
Rain of Ruin
Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan
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Narrated by:
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Ralph Lister
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By:
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Richard Overy
About this listen
A leading military historian examines the US incendiary and atomic attacks on Japan’s cities, and their impact on the war’s end.
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.
Drawing on his expertise in the war and its bombing campaigns, Richard Overy delivers a precise recounting of these aerial attacks, especially their impact on civilians, and a balanced assessment of how and why they occurred. Astute on Allied decision-making, Overy notably explores the factional infighting within the Japanese leadership and the decisive role played by the emperor, Hirohito. The war’s endgame required both sides to bridge a cultural divide on surrender.
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- By: Keith Lowe
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Bagration 1944
- The Great Soviet Offensive
- By: Prit Buttar
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 20 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Impressive amount of detail, as expected from the author.
- By Zoran Jovic on 03-30-25
By: Prit Buttar
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The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz
- A Story of Survival
- By: Anne Sebba
- Narrated by: Anne Sebba, Helen Stern
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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From Alma Rosé, the orchestra's main conductor, niece of Gustav Mahler and a formidable pre-war celebrity violinist, to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, its teenage cellist and last surviving member, Sebba draws on meticulous archival research and exclusive first-hand accounts to tell the full and astonishing story of the orchestra, its members, and the response of other prisoners for the first time.
By: Anne Sebba
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Hard Neighbors
- The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Hard Neighbors follows the people who came to be known as Scotch-Irish and traces their relations with Native Americans, examines their experiences as marginalized people, and demonstrates their roles as protective and disruptive forces on the edge of colonialism. The Scotch-Irish fought Indian wars and shaped the frontier, and their experiences living near and fighting against Indians shaped their identity and their attitudes towards government. They influenced national attitudes and policies, and they transformed Indian people into racial others as they transformed themselves into Americans.
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The War Came to Us
- Life and Death in Ukraine
- By: Christopher Miller
- Narrated by: Christopher Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the definitive, inside story of Ukraine's long fight for freedom. Told through Miller’s personal experiences, vivid front-line dispatches and illuminating interviews with unforgettable characters, The War Came To Us takes listeners on a riveting journey through the key locales and pivotal events of Ukraine’s modern history.
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The Soviet Sixties
- By: Robert Hornsby
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 20 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning with the death of Stalin in 1953, the "sixties" era in the Soviet Union was just as vibrant and transformative as in the West. The ideological romanticism of the revolutionary years was revived, with renewed emphasis on egalitarianism, equality, and the building of a communist utopia. Mass terror was reined in, great victories were won in the space race, Stalinist cultural dogmas were challenged, and young people danced to jazz and rock and roll. Robert Hornsby examines this remarkable and surprising period.
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Comprehensive and Emtertaining
- By Peter on 02-26-24
By: Robert Hornsby
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The Mesopotamian Riddle
- An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
- By: Joshua Hammer
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
By: Joshua Hammer
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The Last Days of Budapest
- The Destruction of Europe's Most Cosmopolitan Capital in World War II
- By: Adam LeBor
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Budapest, autumn 1943. After four years of war, Hungary was firmly allied with Nazi Germany. Budapest swirled with intrigue and betrayal, home to spies and agents of every kind. But the city remained an oasis in the midst of conflict where Allied POWs and Polish and Jewish refugees found sanctuary. All that came to an end in March 1944 when the Nazis invaded. By the summer Allied bombers were pounding Budapest’s grand boulevards and historic squares.
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The horrible pronunciation of all words Hungarian
- By Gabriel Erem on 05-08-25
By: Adam LeBor