
Europe in the High Middle Ages
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Narrated by:
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Leon Nixon
About this listen
It was an age of hope and possibility, of accomplishment and expansion. Europe's High Middle Ages spanned the Crusades, the building of Chartres Cathedral, Dante's Inferno, and Thomas Aquinas. Buoyant, confident, creative, the era seemed to be flowering into a true renaissance - until the disastrous 14th century rained catastrophe in the form of plagues, famine, and war.
In Europe in the High Middle Ages, William Chester Jordan paints a vivid, teeming landscape that captures this lost age in all its glory and complexity. Here are the great popes who revived the power of the Church against the secular princes; the writers and thinkers who paved the way for the Renaissance; the warriors who stemmed the Islamic tide in Spain and surged into Palestine; and the humbler estates, those who found new hope and prosperity until the long night of the 1300s. From high to low, from dramatic events to social structures, Jordan's account brings to life this fascinating age.
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- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Neil Dickson
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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This definitive biography of one of history's most influential father-son duos tells the story of two rulers who gripped the world - and their rise and fall from power.
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Horrible narrator
- By Anonymous User on 01-05-21
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A History of Britain: Volume 1
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of Britain from the earliest settlements in 3000BC 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.
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Some History. Mostly a Monarchy Tabloid Rag
- By Carrie on 03-22-19
By: Simon Schama
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The History of the Ancient World
- From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
- By: Susan Wise Bauer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.
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An Historic Achievement
- By Ellen S. Wilds on 04-25-14
By: Susan Wise Bauer
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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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American Colonies: The Settling of North America
- Penguin History of the United States, Book 1
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.
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Excellent ..
- By aintbuyinit on 09-03-18
By: Alan Taylor
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The Anarchy
- The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting audiobook to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
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excellent book but awkward narration
- By TexasVC on 02-25-20
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Blood and Iron
- The Rise and Fall of the German Empire; 1871-1918
- By: Katja Hoyer
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Before 1871, Germany was not yet a nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring 39 individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France - all without destroying itself in the process?
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Misleading title/subtitle
- By Ethan Brown on 12-15-21
By: Katja Hoyer
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The Enlightenment
- The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
- By: Ritchie Robertson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 40 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This magisterial history - sure to become the definitive work on the subject - recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.
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The quickest 40 hour audio book I’ve listen to
- By Joey Caster on 04-02-21
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The Thirty Years War
- Europe's Tragedy
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Less caffeine, narrator
- By Jeff Joyner on 02-12-24
By: Peter H. Wilson
More than just kings and battles
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The Bad: Fails to sketch an overarching narrative of what makes the High Middle Ages a distinct historical period. Feels jumpy and disconnected at times. Narration was mediocre, lots of mispronounced words.
A fascinating yet disconnected history
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The choice of narrator is really mind boggling on the part of the production agency. This isn’t the narrator’s fault since not everyone needs to know about the Middle Ages but why on earth would they choose a narrator for this who knows so little about the Middle Ages that he can’t pronounce: "bishopric," "scholasticism" (scholatitism), "theological," and countless other simple words ubiquitous in a book about the high Middle Ages. It's not just distracting mispronunciations, but narrator's emphases on the sentences is frequently wrong, making it hard to tell what the sentence is supposed to mean.
This isn’t as botched as Brown’s “Through the Eye of a Needle,” but it is close.
Awful choice of voice actor and mediocre history
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I would be remiss in my review if I failed to note the frankly terrible quality of the narration, by Leon Nixon. It's not that the timbre of his voice is so bad, though there is a slight reading-to-children aspect to it, somewhat akin to Mr Rogers. Rather, it's his unending mispronunciation of word after word after word, some of which might be expected to be unfamiliar (though I would expect that, between the narrator and the director, they would have figured out even the hard words), but many of which are frankly ordinary words. In a series of the quality of "The Penguin History of Europe," they should do better.
A Weak Link in a Very Good Series
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I most appreciated the short essay on the Beguines.
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Worth it but flawed
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Good book narrator detracts
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Good content, subpar narration
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“GEO-fray” for Geoffrey, “VAI-car” for vicar, “bish-AWE-pric” for bishopric.
It might be a small point, and if you already knew the difference then perhaps you can be a better person and truly ignore it. If you’re just learning about this portion of history, you might require some additional references before discussing it.
A Tricky Listen
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Narrator didn't do his homework
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