Worlds at War
The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West
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Narrated by:
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John Lee
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By:
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Anthony Pagden
About this listen
The relationship between East and West has always been one of turmoil. In this historical tour de force, a renowned historian leads us from the world of classical antiquity, through the Dark Ages, to the Crusades, Europe's resurgence, and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire, which almost shattered Europe entirely. Pagden travels from Napoleon in Egypt to Europe's carving up of the finally moribund Ottomans - creating the modern Middle East along the way - and on to the present struggles in Iraq.
Throughout, we learn a tremendous amount about what "East" and "West" were and are, and how it has always been competing worldviews and psychologies, more than religion or power grabs, that have fed the mistrust and violence between East and West. In Pagden's dark but provocative view, this struggle cannot help but go on.
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Caveat Kaffir
- By snozek on 12-23-18
By: Robert Spencer
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The Islamic Enlightenment
- The Struggle Between Faith and Reason: 1798 to Modern Times
- By: Christopher de Bellaigue
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the 19th and early 20th centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy.
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fascinating story not told.elsewhere in one place
- By Joseph Sullivan on 11-30-21
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Empires of Trust
- How Rome Built - and America Is Building - a New World
- By: Thomas F. Madden
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In Empires of Trust, Professor Thomas F. Madden explores surprising parallels between the Roman and American republics. By making friends of enemies and demonstrating a commitment to fairness, the two republics - both "reluctant" yet unquestioned super-powers - built empires based on trust. Madden also includes vital lessons from the Roman Republic's 100-year struggle with "terrorism."
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Bork, Reagan, and Honest of Rome
- By Nelson Alexander on 12-20-08
By: Thomas F. Madden
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In God's Path
- The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire
- By: Robert G. Hoyland
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.
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Islamic conquest history from the outside
- By SAMA on 01-22-15
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Ancient Rome
- By: Thomas R. Martin
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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With commanding skill, Thomas R. Martin tells the remarkable and dramatic story of how a tiny, poor, and threatened settlement grew to become, during its height, the dominant power in the Mediterranean world for 500 years. Encompassing the period from Rome's founding in the eighth century BC through Justinian's rule in the sixth century AD, he offers a distinctive perspective on the Romans and their civilization by employing fundamental Roman values as a lens through which to view both their rise and spectacular fall.
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Great review and understanding of Christianity
- By David on 12-08-20
By: Thomas R. Martin
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Alexander the Great
- The Hunt for a New Past
- By: Paul Cartledge
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Cartledge, one of the world's foremost scholars of ancient Greece, illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, and founder of a new world order. Alexander's legacy has had a major impact on military tacticians, scholars, statesmen, adventurers, authors, and filmmakers.
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NOT a Chronology of Alexander’s Life
- By Blane Richoux on 12-30-20
By: Paul Cartledge
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The Bright Ages
- A New History of Medieval Europe
- By: Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The word medieval conjures images of the “Dark Ages”. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through 10 centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia, and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them.
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Does exactly what it claims to clarify
- By Aaron Rapozo on 12-13-21
By: Matthew Gabriele, and others
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Thermopylae
- By: Paul Cartledge
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In 480 B.C., a huge Persian army, led by the inimitable King Xerxes, entered the mountain pass of Thermopylae to march on Greece, intending to conquer the land with little difficulty. But the Greeks, led by King Leonidas and a small army of Spartans, took the battle to the Persians at Thermopylae and halted their advance: almost. It is one of history's most acclaimed battles, one of civilization's greatest last stands.
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Requires full attention
- By Euryleia on 01-18-08
By: Paul Cartledge
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Ancient Greece, Second Edition
- From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times
- By: Thomas R. Martin
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In this compact yet comprehensive history of ancient Greece, Thomas R. Martin brings alive Greek civilization from its Stone Age roots to the fourth century BC. Focusing on the development of the Greek city-state and the society, culture, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age, Martin integrates political, military, social, and cultural history in a book that will appeal to students and general audiences alike. Now in its second edition, this classic work now features updates throughout.
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Just the way I like it!
- By TracyB on 07-25-18
By: Thomas R. Martin
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Really enjoyed the book and snark
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NOT a Chronology of Alexander’s Life
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The End of Empire
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History remembers Attila, the leader of the Huns, as the Romans perceived him: a savage barbarian brutally inflicting terror on whoever crossed his path. Following Attila and the Huns from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the court of Constantinople, Christopher Kelly portrays Attila in a compelling new light, uncovering an unlikely marriage proposal, a long-standing relationship with a treacherous Roman general, and a thwarted assassination plot.
