
House of Lilies
The Dynasty That Made Medieval France
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Narrated by:
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Justine Firnhaber-Baker
About this listen
In House of Lilies, historian Justine Firnhaber-Baker tells the epic story of the Capetian dynasty of medieval France, showing how their ideas about power, religion, and identity continue to shape European society and politics today.
Reigning from 987 to 1328, the Capetians became the most powerful monarchy of the Middle Ages. Consolidating a fragmented realm that eventually stretched from the Rhône to the Pyrenees, they were the first royal house to adopt the fleur-de-lys, displaying this lily emblem to signify their divine favor and legitimate their rule. The Capetians were at the center of some of the most dramatic and far-reaching episodes in European history, including the Crusades, bloody waves of religious persecution, and a series of wars with England. The Capetian age saw the emergence of Gothic architecture, the romantic ideals of chivalry and courtly love, and the Church's role at the center of daily life.
Evocatively interweaving these pivotal developments with the human stories of the men and women who drove them, House of Lilies is the definitive history of the dynasty that forged France—and Europe—as we know it.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Justine Firnhaber-Baker (P)2024 Tantor MediaListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Following the Battle of Agincourt, Henry V's second invasion of France in 1417 launched a campaign that would place the crown of France on an English head. By the time of Henry's premature death in 1422, nearly all of northern France lay in his hands and the Valois heir to the throne had been disinherited. Only Joan of Arc—a visionary peasant girl who claimed divine guidance—was able to halt the English advance, but not for long. Just six months after her death, Henry's young son was crowned in Paris as the first, and last, English king of France.
By: Juliet Barker
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Baltic
- The Future of Europe
- By: Oliver Moody
- Narrated by: Kaffe Keating
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Baltic's time has come. It is not only critical to Europe's security and increasingly a centre of political and military power in its own right; it is a reservoir of ideas and experiences that could shape the continent's future. This books explores the history, their culture, their peculiarities and national dilemmas of all nine Baltic countries. At its core is a search for fresh answers to Europe's problems, at a point where the continent's previously dominant powers appear tired and divided.
By: Oliver Moody
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Show Trial
- Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist (Film and Culture Series)
- By: Thomas Doherty
- Narrated by: Keith McCarthy
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the dooror had it shut in their faces.
By: Thomas Doherty
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The Franklin Stove
- An Unintended American Revolution
- By: Joyce E. Chaplin
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill.
By: Joyce E. Chaplin
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Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age
- A Forgotten History of the Occult
- By: Raphael Cormack
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The interwar period was a golden age for the occult. Spiritualists, clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind readers, and Jinn summoners all set out to assure the masses that just as newly discovered invisible forces of electricity and magnetism determined the world of science, unseen powers commanded an unknown realm of human potential. Drawing on untapped sources in Arabic in addition to European ones, Raphael Cormack follows two of the most unusual and charismatic figures of this age.
By: Raphael Cormack
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Naples 1944
- The Devil's Paradise at War
- By: Keith Lowe
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Keith Lowe has chronicled the end of WWII in Europe in Savage Continent and the war's aftermath in The Fear and the Freedom. In Naples 1944, he brings listeners another chronicle of the terrible and often unexpected consequences of war. Even before the fall of Mussolini, Naples was a place of great contrasts filled with palaces and slums, beloved cuisine and widespread hunger. After the Allied liberation, these contrasts made the city notorious. Compared to the starving population, Allied soldiers were staggeringly wealthy.
By: Keith Lowe
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Conquest
- The English Kingdom of France, 1417-1450
- By: Juliet Barker
- Narrated by: Sarah Durham
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Following the Battle of Agincourt, Henry V's second invasion of France in 1417 launched a campaign that would place the crown of France on an English head. By the time of Henry's premature death in 1422, nearly all of northern France lay in his hands and the Valois heir to the throne had been disinherited. Only Joan of Arc—a visionary peasant girl who claimed divine guidance—was able to halt the English advance, but not for long. Just six months after her death, Henry's young son was crowned in Paris as the first, and last, English king of France.
By: Juliet Barker
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Baltic
- The Future of Europe
- By: Oliver Moody
- Narrated by: Kaffe Keating
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The Baltic's time has come. It is not only critical to Europe's security and increasingly a centre of political and military power in its own right; it is a reservoir of ideas and experiences that could shape the continent's future. This books explores the history, their culture, their peculiarities and national dilemmas of all nine Baltic countries. At its core is a search for fresh answers to Europe's problems, at a point where the continent's previously dominant powers appear tired and divided.
By: Oliver Moody
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Show Trial
- Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist (Film and Culture Series)
- By: Thomas Doherty
- Narrated by: Keith McCarthy
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the dooror had it shut in their faces.
By: Thomas Doherty
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The Franklin Stove
- An Unintended American Revolution
- By: Joyce E. Chaplin
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill.
By: Joyce E. Chaplin
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The Burgundians
- A Vanished Empire: A History of 1111 Years and One Day
- By: Bart van Loo, Nancy Forest-Flier - translator
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a must-listen narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness.
