Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars
336 BC-31 BC
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
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By:
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John D. Grainger
About this listen
A technological, strategic, and tactical history of ancient naval ships from Alexander to the battle of Actium.
The period covered in this book is well known for its epic battles and grand campaigns of territorial conquest, but Hellenistic monarchies, Carthaginians, and the rapacious Roman Republic were scarcely less active at sea. Huge resources were poured into maintaining fleets not only as symbols of prestige but as means of projecting real military power across the Mediterranean arena.
Taking the period between Alexander the Great's conquests and the Battle of Actium, John Grainger analyzes the developments in naval technology and tactics, the uses and limitations of sea power and the differing strategies of the various powers. He shows, for example, how the Rhodians and the Romans eschewed the ever-larger monster galleys favored by most Hellenistic monarchs in favor of smaller vessels. This is a fascinating study of a neglected aspect of ancient warfare.
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This audiobook examines the meteoric rise of Sweden as the pre-eminent military power in Europe during the Thirty Years War during the 1600s, and then follows its line of warrior kings into the next century until the Swedes finally meet their demise, in an overreach into the vastness of Russia. A small Scandinavian nation, with at most one and a half million people and scant internal resources of its own, there was small logic to how Sweden could become the dominant power on the Continent.
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An author with an idea but not the skills
- By chris loomis on 08-07-15
By: Henrik O. Lunde
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George Washington’s Military Genius
- By: Dave R. Palmer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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George Washington’s military strategy has been called bumbling at worst and brilliant at best. So which is it? Was George Washington a strategic genius or just lucky? So asks Dave R. Palmer in George Washington’s Military Genius. An updated edition of Palmer’s earlier work, The Way of the Fox, George Washington’s Military Genius breaks down the American Revolution into four phases and analyzes Washington’s strategy during each.
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Genius
- By John on 08-08-22
By: Dave R. Palmer
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The Ghosts of Cannae
- Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic
- By: Robert L. O'Connell
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For fans of Victor Davis Hanson, Donald Kagan, and Barry Strauss comes a rich, sweeping account of the most imitated---and vicious---battle in history.
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Hannibal's Legacy
- By Douglas on 11-10-10
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In the Name of Rome
- The Men Who Won the Roman Empire
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Adrian Goldsworthy has received wide acclaim for his exceptional writing on the Roman Empire - including high praise from the acclaimed military historian and author John Keegan - and here he offers a new perspective on the empire by focusing on its greatest generals, including Scipio Africanus, Marius, Pompey, Caesar, and Titus.
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This pie was all crust, no filling
- By JLB on 04-11-17
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Struggle for Sea Power
- A Naval History of the American Revolution
- By: Sam Willis
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The American Revolution was a naval war of immense scope and variety, including no less than 22 navies fighting on five oceans - to say nothing of rivers and lakes. In no other war were so many large-scale fleet battles fought, one of which was the most strategically significant naval battle in all of British, French, and American history.
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Fantastic perspective on American Revolution
- By J. Mar on 04-20-21
By: Sam Willis
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Brothers at Arms
- American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It
- By: Larrie D. Ferreiro
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie D. Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts, Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded.
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Sparta's Second Attic War
- The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 446-418 BC
- By: Paul A. Rahe
- Narrated by: Paul A. Rahe
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In a continuation of his multivolume series on ancient Sparta, Paul Rahe narrates the second stage in the six decades long, epic struggle between Sparta and Athens that first erupted some 17 years after their joint victory in the Persian Wars. Rahe explores how and why open warfare between these two erstwhile allies broke out a second time, after they had negotiated an extended truce.
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Thorough and intriguing.
- By Kindle Customer on 05-23-22
By: Paul A. Rahe
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The War That Made America
- A Short History of the French and Indian War
- By: Fred Anderson
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Apart from The Last of the Mohicans, most Americans know little of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War, and yet it remains one of the most fascinating periods in our history. In January 2006, PBS will air The War That Made America, a four-part documentary about this epic conflict. Fred Anderson, the award-winning and critically acclaimed historian, has written the official tie-in to this exciting television event.
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A thorough and absorbing history
- By Michael on 03-15-10
By: Fred Anderson
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The Great Sea
- A Human History of the Mediterranean
- By: David Abulafia
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 29 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all the history of human interaction across a region that has brought together many of the great civilizations of antiquity as well as the rival empires of medieval and modern times.
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American Narration at it's Most Disapointing
- By Anonymous User on 03-26-18
By: David Abulafia
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God's Battalions
- The Case for the Crusades
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In God's Battalions, award-winning author Rodney Stark takes on the long-held view that the Crusades were the first round of European colonialism, conducted for land, loot, and converts by barbarian Christians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. To the contrary, Stark argues that the Crusades were the first military response to unwarranted Muslim terrorist aggression.
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A lively and useful introduction
- By Tad Davis on 01-06-10
By: Rodney Stark
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The Greco-Persian Wars
- A Captivating Guide to the Conflicts Between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek City-States, Including the Battle of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, and More
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Richard L. Walton
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Greco-Persian Wars are often portrayed as a battle between good and evil. This is simultaneously an exaggeration and an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that this war, or series of wars, fought between some of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient era helped to plot the course of human history that we have been following up until this very day.
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Wonderful book on Ancient Greek history
- By Day-2-Day (Melissa) on 10-12-19
What listeners say about Hellenistic and Roman Naval Wars
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- Lyle
- 04-08-22
Very interesting, fills a lot of gaps.
The region is called Mediterranean in reference to the sea, but other than vague "he took ship from Sicily and landed in Alexandria" most histories don't touch the actual naval practice other than the standard "trireme is 3 banks quadrireme is 4 and the Romans invented the Corvus which wokked once. "
It was very interesting and useful to have this perspective, though I don't know if it would be useful to the casual historian, as it is fairly vague about anything other than specifically naval topics.
Fun to get a rundown of all the famous battles/chases/excisions entirely from the maritime perspective.
My only critiques are basic editorial issues...tri/quadrireme etc are not defined the first time you encounter the terms but later around some piece of minutia. Additionally some aspects of the pacing/timeline are less clear than they might be because of vagaries of descriptions of things happening on land.
That said, I am a carpenter building a house while I listen, so I do get distracted and some topics may have been clearer than I give them credit for.
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- John
- 03-03-23
Not what I expected--Returned
Full disclose--I listened to the first chapter and decided that it wasn't worth my time and returned it. Here's why: The book immediately starts off with a history of the naval campaigns of Alexander the Great. However, the author doesn't give any background at all about ancient naval warfare, he just starts with the history. What's a trireme? What's a quinquereme? Why was it so important for ancient ships to stay relatively close to land? How did they fight? I know the answers but apparently the author didn't think it was worth discussing. While there is much we don't know about ancient warfare, we do know some things. I thought that this was going to be a deep dive (no pun intended) into ancient naval warfare but it seemed like it was going to be just a dry history.
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