
The Greek Revolution
1821 and the Making of Modern Europe
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Narrated by:
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John Lee
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Mark Mazower
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By:
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Mark Mazower
About this listen
Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize • One of The Economist's top history books of the year
From one of our leading historians, an important new history of the Greek War of Independence—the ultimate worldwide liberal cause célèbre of the age of Byron, Europe’s first nationalist uprising, and the beginning of the downward spiral of the Ottoman Empire—published two hundred years after its outbreak
As Mark Mazower shows us in his enthralling and definitive new account, myths about the Greek War of Independence outpaced the facts from the very beginning, and for good reason. This was an unlikely cause, against long odds, a disorganized collection of Greek patriots up against what was still one of the most storied empires in the world, the Ottomans. The revolutionaries needed all the help they could get. And they got it as Europeans and Americans embraced the idea that the heirs to ancient Greece, the wellspring of Western civilization, were fighting for their freedom against the proverbial Eastern despot, the Turkish sultan. This was Christianity versus Islam, now given urgency by new ideas about the nation-state and democracy that were shaking up the old order. Lord Byron is only the most famous of the combatants who went to Greece to fight and die—along with many more who followed events passionately and supported the cause through art, music, and humanitarian aid. To many who did go, it was a rude awakening to find that the Greeks were a far cry from their illustrious forebears, and were often hard to tell apart from the Ottomans.
Mazower does full justice to the realities on the ground as a revolutionary conspiracy triggered outright rebellion, and a fraying and distracted Ottoman leadership first missed the plot and then overreacted disastrously. He shows how and why ethnic cleansing commenced almost immediately on both sides. By the time the dust settled, Greece was free, and Europe was changed forever. It was a victory for a completely new kind of politics—international in its range and affiliations, popular in its origins, romantic in sentiment, and radical in its goals. It was here on the very edge of Europe that the first successful revolution took place in which a people claimed liberty for themselves and overthrew an entire empire to attain it, transforming diplomatic norms and the direction of European politics forever, and inaugurating a new world of nation-states, the world in which we still live.
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Critic reviews
"[A] pulsating narrative . . . rich with social history and the luminaries of the age . . . The Greek Revolution causes us to think more deeply about the role of the nation-state in a global context. . . . It is hard to imagine it being surpassed any time soon as the definitive English-language account of the Greek Revolution.”—New York Times Book Review
“[A] superb new history of the rebellion and its broader implications. . . . A compelling story—full of conflicting characters, rivalries, massacres, betrayals, enslavements—all of which [Mazower] narrates with earned authority and exceptional power. . . . He achieves more clarity on this tangled subject than other historians in English have managed before.”—Wall Street Journal
“[A] rich, illuminating, and imposing history of [a] paradigm-shifting conflict . . . . An expert storyteller, Mazower unravels a Gordian knot of local, regional, and international factionalisms.”—Claire Messud, Harper's
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Tecumseh and the Prophet
- The Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation
- By: Peter Cozzens
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The first biography of the great Shawnee leader in more than 20 years, and the first to make clear that his misunderstood younger brother, Tenskwatawa, was an equal partner in the last great pan-Indian alliance against the United States. Tecumseh and the Prophet presents the untold story of the Shawnee brothers - the two most significant siblings in Native American history, who, Cozzens helps us understand, should be writ large in the annals of America.
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Excellent. Good companion to other Tecumseh bios
- By Chris on 11-05-20
By: Peter Cozzens
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Klan War
- Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction
- By: Fergus M. Bordewich
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ku Klux Klan, which celebrated historian Fergus Bordewich defines as “the first organized terrorist movement in American history,” rose from the ashes of the Civil War. At its peak in the early 1870s, the Klan boasted many tens of thousands of members, no small number of them landowners, lawmen, doctors, journalists, and churchmen, as well as future governors and congressmen. And their mission was to obliterate the muscular democratic power of newly emancipated Black Americans and their white allies, often by the most horrifying means imaginable.
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a great but depressing book
- By D. Littman on 12-12-23
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Budapest
- Portrait of a City Between East and West
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Elinor Coleman
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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From the critically acclaimed historian Victor Sebestyen, the enthralling account of historical and cultural events that defined Budapest, a unique city on the fault line between East and West in the heart of Europe.
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Absolutely Amazing 🤩
- By Elizabeth Hoadley on 04-28-24
By: Victor Sebestyen
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The Wages of Destruction
- The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
- By: Adam Tooze
- Narrated by: Adam Tooze, Simon Vance
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period.
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Book is good but contains bias
- By Heinz-Jürgen MacSwain on 01-29-24
By: Adam Tooze
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1774
- The Long Year of Revolution
- By: Mary Beth Norton
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of our most acclaimed and original colonial historians, a groundbreaking book - the first to look at the critical "long year" of 1774 and the revolutionary change that took place from December 1773 to mid-April 1775, from the Boston Tea Party and the First Continental Congress to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
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The US revolutionary war was baked in by 1775
- By Randall Parker on 04-18-20
By: Mary Beth Norton
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The Eagle and the Hart
- The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV
- By: Helen Castor
- Narrated by: Helen Castor
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard of Bordeaux and Henry of Bolingbroke, cousins born just three months apart, were ten years old when Richard became king of England. They were thirty-two when Henry deposed him and became king in his place. Now, the story behind one of the strangest and most fateful events in English history (and the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s most celebrated history plays) is brought to vivid life by the acclaimed author of Blood and Roses, Helen Castor.
