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The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks, and the Gods
- A Tale of the Persian Wars
- Narrated by: Victoria Fox
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
The magic of mythology meets the grit of history in a blazing blockbuster retelling of the Persian Wars from award-winning author Tom Holland.
I come to tell you a story. A story unlike any that has been told before.
The Trojan War is ancient history. The gods of Olympus are silent and have not appeared to mortals for generations. In the city-state of Sparta, young Gorgo’s mother gives a warning with her dying breath: the Persians are coming. The princess Gorgo, weaned on her nurse’s stories of gods and shapeshifters, never forgets her mother’s last words. When at last the drums of war begin to sound, she is swept up in a dangerous game of politics, treachery, and vengeance. With the blood of Herakles and Zeus himself running through her veins and the awakening of a dormant supernatural power, Gorgo, now queen of Sparta, must help lead her city-state against a mighty empire. Unraveling like prophecy, Tom Holland’s dramatic reimagining of one of history’s most formidable wars will echo through the mind of the listener long after they have reached the final words.
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The Rest Is History
- From Ancient Rome to Ronald Reagan—History's Most Curious Questions, Answered
- By: Goalhanger Podcasts Ltd
- Narrated by: Tom Holland, Dominic Sandbrook
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This entertaining companion to the massively popular history podcast tackles everything from Alexander the Great to Agatha Christie, the Wars of the Roses to Watergate—with a unique blend of wit, wisdom, and good old-fashioned banter. Featuring an introduction from podcast hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, this book cleverly demonstrates that the past—from modern to ancient and every time in between—is both closer to us than we might realize and bafflingly strange, all at once.
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Holland and Sandbrook!!!
- By marc edge on 12-10-23
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Dominion
- How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Tom Holland, Mark Meadows
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion - an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus - was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history.
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Only the forward is narrated by Holland.
- By Honora on 06-16-20
By: Tom Holland
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Emperor of Rome
- Ruling the Ancient World
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Mary Beard
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In her international bestseller SPQR, Mary Beard told the thousand-year story of ancient Rome. Now she shines her spotlight on the emperors who ruled the Roman empire, from Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) to Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE). Emperor of Rome is not your usual chronological account of Roman rulers, one after another: the mad Caligula, the monster Nero, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius.
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Wasn't sure but won me over
- By John S. on 01-26-24
By: Mary Beard
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Persians
- The Age of the Great Kings
- By: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Narrated by: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled. Drawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world’s first superpower—one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance. This is the definitive history of the Achaemenid dynasty and its legacies in modern-day Iran.
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Good History and Historiography
- By David A on 04-19-22
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The Foundations of Western Civilization
- By: Thomas F. X. Noble, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Thomas F. X. Noble
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
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What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.
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Not Engaging or Very Interesting
- By Tommy D'Angelo on 03-05-17
By: Thomas F. X. Noble, and others
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Powers and Thrones
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes listeners on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West.
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Hard to take a break from it!
- By Mariano's Music on 12-09-21
By: Dan Jones
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The Roman Emperor Aurelian
- Restorer of the World: New Revised Edition
- By: John F. White
- Narrated by: Keval Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The ancient Sibylline prophecies had foretold that the Roman Empire would last for 1000 years. As the time for the expected dissolution approached in the middle of the third century AD, the empire was lapsing into chaos, with seemingly interminable civil wars over the imperial succession. The western empire had seceded under a rebel emperor and the eastern empire was controlled by another usurper. Barbarians took advantage of the anarchy to kill and plunder all over the provinces.
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Coins- Early and Often
- By Colin MacKenzie on 12-16-23
By: John F. White
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The Anarchy
- The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. In his most ambitious and riveting audiobook to date, William Dalrymple tells the story of the East India Company as it has never been told before, unfolding a timely cautionary tale of the first global corporate power.
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excellent book but awkward narration
- By TexasVC on 02-25-20
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Letters from a Stoic
- Penguin Classics
- By: Seneca, Robin Campbell
- Narrated by: Julian Glover
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Seeing self-possession as the key to an existence lived 'in accordance with nature', the Stoic philosophy called for the restraint of animal instincts and the importance of upright ethical ideals and virtuous living. Seneca's writings are a profound, powerfully moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind.
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Returned - Not "Unabridged"
- By Michael Augustus Ennis on 12-03-21
By: Seneca, and others
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SPQR
- A History of Ancient Rome
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Fall of Civilizations
- Stories of Greatness and Decline
- By: Paul Cooper
- Narrated by: Paul Cooper
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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What a wonderful blend of history and storytelling!
- By Sarah on 09-20-24
By: Paul Cooper