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The Rise of Western Christendom (10th Anniversary Revised Edition)
- Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 26 hrs and 48 mins
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Publisher's summary
This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity's first thousand years of history features a new preface and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown's vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power.
- Clear and vivid history of Christianity's rise and its pivotal role in the making of Europe
- Written by the celebrated Princeton scholar who originated of the field of study known as "late antiquity"
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Hidden Gem
- By TrauntsiePants on 05-22-18
By: Neville Goddard
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The Seven Secrets to Healthy, Happy Relationships
- By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr., HeatherAsh Amara
- Narrated by: Charlie Varon
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this one-of-a-kind book, best-selling authors Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. and HeatherAsh Amara share their seven secrets to healthy, happy relationships: Commitment, Freedom, Awareness, Healing, Joy, Communication, and Release. Understanding and enacting these principles can help you at any stage in your intimate partnering, whether you've been with someone for many years or are currently single and want to prepare for a relationship.
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You can expect to feel Liberation and Self-Emancipation
- By DJNN on 01-29-20
By: Don Miguel Ruiz Jr., and others
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The Book of Enoch
- By: Unknown
- Narrated by: Christopher Glyn
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The book of Enoch was thought to be lost for over 2,000 years until, in 1773, a traveller brought three copies back from Ethiopia. Whether or not this ancient book was actually authored by Enoch, the father of Methuselah and great-grandfather of Noah, is an ongoing debate among historians and theologians. But all recognise the book of Enoch as one of the most important apocalyptic works outside of the Bible.
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Further Information
- By Timothy on 01-11-20
By: Unknown
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Change Your Mind
- Deprogram Your Subconscious Mind, Rewire the Brain, and Balance Your Energy
- By: RJ Spina
- Narrated by: RJ Spina
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Change Your Mind uses revolutionary teachings to help rewire your subconscious mind and bring balance to your energy. Through a fourteen-day journaling exercise, you’ll uncover the mental programming already affecting you, and then apply specialized activities to counteract it. RJ guides you every step of the way, providing meditations, mindfulness practices, and more. He demonstrates how to not only meet the real you, but also maintain and express it through numerous activities you can easily integrate into your daily life.
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OMG! What a shock!
- By Suzie Schuder on 08-24-23
By: RJ Spina
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The Qur'an
- A New Translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem
- By: M. A. S. Abdel Haleem - translator
- Narrated by: Ayman Haleem
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be the word of God, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago. It is the supreme authority in Islam and the living source of all Islamic teaching; it is a sacred text and a book of guidance that sets out the creed, rituals, ethics, and laws of the Islamic religion. It has been one of the most influential books in the history of literature. Recognized as the greatest literary masterpiece in Arabic, it has nevertheless remained difficult to understand in its English translations.
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Missing chapter 44
- By Anonymous User on 05-29-19
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Happy Days
- By: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Narrated by: Gabrielle Bernstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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What if you could wake up every day without anxiety? View your past with purpose, not regret? Live happy, peaceful, and free from fear? You can - and Gabrielle Bernstein will show you the way. Gabby has long been loved by her listeners as a spiritual teacher, motivational speaker, and catalyst for profound inner change. Her new book presents her most powerful teaching yet: a plan for transforming the pain of your past, whatever that may be, into newfound strength and freedom.
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Healing is privileged
- By Tina Clayton on 02-26-22
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Not a comprehensible history
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This book is a narrative history of a dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome's millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260. It was a period of almost unremitting disaster for Rome, involving a series of civil wars, several major invasions by Goths and Persians, economic crisis, and an empire-wide pandemic, the 'plague of Cyprian'.
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When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.
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I really wanted to enjoy this -
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At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians - from the zealous Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.
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Worthy book, stingy production.
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Theoderic the Great
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In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454-526). This engaging history of his life and reign immerses listeners in the world of the warrior-king who ushered in decades of peace and stability in Italy as king of Goths and Romans.
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Empires and Barbarians presents a fresh, provocative look at how a recognizable Europe came into being in the first millennium AD. With sharp analytic insight, Peter Heather explores the dynamics of migration and social and economic interaction that changed two vastly different worlds--the undeveloped barbarian world and the sophisticated Roman Empire--into remarkably similar societies and states.
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The Perils of Pronunciation
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Medieval Christianity
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For many, the medieval world seems dark and foreign - a miraculous, brutal, and irrational time of superstition and strange relics. The pursuit of heretics, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the domination of the "Holy Land" come to mind.
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New Standard Text for This Period
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The Histories
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The rise of Rome is one of the great stories of world history and fortunately we have a reliable and at times an eyewitness account, from the Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis. Polybius reports on the main confrontations with the authority of a man who was present at many events and also visited historic sites of importance to ensure his accounts of the past were accurate.
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Very “listenable”!
- By I can’t say on 07-21-22
By: Polybius, and others
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Reformation Divided
- Catholics, Protestants and the Conversion of England
- By: Eamon Duffy
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Published to mark the 500th anniversary of the events of 1517, Reformation Divided explores the impact in England of the cataclysmic transformations of European Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries.
