-
The Florentines
- From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's summary
A sweeping and magisterial 400-year history of both the city and the people who gave birth to the Renaissance.
Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of Western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born - or emerge in an entirely new guise.
The ideas that broke this mold began, and continued to flourish, in the city of Florence in Northern Central Italy. These ideas, which placed an increasing emphasis on the development of our common humanity - rather than otherworldly spirituality - coalesced in what came to be known as humanism. This philosophy and its new ideas would eventually spread across Italy, yet wherever they took hold, they would retain an element essential to their origin. And as they spread further across Europe, this element would remain.
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For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Thirty years ago, a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany, both geography and history have always been unstable.
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Engaging and Informative
- By William on 06-15-24
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Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity.
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A learned, well-balanced postmodern history
- By Jacobus on 11-21-12
By: Peter Brown
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Venice
- Pure City
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Venetians' language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its listeners to that sensual and surprising city. His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers.
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An endless droning list.....
- By jack on 03-15-11
By: Peter Ackroyd
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The Verge
- Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World
- By: Patrick Wyman
- Narrated by: Patrick Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In the best-selling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.
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Like the Podcast but Better.
- By Michael S. Labrow on 07-21-21
By: Patrick Wyman
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
- Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World's Greatest Library
- By: Edward Wilson-Lee
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books tells the story of the first and greatest visionary of the print age, a man who saw how the explosive expansion of knowledge and information generated by the advent of the printing press would entirely change the landscape of thought and society. He also happened to be Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son.
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Erudite. Stimulating. Rewarding.
- By R. P. RIBEYRE on 10-26-20
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The Anglo-Saxons
- A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 - 1066
- By: Marc Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
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Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.
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"Pretty Good"
- By Stephen on 05-30-21
By: Marc Morris
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The Bad Popes
- By: E.R. Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
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The papal tiara has been worn by a number of infamous men through the course of its history. Some have been accused of murder, many have had mistresses, while others sold positions in the church to their followers or gave land and wealth to their illegitimate children. E. R. Chamberlin examines the lives of eight of the most controversial popes, from the reign of Pope Stephen VI, who had his predecessor exhumed, put on trial and thrown in the Tiber, in the ninth century, through to Pope Clement VII, whose failed international policy led to the Sack of Rome in 1527.
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Complete trash.
- By George on 07-16-21
By: E.R. Chamberlin
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Alaric the Goth
- An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome
- By: Douglas Boin
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
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Denied citizenship by the Roman Empire, a soldier named Alaric changed history by unleashing a surprise attack on the capital city of an unjust empire. Stigmatized and relegated to the margins of Roman society, the Goths were violent "barbarians" who destroyed "civilization," at least in the conventional story of Rome's collapse. But a slight shift of perspective brings their history, and ours, shockingly alive.
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Can't finish it.
- By Stan K. Smith on 06-21-20
By: Douglas Boin
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SPQR
- A History of Ancient Rome
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
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Performance
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In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.
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Shallow and unsatisfying
- By Joe on 02-19-17
By: Mary Beard
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The Louvre
- The Many Lives of the World's Most Famous Museum
- By: James Gardner
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
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The fascinating and little-known story of the Louvre, from its inception as a humble fortress to its transformation into the palatial residence of the kings of France and then into the world's greatest art museum.
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Enlightening
- By Jean on 10-29-20
By: James Gardner
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A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons
- Brief Histories
- By: Geoffrey Hindley
- Narrated by: Eleanor David
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting AD 400 (around the time of their invasion of England) and running through to the 1100s (the 'Aftermath'), historian Geoffrey Hindley shows the Anglo-Saxons as formative in the history not only of England but also of Europe. The society inspired by the warrior world of the Old English poem Beowulf saw England become the world's first nation state and Europe's first country to conduct affairs in its own language, and Bede and Boniface of Wessex establish the dating convention we still use today.
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A very dry history of the Ethels
- By Neil Chisholm on 07-23-13
By: Geoffrey Hindley
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While it’s easy to get caught up - and, rightfully so - in the art of the Renaissance, you cannot have a full, rounded understanding of just how important these centuries were without digging beneath the surface, without investigating the period in terms of its politics, its spirituality, its philosophies, its economics, and its societies. Do just that with these 48 lectures that consider the European Renaissance from all sides, that disturb traditional understandings, that tip sacred cows, and that enlarges our understanding of how the Renaissance revolutionized the Western world.