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LISTEN TO THE SAMPLE
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The Ornament of the World
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Widely hailed as a revelation of a "lost" golden age, this history brings to vivid life the rich and thriving culture of medieval Spain, where, for more than seven centuries, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance, and literature, science, and the arts flourished.
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Clear and dramatic
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Acclaimed British historian Anthony Everitt delivers a compelling account of the former orphan who became Roman emperor in A.D. 117 after the death of his guardian Trajan. Hadrian strengthened Rome by ending territorial expansion and fortifying existing borders. And - except for the uprising he triggered in Judea - his strength-based diplomacy brought peace to the realm after a century of warfare.
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A Biography "too tall for the height of the cella"
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Really enjoyed the book and snark
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NOT a Chronology of Alexander’s Life
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History remembers Attila, the leader of the Huns, as the Romans perceived him: a savage barbarian brutally inflicting terror on whoever crossed his path. Following Attila and the Huns from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the court of Constantinople, Christopher Kelly portrays Attila in a compelling new light, uncovering an unlikely marriage proposal, a long-standing relationship with a treacherous Roman general, and a thwarted assassination plot.
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The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe.
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Well researched but narrator is terrible
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The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome once dominated the world, and they continue to fascinate and inspire us. Classical art and architecture, drama and epic, philosophy and politics - these are the foundations of Western civilization. In The Classical World, eminent classicist Robin Lane Fox brilliantly chronicles this vast sweep of history from Homer to the reign of Augustus.
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Learn the names you are reading
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The story of the world's greatest civilization - spanning thousands of years - is full of epic stories, spectacular places, and an evolving society rich in inventors, heroes, villains, and pioneers. The story of the world's greatest civilization spans 4,000 years of history that has shaped the world. It is full of spectacular cities and epic stories of a constantly evolving society peopled with inventors, heroes and heroines, villains, artisans, and pioneers.
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Egyptian history is fascinating, this book is not.
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Babylon
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Civilization was born 8,000 years ago, between the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when migrants from the surrounding mountains and deserts began to create increasingly sophisticated urban societies. In the cities that they built, half of human history took place. In Babylon, Paul Kriwaczek tells the story of Mesopotamia from the earliest settlements seven thousand years ago to the eclipse of Babylon in the sixth century BCE. Bringing the people of this land to life in vibrant detail, the author chronicles the rise and fall of power during this period.
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Solid overview 3000 years of history
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E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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an enlightening book; very well read
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The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
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Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past.
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Excellent
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In this landmark work, one of the world's most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption into the Roman Empire - 3,000 years of wild drama, bold spectacle, and unforgettable characters. Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavish pomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohs but for the first time reveals the constant propaganda and repression that were its foundations.
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Well Written and Detailed
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The Crusades
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The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge - a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker) - covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious, listenable account of one of the most fascinating periods in history.
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Comprehensive
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A Brief History of Japan
- Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
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With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.
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A Brief Review of the Book
- By Than on 12-07-19
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Christianity
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- Unabridged
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Story
Once in a generation, a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read or heard - a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.
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Bias
- By David Danielson on 10-04-10
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The History of the Ancient World
- From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
- By: Susan Wise Bauer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.
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An Historic Achievement
- By Ellen S. Wilds on 04-25-14
By: Susan Wise Bauer
What listeners say about Worlds at War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Tp
- 07-19-11
Unapologetic pitch for secularism
The author states his preference for secularism in a very straightforward fashion. He gives an interesting and occasionally fresh overview of the conflicts between Europe and Asia over the last 2,500 years. The focus is intensely on the philosophic or religious features of those conflicts. The last third is devoted to struggles between the cultures of what he calls the three major monotheisms. Worth the time.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Neil Chisholm
- 01-08-12
Sweeping historical saga
This is a fantastic review of what makes the West western and the East oriental and why there has been constant war between the East and the West since early history. Its not a book for school children and some times it takes a bit of concentration on the part of the adult listener but overall it is learned, interesting and very illuminating. Highly recommended.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Kristin
- 01-26-14
Good to listen to.
Very interesting and well done. I went on to read Lawrence in Arabia and thought this had been an excellent prelude to that amazing book.
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- JB
- 07-26-12
One of the best audio books that I own!
What did you love best about Worlds at War?
A scholarly and riveting book for history fans.
Any additional comments?
