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Nonviolence
- The History of a Dangerous Idea
- Narrated by: Richard Dreyfuss
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, New York Times best-selling author Mark Kurlansky discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power. Nonviolence is a sweeping yet concise history that moves from ancient Hindu times to present-day conflicts raging in the Middle East and elsewhere. Kurlansky also brings into focus just why nonviolence is a "dangerous" idea, and asks such provocative questions as: Is there such a thing as a "just war"? Could nonviolence have worked against even the most evil regimes in history?
Kurlansky draws from history 25 provocative lessons on the subject that we can use to effect change today. He shows how, time and again, violence is used to suppress nonviolence and its practitioners - Gandhi and Martin Luther King, for example; that the stated deterrence value of standing national armies and huge weapons arsenals is, at best, negligible; and, encouragingly, that much of the hard work necessary to begin a movement to end war is already complete. It simply needs to be embraced and accelerated.
Engaging, scholarly, and brilliantly reasoned, Nonviolence is a work that compels listeners to look at history in an entirely new way. This is not just a manifesto for our times but a trailblazing book whose time has come.
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By: Shimon Peres, and others
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The Story of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The Story of Russia is about how the Russians defined themselves―and repeatedly reinvented such definitions along the way. Moving from Russia’s agrarian beginnings in the first millennium to subsequent periods of monarchy, totalitarianism, and perestroika, all the way up to Vladimir Putin and his use of myths of Russian history to bolster his regime, celebrated historian Orlando Figes examines the ideas that have guided the country’s actions.
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Almost perfect…
- By Samantha Dispenzieri on 02-21-23
By: Orlando Figes
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Hitler and the Holocaust [Modern Library Chronicles]
- By: Robert S. Wistrich
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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For over 50 years scholars and philosophers alike have attempted to make some sense of the Third Reich and its "Final Solution" campaign. Historian Robert Wistrich takes listeners on a guided tour through the death camps and meticulously details the events that led to this horrific tragedy and the lasting repercussions it had on the world community.
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Subperb and profound
- By John on 08-08-05
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Great Catastrophe
- Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide
- By: Thomas de Waal
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16 was the greatest atrocity of World War I. Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years.
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- By shaq on 02-26-19
By: Thomas de Waal
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The War That Forged a Nation
- Why the Civil War Still Matters
- By: James McPherson
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War remains so deeply embedded in our national psyche and identity. The drama and tragedy of the war help explain why the Civil War remains a topic of interest. But the legacy of the war extends far beyond historical interest or scholarly attention.
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A Different Kind of History from McPherson
- By Carole T. on 08-11-16
By: James McPherson
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Protestants
- The Faith That Made the Modern World
- By: Alec Ryrie
- Narrated by: Tim Bruce
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In this dazzling global history that charts five centuries of innovation and change, Alec Ryrie makes the case that Protestants made the modern world. Protestants introduces us to the men and women who defined and redefined this quarrelsome faith. Some turned to their newly accessible bibles to justify bold acts of political opposition, others to support a new understanding of who they were and what they could and should do. Above all, they were willing to fight for their beliefs.
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A secular history protestantism.
- By SakuraHB on 07-19-17
By: Alec Ryrie
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Menachem Begin
- The Battle for Israel's Soul
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Reviled as a fascist by his great rival Ben-Gurion, venerated by Israel’s underclass, the first Israeli to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a proud Jew but not a conventionally religious one, Menachem Begin was both complex and controversial. Born in Poland in 1913, Begin was a youthful admirer of the Revisionist Zionist Ze’ev Jabotinsky and soon became a leader within Jabotinsky’s Betar movement.
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Great story lousy oration
- By Jacob Engelstein on 10-03-14
By: Daniel Gordis
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The Complete Infidel's Guide to Iran
- By: Robert Spencer
- Narrated by: Bob Reed
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The author of The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS and The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran returns with the sharp wit and boundless courage needed to expose the oncoming storm from Iran.
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Terrible
- By J. R. Bowers on 12-22-16
By: Robert Spencer
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Fields of Blood
- Religion and the History of Violence
- By: Karen Armstrong
- Narrated by: Karen Armstrong
- Length: 20 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, religious self-identification is on the decline in American. Some analysts have cited as cause a post-9/11 perception: that faith in general is a source of aggression, intolerance, and divisiveness - something bad for society. But how accurate is that view? With deep learning and sympathetic understanding, Karen Armstrong sets out to discover the truth about religion and violence in each of the world’s great traditions, taking us on an astonishing journey from prehistoric times to the present.
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Rethinking Violence and Religion
- By Milton Big Elk on 11-05-14
By: Karen Armstrong
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This Mighty Scourge
- Perspectives on the Civil War
- By: James M. McPherson
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom and many other award-winning books, James M. McPherson is America's preeminent Civil War historian. Now, in this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the most enduring questions about one of the defining moments in our nation's history.
