The Age of Voltaire
A History of Civlization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756, with Special Emphasis on the Conflict between Religion and Philosophy
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Narrated by:
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Grover Gardner
About this listen
The Age of Voltaire, the ninth volume of The Story of Civilization, is an in-depth examination of France and England in the first half of the 18th century. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter:
- The English ideas that inspired the Enlightenment in France - skepticism, scientific experiment, constitutional government, "natural rights", and individual liberty
- The salons of Paris, where the wits and thinkers of all Europe gathered to exchange ideas
- The philosophers - intellectuals, playwrights, and poets who consulted and consorted with kings and queens
- Voltaire himself - the incarnation of the Enlightenment and a devotee of reason who still defended religious faith
- Mme. Pompadour, patron of the philosophers, who seduced King Louis XV and through him influenced French policy
- The Augustan Age in English literature - Alexander Pope's poetry, Jonathan Swift's satires, and the novels of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding
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- Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
- By: Michael Massing
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 34 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.
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Excellent work - up until the discussion of America
- By Michele Esposito on 08-24-19
By: Michael Massing
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Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really known today about the enigmatic man behind these accomplishments? Can the facts of his life be separated from the fictions?
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JOHNATHAN SWIFT AND POWER OF THE PEN
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 09-30-14
By: Leo Damrosch
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God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
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Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
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Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
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The Man Who Invented Fiction
- How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
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In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
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Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
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Amazing Grace
- William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery
- By: Eric Metaxas
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
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Amazing Grace tells the story of the remarkable life of the British abolitionist William Wilberforce (1759-1833). This accessible biography chronicles Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament. At the center of this heroic life was a passionate 20-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies.
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A Marvelous Story Gloriously Told
- By Douglas on 02-24-13
By: Eric Metaxas
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Self Reliance
- By: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Narrated by: Alana Munro
- Length: 1 hr and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." This essay is a considered a watershed moment in which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. An American classic.
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Don't buy this
- By Leah L on 07-31-16
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Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
- By: Charles MacKay
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Why do otherwise intelligent individuals form seething masses of idiocy when they engage in collective action? We may think that the Great Crash of 1929, junk bonds of the '80s, and over-valued high-tech stocks of the '90s are peculiarly 20th century aberrations, but Mackay's classic - first published in 1841 - shows that the madness and confusion of crowds knows no limits, and has no temporal bounds.
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People don't change
- By J. on 07-05-16
By: Charles MacKay
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Philosophy has often seemed like the castor oil of the disciplines: healthy, but never pleasurable, and best when swallowed quickly and forgotten. Will Durant’s classic The Story of Philosophy is a welcome remedy for this misconception, and—in view of the fact that it is nearly 100 years old—a remarkably refreshing one. This deluxe edition includes The Age of Faith, the fourth volume in the great series, The Story of Civilization. It covers the years 1095—the launching of the First Crusade—and 1300.
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George Washington, a Biography by Douglas Southall Freeman was the second great historical masterpiece by him to win the Pulitzer Prize, awarded posthumously in 1958. Freeman completed six volumes of this magnificent biography, but died before finishing the seventh and final volume, concluded for him by his research associates in 1957. In Volume One, Young Washington, we follow the development of George from childhood to young manhood. It is an extraordinary tale of youthful vigor and determination.
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Over seven decades, John McPhee has set a standard for literary nonfiction. Assaying mountain ranges, bark canoes, experimental aircraft, the Swiss Army, geophysical hot spots, ocean shipping, shad fishing, dissident art in the Soviet Union, and an even wider variety of other subjects, he has consistently written narrative pieces of immaculate design. In Tabula Rasa, Volume 1, McPhee looks back at his career from the vantage point of his desk drawer, reflecting wryly upon projects he once planned to do but never got around to—people to profile, regions he meant to portray.
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A New Yorker writer surveys his office boxes...
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What listeners say about The Age of Voltaire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Susan J.
- 01-17-18
Amazing work and story
I thought you couldn't top The Age of Louis XIV, but this story had me riveted until the last page and wanting more. I came to love Voltaire and his work despite the fact he is often slandered as an atheist. I love how Durant tiptoes around Rousseau and the Revolution and leaves me excited to binge listen to his next volume.
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- Del
- 09-15-23
My favorite book of my favorite series
Who needs fiction, when the lives of our ancestors are so interesting? If you want a deep dive into every movement of Voltaire’s life, this is not the book for you. But if you want to know how Voltaire became Voltaire, and how he impacted the world and cultures around him, you cannot beat this narrative.
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- Paul H Aube
- 02-18-17
Still the degradation of humanity
This part continues to show the conflict between wisdom, religion and secularism. Behind all this is the motivation for wealth, power and the unreachable illusion of freedom and happiness.
Having listened to the series since the beginning, the author presents an excellent continued history of the social developments as population and societies and ethnic groups evolve.
My point of view as of now is that humans are a sorry species. But the Story of Civilization is an excellent gem.
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4 people found this helpful
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- KnightT
- 01-30-19
Voltaire and the expansion of modern philosophy
This work is a change of pace in the Durants’ wonderful history series. It documents Voltaire and the change in European philosophy that led to changes in religion and monarchy in Europe. These changes also influenced those in other countries, including the Americas. I enjoyed this emphasis on philosophy and how it overcame those who tried to suppress fundamental rights that we often take for granted today.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Arthur Pendragon
- 06-09-15
The Most Exquisite History Series
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Definitely. I have read dozens of books on world history, and none compare to the thoroughness, insight into the nature of man via history, and philosophical perspectives and penmanship of Will Durant.
Who was your favorite character and why?
N/A
What about Grover Gardner’s performance did you like?
Excellent narrator. His pace, tone, and inflections seem to communicate the meaning of the author's words in an enthusiastic, effective, and effortless manner.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
N/A
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9 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 10-18-23
Again, My Education Was So Inadequate
Once again I was thouroughly impressed with the author's level of detail and comparisons of the figures and generational contributions addressed in his works. I have a new understanding of how integral, important and controversial religion was in times passed. We in the States grow up with a life of freedom of choice and built in seperation of church and state which is taken for granted to that freedom end. Not so in history. And we are still today grappling with how and why are we here.
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- Coyle DeMoss
- 04-22-16
Age of Voltaire
Having not read the history of Europe before, I didn't know quite what to expect of Voltaire.
I voyaged into it as a continuation of the excellent research and writing ability of Will and Ariel Durant.
Now I have completed five of his books and hope to continue for the remainder of my life.
I find his writing a living history of time that preceded me. What a joy of detail!
Dr Coyle DeMoss
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2 people found this helpful
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- Marcus
- 04-24-22
Faith and Reason
The volume deals with the European civilization in XVII and early XVIII centuries. Beginning with France, the work examines Holland, England and the European’s landscape. Durant’s text pays great attention to the development of art, literature, science, philosophy and, above all, to the relationship between faith and reason. The progressive emancipation of reason and the development of the scientific method is the book’s leitmotiv. The story gives the reader a detailed picture of the Europe in the second half of sixteenth century. It examines the work and life of the (french) philosophers, specially Voltaire, d’Alembert and Diderot. As always a well informed and readable work.
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- Tobias List
- 05-16-23
Another fantastic volume
Will Durant with another fine work. I’ll be listening to this again in the future.
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- THS
- 05-30-23
Another great volume in an impressive series
Detailed, balanced, insightful. Humanizes historical figures in a relatable, timeless style. Amazing how Will and Ariel accomplished so much.
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