
The Invention of Prehistory
Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Elizabeth Wiley
About this listen
Books about the origins of humanity dominate bestseller lists, while national newspapers present breathless accounts of new archaeological findings and speculate about what those findings tell us about our earliest ancestors. We are obsessed with prehistory—and, in this respect, our current era is no different from any other in the last three hundred years. In this coruscating work, acclaimed historian Stefanos Geroulanos demonstrates how claims about the earliest humans not only shaped Western intellectual culture, but gave rise to our modern world.
The very idea that there was a human past before recorded history only emerged with the Enlightenment, when European thinkers began to reject faith-based notions of humanity and history in favor of supposedly more empirical ideas about the world. From the "state of nature" and Romantic notions of virtuous German barbarians to theories about Neanderthals, killer apes, and a matriarchal paradise where women ruled, Geroulanos captures the sheer variety and strangeness of the ideas that animated many of the major thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Darwin, and Karl Marx. Yet as Geroulanos shows, such ideas became, for the most part, the ideological foundations of repressive regimes and globe-spanning empires.
©2024 Stefanos Geroulanos (P)2024 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- By: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
-
-
Look past the one-star reviews: this is an enlightening and engaging read.
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-07-22
By: Eric H. Cline
-
The Bluestockings
- A History of the First Women's Movement
- By: Susannah Gibson
- Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.
-
-
fascinating book almost ruined by the reader
- By braingirl on 08-13-24
By: Susannah Gibson
-
Homo Sapiens Rediscovered
- The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins
- By: Paul Pettitt
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens, and how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? In this accessible account palaeoarchaeologist Paul Pettitt shows how the latest scientific advances, especially in genetics, are revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, leading to remarkable innovations in art, technology, and society that we are only now beginning to comprehend.
-
-
Current and Relevant
- By Amazon Customer on 11-16-23
By: Paul Pettitt
-
World Prehistory
- The Basics
- By: Brian M. Fagan, Nadia Durrani
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is world prehistory important in the modern world? What does it tell us about ourselves? Providing a simple, but entertaining and stimulating, account of the prehistoric past from human origins to today from a global perspective, World Prehistory: The Basics is the ideal guide to the story of our early human past and its relevance to the modern world.
By: Brian M. Fagan, and others
-
Impossible Monsters
- Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion
- By: Michael Taylor
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind's place in the world.
-
-
Repetitive and not that interesting
- By Michael on 09-09-24
By: Michael Taylor
-
The Invention of Good and Evil
- A World History of Morality
- By: Hanno Sauer
- Narrated by: Callum Coates
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us moral beings? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? And has it always been that way? Hanno Sauer's sweeping new history of humanity, covering five million years of our universal moral values, comes at a crucial moment of crisis for those values, and helps to explain how they arose—and why we need them. Modern societies are in crisis: a shared universal morality seems to be a thing of the past. Hanno Sauer explains why this appearance is deceptive: in fact, there are universal values that all people share.
-
-
Was good until author got political
- By c0stab on 03-01-25
By: Hanno Sauer
-
1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- By: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
-
-
Look past the one-star reviews: this is an enlightening and engaging read.
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-07-22
By: Eric H. Cline
-
The Bluestockings
- A History of the First Women's Movement
- By: Susannah Gibson
- Narrated by: Fenella Fudge
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In England in the 1700s, a woman who was an intellectual, spoke out, or wrote professionally was considered unnatural. After all, as the wisdom of the era dictated, a clever woman—if there were such a thing—would never make a good wife. But a circle of women called the Bluestockings did something extraordinary: Coming together in glittering salons to discuss and debate as intellectual equals with men, they fought for women to be educated and to have a public role in society. In this intimate and revelatory history, Susannah Gibson delves into the lives of these pioneering women.
-
-
fascinating book almost ruined by the reader
- By braingirl on 08-13-24
By: Susannah Gibson
-
Homo Sapiens Rediscovered
- The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins
- By: Paul Pettitt
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens, and how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? In this accessible account palaeoarchaeologist Paul Pettitt shows how the latest scientific advances, especially in genetics, are revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution. Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, leading to remarkable innovations in art, technology, and society that we are only now beginning to comprehend.
-
-
Current and Relevant
- By Amazon Customer on 11-16-23
By: Paul Pettitt
-
World Prehistory
- The Basics
- By: Brian M. Fagan, Nadia Durrani
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why is world prehistory important in the modern world? What does it tell us about ourselves? Providing a simple, but entertaining and stimulating, account of the prehistoric past from human origins to today from a global perspective, World Prehistory: The Basics is the ideal guide to the story of our early human past and its relevance to the modern world.
