What Soldiers Do
Sex and the American GI in World War II France
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 $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Nancy Peterson
About this listen
How do you convince men to charge across heavily mined beaches into deadly machine-gun fire? If you're the US Army in 1944, you dangle the lure of beautiful French women, waiting just on the other side of the wire, ready to reward their liberators in oh so many ways.
That's not the picture of the Greatest Generation that we've been given, but it's the one Mary Louise Roberts paints to devastating effect in What Soldiers Do. Drawing on an incredible range of sources, Roberts tells the fascinating and troubling story of how the US military command systematically spread - and then exploited - the myth of French women as sexually experienced and available. The resulting chaos horrified the war-weary and demoralized French population. The sexual predation, and the blithe response of the American military leadership, also caused serious friction between the two nations just as they were attempting to settle questions of long-term control over the liberated territories and the restoration of French sovereignty.
While never denying the achievement of D-Day, or the bravery of the soldiers who took part, What Soldiers Do reminds us that history is always more useful - and more interesting - when it is most honest, and when it goes beyond the burnished beauty of nostalgia to grapple with the real lives and real mistakes of the people who lived it.
©2013 The University of Chicago (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
With the Old Breed
- At Peleliu and Okinawa
- By: E. B. Sledge
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Joe Mazzello, Tom Hanks (introduction)
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.
-
-
This is the second audio book of Sledge's work
- By Richard on 10-21-13
By: E. B. Sledge
-
The Port Chicago Mutiny
- The Story of the Largest Mass Mutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History
- By: Robert L. Allen
- Narrated by: Jason Felisbret
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During World War II, Port Chicago was a segregated naval munitions base on the outer shores of San Francisco Bay. On July 17, 1944, an explosion rocked the base, killing 320 men — 202 of whom were Black ammunition loaders. In the ensuing weeks, White officers were given leave time and commended for heroic efforts, whereas 328 of the surviving Black enlistees were sent to load ammunition on another ship. When they refused, 50 men were singled out and charged — and convicted — of mutiny. It was the largest mutiny trial in US naval history.
-
-
Important history, but dry tales
- By Gail Sweeney on 08-24-24
By: Robert L. Allen
-
The Vanquished
- Why the First World War Failed to End
- By: Robert Gerwarth
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Vanquished, a highly original and gripping work of history, Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western Front that proved so ruinous to Europe's future but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were savaged by revolutions, pogroms, mass expulsions, and further major military clashes.
-
-
little-known period following WWI is illuminated
- By John on 02-16-17
By: Robert Gerwarth
-
All Quiet on the Western Front
- By: Erich Maria Remarque
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paul Bäumer is just 19 years old when he and his classmates enlist. They are Germany’s Iron Youth who enter the war with high ideals and leave it disillusioned or dead. As Paul struggles with the realities of the man he has become, and the world to which he must return, he is led like a ghost of his former self into the war’s final hours. All Quiet is one of the greatest war novels of all time, an eloquent expression of the futility, hopelessness and irreparable losses of war.
-
-
My Choice for Frank Muller's Best
- By Alan on 10-13-12
-
Looking for the Good War
- American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Elizabeth D. Samet
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans - all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States' "exceptional" history and destiny.
-
-
Essential reading for military officers and political decision makers.
- By Arlene S. Burke on 02-23-22
-
The Unwomanly Face of War
- An Oral History of Women in World War II
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women - more than a million in total - were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten.
-
-
the best book about war I've ever read
- By Swarmy Barnacles on 10-06-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
With the Old Breed
- At Peleliu and Okinawa
- By: E. B. Sledge
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Joe Mazzello, Tom Hanks (introduction)
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.
-
-
This is the second audio book of Sledge's work
- By Richard on 10-21-13
By: E. B. Sledge
-
The Port Chicago Mutiny
- The Story of the Largest Mass Mutiny Trial in U.S. Naval History
- By: Robert L. Allen
- Narrated by: Jason Felisbret
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During World War II, Port Chicago was a segregated naval munitions base on the outer shores of San Francisco Bay. On July 17, 1944, an explosion rocked the base, killing 320 men — 202 of whom were Black ammunition loaders. In the ensuing weeks, White officers were given leave time and commended for heroic efforts, whereas 328 of the surviving Black enlistees were sent to load ammunition on another ship. When they refused, 50 men were singled out and charged — and convicted — of mutiny. It was the largest mutiny trial in US naval history.
-
-
Important history, but dry tales
- By Gail Sweeney on 08-24-24
By: Robert L. Allen
-
The Vanquished
- Why the First World War Failed to End
- By: Robert Gerwarth
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Vanquished, a highly original and gripping work of history, Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western Front that proved so ruinous to Europe's future but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were savaged by revolutions, pogroms, mass expulsions, and further major military clashes.
