Three Famines
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Narrated by:
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Peter Byrne
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By:
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Thomas Keneally
About this listen
This is the story of three terrible famines. The first is an Gorta Mór, the great hunger of Ireland, which began in 1846. The second is the deadly famine that struck Bengal in 1943. The third is the Ethiopian famine, which first sprung up in lethal form in the 1970s under Emperor Haile Selassie and then reappeared under the brutal dictator Mengistu in the 1980s. Keneally visited Eritrea in 1984 to see the effects of this grave event. Tom Keneally shares these three shocking histories with his customary penetrating wisdom, and he presents a controversial theory in his utterly compelling narrative: in all three famines, ideology, mindsets of governments, racial preconceptions and administrative incompetence were, ultimately, more lethal than the initiating blights, the loss of potatoes or rice or the grain named teff.
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During the European Renaissance, an age marked equally by revolutionary thought and constant warfare, it was armies, rather than philosophers, who shaped the modern European nation state. "Mobile cities" of mercenaries and other paid soldiers - made up of astonishingly diverse aggregations of ethnicities and nationalities - marched across the land, looting and savaging enemy territories. In the 15th century, Poland hired German, Spanish, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Scottish soldiers.
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Narrator needs to go back to grade school
- By Jessica on 01-03-14
By: Lauro Martines
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The Thirty-Year Genocide
- Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894-1924
- By: Benny Morris, Dror Ze'evi, Claire Bloom
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Between 1894 and 1924, three waves of violence swept across Anatolia, targeting the region's Christian minorities, who had previously accounted for 20 percent of the population. By 1924 the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks had been reduced to two percent. Most historians have treated these waves as distinct, isolated events, and successive Turkish governments presented them as an unfortunate sequence of accidents. This is the first account to show that the three were actually part of a single, continuing, and intentional effort to wipe out Anatolia's Christian population.
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Pay Close Attention to This Stunning Achievement
- By J.Brock on 06-25-20
By: Benny Morris, and others
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The Birth of Classical Europe
- A History from Troy to Augustine
- By: Simon Price, Peter Thonemann
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....
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Excellent overview of the Classical World
- By David I. Williams on 01-12-14
By: Simon Price, and others
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Empire's Crossroads
- A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day
- By: Carrie Gibson
- Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria onto what is today San Salvador, in the Bahamas, and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire’s Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson traces the story of this coveted area from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba, and from discovery through colonialism to today, offering a vivid, panoramic view of this complex region and its rich, important history.
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Careless production mars storytelling
- By Brenda Thomas on 03-31-16
By: Carrie Gibson
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A Shorter History of Australia
- By: Geoffrey Blainey
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the recognition of our Aboriginal past and Native Title.
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Just couldn't stand the paternalism
- By Matthew on 04-02-14
By: Geoffrey Blainey
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The Tragedy of Liberation
- A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957
- By: Frank Dikotter
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, after a bloody civil war, Mao hoisted the red flag over Beijing's Forbidden City, and the world watched as the Communist revolution began to wash away the old order. Due to the secrecy surrounding the country's records, little has been known before now about the eight years that followed, preceding the massive famine and Great Leap Forward. The Tragedy of Liberation bears witness to a shocking, largely untold history.
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I don't believe this is read by a real person
- By Bjornie Herjolfson on 09-16-20
By: Frank Dikotter
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City of Dreams
- The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York
- By: Tyler Anbinder
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams provides a vivid sense of what New York looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like over the centuries of its development and maturation into the city we know today.
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Even as a history, not engaging
- By Patrick Kelly on 12-03-16
By: Tyler Anbinder
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Cambodia
- Report From a Stricken Land
- By: Henry Kamm
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on his observations over three decades, Henry Kamm, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Southeast Asia correspondent, unravels the complexities of Cambodia. Kamm's invaluable document - a factual and personal account of its troubled history - gives the Western listener the first clear understanding of this magic land's past and present.
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A Solid Introduction, but Somewhat Dated
- By Christopher on 04-21-15
By: Henry Kamm
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The Fortunes of Africa
- A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor
- By: Martin Meredith
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 26 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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A sweeping history of the fortune seekers, adventurers, despots, and thieves who have ruthlessly endeavored to extract gold, diamonds, and other treasures from Africa and its people.
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VAST & WELL RESEARCHED
- By Odomite on 02-03-21
By: Martin Meredith
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1946
- The Making of the Modern World
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1946, Victor Sebestyen creates a taut, panoramic narrative and takes us to meetings that changed the world: to Berlin in July 1945, when Truman tells Stalin that we have successfully tested the bomb; to Ye'nan, China, in January 1946, when General George Marshall tells the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong that Americans won't send troops to China, assuring that the Communists will attain power.
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An education. Somber, detailed, many-faceted
- By Philo on 08-20-16
By: Victor Sebestyen
What listeners say about Three Famines
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Stacey Kole
- 09-19-19
Interesting Book on Famines
I thought this book was really insightful and kept me engaged. It was a great book to read in my Arts and Humanities class. I highly recommend this book :)
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- Lynn
- 01-03-12
A Clinical Approach to Starvation
Thomas Keneally, in his recent book Three Famines, takes a rather clinical approach to mass starvation. The reader expecting any sentimentality toward the victims of such eras will not find it here. Readers will, however, come away with a deeper understanding of the factors contributing to famines. Keneally makes his points through revisiting the potato famine in Ireland, the Bengal starvation in 1942, and the Ethiopian experience with intermittent famines later in the century. He makes the case that each of the three resulted from the ideology and mindsets of governmental leaders, racial perception, and administrative bungling or malfeasance. Segments of the book are not for the faint of heart, but a reading of this volume will open and inform the minds of all who take the time for it. The reading of Peter Byrne is appropriate and well done.
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2 people found this helpful