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An Introduction to McPherson
- By Roy on 05-03-09
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Very enjoyable
- By Vicki on 02-16-17
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By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky’s life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway’s death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway’s and Kurlansky’s lives, resulting in creative accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with Mark Kurlansky and Ernest Hemingway in this personal memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten years in Paris and his time as a journalist in Spain.
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Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky has drawn enthusiastic praise for his books, which are sharply-focused studies as well as glorious celebrations of their subjects. In The Basque History of the World, he turns his eye toward Europe’s oldest surviving culture - a culture as mysterious as it is fascinating. Settled in the western Pyrenees Mountains of France and Spain, the Basque nation is not drawn on maps and the origin of their forbidden language has never been discovered.
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Fills a gap in most folks' historical knowledge
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1968
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Over the course of one pivotal year, events that shaped American and world history took place: The North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive. Prague Spring began. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Students protested across the United States and around the world. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago was besieged by riots. Apollo 11 launched. And Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States.
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Not for Me
- By Chris Reich on 05-25-22
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The Food of a Younger Land
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Mark Kurlansky's new book takes us back to the food of a younger America. Before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before chain restaurants brought uniformity, and before the Frigidaire meant that frozen food could be stored for longer, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped to form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.
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Perhaps better in print.
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Milk!
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Mark Kurlansky's first global food history since the best-selling Cod and Salt; the fascinating cultural, economic and culinary story of milk and all things dairy - with recipes throughout. According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera's breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way.
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Horrible narration nearly kills Kurlansky
- By Scarlatti's Muse on 05-15-18
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Very enjoyable
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By a series of coincidences, Mark Kurlansky’s life has always been intertwined with Ernest Hemingway's legend, starting with being in Idaho the day of Hemingway’s death. The Importance of Not Being Ernest explores the intersections between Hemingway’s and Kurlansky’s lives, resulting in creative accounts of two inspiring writing careers. Travel the world with Mark Kurlansky and Ernest Hemingway in this personal memoir, where Kurlansky details his ten years in Paris and his time as a journalist in Spain.
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Fills a gap in most folks' historical knowledge
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1968
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Over the course of one pivotal year, events that shaped American and world history took place: The North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive. Prague Spring began. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Students protested across the United States and around the world. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago was besieged by riots. Apollo 11 launched. And Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States.
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Not for Me
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The Food of a Younger Land
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Mark Kurlansky's new book takes us back to the food of a younger America. Before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before chain restaurants brought uniformity, and before the Frigidaire meant that frozen food could be stored for longer, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped to form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.
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Perhaps better in print.
- By Sparkly on 09-11-09
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Horrible narration nearly kills Kurlansky
- By Scarlatti's Muse on 05-15-18
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Writing on the Wall
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Papyrus rolls and Twitter have much in common, as each was their generation's signature means of "instant" communication. Indeed, as Tom Standage reveals in his scintillating new audiobook, social media is anything but a new phenomenon. From the papyrus letters that Roman statesmen used to exchange news across the Empire to the advent of hand-printed tracts of the Reformation to the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, Standage chronicles the increasingly sophisticated ways people shared information with each other....
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technology changes, we don't
- By Andy on 12-02-13
By: Tom Standage
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The Core of an Onion
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As Julia Child once said, “It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.” Historically, she’s been right—and not just in the kitchen. Uniquely flourishing in just about every climate and culture around the world, onions have provided the essential basis not only for sautés, stews, and stir fries, but for medicines, metaphors, and folklore. Abundantly commonplace yet extraordinarily indispensable, the onion is Kurlansky's newest global food fixation as he sets out to explore how and why the crop reigns over Wales to Italy and everywhere in between.
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The author reading his own work sounds bored with own writing
- By rwz on 12-07-23
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The Nonviolence Handbook
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Michael Nagler offers a step-by-step guide to using nonviolence creatively to confront any problem and to build change movements capable of restructuring the very bedrock of society. He identifies some specific tactical mistakes made by unsuccessful nonviolent actions, such as the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and the Occupy protests, and includes stories of successful nonviolent resistance from around the world, including an example from Nazi Germany.
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life changing
- By Carson Au on 08-10-17
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Salmon
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In what he says is the most important piece of environmental writing in his long and award-winning career, Mark Kurlansky, best-selling author of Salt and Cod, The Big Oyster, 1968, and Milk, among many others, employs his signature multi-century storytelling and compelling attention to detail to chronicle the harrowing yet awe-inspiring life cycle of salmon.
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More about people than salmon
- By BigJay on 02-10-21
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Birdseye
- The Adventures of a Curious Man
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Jon Van Ness
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- Unabridged
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Break out the TV dinners! From the author who gave us Cod, Salt, and other informative bestsellers, the first biography of Clarence Birdseye, the eccentric genius inventor whose fast-freezing process revolutionized the food industry and American agriculture.