-
-
little-known period following WWI is illuminated
- By John on 02-16-17
By: Robert Gerwarth
-
All Quiet on the Western Front
- By: Erich Maria Remarque
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paul Bäumer is just 19 years old when he and his classmates enlist. They are Germany’s Iron Youth who enter the war with high ideals and leave it disillusioned or dead. As Paul struggles with the realities of the man he has become, and the world to which he must return, he is led like a ghost of his former self into the war’s final hours. All Quiet is one of the greatest war novels of all time, an eloquent expression of the futility, hopelessness and irreparable losses of war.
-
-
My Choice for Frank Muller's Best
- By Alan on 10-13-12
-
Looking for the Good War
- American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Elizabeth D. Samet
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans - all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States' "exceptional" history and destiny.
-
-
Essential reading for military officers and political decision makers.
- By Arlene S. Burke on 02-23-22
-
The Unwomanly Face of War
- An Oral History of Women in World War II
- By: Svetlana Alexievich, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Emelin, Yelena Shmulenson
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwomanly Face of War, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines, on the home front, and in the occupied territories. These women - more than a million in total - were nurses and doctors, pilots, tank drivers, machine-gunners, and snipers. They battled alongside men, and yet, after the victory, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten.
-
-
the best book about war I've ever read
- By Swarmy Barnacles on 10-06-17
By: Svetlana Alexievich, and others
-
Spearhead
- An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II
- By: Adam Makos
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of the international best seller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel - and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.
-
-
Excellent
- By Msgr. John R. McGrath on 03-11-19
By: Adam Makos
-
Against All Odds
- A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice “Footsie” Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy.
-
-
The Greatest Generation.
- By Jay Voigt on 05-28-22
By: Alex Kershaw
-
The Vietnam War
- An Intimate History
- By: Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Ken Burns, Brian Corrigan
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than 40 years after it ended, the Vietnam War continues to haunt our country. We still argue over why we were there, whether we could have won, and who was right and wrong in their response to the conflict. When the war divided the country, it created deep political fault lines that continue to divide us today. Now, continuing in the tradition of their critically acclaimed collaborations, the authors draw on dozens and dozens of interviews in America and Vietnam to give us the perspectives of people involved at all levels of the war.
-
-
The usual Vietnam info delivered in the old prose
- By Kevin Warren on 10-26-17
By: Geoffrey C. Ward, and others
-
The Middle Kingdoms
- A New History of Central Europe
- By: Martyn Rady
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms, Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region, demonstrating that Central Europe has always been more than merely the fault line between West and East. Even as Central European powers warred with their neighbors, the region developed its own cohesive identity and produced tremendous accomplishments in politics, society, and culture.
-
-
Marred by the errors in the modern section
- By Paul Boothroyd on 10-20-23
By: Martyn Rady
-
Wilmington's Lie
- The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
- By: David Zucchino
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the 1890s, Wilmington was North Carolina’s largest city and a shining example of a mixed-race community. It was a bustling port city with a burgeoning African American middle class and a Fusionist government of Republicans and Populists that included black aldermen, police officers, and magistrates. There were successful black-owned businesses and an African American newspaper, The Record. But across the state - and the South - white supremacist Democrats were working to reverse the advances made by former slaves and their progeny.
-
-
HOW TO GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW RACISM HAS BEEN USED AS A TOOL BY WEALTHY
- By Linzay on 06-19-20
By: David Zucchino
-
Say Nothing
- A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Matthew Blaney
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.
-
-
On a par with I'll Be Gone in the Dark, plus...
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-01-19
-
Bloodlands
- Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
-
-
a warning for the future
- By judith on 11-06-19
By: Timothy Snyder
-
Ordinary Men
- Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
- By: Christopher R. Browning
- Narrated by: Kevin Gallagher
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
-
-
could've done without the afterword...
- By Andrew lester on 06-07-20
-
Path Lit by Lightning
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Thorpe rose to world fame as a mythic talent who excelled at every sport. Most famously, he won gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, he was an All-American football player at the Carlisle Indian School, the star of the first class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and played major league baseball for John McGraw’s New York Giants. Even in a golden age of sports celebrities, he was one of a kind.
-
-
Authors can’t always narate
- By SH on 09-05-22
By: David Maraniss
-
The Patient Assassin
- A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence
- By: Anita Anand
- Narrated by: Anita Anand
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “compelling [and] vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) true story of a man who claimed to be a survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, his elaborate 20-year plan for revenge, and the mix of truth and legend that made him a hero to hundreds of millions.