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A thrilling read
- By Rich C on 11-30-24
By: Helen Castor
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Papyrus
- The Invention of Books in the Ancient World
- By: Irene Vallejo, Charlotte Whittle - translator
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before books were mass-produced, hand-copied scrolls made from Nile River reeds were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and pharaohs, determined to possess them, dispatched emissaries to the edges of the known world to bring them back. Exploring the deep and fascinating history of the written word, from the oral tradition to scrolls to codices, internationally bestselling author Irene Vallejo shows that books have always been a precious and precarious vehicle for civilization.
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Great read
- By Hunter Pechin on 12-15-22
By: Irene Vallejo, and others
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The Square and the Tower
- Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Elliot Hill
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Most history is hierarchical: it's about emperors, presidents, prime ministers, and field marshals. It's about states, armies, and corporations. It's about orders from on high. Even history "from below" is often about trade unions and workers' parties. But what if that's simply because hierarchical institutions create the archives that historians rely on? What if we are missing the informal, less well documented social networks that are the true sources of power and drivers of change?
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Not his best by a long chalk: Read Steven Pinker.
- By David on 02-05-18
By: Niall Ferguson
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The Wizard and the Prophet
- Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In 40 years, Earth's population will reach 10 billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups - Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin.
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Fantastic
- By BKATX on 01-26-18
By: Charles C. Mann
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The Battle of Arnhem
- The Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II
- By: Antony Beevor
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 17, 1944, General Kurt Student, the founder of Nazi Germany's parachute forces, heard the groaning roar of airplane engines. He went out onto his balcony above the flat landscape of southern Holland to watch the air armada of Dakotas and gliders, carrying the legendary American 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and the British 1st Airborne Division. Operation Market Garden, the plan to end the war by capturing the bridges leading to the Lower Rhine and beyond, was a bold concept, but could it have ever worked? The cost of failure was horrendous, above all for the Dutch.
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Fighting a lost war
- By Alec Drumm on 11-03-18
By: Antony Beevor
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The Deep History of Ourselves
- The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains
- By: Joseph LeDoux
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux digs into the natural history of life on earth to provide a new perspective on the similarities between us and our ancestors in deep time. This pause-resisting survey of the whole of terrestrial evolution sheds new light on how nervous systems evolved in animals, how the brain developed, and what it means to be human. In The Deep History of Ourselves, LeDoux argues that the key to understanding human behavior lies in viewing evolution through the prism of the first living organisms.
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Oversold
- By Michael on 03-04-20
By: Joseph LeDoux
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The Mercenary
- A Story of Brotherhood and Terror in the Afghanistan War
- By: Jeffrey E. Stern
- Narrated by: Ray Corasani
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had ambitions of his own: to get rich off the sudden infusion of foreign attention and cash. In this gripping adventure story, Stern writes of how he and Aimal navigated an environment full of guns and danger and opportunity, and how they forged a deep bond. Then Stern got a call that changed everything.
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Important and thrilling read
- By Justin on 07-15-23
By: Jeffrey E. Stern
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Lenin
- The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.
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Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
- By John Gathly on 05-14-19
By: Victor Sebestyen
A Forgotten Revolution
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This said, the narrator's performance is horrible. Granted, his life was not made easy by the author, who has peppered his (English) text with countless Greek words and names, presumably transcribed into the Latin alphabet (which complicates things even more) but, honestly, I can't imagine anyone doing a worse job of it! Shouldn't John Lee have at least made an effort to understand some basic rules of Greek spelling, before attempting to read Greek words or names? For instance, was there nobody around to tell him that the word "etaireia" (Society) in the name of the "Filiki Etaireia" (Friendly Society, the secret society that organised the Greek Uprising) is to be read, according to the (admittedly tricky) Greek spelling rules as "eteria" rather than reading all vowels individually and coming up with a ridiculous result? There are countless examples of such misreadings. And don't get me started on stress! It's almost comical, you could bet that whenever a Greek word came up, the narrator would stress the wrong syllable! There can't be more than a handful of Greek words or names in the book that he's managed to stress properly. Add to that an annoying habit of mumbling at the end of a sentence, which means that you don't even understand English words. It was such a relief when the author came back on, to read the epilogue. He should have done the whole book!
Excellent, had it not been for the narrator
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The Geek Revolution
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You butchered the Greek Pronunciation on many names.
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From empires to nations
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The author did a phenomenal job of research and the book is full of detail about finances, politics and human experiences.
Gave the story 4 stars because all these details were strewn together in a manner that did not seem to easily flow. Part of that, to be fair, maybe have been the dry narration whom I found likening to my most full of professors and at 23 hours - it got to be a slog.
In short, you’ll learn a lot if you can make the trudge.
Lots of detail - lacking the hook.
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Decent but dry and sometimes hard to listen to…
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