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The Myth of the Strong Leader
- Political Leadership in the Modern Age
- Narrated by: Jonathan Crowley
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
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The Myth of the Strong Leader
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Publisher's summary
From one of the world's preeminent political historians, comes a magisterial study of political leadership around the world from the advent of parliamentary democracy to the age of Obama.
Archie Brown challenges the widespread belief that 'strong leaders', dominant individual wielders of power, are the most successful and admirable.
Within authoritarian regimes, a collective leadership is a lesser evil compared with a personal dictatorship. Within democracies, although ‘strong leaders’ are seldom as strong or independent as they purport to be, the idea that just one person is entitled to take the big decisions is harmful and should be resisted.
Examining Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping and Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair amongst many others, this landmark study pinpoints different types and qualities of leadership. Overturning the popular notion of the strong leader, it makes us rethink preconceptions about what it means to lead.
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 114
World War I and the Russian Revolution together shaped the 20th century in profound ways. In The End of Tsarist Russia, acclaimed scholar Dominic Lieven connects for the first time the two events, providing both a history of the First World War's origins from a Russian perspective and an international history of why the revolution happened.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A good book done in by bad narration.
- By James on 05-25-16
By: Dominic Lieven
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A History of Fascism, 1914-1945
- By: Stanley G. Payne
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 20 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Focusing mostly on Italy and Germany but also considering Spain, Romania, Japan, and movements in other countries, Payne describes fascism as revolutionary ultranationalism based on national rebirth, extreme elitism, mass mobilization, and the promotion of violence and military virtues. He also suggests that the early Russian communists borrowed many techniques from fascism, and that though we are fairly well-inoculated against fascism itself, the values it represents could still emerge in new forms.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Dated lit review, ill-suited for audiobook
- By Keith on 11-24-19
By: Stanley G. Payne
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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 43 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,303
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,068
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,058
Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world’s most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through 34 nations and 60 years of political and cultural change—all in one integrated, enthralling narrative.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, but not terrific listening
- By History on 10-18-11
By: Tony Judt
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The Cold War
- A World History
- By: Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 22 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 351
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 350
In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A lenghy treatise on the Cold War
- By Donald Hill on 11-21-17
By: Odd Arne Westad
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The Coming of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,106
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,652
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,652
There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Compelling and depressing
- By Tad Davis on 06-30-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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The End of Europe
- Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age
- By: James Kirchick
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
Once the world's bastion of liberal, democratic values, Europe is now having to confront demons it thought it had laid to rest. The old pathologies of anti-Semitism, populist nationalism, and territorial aggression are threatening to tear the European postwar consensus apart. Based on extensive firsthand reporting, this book is a provocative, disturbing look at a continent in unexpected crisis.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing, Silly And Really Childish Book.
- By Eireannach on 04-14-17
By: James Kirchick
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On China
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Nicholas Hormann
- Length: 20 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,374
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,139
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,132
In this sweeping and insightful history, Henry Kissinger turns for the first time at book length to a country he has known intimately for decades and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. On China illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and tight line modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, and Richard Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Another History of China
- By Elton on 09-23-11
By: Henry Kissinger
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Modern Times
- The World from the Twenties to the Nineties
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 37 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 426
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 300
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 298
Beginning with May 29, 1919, when photographs of the solar eclipse confirmed the truth of Einstein's theory of relativity, Johnson goes on to describe Freudianism, the establishment of the first Marxist state, the chaos of "Old Europe", the Arcadian 20s, and the new forces in China and Japan. Also discussed are Karl Marx, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Castro, Kennedy, Nixon, the '29 crash, the Great Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, and the massive conflict of World War II.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Anti-Howard Zinn
- By Pork C. Fish on 05-22-12
By: Paul Johnson
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Democracy
- Stories from the Long Road to Freedom
- By: Condoleezza Rice
- Narrated by: Grace Angela Henry
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 257
From the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice has served on the front lines of history. As a child, she was an eyewitness to a third awakening of freedom, when her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, became the epicenter of the civil rights movement for black Americans. In this book, Rice explains what these epochal events teach us about democracy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Case for Democracy
- By Jean on 05-18-17
By: Condoleezza Rice
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Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 28 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 574
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 514
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 510
Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The heart of evil
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-20-14
By: Ian Kershaw
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Reconciliation
- Islam, Democracy, and the West
- By: Benazir Bhutto
- Narrated by: Rita Wolf
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 178
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
In Reconciliation, Bhutto recounts in gripping detail her final months in Pakistan and offers a bold new agenda for how to stem the tide of Islamic radicalism and to rediscover the values of tolerance and justice that lie at the heart of her religion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Female Muslim insight
- By Craig Bell on 03-07-08
By: Benazir Bhutto
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Fear Itself
- The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
- By: Ira Katznelson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 22 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 125
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 123
Redefining our traditional understanding of the New Deal, Fear Itself finally examines this pivotal American era through a sweeping international lens that juxtaposes a struggling democracy with enticing ideologies like Fascism and Communism. Ira Katznelson, "a towering figure in the study of American and European history" (Cornel West), boldly asserts that, during the 1930s and 1940s, American democracy was rescued yet distorted by a unified band of southern lawmakers who safeguarded racial segregation as they built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power.
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5 out of 5 stars
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History in Context of Political Science Analysis
- By zsuzsanna on 08-27-15
By: Ira Katznelson
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A Failed Empire
- The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev
- By: Vladimir Zubok
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 258
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 191
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Story4 out of 5 stars 190
Western interpretations of the Cold War--both realist and neoconservative--have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness, argues Vladislav Zubok. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the 20th century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Focus on the Top Leadership
- By Augustus T. White on 08-13-10
By: Vladimir Zubok
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Lost Kingdom
- The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 100
From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prizewinning author of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine - only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the confluence of Russian imperialism and nationalism today by delving into the nation's history.
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2 out of 5 stars
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More like a history of Languages spoke in Russia.
- By kucherv on 10-24-17
By: Serhii Plokhy
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Putin's World
- Russia Against the West and with the Rest
- By: Angela Stent
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 158
Putin's World examines the country's turbulent past, how it has influenced Putin, the Russians' understanding of their position on the global stage and their future ambitions—and their conviction that the West has tried to deny them a seat at the table of great powers since the USSR collapsed.
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2 out of 5 stars
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More like The West against the world
- By Felis N on 01-18-20
By: Angela Stent
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The Habsburg Empire
- A New History
- By: Pieter M. Judson
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 368
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 316
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Story4 out of 5 stars 315
Rejecting fragmented histories of nations in the making, this bold revision surveys the shared institutions that bridged difference and distance to bring stability and meaning to the far-flung empire. By supporting new schools, law courts, and railroads along with scientific and artistic advances, the Habsburg monarchs sought to anchor their authority in the cultures and economies of Central Europe. A rising standard of living throughout the empire deepened the legitimacy of Habsburg rule.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Ideal for students of empires, nationalism, minorities and ethnic groups
- By Uther on 02-11-17
By: Pieter M. Judson