By: Brian M. Fagan, and others
-
Impossible Monsters
- Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion
- By: Michael Taylor
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind's place in the world.
-
-
Repetitive and not that interesting
- By Michael on 09-09-24
By: Michael Taylor
-
The Invention of Good and Evil
- A World History of Morality
- By: Hanno Sauer
- Narrated by: Callum Coates
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes us moral beings? How do we decide what is good and what is evil? And has it always been that way? Hanno Sauer's sweeping new history of humanity, covering five million years of our universal moral values, comes at a crucial moment of crisis for those values, and helps to explain how they arose—and why we need them. Modern societies are in crisis: a shared universal morality seems to be a thing of the past. Hanno Sauer explains why this appearance is deceptive: in fact, there are universal values that all people share.
-
-
Was good until author got political
- By c0stab on 03-01-25
By: Hanno Sauer
-
All Things Are Full of Gods
- The Mysteries of Mind and Life
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, "Do you see this flower, my love?"
-
-
It's all in the mind
- By Owen Kelly on 08-30-24
-
Ancient Christianities
- The First Five Hundred Years
- By: Paula Fredriksen
- Narrated by: Rachel Perry
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.
-
-
Among the best
- By Jacob Kilgore on 04-17-25
By: Paula Fredriksen
-
Europe Between the Oceans
- 9000 BC-AD 1000
- By: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly favored in facing many seas. These seas, and Europe's great transpeninsular rivers, ensured a rich diversity of natural resources while also encouraging the dynamic interaction of peoples across networks of communication and exchange.
-
-
Pathways of immigration
- By Brooks Smith on 12-21-24
By: Barry Cunliffe
-
Embers of the Hands
- Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
- By: Eleanor Barraclough
- Narrated by: Eleanor Barraclough
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society.
-
-
Author is an excellent reader!
- By K on 02-11-25
-
Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
-
Illiberal America
- A History
- By: Steven Hahn
- Narrated by: Mitch Crawford
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That's not us,' think again: in Illiberal America, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian uncovers a powerful illiberalism as deep seated in the American past as the founding ideals.
-
-
Excellent and important Am history
- By CommentDante on 04-28-24
By: Steven Hahn
-
Tits Up
- What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us About Breasts
- By: Sarah Thornton
- Narrated by: Sarah Thornton
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Riotous and galvanizing, Tits Up excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to the operating room, from the nation’s oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton draws insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models, and “free the nipple” activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women’s chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender, and desire.
-
-
diverse perspectives
- By Will on 05-18-24
By: Sarah Thornton
-
All Things Are Too Small
- Essays in Praise of Excess
- By: Becca Rothfeld
- Narrated by: Ruth Crawford
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All Things Are Too Small is brilliant cultural and literary critic Becca Rothfeld’s plea for derangement: imbalance, obsession, gluttony, and ravishment in all domains of life, from literature to romance. In a healthy culture, Rothfeld argues, economic security allows for wild aesthetic experimentation and excess, yet in our contemporary world, we’ve got it flipped. The gap between rich and poor yawns hideously wide, while we compensate with misguided attempts to effect equality in love and art, where it does not belong.
-
-
Smart and clever
- By David on 12-04-24
By: Becca Rothfeld
-
Democracy and Solidarity
- On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis
- By: James Davison Hunter
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality that, tragically, has seldom been realized in practice. While these contradictions have caused dissent and even violence, there was always an underlying and evolving solidarity drawn from the cultural resources of America’s “hybrid Enlightenment”. James Davison Hunter, who introduced the concept of “culture wars” 30 years ago, tells us in this new book that those historic sources of national solidarity have now largely dissolved.
-
-
A History of How We Became Polarized
- By Frank on 05-09-24
-
Bugsy Siegel
- The Dark Side of the American Dream (Jewish Lives Series)
- By: Michael Shnayerson
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (1906-1947) rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-20th-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Michael Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel but rather to understand him in all his complexity.
-
-
Strange Memorial
- By Gordon A. Raley on 09-16-21
-
Populus
- Living and Dying in Ancient Rome
- By: Guy de la Bédoyère
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frenzied crowds, talking ravens, the stench of the Tiber River: life in ancient Rome was stimulating, dynamic, and often downright dangerous. The Romans relaxed and gossiped in baths, stole precious water from aqueducts, and partied and dined to excess. From the smells of fragrant cookshops and religious sacrifices to the cries of public executions and murderous electoral mobs, Guy de la Bedoyere's Populus draws on a host of historical and literary sources to transport us into the intensity of daily life at the height of ancient Rome.
