
Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland
A Life in Geopolitics
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
3 months free
Buy for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Bruce Mann
-
By:
-
Henrik Meinander
About this listen
Field marshal and statesman Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951) was the most acclaimed and the most hated Finn of the twentieth century. After three decades of loyal and distinguished service in the Russian Tsarist army, he returned to his homeland in 1917 to defend its new independence. This iconic figure led the Finnish forces as Commander-in-Chief during both World Wars, then ended his career as President of Finland.
This new critical biography sets Mannerheim's entire life's work, and his often nerve-wracking decisions as a Finnish leader on the world stage, against the backdrop of his elite upbringing and lifestyle, his adventurous imperial career, his outspoken anti-communism, and his keen instincts for great power politics. Painful details emerge about Mannerheim's private life, and myths and rumors are scrutinized, as Henrik Meinander charts the complex legacy of this nationalist cosmopolitan who found himself fighting on the same side as Hitler.
Meinander paints his portrait with strong contrasts and bright colors. This is the story of a multicultural Russian empire, a newborn nation-state treading warily between Europe's military titans, a front of the Second World War not easily reduced to moral binaries—and, above all, a shrewd political operator playing many a dangerous game.
©2023 Henrik Meinander (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
How Finland Survived Stalin
- From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950
- By: Kimmo Rentola, Richard Robinson - Translator
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking account, Kimmo Rentola traces the epochal shifts in Soviet-Finnish relations. From the Winter War to Finland's exit from World War II in 1944, a possible Soviet-backed coup in 1948, and Moscow's designation of Finland as an enemy state in 1950, Finland was forced to navigate Stalin's outsize political and territorial demands. Rentola presents a dramatic reconstruction of Finland's unlikely survival at a time when the nation's very existence was at stake.
-
-
Stress on the diplomatic manoeuvres
- By David Walker on 10-07-24
By: Kimmo Rentola, and others
-
Bagration 1944
- The Great Soviet Offensive
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success.
-
-
Impressive amount of detail, as expected from the author.
- By Zoran Jovic on 03-30-25
By: Prit Buttar
-
Mediterranean Sweep
- The USAAF in the Italian Campaign
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the defeat of the Germans and Italians on Sicily in mid-July 1943, the focus of the war in the air shifted toward the battle for the Italian mainland itself. This campaign took place in the context of the coming invasion of northwest Europe, with many of the best units from the North African and Sicilian campaigns withdrawn to prepare for the new front, while those units that remained had a lower priority for replacements of men and material.
-
-
Mediterranean Sweep
- By Ross Gordon on 03-27-25
-
Operation Typhoon
- Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941
- By: David Stahel
- Narrated by: Philip Battley
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Stahel's groundbreaking new account of Operation Typhoon captures the perspectives of both the German high command and individual soldiers, revealing that despite success on the battlefield the wider German war effort was in far greater trouble than is often acknowledged.
-
-
Exhausting the Blitzkrieg
- By Rodney W. Schmisseur on 05-19-24
By: David Stahel
-
Turning the Tide
- The USAAF in North Africa and Sicily
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using first-hand accounts from pilots and other aircrew, Tom Cleaver describes how the USAAF units that landed in Morocco were forced to learn their own lessons in combat with veteran Luftwaffe units, and how the experience gained in the skies over North Africa and Sicily was invaluable in developing the air forces that would dominate the skies over Europe in the latter years of the war.
-
-
Great telling of little told stories
- By AMED on 04-27-25
-
Inventing the Renaissance
- The Myth of a Golden Age
- By: Ada Palmer
- Narrated by: Candida Gubbins
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
-
-
Completely changed my perspective of Machiavelli
- By Amazon Customer on 04-30-25
By: Ada Palmer
-
How Finland Survived Stalin
- From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950
- By: Kimmo Rentola, Richard Robinson - Translator
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking account, Kimmo Rentola traces the epochal shifts in Soviet-Finnish relations. From the Winter War to Finland's exit from World War II in 1944, a possible Soviet-backed coup in 1948, and Moscow's designation of Finland as an enemy state in 1950, Finland was forced to navigate Stalin's outsize political and territorial demands. Rentola presents a dramatic reconstruction of Finland's unlikely survival at a time when the nation's very existence was at stake.