-
-
more interesting history
- By Autodidact on 09-07-19
By: Anita Anand
-
The German War
- A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945; Citizens and Soldiers
- By: Nicholas Stargardt
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 24 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As early as 1941, Allied victory in World War II seemed all but assured. How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years? In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials - personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence - to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people to vivid life.
-
-
Great read for history buffs
- By marykk on 05-12-16
-
Underdogs
- The Making of the Modern Marine Corps
- By: Aaron B. O'Connell
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Marine Corps has always considered itself a breed apart. Since 1775, America's smallest armed service has been suspicious of outsiders and deeply loyal to its traditions. Marines believe in nothing more strongly than the Corps' uniqueness and superiority, and this undying faith in its own exceptionalism is what has made the Marines one of the sharpest, swiftest tools of American military power. Along with unapologetic self-promotion, a strong sense of identity has enabled the Corps to exert a powerful influence on American politics and culture.
-
-
The making of the Marine Corps
- By Jean on 04-17-13
Related to this topic
-
Year Zero
- A History of 1945
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the greatdrama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and anew, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come across Asia and all of continental Europe. It was the greatest global powervacuum in history, and out of the often vicious power struggles thatensued emerged the modern world as we know it.
-
-
Great historical overview
- By marykk on 10-14-13
By: Ian Buruma
-
Ivan's War
- Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945
- By: Catherine Merridale
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Of the 30 million who fought in the eastern front of World War II, 8 million died, driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan - as the ordinary Russian soldier was called-remain a mystery. We know something about how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought.
-
-
Bird's eye view of the Eastern Front in WW2.
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-16-20
-
The Correspondents
- Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II
- By: Judith Mackrell
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the front lines of the Second World War, a contingent of female journalists were bravely waging their own battle. Barred from combat zones and faced with entrenched prejudice and bureaucratic restrictions, these women were forced to fight for the right to work on equal terms with men.
-
-
Narration was nails on a chalkboard
- By aunt deb on 12-20-21
By: Judith Mackrell
-
Aftermath
- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
- By: Harald Jähner, Shaun Whiteside - translator
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more? This internationally acclaimed revelatory history of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust - and features over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period.
-
-
Where are the photos?
- By Cassandra on 01-17-22
By: Harald Jähner, and others
-
Those Who Forget
- By: Geraldine Schwarz
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During World War II, Géraldine Schwarz’s German grandparents were neither heroes nor villains; they were merely Mitlaüfer - those who followed the current. Decades later, while delving through filing cabinets in the basement of their apartment building in Mannheim, Schwarz discovers that in 1938, her grandfather took advantage of Nazi policies to buy a business from a Jewish family for a low price. Weaving together the threads of three generations of her family story with Europe’s process of post-war reckoning, Schwarz explores how millions were seduced by ideology.
-
-
Not what it purports to be
- By DPM on 10-10-20
-
The Nazis
- A Warning from History
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the success of Rees's best-selling Auschwitz, this substantially revised and updated edition of The Nazis - A Warning from History tells the powerfully gripping story of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. During a 16-year period, acclaimed author and documentary-maker Laurence Rees met and interviewed a large number of former Nazis, and his unique insights into the Nazi psyche and World War II received enormous praise.
-
-
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY
- By Bowen Florsheim on 09-14-21
By: Laurence Rees
-
Year Zero
- A History of 1945
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the greatdrama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and anew, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come across Asia and all of continental Europe. It was the greatest global powervacuum in history, and out of the often vicious power struggles thatensued emerged the modern world as we know it.
-
-
Great historical overview
- By marykk on 10-14-13
By: Ian Buruma
-
Ivan's War
- Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945
- By: Catherine Merridale
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Of the 30 million who fought in the eastern front of World War II, 8 million died, driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan - as the ordinary Russian soldier was called-remain a mystery. We know something about how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought.
-
-
Bird's eye view of the Eastern Front in WW2.
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-16-20
-
The Correspondents
- Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of World War II
- By: Judith Mackrell
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the front lines of the Second World War, a contingent of female journalists were bravely waging their own battle. Barred from combat zones and faced with entrenched prejudice and bureaucratic restrictions, these women were forced to fight for the right to work on equal terms with men.
-
-
Narration was nails on a chalkboard
- By aunt deb on 12-20-21
By: Judith Mackrell
-
Aftermath
- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
- By: Harald Jähner, Shaun Whiteside - translator
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more? This internationally acclaimed revelatory history of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust - and features over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period.
-
-
Where are the photos?