By: Eamon Duffy
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In Search of the Dark Ages
- By: Michael Wood
- Narrated by: Marston York
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In Search of the Dark Ages is an unrivalled exploration of the origins of English identity, and the best-selling book that established Michael Wood as one of Britain's leading historians. Now, on the book's 40th anniversary, this fully revised and expanded edition illuminates further the fascinating and mysterious centuries between the Romans and the Norman Conquest.
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Brilliant!
- By Dee Goulet on 08-31-22
By: Michael Wood
What listeners say about The Rise of Western Christendom (10th Anniversary Revised Edition)
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- Anonymous User
- 09-23-24
A well-written and researched exploration of the multivalent forms Christendom took in its rise to prominence in Europe.
The narration was adequate, although proper names and some Latin phrases are pronounced in a idiosyncratic manner.
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- ABC
- 06-15-23
Mind-expanding book
This breath-taking book demolishes much educated ignorance about ancient and medieval history and the spread of Christianity, and I would hope that it has become a standard work in the field. The narrator reads fluently and well, but, oh, some of his mispronunciations. Aachen. Vosges. Braudel. Ancien régime. Luxeuil. Chef d'oeuvre. Thessaloniki. What he does this with these will shock you.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-02-24
Amazing—my second read through
First, I’ve never felt comfortable regarding this period in our history. Never found an overarching sense of the period until now. Lots of reasons, but one stands out—including the Eastern Empire, giving context to the Europeans as only part of a larger story. Brown is a master For myself, I’m always been intrigued in how we think and believe-and the roots of how we got here. Brown’ssense of the ongoing story of change, belief, and how we thought…rings true,almost like we are now the ripple in the rocks thrown by these early Christians. Not one rock, but a continuous throwing resulting in the very choppy waters we live in today. As a serious Catholic youth including schooling, Brown’s sense of what is a Christian(plural) rings true. Today, I have a great sense of spirituality but the religious side of me was left on the side of the road decades ago. Personally, I wonder how great our culture would be without Christendom. This book somehow adds thoughts to that question. Someone shared with me a cartoon showing a bountiful future until the prime character said, no that’s not the future, that is what our world would be without Christianity. My thoughts, not Doctor Brown’s, a wonderful book-thank you with great gratitude.
Philip Belangie
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- ReviewAmazon384
- 12-08-23
Must read for Western & Church history
The Book and its Author: This third edition of Peter Brown's introduction to the "Dark Ages" is much more scholarly than the previous editions. Peter Brown himself is, perhaps, the leading historian of the late Antique West. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Church history or European history.
Scope of Book: This book really covers the first 1000 years of European history (or if you prefer, of Church history in Europe) with lengthy and surprisingly detailed excursions into the Christian cultures of the Byzantine empire and of the lands that would be conquered by the Arabs. The range of the book within European history is astonishing. It doesn't just focus, as one might expect, on Italy, France, Ireland, and England, but gives attention also to central Europe and Scandinavia.
What's Unique About this Book: While you'll find several histories of the Dark Ages on Audible, this one is unique for its novel (even shocking) interpretation of those events and scholarly (as opposed to popular) approach.
Contrary to the usual narrative coming from Edward Gibbon, Peter Brown argues that there was no fall of Rome due to barbarian invasions. The "barbarians" were hardly different culturally from the frontier Romans and much of what is taken to be "barbarian" culture is really Roman military culture applied to the general population through the mediation of Germanic peoples who had taken on Roman military culture; the "invasions" were not invasions, but minor disturbances mostly coordinated by one Roman faction against another; and the net result of the "barbarian invasions" was next to nil. In place of Gibbons "fall of Rome," Brown offers a great decentralization of Romaness due to the breakdown of the Roman tax collection system during the long civil wars; the centralized Romaness was followed by a period of local Romaness, which gradually and mostly voluntarily transformed into idiosyncratic local cultures.
Contrary to the Catholic historiography of Christopher Dawson, he argues that papal Rome did not function as a centralizing governing force in preserving the political-religious unity of Europe after the fall of Rome. Rather, Italy functioned as a sort of cultural epicenter from which, in a decentralized way, common cultural and religious customs were preserved through traveling holy men and cultural exchange across Europe—much as the Aztecs provided a cultural epicenter for distant American tribes not politically under their control.
Performance: The narrator, Tom Parks, does a great job reading this book. The quality of this audiobook performance is vastly better than that of Peter Brown's study of patristic perspectives of wealth, Through the Eye of a Needle, which is unfortunately and dramatically marred by an astoundingly bad narrator.
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- A Reader
- 08-28-24
Magnificent book
Like a deftly written, story-driven, reader-friendly encyclopedia. Full of fascinating stories illustrating deep insights. Brown’s knowledge is immense. The narrator has a nice voice and pacing but his ludicrous mispronunciation of some simple place names, such as Aachen, make you doubt him with regard to every other name, which is distracting.
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