remember more of the facts I hadn't known.
The narrator did an excellent job and presented surprising tidbits of information in an entertaining manner.
I'd recommend this audiobook to anyone interested in English history.
Wonderfully interesting
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Concise & excellent
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Excellent book for cocktail conversation
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