
Summer of Fire and Blood
The German Peasants' War
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Narrated by:
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Rose Akroyd
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By:
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Lyndal Roper
About this listen
In this “extraordinary and brilliant book” (Helen Castor, author of She-Wolves), a prize-winning historian offers the definitive account of the sixteenth-century uprising that revolutionized Europe
The German Peasants’ War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as well over a hundred thousand people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The peasants took control of vast areas of southern and middle Germany, torching and plundering the monasteries, convents, and castles that stood in their way. But they proved no match for the forces of the lords, who put down the revolt by slaying somewhere between seventy and a hundred thousand peasants in just over two months.
In Summer of Fire and Blood, the first history of the German Peasants’ War in a generation, historian Lyndal Roper exposes the far-reaching ramifications of this rebellion. Though the war’s victors portrayed the uprising as naive and inchoate, Roper reveals a mass movement that sought to make good on the radical potential of the Protestant Reformation. By recovering what the people themselves felt and believed, Summer of Fire and Blood reconstructs the thrilling, tragic story of the peasants’ fight to change the world.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2025 Lyndal Roper (P)2025 Basic BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The end of World War II is in sight. Following the overwhelming victory on D-Day, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin all seek to shape the future to their own ends by winning the race to Berlin. The British launch Operation Market Garden, the greatest airborne operation the world has ever seen. It's a bold move that, if successful, will end the war in weeks. But behind the scenes spies are working their craft, the Allies' plans are betrayed, the operation fails—and thousands of our soldiers die.
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Outstanding
- By JOHN DAVIS on 04-16-25
By: Robert Verkaik
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Roman Britain
- A New History: Revised Edition
- By: Guy de la Bédoyère
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The author first outlines events from the Iron Age period immediately preceding the conquest in AD 43 to the emperor Honorius's advice to the Britons in 410 to fend for themselves. He then tackles the issues facing Britons after the absorption of their culture by an invading army, including the role of government and the military in the province, religion, commerce, technology, and daily life. For this revised edition, the text and bibliography have been updated to reflect the latest discoveries and research in recent years.
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A Man on Fire
- The Worlds of Thomas Wentworth Higginson
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Few Americans covered as much ground as Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Born in 1823 to a family descended from Boston's Puritan founders, he attended Harvard, like all the men in his family, and prepared for the settled life of a minister. Instead, he rejected both privilege and convention, and embraced radical causes, attaching himself to nearly every major reform movement of the day, from women's rights to abolitionism. More than merely a fellow traveler, Higginson was a proponent of direct action.
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Gods, Guns & Missionaries
- The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity
- By: Manu S. Pillai
- Narrated by: Manu S. Pillai
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In Gods, Guns and Missionaries, Manu S. Pillai takes us through these remarkable dynamics. With an arresting cast of characters―maharajahs, poets, gun-wielding revolutionaries, politicians, polemicists, philosophers and clergymen―this book is ambitious in its scope and provocative in its position.
By: Manu S. Pillai
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Blood and Mistletoe
- The History of the Druids in Britain
- By: Ronald Hutton
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Crushed by the Romans in the first century A.D., the ancient Druids of Britain left almost no reliable evidence behind. Historian Ronald Hutton shows how this lack of definite information has allowed succeeding British generations to reimagine, reinterpret, and reinvent the Druids. Hutton's captivating book is the first to encompass two thousand years of Druid history and to explore the evolution of English, Scottish, and Welsh attitudes toward the forever ambiguous figures of the ancient Celtic world.
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VERY compelling read
- By Christopher on 05-28-25
By: Ronald Hutton
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The Revolutionary Self
- Social Change and the Emergence of the Modern Individual 1770-1800
- By: Lynn Hunt
- Narrated by: Kate Udall
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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The eighteenth century was a time of cultural friction: individuals began to assert greater independence and there was a new emphasis on social equality. In this surprising history, Lynn Hunt examines women's expanding societal roles, such as using tea to facilitate conversation between the sexes in Britain. In France, women also pushed boundaries by becoming artists, and printmakers' satiric takes on the elite gave the lower classes a chance to laugh at the upper classes and imagine the potential of political upheaval.
By: Lynn Hunt
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President McKinley
- Architect of the American Century
- By: Robert W. Merry
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Republican President William McKinley transformed America during his two terms as president. Although he does not register large in either public memory or in historians' rankings, in this revealing account, Robert W. Merry offers "a fresh twist on the old tale . . . a valuable education on where America has been and, possibly, where it is going" (The National Review).
By: Robert W. Merry
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A Nasty Little War
- The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War
- By: Anna Reid
- Narrated by: Anna Reid
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict.
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Recommend!
- By Nicholas R. Anderson on 03-25-25
By: Anna Reid
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Lawless Republic
- By: Josiah Osgood
- Narrated by: David Holt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system's capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
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Entertaining and educational
- By N. Mammen on 02-25-25
By: Josiah Osgood
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Maria Theresa
- Empress: The Making of the Austrian Enlightenment
- By: Richard Bassett
- Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion.
By: Richard Bassett
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The Middle Kingdoms
- A New History of Central Europe
- By: Martyn Rady
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region, demonstrating that Central Europe has always been more than merely the fault line between West and East. Even as Central European powers warred with their neighbors, the region developed its own cohesive identity and produced tremendous accomplishments in politics, society, and culture.
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Marred by the errors in the modern section
- By Paul Boothroyd on 10-20-23
By: Martyn Rady
A Lost History Recovered
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