This book has become one of the 5 audio books that I carry at all times. An interesting subject, well written by the author, and beautifully read by the narator. For those who are interested in the ageless battle between east and west, and how we've come to be where and what we are today, this book is facinating and instructive.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jim
- 04-11-11
Great survey of the seeds of discontent
This is a great survey of the thousands of years of mistrust, misunderstandings and the planting of the seeds of discontent that still are very much with us today. John Lee was the perfect narrator for this book. Loved it.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Anna
- 05-04-11
The beat goes on.
This book was fascinating to listen to at a time,rather later than some earlier reviews, when a new wave of unrest sweeps through middle eastern muslim countries.Just what is behind it all is something of a mystery, but the persisting differences in world views that Pagden discusses continue with undiminished potency today. The book illuminates so many salient points in the long and everlasting socio- religious history of the human race.One muslim belief I share: history does repeats itself, on and on and on.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Douglas
- 06-18-18
Very illuminating
I wish I had read this a long time ago. A must read if you have any desire to understand the way the conflict of East and West arose. I am going to listen to it again.
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- Troy
- 03-27-12
Great start but petered out
Pagden did an excellent job up to the French Revolution. From the French Revolution on, he lost his way and went down esoteric side roads totally ignoring the 1500 lb gorilla in the room.
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- Julio
- 08-25-24
western bias
Wery good ancient and intellectual history. But it's handling of recent history is a self serving western perspective. Pagden is a top tier scholar of ancient Greek history and of the Spanish Empire, especially on Colonial Spanish American intellectual history. So the strengths of this book naturally are in his dealings with ancient and medieval texts. But his views on recent history lack the same depth and one can sense he is a little bit out of his depth and tends to take on the unquestioned intuitions and beliefs of a basic classical liberal perspective. For example, in his partial discussion of 20th C anti-colonial nationalism in the Middle East, he relies less on evidence than on the negative associations with "nationalism" that liberals already have. Knowing that such movements were part of a larger Third World Movement for national sovereignty that largely failed due to western intervention/neocolonialism, none of which Pagden mentions, one can only surmise that this antipathy comes precisely from the fact that these movements were anti-western influence. Thus, by the end of the book the author is conflating the ideals of democracy with its practice and this idealized version of the political culture of liberalism with the social culture of the West. Indeed, it concludes as a kind of subtle apology for the recent history of American imperialism as well as the occupation of Palestine (whitewashes the origins of Zionism). Although it is wary of religious extremism in the West, it also ultimately badly underestimates the anti-democraric ethos of American citizens. The resurgence (not " rise," as it is nothing new) of Christian ethnonationalism among white Americans shows flies in the face of the entire last chapter of the book. I think it's still worth reading, but there is a noticable decline in the quality of scholarship in roughly the last fourth of the book.
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- Ryan
- 10-15-11
Absorbing, well-researched, not unbiased history
I found this book a fascinating exploration of the long history of conflict between East and West, and the way the powers in charge of each sphere (whether Greek, Trojan, Roman, Persian, Christian, Muslim, French, Ottoman, British, or Arabic) have often seen themselves as inheritors of all the earlier struggles. Of course, it should be noted right away that by ???The East???, Pagden generally means the near and middle east, the lands from Asia Minor to the region that's modern Iran -- China, India, and Japan don???t figure into the book at all. In fact, his focus is really more on the development of the West and its experience with the East than the reverse.
It should also be noted that Pagden has a strong bias towards liberal, secular, democratic values, which he feels are the essence of Western culture (he states as much in the forward). Religion, both Christianity and Islam, are portrayed in a dim light, as institutional obstacles to reason, human rights, and progress. Not that I don???t largely agree with this assessment, but some readers might take offense. Still, he seems to be fair-minded about it, giving Muslim societies credit for brief periods of learning and relative tolerance, and indicting the modern West for its more counterproductive forays into the Middle East, which understandably stoked the fires of Muslim distrust and resentment. Indeed, the final chapter warns, convincingly, of continued bloody conflict between an uncompromising pan-Islamic worldview, whose adherents have enjoyed few of the fruits of the West and see little of their value, and countries like the US, whose leaders naively assume that their own democratic attitudes are universally held, and fail to account for a divide with deep historic roots.
However, I don???t want to place too much emphasis on modern politics, which take a back seat to the fact that this is a comprehensive, well-researched history, outlining many episodes over 2,500 years that I was only dimly aware of (e.g. Napoleon???s adventures in Egypt), and pulling them into a readable, continuous narrative. Especially interesting was reading of the ways in which the West???s often-skewed perception of the East as an "other" to strive against has nonetheless shaped its own attitudes towards freedom, tolerance, and science.
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