-
-
Stress on the diplomatic manoeuvres
- By David Walker on 10-07-24
By: Kimmo Rentola, and others
-
Bagration 1944
- The Great Soviet Offensive
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout the war on the Eastern Front, there were two consistent trends. The Red Army battled to learn how to fight and win, while involved in a struggle for its very survival. But by 1944 it had a leadership that was able to wield it with lethal effect and with far more effective equipment than before. By contrast, the Wehrmacht had commenced a slow process of decline after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler became increasingly unwilling to delegate decision-making to commanders in the field, which had been crucial to earlier success.
-
-
Impressive amount of detail, as expected from the author.
- By Zoran Jovic on 03-30-25
By: Prit Buttar
-
Mediterranean Sweep
- The USAAF in the Italian Campaign
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the defeat of the Germans and Italians on Sicily in mid-July 1943, the focus of the war in the air shifted toward the battle for the Italian mainland itself. This campaign took place in the context of the coming invasion of northwest Europe, with many of the best units from the North African and Sicilian campaigns withdrawn to prepare for the new front, while those units that remained had a lower priority for replacements of men and material.
-
-
Mediterranean Sweep
- By Ross Gordon on 03-27-25
-
Operation Typhoon
- Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941
- By: David Stahel
- Narrated by: Philip Battley
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Stahel's groundbreaking new account of Operation Typhoon captures the perspectives of both the German high command and individual soldiers, revealing that despite success on the battlefield the wider German war effort was in far greater trouble than is often acknowledged.
-
-
Exhausting the Blitzkrieg
- By Rodney W. Schmisseur on 05-19-24
By: David Stahel
-
Turning the Tide
- The USAAF in North Africa and Sicily
- By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using first-hand accounts from pilots and other aircrew, Tom Cleaver describes how the USAAF units that landed in Morocco were forced to learn their own lessons in combat with veteran Luftwaffe units, and how the experience gained in the skies over North Africa and Sicily was invaluable in developing the air forces that would dominate the skies over Europe in the latter years of the war.
-
-
Great telling of little told stories
- By AMED on 04-27-25
-
Inventing the Renaissance
- The Myth of a Golden Age
- By: Ada Palmer
- Narrated by: Candida Gubbins
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
-
-
Completely changed my perspective of Machiavelli
- By Amazon Customer on 04-30-25
By: Ada Palmer
-
The Quiet Warrior
- A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance
- By: Thomas B. Buell
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Regarded as the standard biography of World War II naval hero Adm. Raymond A. Spruance. Spruance, victor of the battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea and commander of the Fifth Fleet in the invasions of the Gilberts, the Marshalls, the Marianas, and Okinawa, is one of the towering figures in American naval history. Yet his reserved, cerebral personality did not make "good copy" for correspondents, and until the publication of The Quiet Warrior he remained an elusive figure.
-
-
You Shouldn't Meet Your Heroes
- By D. Baker on 05-29-25
By: Thomas B. Buell
-
Hero City
- Leningrad 1943–44
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of World War II the people of Leningrad endured a bitter 900-day siege. Prit Buttar tells the story of how the siege was finally broken. The Red Army had suffered multiple setbacks in the preceding two years but achieved a partial success by breaking the blockage in early 1943. However, this was followed by further failed attempts to lift the siege completely. This compelling history uses original Russian source material to vividly describe the deprivations visited upon those trapped. But it also details the tactical successes and strategic failures of both sides.
-
-
Another great Prit Buttar book
- By Gary on 10-13-24
By: Prit Buttar
-
The Battle for Moscow
- By: David Stahel
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In November 1941, Hitler ordered German forces to complete the final drive on the Soviet capital, now less than 100 kilometers away. Army Group Center was pressed into the attack for one last attempt to break Soviet resistance before the onset of winter. From the German perspective, the final drive on Moscow had all the ingredients of a dramatic final battle in the east, which, according to previous accounts, only failed at the gates of Moscow.
-
-
Classic Stahel
- By abulbulian on 06-15-24
By: David Stahel
-
Strangers in Their Own Land
- Anger and Mourning on the American Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country - a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets.
