A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks

By: David Gibbins

Narrated by: Kent Klineman

Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

The Viking warship of King Cnut the Great. Henry VIII's the Mary Rose. Captain John Franklin's doomed HMS Terror. The SS Gairsoppa, destroyed by a Nazi U-boat in the Atlantic during World War II.

Since we first set sail on the open sea, ships and their wrecks have been an inevitable part of human history. Archaeologists have made spectacular discoveries excavating these sunken ships, their protective underwater cocoon keeping evidence of past civilizations preserved. World renowned maritime archeologist David Gibbins ties together the stories of some of the most significant shipwrecks in time to form a single overarching narrative of world history.

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks is not just the story of those ships, the people who sailed on them, and the cargo and treasure they carried, but also the story of the spread of people, religion, and ideas around the world; it is a story of colonialism, migration, and the indomitable human spirit that continues today.

Drawing on decades of experience, Gibbins reveals the riches beneath the waves and shows us how the treasures found there can be a porthole to the past that tell a new story about the world and its underwater secrets.

©2024 David Gibbins (P)2024 Tantor

Difficulty following the reader.

Very difficult to follow because of innumerable digressions and quotations in foreign languages. The book is not worth spending one credit.

Not recommend

Very difficult narrator to listen to. I had to speed up. Choppy and odd emphasis in sentences. The stories wondered from the boats to wider societal and historical descriptions.

Good book, tough listening

The knowledge of the author and his ability to weave history's narratives is very good. Because of that I slogged through the staggered, stilted reading by the narrator. I think poor production editing might have contributed to the effect. I increased the playback speed to 1.2. After an hour or two it became tolerable through my acclimation.

Could not finish

I think the content is good, tends to get lost in the weeds a bit at times but overall could be fairly interesting if well narrated. However, I was not able to go on very long because of the narrator. The weird pauses finally got to me after an hour or so. Will avoid this narrator in the future

Awful narration and mediocre writing

I rarely write reviews but the narration of this book was particularly awful. It's hard to imagine the book wouldn't be better served by an AI or computer generated reading than by this audio product. I had to listen at 2x speed to overcome the odd pauses, but even still the narration ruined much of the experience.

That said, the book itself is also mediocre. The writing often jumps around and is poorly structured and organized. One might imagine the shipwrecks could anchor the chapters, but for many the wrecks are tangential to the narrative. The later chapters are a bit better but don't, in my view, salvage the book overall. Save your money, credits, and time and pass on this one. There are far better history books.