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Extraordinary story, expertly told and skillfully narrated
- By Daniel Vergara on 03-01-24
By: Bart van Loo, and others
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Night of the Grizzlies
- By: Jack Olsen
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jack Olsen's true account, traces the causes of the tragic night in August 1967 when two separate and unrelated campers, a distance apart, were savagely mangled and killed by enraged bears. The award-winning author of thirty-three books, Jack Olsen’s books have published in fifteen countries and eleven languages. Olsen's journalism earned the National Headliners Award, Chicago Newspaper Guild's Page One Award, commendations from Columbia and Indiana Universities, the Washington State Governor's Award, the Scripps-Howard Award and other honors.
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Thought provoking
- By JJ on 03-14-25
By: Jack Olsen
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Rain of Ruin
- Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan
- By: Richard Overy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1945, US air attacks in Japan killed 300,000 civilians in three hours of night bombing and two nuclear strikes. The firebombing of Tokyo in March burned almost the entire city, killed some 85,000 residents, and left more than 1 million homeless. The atomic blast in Hiroshima in August killed some 119,000 civilians and 20,000 soldiers. After a second nuclear attack days later in Nagasaki and a declaration of war by the Soviet Union, Japan accepted defeat.
By: Richard Overy
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Trespassers at the Golden Gate
- A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. “I did it and I don’t deny it,” she said when arrested shortly thereafter. “He ruined me and my daughter.”
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Fascinating story
- By evboy on 03-17-25
By: Gary Krist
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The Jews
- 5,000 Years and Counting
- By: Rob Kutner
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Jews: 5,000 Years and Counting is packed with Jew-facts, Jew-figures, and the original, never-before-seen documents from those who lived through Jewish history. Hear the transcript of the Biblical Patriarchs' and Matriarchs' Group Therapy Session! Sneak a peek at Moses's Secret Diary, or check out the awkward "I'm dumping you" text chain from Spain to the Jews in 1492! Collect and trade Rabbi Action Cards!
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Informative and Entertaining
- By Mike on 03-19-25
By: Rob Kutner
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Texian Exodus
- The Runaway Scrape and Its Enduring Legacy
- By: Stephen L. Hardin
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Propulsive and lyrical, Texian Exodus transports us to the frigid, sodden spring of 1836, when thousands of Texians—Anglo-American settlers—fled eastward for the United States in fear of Antonio López de Santa Anna's advancing Mexican army. Leading Texas historian Stephen L. Hardin draws on the accounts of the Runaways themselves to relate a tale of high stakes and great sorrow. While Houston tried to build a force that could defeat Santa Anna, the evacuees suffered incalculable pain and suffering. Yet dignity and community were not among the losses
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Rot
- An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
- By: Padraic X. Scanlan
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate. In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation.
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Really great work of history
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-25
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Boy Jesus
- Growing Up Judean in Turbulent Times
- By: Joan Taylor
- Narrated by: Tracy Russell
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As a boy, Jesus was a refugee, an outsider, an immigrant in Galilee in which he grew up, and affected by horrific atrocities by the occupying Roman overlords. All this and more is explored in this scholarly but highly accessible investigation into the world of Jesus, ranging from his birth to his coming of age and beyond. Joan Taylor, a world authority on the history and literature of the first century CE, draws both on the latest archaeological findings and on the historical clues to be found within ancient texts of the period.
By: Joan Taylor
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Typhoid Mary
- An Urban Historical
- By: Anthony Bourdain
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This is a tale of pursuit through the kitchens of New York City at the turn of the century. By the late nineteenth century, it seemed that New York City had put an end to the outbreaks of typhoid fever that had so frequently decimated the city's population. That is until 1904, when the disease broke out in a household in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Authorities suspected the family cook, Mary Mallon, of being a carrier. But before she could be tested, the woman, soon to be known as Typhoid Mary, had disappeared.
By: Anthony Bourdain
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The Next One Is for You
- A True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA's Secret American Army
- By: Ali Watkins
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. As reporter Ali Watkins reveals, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small ragtag band of gunrunners in the United States.
By: Ali Watkins
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The Wolf Age
- The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire
- By: Tore Skeie
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Wolf Age takes listeners on a thrilling journey through the bloody shared history of England and Scandinavia, and on across early medieval Europe, from the wild Norwegian fjords to the wealthy cities of Muslim Andalusia. Warfare, plotting, backstabbing, and bribery abound as Tore Skeie skillfully weaves sagas and skaldic poetry with breathless dramatization as he entertainingly brings the world of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons to vivid life.
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Perspective matters
- By Ellen Wright on 08-08-24
By: Tore Skeie
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Oathbreakers
- The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe
- By: Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
By the early ninth century, the Carolingian empire was at the height of its power. The Franks, led by Charlemagne, had built the largest European domain since Rome in its heyday. Though they jockeyed for power, prestige, and profit, the Frankish elites enjoyed political and cultural consensus. But just two generations later, their world was in shambles. Civil war, once an unthinkable threat, had erupted after Louis the Pious’s sons tried to overthrow him—and then placed their knives at the other’s neck. Families who had once charged into battle together now drew each other’s blood.
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The drama is exceptional
- By Nathan on 04-03-25
By: Matthew Gabriele, and others