The Story of Yoga Audiobook By Alistair Shearer cover art

The Story of Yoga

From Ancient India to the Modern West

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Story of Yoga

By: Alistair Shearer
Narrated by: Bruce Mann
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.49

Buy for $21.49

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

How did an ancient Indian spiritual discipline turn into a more than 20-billion-dollar-a-year mainstay of the global wellness industry? What happened along yoga's winding path from the caves and forests of the sages to the gyms, hospitals, and village halls of the modern West?

This comprehensive history sets yoga in its global cultural context for the first time. It leads us on a fascinating journey across the world, from arcane religious rituals and medieval body-magic, through muscular Christianity and the British Raj, to the Indian nationalist movement and the arrival of yoga in the 20th-century West. We discover how the practice reached its present-day ubiquity and how it became embedded in powerful social currents shaping the world's future, such as feminism, digital media, celebrity culture, the stress pandemic, and the quest for an authentic identity in the face of unprecedented change.

Shearer's revealing history boasts a colorful cast of characters past and present, who tell an engaging tale of scholars and scandal, science and spirit, wisdom and waywardness. This is the untold story of yoga, warts and all.

©2020 Alistair Shearer (P)2020 Tantor Exercise & Fitness Fitness, Diet & Nutrition History Religious Studies Physical Exercise Yoga Funny Ancient Yoga

People who viewed this also viewed...

Yoga Body Audiobook By Mark Singleton cover art
Yoga Body By: Mark Singleton
Roots of Yoga Audiobook By James Mallinson, Mark Singleton cover art
Roots of Yoga By: James Mallinson, and others
All stars
Most relevant  
The text was very interesting and comprehensive. The narrator sounded like Sam the Eagle from the Muppets. I had to increase the speed to x2 to tolerate listening to it

Annoying narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a great Survey on yoga but this narrator is … not good. I really had to force myself to listen. You have to play this at at least 1.65 speed.

Great Survey on yoga

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It took me a while to get into this audiobook. Although the story is absolutely AMAZING, the narration leaves much to be desired. The narration was so mediocre that I almost returned it. Then I sped the narration speed up to 1.65 and not only found it bearable at that speed, but quite enjoyable.

The narrator is not bad, just at normal speed it is difficult to bear.. moves too slow, which takes away from the marvelous story of the book.

A Great Story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was hoping for an overall deep history of yoga. Instead, there was a little historical background. Then there is a lot of current era, and recent decades information. Much of which was very biased, and a lot of which is controversial. But presented factually, which is problematic. The narrator for me was the worst. Multiple times in the book. It made fun of practitioners in in current times mispronouncing Sanskrit terms. For the narrator himself, at least 50% of the Sanskrit terms were pronounced incorrectly. Many names of Indian teachers, sages, and more we also mispronounced. It’s very difficult to listen to on a variety of levels. I wish narrators would work to pronounce correctly the terms in books they read for public listening.

Poor narrator, overall biased book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I think the content is likely very helpful and interesting but it was so hard to listen to the narration that it’s almost a waste. Get the paperback?

Interesting Content, almost impossible to listen to

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.