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I just couldn't get past the narrator
- By K. Lawrence on 01-02-13
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Havana
- A Subtropical Delirium
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky presents an insider's view of Havana: the elegant, tattered city he has come to know over more than 30 years. Part cultural history, part travelogue, with recipes throughout, Havana celebrates the city's singular music, literature, baseball and food; its five centuries of outstanding neglected architecture; and its extraordinary blend of cultures.
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Tough to get past impersonation of Spanish accent
- By IF on 01-02-20
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Cod
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- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The cod has played a vital part in livelihoods, diets, and health in general — as well as roles in national economies and international wars. Drawing on his love of food and food culture, Mark Kurlansky leaps into history and folklore to explore how this innocuous fish had such an impact over the centuries.
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Seven and a half hour about COD???
- By B. W. Larsen on 03-01-03
By: Mark Kurlansky
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An Edible History of Humanity
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes---caused, enabled, or influenced by food---has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.
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Flawed, but worthwhile
- By Ary Shalizi on 12-28-17
By: Tom Standage
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The Eastern Stars
- How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Ed Sala
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In the town of San Pedro in the Dominican Republic, baseball is not just a way of life. It's the way of life. By the year 2008, 79 boys and men from San Pedro had gone on to play in the Major Leagues - that means one in six Dominican Republicans who have played in the Majors have come from one tiny, impoverished region. Manny Alexander, Sammy Sosa, Tony Fernandez, and legions of other San Pedro players who came up in the sugar mill teams flocked to the United States.
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Review
- By Dorothy on 10-26-23
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Napoleon's Buttons
- 17 Molecules That Changed History
- By: Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of 17 groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance.
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Wish one of the authors would have read this book
- By A.J. on 03-09-12
By: Penny Le Couteur, and others
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Cod
- A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Mark Kurlansky pleasantly surprised the world with this engaging best-seller that garnered rave reviews from critics and casual readers alike. His subject for this whimsical biography is the codfish, a species remarkable for its influence on humanity. Cod, Kurlansky argues, has driven economic, political, cultural and military thinking for centuries in the lands surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. Nations like England and Germany have waged wars for cod.
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Skip the last few chapters
- By Tanya on 08-01-17
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Gravity's Rainbow
- By: Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller - cover design
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.
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"Time to touch the person next to you"
- By Jefferson on 07-04-16
By: Thomas Pynchon, and others
What listeners say about Nonviolence
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- Real Talk
- 07-29-20
A brief, necessary account of the history of nonviolence
An important, necessary sketch of the history of nonviolence. But it is only a sketch. Much more to be said about the different ways people have thought of nonviolence or the strategies they have used. It’s a start though. It skews to the analysis of nonviolence as an anti-war movement, and as an alternative to war.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-08-22
Lesson 23 missing from narration
Lesson 23 - Violence is a virus that infects and takes over.
Not sure why this lesson was skipped. With that said, I still highly recommend including this audiobook in your audible library.
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- Steve Adams
- 07-08-24
Food for thought
Richard Dreyfus does a master class job of narrating this very thought provoking book by one of my favorite authors, Mark Kurlansky.
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- Mithridaties
- 04-22-22
Excellent and deeply flawed at the same time.
Firstly, understand that I like Mark Kurlansky. I have read his other works and I enjoyed reading them. Although he makes some of the same errors in them as he does in this book, obviously his worldview taints his writing. I did find his commentary on nonviolence fascinating and well worth the read. However...
Mark Kurlansky, has obviously fallen victim to an all too common foible of western authors. Believing that he understands Christianity at a far greater level then he does, causing him not to seek the much needed clarification, before making his errant claims. In addition to his numerous errors about Christianity Mark also exposes his profound ignorance of the Quran and Mohammed by repeating obvious Muslim propaganda instead of historical fact. Dogmatic errors abound as well, too many for me to slog through the entire book in one go. For who knows how honest the rest of the book is, if he makes such glaring errors where contrary proof is so abundant.
Knowing that his understanding of Islam was lacking Mark probably found himself a Muslim scholar or collection of highly propagandised books and proceeded to ingest it without exposure to critical analysis. Resulting in his numerous errors. The frequency of this type of regurgitating inaccuracies only helps to solidify falsehoods in the minds of "scholars"!! And that is a cause for great concern!!
I would suggest a caution to EVERYONE raised in a Catholic environment, that they have been thus inoculated against a vibrant living Christianity by regular exposure to it in a twisted and dead form. There are MANY important/vital/foundational concepts and truths that are entirely missed by those who believe that they understand far far far more then they do. Simply because they grew up as Catholics. It is such a specific form of cognitive headbinding, that I can spot someone raised as a Catholic by reading the first 1-2 chapters of their book. With the possible exception of the Greek Orthodox...
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