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Phantom Terror
- Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789 - 1848
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs and 30 mins
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Publisher's summary
For the ruling and propertied classes of the late eighteenth century, the years following the French Revolution were characterized by intense anxiety. Monarchs and their courtiers lived in constant fear of rebellion, convinced that their power--and their heads--were at risk. Driven by paranoia, they chose to fight back against every threat and insurgency, whether real or merely perceived, repressing their populaces through surveillance networks and violent, secretive police action. Europe and the world had entered a new era.
In Phantom Terror, award-winning historian Adam Zamoyski argues that the stringent measures designed to prevent unrest had disastrous and far-reaching consequences, inciting the very rebellions they had hoped to quash. The newly established culture of state control halted economic development in Austria and birthed a rebellious youth culture in Russia that would require even harsher methods to suppress. By the end of the era, the first stirrings of terrorist movements had become evident across the continent, making the previously unfounded fears of European monarchs a reality.
Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I. We still live with the legacy of this era of paranoia, which prefigured not only the modern totalitarian state but also the now preeminent contest between society's haves and have-nots.
These tempestuous years of suspicion and suppression were the crux upon which the rest of European history would turn. In this magisterial history, Zamoyski chronicles the moment when desperate monarchs took the world down the path of revolution, terror, and world war.
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Napoleon
- A Life
- By: Adam Zamoyski
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 27 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 04-01-19
By: Adam Zamoyski
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For Liberty and Glory
- Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions
- By: James R. Gaines
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 18, 1775, a riot over the price of flour broke out in the French city of Dijon. That night, across the Atlantic, Paul Revere mounted the fastest horse he could find and kicked it into a gallop. So began what have been called the "sister revolutions" of France and America. In a single, thrilling narrative, this audiobook tells the story of those revolutions and shows just how deeply intertwined they actually were.
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Excellent presentation
- By Hal on 08-20-12
By: James R. Gaines
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Foundation
- The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors: The History of England, Book 1
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In Foundation the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past - a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house.
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The Most Annoying Narrator EVER
- By JudieBee on 12-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
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The Islamic Enlightenment
- The Struggle Between Faith and Reason: 1798 to Modern Times
- By: Christopher de Bellaigue
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the 19th and early 20th centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy.
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fascinating story not told.elsewhere in one place
- By Joseph Sullivan on 11-30-21
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The Red Prince
- The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Michael Damon
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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From the palaces of the Habsburg Empire to the torture chambers of Stalin's Soviet Union, the extraordinary story of a life suspended between the collapse of the imperial order and the violent emergence of modern Europe. Wilhelm Von Habsburg wore the uniform of the Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, every so often, a dress.
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little known story about Hapsburgs
- By Janice on 03-30-10
By: Timothy Snyder
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Napoleon
- By: J. Christopher Herold
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Napoleon Bonaparte's rise from common origins to the pinnacle of power, as well as his defeat at Waterloo, still influences our daily lives, from the map of Europe to the metric system. Here's the fascinating story of the great soldier-statesman.
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modern and cynical history of Napoleon
- By Mavs on 06-21-18
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The Third Reich in Power
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.
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Great book, annoying narrator
- By Maria on 08-14-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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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
- Ascent 1889-1939
- By: Volker Ullrich
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 34 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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For all the literature about Adolf Hitler, there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood, to his failures as a young man in Vienna, to his experiences during the First World War, to his rise as a far-right party leader.
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Worthwhile if you haven't read a Hitler biography
- By Joshua on 11-03-16
By: Volker Ullrich
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They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else
- A History of the Armenian Genocide
- By: Ronald Grigor Suny
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events.
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Great book, unbiased view finally
- By Raffy Afarian on 10-30-15
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The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
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As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. And yet in 1848 nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults spread like brush fire across the entire continent, leading to significant changes that continue to shape our world today. These battles for the future were fought with one eye kept squarely on the past. Revolutionary Spring is a new understanding of 1848 that offers chilling parallels to our present moment.
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Like the revolutions, it got off to a good start
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The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the 20th century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times - modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society - and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment.
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Best Military History of First World War
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Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood
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- By: Anthony Kaldellis
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In the second half of the tenth century, Byzantium embarked on a series of spectacular conquests. By the early eleventh century, the empire was the most powerful state in the Mediterranean. Yet this imperial project came to a crashing collapse fifty years later, when political disunity, fiscal mismanagement, and defeat at the hands of the Seljuks and the Normans brought an end to Byzantine hegemony. By 1081, Byzantium's very existence was threatened.
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Very Detailed but Tedious
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What listeners say about Phantom Terror
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mike Johnson
- 07-14-15
Amazing
If you are interested in political developments in Europe during the period covered from the perspective within Culture and the minds and words of that time this book is utterly essential.
Narration by Gildart Jackson is certainly a great service to the book itself and intensely stimulating to the brain!
The hearing sense is far more precise and nuanced than reading by eye can ever be.
Ear-popping package!
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5 people found this helpful
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- Elwood J. Bergman
- 09-26-19
Meaty
This is a well-researched, fascinating, and important work. It is suitable for the layperson in the sense that you don’t need a degree in European history to understand it. The untranslated French passages don’t seem to have been critical.
Here’s the “but”: The story gets buried in supporting details. The narrative is continually broken up by quotes. The effect is that it sounds like you are reading the footnotes. I had to slow down to 1x speed and still didn’t retain much, but it was definitely worth the effort. I can’t believe how much my history classes skipped. Thank you!
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- mona berrier
- 04-02-23
Excellent
A well written and extensively detailed history that is both fascinating and entertaining. It supplies a great deal of insight into an important era leading up to the First World War. I’m glad to have found this book.
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- Martin Williams
- 04-18-23
Terrific book, fantastic reading
Already knew Zamoyski was a great historian, I was surprised by Jackson's impressive performance.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-05-15
Rhyming History
Though overly focused on a single theme to be considered a comprehensive history of the era, this is a very worthwhile overview of post-Napoleonic Europe. The detailed analysis of the birth of the modern security state, complete with paranoid justification for constant spying on citizens, helps provide lessons for our own time. (Not that we're likely to learn from them.)
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3 people found this helpful
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- Acteon
- 10-02-16
Wonderful book, exceeds all expectation
Every now and then a book comes along that sheds light on much that had been familiar yet unfocused, thereby bringing a new and exhilarating understanding to a wide range of subjects. Phantom Terror is just such a book. It is invaluable for everyone interested in 19th century history, literature and culture, or in history in general.
Gildart Jackson is excellent (despite mispronunciations of foreign words, though it should be said that he generally has a fair idea of how words in French and German sound; French names can indeed be difficult to get right unless one happens to know or does the research).
Highly recommended.
Most regrettably, this book appears to be unavailable to Canadian and European customers. I do not see whom this publishing restriction can benefit.
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4 people found this helpful