Bismarck

The Story of a Fighter

By: Emil Ludwig, Eden Paul, Cedar Paul

Narrated by: Ken Maxon

Length: 25 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

Otto von Bismarck was more than a politician and a leader: He was the single driving force that turned the disparate states of Germany into one cohesive empire. He then went on to lead Germany and the rest of Europe into an age of political peace that lasted from 1871 until the outbreak of World War I. Under his influence, Germany thrived. Bismarck’s use of statesmanship to fight for the interests of his country was legendary. As one of the most influential and powerful individuals in his country’s history, Bismarck became a symbol of leadership and pride for German nationalists. The historical conception of him was as the "Iron Chancellor", an unbending and untouchable figure.

In his landmark biography of the man of "blood and iron", Emil Ludwig rejects the pedestal that history has placed Bismarck upon, and instead seeks a historical and psychological understanding of the chancellor "as he really was, and not as distorted by worship." Bismarck was not merely a hard and calculating statesman, but a man ruled by pride, courage, and hatred. To fully comprehend the actions this enigmatic and important character, we must first understand his feelings, his motivations, and his private life.

Beginning with Bismarck’s childhood and delving more fully into his early life than any other work, Ludwig’s landmark volume is invaluable in understanding the forces behind one of the most influential men in modern history.

©1927 Little, Brown, and Company (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"As a human portrait of Bismarck...this book will stand long.” ( Saturday Review of Literature)

Avoid this audiobook at all costs.

The narration of this book is beyond challenging. It sounds like a text-to-voice app the entire time. The biography is written in a narrative form by the author, interspersed with excerpts of diaries and official letters. The narrator does nothing to indicate this, whether it be changing his tone of voice, cadence, or even pausing. He continues with the same monotone throughout the entire book.

I honestly can't tell whether the book is even a good biography of Bismarck. It was almost impossible to follow along due to the poor reading.

Weak epilogue

I learned about German unificaron, but it didn’t really have an epilogue summarizing the events that followed in Europe.

Not a biography but a personality analysis

Very interesting book about a pivotal figure in modern history, very few people have had the impact Otto von Bismark had in the history of the last 200 years. Why not a 5 stars review? The author has an anti-monarchist and somewhat socialist outlook that taints the analysis, and the reader has clear and purporseful English pronunciation, but pretty poor French pronunciation. The author does a very good job highlighting the premonitory ideas of Bismark about the future of Europe, and this book is from 1927, even more has come true over the following almost hundred years.

too long a tape

What would have made Bismarck better?

just keep to the important matters

Has Bismarck turned you off from other books in this genre?

not yet

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Ken Maxon?

nothing wrong with the narrator

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Bismarck?

most of his early life

Any additional comments?

I couldn't stay awake or pay attention some times

Hard to Endure

The worst narrator I've ever heard. His German is not bad but abominable. His voice never varies a bit no matter who he's quoting or whether or not he's quoting...how can one tell? I have never given up on an Audible history, but he's tempting me.

A fairly good account, but not well read.

Bismarck's role in fashioning modern Europe is undisputed, and in hindsight, it seems inevitable that Kaiser Wilhelm II's neglect of one of the crucial pillars in Bismarckian foreign policy, viz., cooperation with the Russian empire should begin the end of European civilisation as one knew it. I am happy to see that the book brings out this point. The author's put just a little too much emphasis on the 'personal' aspects of Bismarck's life, but in this age of 'packaged politicians' and other 'celebrities' devoid of intelligence and sincerity, nobody would assume Bismark to be anything but a human being with some frailities. Being a Junker of the old school, you can hardly expect the old boy to go around oozing wit and joie de vivre. At a time most European politicians were as busy as now to promote themselves than people's real interests, the venerable rascal stands towering above them in his grasp of foreign policy. I think the authors should have talked a bit more about that.

I think the reader should have checked the pronunciation of German words before reading the book. Sometimes, his mispronunciation of German words makes the reading not just irritating, but sometimes ludicrous. For example, he pronounces the word 'Rat' to rhyme with rat the rhodent. So, 'Landrat' becomes a land rat! Rat in German by the way, means something like 'council' 'councillor', 'adviser', etc. Moreover, in some places, the reading is very unclear, and it may be a technical defect.

Horrible narration by Ken Maxon.

Constant and repeated mispronunciations……to the point of distracting from the story line.

Audible should be embarrassed and withdraw all titles narrated by this individual. (Ken Maxon).

Unprofessional Mispronunciations

Narrator repeatedly and annoyingly mispronounces oft-repeated terms, such as Junker, Sans Souci, Aix, Hohenzollern, etc.

You get what you pay for!!!

If you can pay for something else do it , the narrator is horrible! I could not get through a chapter, he would be perfect reading a child’s book. This is the second audible free book I have tried so far 0-2.

How badly the narration fits non-fiction

I was so exited to finally find a historic book on Bismarck that I downloaded it without listening to the sample. Bad mistake! This narration makes listening unbearable. I am sure that the narrator's singsong is much better suited to different topics (thinking of romantic novels), but it makes listening to non-fiction a chore. No doubt the story would have developed quite nicely, but I simply cannot take this any longer than the preface. Must always listen to the sample before downloading!