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Reads like a bad high school essay.
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Not for non history buffs
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Walk and Talk Florence
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Get ready for a one-of-a-kind audio experience: discover Florence through intimate, guided audio walking tours of the city's most historic and enchanting quarters. There are four guided tours for you to listen to as you walk through Florence, plus essential Italian words and phrases that every traveler wants to know.
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it works
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A Brief History of Italy
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Perhaps no country has had such a lasting impact on Western culture as Italy. Whether it’s the frescoes of the Renaissance, the politics of ancient Rome, or the formation of the Catholic Church, Italy holds a central place on the world’s stage. This audiobook gives a quick but detailed overview of Italy’s grand, sweeping history, from ancient city-state to modern cultural mecca. Whether you’re a student of Italian history looking for a refresher or a brand-new learner looking for an introduction, this audiobook is a concise, easy-to-follow overview.
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A brief History of Italy
- By Taha on 11-13-23
By: Dominic Haynes
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Italian History
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If you want to discover the captivating history of Italy and Rome, then this audiobook is for you. It includes two books: History of Italy and History of Rome. It covers topics ranging from the founding and early settlements to the modern history.
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Excellent summary of Roman history
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What listeners say about The Florentines
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- b at home
- 07-17-22
interesting story, wonderful narration
Roger Clark is my favorite narrator. Indeed, he is the stupor mundi of audio narration. Indeed! the greatest of all time. Indeed!!!
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- David E. Martin
- 06-18-24
Topic
Wonderful content. Interesting narrator. Throughly enjoyed. Would recommend to anyone who is interested in the topic.
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- C. Brown Leinberger
- 10-23-23
Pulling together my pieces of history
Thank you so much for writing your books. I feel I have advance geometrically in my knowledge of medieval age.
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- Linda M
- 06-13-24
Speaker
Strange pronunciation of certain words otherwise very enjoyable. Some stories I had not heard before made it interesting.
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- Artist&Dad
- 02-08-24
A good simplification of the renaissance
This book reads like a introduction course into the Renaissance. Every chapter gives you a good overview of the specific person without getting into too much detail. If you’re looking for something to just get an idea of what these people are accomplished, then I cannot recommend this book more however if you are Trying to really dive deep into the subject, this will not surface.
I will say that this book is very easily understood and does a very good job of getting the points across without overwhelming you.
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- Jesse
- 03-17-22
Good storytelling, not profound analysis
The story of Renaissance Florence competently and memorably told. But Strathern is not a profound historian of ideas or art.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Scout
- 02-06-24
The book’s content is excellent.
Roger Clark’s pompous pseudo-British delivery, frequent mispronunciations, and odd emphasis on prepositions distracted from the experience of listening to this book. I wish I had read the actual text rather than listen to the Audiobook. I won’t listen to another book performed by Roger Clark, but I’ll enthusiastically read other titles by Paul Strathern.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-04-23
An epic overview of Florence’s Finest personas
I am a personal fan of Strathern’s distinct authorial voice. His occasional offhand remarks bring “soul” into the work in the tradition of Herodotus. Only his brief rundown of Saint Augustine in his “90 minutes” series has ever tipped over into unabashed mockery and obscured the facts.
This book is, as all good popular history books are is very engaging! This book was more than suitable for my purposes and I appreciated the way Strathern wove these series of biographies into a cohesive narrative.
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- Pasternak
- 01-21-22
Well written. Solid performance. Left me wanting more.
The history of arts and sciences left me wanting more. The history of politics and finance not quite so much. Subsequently, my interest in this book ebbed and flowed a bit. Overall, the reading is a worthy experience. Roger Clark’s performance is rock solid.
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- Charles Procknow
- 02-28-23
Very well organized overview of the key people of the renaissance.
Excellent overview and also most entertaining. The narrator was excellent and the book was easy to listen to. I liked the manner in which it focused on some of the key persons of this era.
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