-
-
Performance undercuts thesis
- By married, one tall dog, one smelly dog on 01-02-17
-
To Run the World
- The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power
- By: Sergey Radchenko
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 30 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides a deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin's postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev's reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev's jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev's failed attempts to reinvent Moscow.
-
-
Thoroughly researched; a landmark
- By anikmuan on 05-19-25
By: Sergey Radchenko
-
France on Trial
- The Case of Marshal Pétain
- By: Julian Jackson
- Narrated by: Michael Chance
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julian Jackson uses Petain's three-week trial as a lens through which to examine one of history's great moral dilemmas. Was the policy of collaboration "four years to erase from our history," as the prosecution claimed? Or was it, as conservative politicians insist to this day, a sacrifice that placed pragmatism above moral purity? Jackson blends courtroom drama, political intrigue, and brilliant narrative history to highlight the hard choices and moral compromises leaders make in times of war.
-
-
Great book, so detailed
- By Nana Landgraf on 11-29-23
By: Julian Jackson
-
Death of the Wehrmacht
- The German Campaigns of 1942
- By: Robert M. Citino
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the overwhelming operational victories at Kerch and Kharkov in May to the catastrophic defeats at El Alamein and Stalingrad, Death of the Wehrmacht offers an eye-opening new view of that decisive year. Building upon his widely respected critique in The German Way of War, Citino shows how the campaigns of 1942 fit within the centuries-old patterns of Prussian/German warmaking and ultimately doomed Hitler's expansionist ambitions.
-
-
Lucidity!
- By Anonymous User on 08-02-24
By: Robert M. Citino
-
Stolen Pride
- Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.
-
-
Gripping and insightful
- By Marianna Grossman on 12-27-24
-
Duel Under the Stars
- The Memoir of a Luftwaffe Night Pilot in World War II
- By: Wilhelm Johnen, James Holland
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Listen to this captivating memoir by Wilhelm Johnen who flew his first operational mission in July 1941, having completed his blind-flying training. In his first couple of years he brought down two enemy planes. The tally went up rapidly once the air war was escalated in spring 1943, when Air Marshal Arthur Harris of the RAF Bomber Command began the campaign dubbed the Battle of the Ruhr.
-
-
The best pilots in history
- By Nick Broms on 06-16-18
By: Wilhelm Johnen, and others
-
Beda Fomm to Operation Crusader, 1940-41
- Desert Armour: Tank Warfare in North Africa
- By: Robert Forczyk
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Forczyk covers the development of armored warfare in North Africa from the earliest Anglo-Italian engagements in 1940 to the British victory over the German Afrikakorps in Operation Crusader in 1941. The war in the North African desert was pure mechanized warfare, and in many respects the most technologically advanced theatre of World War II. It was also the only theatre where for three years British and Commonwealth, and later United States, troops were in constant contact with Axis forces.
-
-
Too many details, not enough context
- By MortonC on 09-01-24
By: Robert Forczyk
-
Alexandria
- The City That Changed the World
- By: Islam Issa
- Narrated by: Islam Issa
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Combining rigorous research with myth and folklore, Alexandria is an authoritative history of a city that has shaped our modern world. Soon after being founded by Alexander the Great, Alexandria became the crucible of cultural exchange between East and West for millennia and the undisputed global capital of knowledge. It was at the forefront of human progress, but it also witnessed brutal natural disasters, plagues, crusades, and violence.
-
-
More than a city history
- By Ramsey S on 12-11-24
By: Islam Issa
-
The White Sniper
- Simo Häyhä
- By: Tapio Saarelainen
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Simo Häyhä was a man of action who spoke very little, but he was respected by his men and his superiors and given many difficult missions, including taking out specific targets. Able to move silently and swiftly through the landscape, melting into the snowbound surroundings in his white camouflage fatigues, his aim was deadly and his quarry rarely escaped. The Russians learned of his reputation as a marksman and tried several times to kill him by indirect fire. He was promoted from corporal to second lieutenant and he was awarded the Cross of Kollaa.
-
-
Not what you think
- By Paul Z. on 11-28-19
Interesting, concise, well-read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.