-
-
Narration is excellent!
- By Richard Curry on 08-10-24
-
Seeing Like a State
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.
-
-
Beats a dead horse and then beats it again
- By Nathan Parker on 10-29-20
By: James C. Scott
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Collapse of Complex Societies
- New Studies in Archaeology
- By: Joseph A. Tainter
- Narrated by: Brian Arens
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future.
-
-
Overly academic
- By Nancy LaPlaca on 04-06-25
-
Neanderthal Man
- In Search of Lost Genomes
- By: Svante Pääbo
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.
-
-
Excellent science tale
- By Neuron on 01-19-15
By: Svante Pääbo
-
An Emancipation of the Mind
- Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How a band of antislavery leaders recovered the radical philosophical inspirations of the first American Revolution to defeat the slaveholders' oligarchy in the Civil War.
-
-
“The arc of the moral universe is long…”
- By Susan on 03-07-25
By: Matthew Stewart
-
Europe Between the Oceans
- 9000 BC-AD 1000
- By: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly favored in facing many seas. These seas, and Europe's great transpeninsular rivers, ensured a rich diversity of natural resources while also encouraging the dynamic interaction of peoples across networks of communication and exchange.
-
-
Pathways of immigration
- By Brooks Smith on 12-21-24
By: Barry Cunliffe
-
Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
-
-
World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
-
The First Ghosts
- Most Ancient of Legacies
- By: Irving Finkel
- Narrated by: Irving Finkel
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are few things more in common across cultures than the belief in ghosts. Ghosts inhabit something of the very essence of what it is to be human. Whether we personally 'believe' or not, we are all aware of ghosts and the rich mythologies and rituals surrounding them. They have inspired, fascinated and frightened us for centuries - yet most of us are only familiar with the vengeful apparitions of Shakespeare, or the ghastly spectres haunting the pages of 19th-century Gothic literature. But their origins are much, much older.
-
-
Ghosts Were Causing My Tinnitus!
- By James D on 01-08-22
By: Irving Finkel
-
The Collapse of Complex Societies
- New Studies in Archaeology
- By: Joseph A. Tainter
- Narrated by: Brian Arens
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future.
-
-
Overly academic
- By Nancy LaPlaca on 04-06-25
-
Neanderthal Man
- In Search of Lost Genomes
- By: Svante Pääbo
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A preeminent geneticist hunts the Neanderthal genome to answer the biggest question of them all: what does it mean to be human? What can we learn from the genes of our closest evolutionary relatives? Neanderthal Man tells the story of geneticist Svante Pbo’s mission to answer that question, beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in his sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2009.
-
-
Excellent science tale
- By Neuron on 01-19-15
By: Svante Pääbo
-
An Emancipation of the Mind
- Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How a band of antislavery leaders recovered the radical philosophical inspirations of the first American Revolution to defeat the slaveholders' oligarchy in the Civil War.
-
-
“The arc of the moral universe is long…”
- By Susan on 03-07-25
By: Matthew Stewart
-
Europe Between the Oceans
- 9000 BC-AD 1000
- By: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly favored in facing many seas. These seas, and Europe's great transpeninsular rivers, ensured a rich diversity of natural resources while also encouraging the dynamic interaction of peoples across networks of communication and exchange.
-
-
Pathways of immigration
- By Brooks Smith on 12-21-24
By: Barry Cunliffe
-
Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
-
-
World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
-
The First Ghosts
- Most Ancient of Legacies
- By: Irving Finkel
- Narrated by: Irving Finkel
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are few things more in common across cultures than the belief in ghosts. Ghosts inhabit something of the very essence of what it is to be human. Whether we personally 'believe' or not, we are all aware of ghosts and the rich mythologies and rituals surrounding them. They have inspired, fascinated and frightened us for centuries - yet most of us are only familiar with the vengeful apparitions of Shakespeare, or the ghastly spectres haunting the pages of 19th-century Gothic literature. But their origins are much, much older.
-
-
Ghosts Were Causing My Tinnitus!
- By James D on 01-08-22
By: Irving Finkel
-
The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character
- Phoenix Books
- By: Samuel Noah Kramer
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums BC. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them.
-
The Little Ice Age
- How Climate Made History 1300-1850
- By: Brian Fagan
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today’s global warming.