- By Cassandra on 01-17-22
By: Harald Jähner, and others
-
Those Who Forget
- By: Geraldine Schwarz
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During World War II, Géraldine Schwarz’s German grandparents were neither heroes nor villains; they were merely Mitlaüfer - those who followed the current. Decades later, while delving through filing cabinets in the basement of their apartment building in Mannheim, Schwarz discovers that in 1938, her grandfather took advantage of Nazi policies to buy a business from a Jewish family for a low price. Weaving together the threads of three generations of her family story with Europe’s process of post-war reckoning, Schwarz explores how millions were seduced by ideology.
-
-
Not what it purports to be
- By DPM on 10-10-20
-
The Nazis
- A Warning from History
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the success of Rees's best-selling Auschwitz, this substantially revised and updated edition of The Nazis - A Warning from History tells the powerfully gripping story of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. During a 16-year period, acclaimed author and documentary-maker Laurence Rees met and interviewed a large number of former Nazis, and his unique insights into the Nazi psyche and World War II received enormous praise.
-
-
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY
- By Bowen Florsheim on 09-14-21
By: Laurence Rees
-
Savage Continent
- Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
- By: Keith Lowe
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The end of the Second World War in Europe is one of the 20th century's most iconic moments. It is fondly remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, danced, drank and made love until the small hours. These images of victory and celebration are so strong in our minds that the period of anarchy and civil war that followed has been forgotten. Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war.
-
-
Better in print?
- By Rodney on 10-10-12
By: Keith Lowe
-
Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
-
-
Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
-
War: How Conflict Shaped Us
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control?
-
-
Horrible choice of narrator derails this book
- By Steve Winnett on 02-25-21
-
War and Genocide
- A Concise History of the Holocaust
- By: Doris L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Collene Curran
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.
-
-
Agency - the capacity or state of exerting power
- By Angela on 03-22-17
By: Doris L. Bergen
-
Ordinary Men
- Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
- By: Christopher R. Browning
- Narrated by: Kevin Gallagher
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
-
-
could've done without the afterword...
- By Andrew lester on 06-07-20
-
Crucible
- The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917-1924
- By: Charles Emmerson
- Narrated by: Charles Emmerson
- Length: 25 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Petrograd, a fire is lit. The Tsar is packed off to Siberia. A rancorous Russian exile returns to proclaim a workers' revolution. In America, black soldiers who have served their country in Europe demand their rights at home. An Austrian war veteran trained by the German army to give rousing speeches against the Bolshevik peril begins to rail against the Jews. A solar eclipse turns a former patent clerk into a celebrity. An American reporter living the high life in Paris searches out a new literary style.
-
-
Splendid in all respects
- By Paul Custer on 02-11-20
By: Charles Emmerson
-
Hitler's First Hundred Days
- When Germans Embraced the Third Reich
- By: Peter Fritzsche
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid the ravages of economic depression, Germans in the early 1930s were pulled to political extremes both left and right. Then, in the spring of 1933, Germany turned itself inside out, from a deeply divided republic into a one-party dictatorship. In Hitler's First Hundred Days, award-winning historian Peter Fritzsche offers a probing account of the pivotal moments when the majority of Germans seemed, all at once, to join the Nazis to construct the Third Reich.
-
-
Whoa! This Is Too Tense To Be A Horror Novel!
- By Ted on 07-02-20
By: Peter Fritzsche
-
"Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself"
- The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945
- By: Florian Huber
- Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the end of April 1945 in Germany, the Third Reich had fallen and invasion was underway. As the Red Army advanced, horrifying stories spread about the depravity of its soldiers. For many German people, there seemed to be nothing left but disgrace and despair. For tens of thousands of them, the only option was to choose death - for themselves and for their children.
-
-
This book should be required reading for anyone that seeks to understand how ordinary people could be transformed into monsters.
- By Anonymous User on 05-08-20
By: Florian Huber
-
When Paris Went Dark
- The City of Light under German Occupation, 1940-1944
- By: Ronald C. Rosbottom
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation - even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords. At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose.
-
-
Good but not great
- By gaillardia on 08-21-14
-
The Shining Path
- Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes
- By: Orin Starn, Miguel La Serna
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru's presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town. They set election ballots ablaze and vanished, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square. The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path. Described by a US State Department cable as "cold-blooded and bestial", Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres across the cities, countryside, and jungles of Peru in a murderous campaign to seize power and impose a Communist government.
-
-
Understanding my wife
- By Eugene on 06-10-22
By: Orin Starn, and others
-
The Korean War
- A History
- By: Bruce Cumings
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.
-
-
A real eye-opener
- By Bookworm on 10-09-19
By: Bruce Cumings
-
Do Not Disturb
- The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad
- By: Michela Wrong
- Narrated by: Michela Wrong
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We think we know the story of Africa’s Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister.
-
-
What is true and what isn't?
- By Buretto on 11-30-21
By: Michela Wrong