-
-
Good but…
- By lucastoli on 07-14-22
By: Brian Fagan
-
God's Ghostwriters
- Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible
- By: Candida Moss
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the past two thousand years, Christian tradition, scholarship, and pop culture have credited the authorship of the New Testament to a select group of men: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. But hidden behind these named and sainted individuals are a cluster of enslaved coauthors and collaborators.
-
-
I just selected the wrong book
- By N. Thompson on 02-02-25
By: Candida Moss
-
Weavers, Scribes, and Kings
- A New History of the Ancient Near East
- By: Amanda H. Podany
- Narrated by: Amanda H. Podany
- Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this sweeping history of the ancient Near East, Amanda Podany takes listeners on a gripping journey from the creation of the world's first cities to the conquests of Alexander the Great. The book is built around the life stories of many ancient men and women, from kings, priestesses, and merchants to brickmakers, musicians, and weavers. Their habits of daily life, beliefs, triumphs, and crises, and the changes that people faced over time are explored through their own written words and the buildings, cities, and empires in which they lived.
-
-
word of advice
- By Jim Davis on 08-04-23
By: Amanda H. Podany
-
God's Shadow
- Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Alan Mikhail
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520).
-
-
Entertaining narrative, but poor scholarship
- By Yosemite on 09-15-20
By: Alan Mikhail
-
Medieval Horizons
- Why the Middle Ages Matter
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: Ian Mortimer
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We tend to think of the Middle Ages as a dark, backward, and unchanging time characterized by violence, ignorance, and superstition. By contrast, we believe progress arose from science and technological innovation, and that inventions of recent centuries created the modern world. We couldn't be more wrong.
-
-
Altered my perception of History
- By IowaGreyhound on 06-25-24
By: Ian Mortimer
-
Fall of Civilizations
- Stories of Greatness and Decline
- By: Paul Cooper
- Narrated by: Paul Cooper
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Across the centuries, we journey from the great empires of Mesopotamia to those of Khmer and Vijayanagara in Asia and Songhai in West Africa; from Byzantium to the Maya, Inca and Aztecs of Central America; from Roman Britain to Rapa Nui. With meticulous research, breathtaking insight and dazzling, empathic storytelling, historian and novelist Paul Cooper evokes the majesty and jeopardy of these ancient civilizations, and asks what it might have felt like for a person alive at the time to witness the end of their world.
-
-
Great audiobook
- By EquineBallet on 08-03-24
By: Paul Cooper
-
Illiberal America
- A History
- By: Steven Hahn
- Narrated by: Mitch Crawford
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If your reaction to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was to think, 'That's not us,' think again: in Illiberal America, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian uncovers a powerful illiberalism as deep seated in the American past as the founding ideals.
-
-
Excellent and important Am history
- By CommentDante on 04-28-24
By: Steven Hahn
-
The Invention of Nature
- Alexander von Humboldt's New World
- By: Andrea Wulf
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infested Siberia. He came up with a radical vision of nature, that it was a complex and interconnected global force and did not exist for man's use alone. Ironically, his ideas have become so accepted and widespread that he has been nearly forgotten.
-
-
Poignant origin story
- By Jeremy Fairbanks on 03-03-16
By: Andrea Wulf
-
1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- By: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
-
-
Look past the one-star reviews: this is an enlightening and engaging read.
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-07-22
By: Eric H. Cline
-
Native Nations
- A Millennium in North America
- By: Kathleen DuVal
- Narrated by: Carolina Hoyos
- Length: 21 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A magisterial history of Indigenous North America that places the power of Native nations at its center, telling their story from the rise of ancient cities more than a thousand years ago to fights for sovereignty that continue today. Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.
-
-
An outstanding survey with many surprises
- By L Dickson on 06-05-24
By: Kathleen DuVal
-
The Dawn of Everything
- A New History of Humanity
- By: David Graeber, David Wengrow
- Narrated by: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state", political violence, and social inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
-
-
exactly what I've been looking for
- By DankTurtle on 11-10-21
By: David Graeber, and others
Since the scholars and advocates of these theories hold them dear, I see Geroulanos’s work as an act of courage. He must have experienced significant push back and perhaps ostracism for delving into this unquestioned quagmire. But I say bravo - I thoroughly enjoyed and grew from reading this great work of scholarship.
A brave, insightful work
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The book makes many excellent points, and should be ready by paleoanthropologists and archaeologists alike. At times the critique becomes facile and/or tenuous. And at times the author surely overstates the influence of human origins stories. But these shortcomings don't overshadow the importance of the overall critique.
The author's writing has what feels like a very sanctimonious tone to it, which is unfortunately made much worse by the audio narration.
An important critique
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very poor narration
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Too much judgement
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.