-
Arabs
- A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes, and Empires
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 25 hrs and 34 mins
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 $19.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A New World Begins
- The History of the French Revolution
- By: Jeremy D. Popkin
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Jeremy D. Popkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
-
-
Narration
- By Kindle Customer on 04-26-22
By: Jeremy D. Popkin
-
The Verge
- Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World
- By: Patrick Wyman
- Narrated by: Patrick Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.
-
-
Like the Podcast but Better.
- By Michael S. Labrow on 07-21-21
By: Patrick Wyman
-
A World Undone
- The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 27 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War.
-
-
Very well done
- By Tony Pritchard on 10-10-22
By: G. J. Meyer
-
Empires of the Sky
- Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.
-
-
Actually, a One-Sided Story
- By JP on 08-03-20
By: Alexander Rose
-
1774
- The Long Year of Revolution
- By: Mary Beth Norton
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of our most acclaimed and original colonial historians, a groundbreaking book - the first to look at the critical "long year" of 1774 and the revolutionary change that took place from December 1773 to mid-April 1775, from the Boston Tea Party and the First Continental Congress to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
-
-
The US revolutionary war was baked in by 1775
- By Randall Parker on 04-18-20
By: Mary Beth Norton
-
Helgoland
- Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
- By: Carlo Rovelli, Erica Segre - translator, Simon Carnell - translator
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the 23-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution.
-
-
The cat is not sleeping
- By Anonymous on 05-30-21
By: Carlo Rovelli, and others
-
A New World Begins
- The History of the French Revolution
- By: Jeremy D. Popkin
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Jeremy D. Popkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
-
-
Narration
- By Kindle Customer on 04-26-22
By: Jeremy D. Popkin
-
The Verge
- Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World
- By: Patrick Wyman
- Narrated by: Patrick Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.
-
-
Like the Podcast but Better.
- By Michael S. Labrow on 07-21-21
By: Patrick Wyman
-
A World Undone
- The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 27 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War.
-
-
Very well done
- By Tony Pritchard on 10-10-22
By: G. J. Meyer
-
Empires of the Sky
- Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.
-
-
Actually, a One-Sided Story
- By JP on 08-03-20
By: Alexander Rose
-
1774
- The Long Year of Revolution
- By: Mary Beth Norton
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of our most acclaimed and original colonial historians, a groundbreaking book - the first to look at the critical "long year" of 1774 and the revolutionary change that took place from December 1773 to mid-April 1775, from the Boston Tea Party and the First Continental Congress to the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
-
-
The US revolutionary war was baked in by 1775
- By Randall Parker on 04-18-20
By: Mary Beth Norton
-
Helgoland
- Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
- By: Carlo Rovelli, Erica Segre - translator, Simon Carnell - translator
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving. Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the 23-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution.
-
-
The cat is not sleeping
- By Anonymous on 05-30-21
By: Carlo Rovelli, and others
-
Women's Work
- The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
- By: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women. Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.
-
-
Respectful treatment of the archeological record.
- By fiberflair on 02-23-21
-
How Iceland Changed the World
- The Big History of a Small Island
- By: Egill Bjarnason
- Narrated by: Einar Gunn
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, quietly altered the globe forever. How Iceland Changed the World takes readers on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Ian D. Jones on 06-01-21
By: Egill Bjarnason
-
The Cartiers
- The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire
- By: Francesca Cartier Brickell
- Narrated by: Hattie Morahan
- Length: 23 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1970s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents.
-
-
Wonderful Experience to Listen to This Story
- By BB on 01-12-20
-
The Urge
- Our History of Addiction
- By: Carl Erik Fisher
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding—let alone addressing effectively.
-
-
The Best Addiction/Recovery Book
- By treena meyer on 04-21-22
By: Carl Erik Fisher
-
Black Site
- The CIA in the Post-9/11 World
- By: Philip Mudd
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as "the Program": a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program.
-
-
A lot of insight and context
- By Syrus Tam on 05-16-22
By: Philip Mudd
-
Unworthy Republic
- The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
- By: Claudio Saunt
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington's small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government's auspices, and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence.
-
-
A Slow Burn
- By Hervé DuThé on 04-20-20
By: Claudio Saunt
-
The Ice at the End of the World
- An Epic Journey into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future
- By: Jon Gertner
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Jon Gertner
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Ice at the End of the World, Jon Gertner explains how Greenland has evolved from one of earth’s last frontiers to its largest scientific laboratory. The history of Greenland’s ice begins with the explorers who arrived here at the turn of the 20th century. Their original goal was to conquer Greenland’s seemingly infinite interior. Yet their efforts eventually gave way to scientists who built lonely encampments out on the ice and began drilling - one mile, two miles down.Their aim was to pull up ice cores that could reveal the deepest mysteries of earth’s past.
-
-
Adventure, Science, Advocacy
- By EM Goodkind on 09-08-19
By: Jon Gertner
-
The Prince
- By: Niccolo Machiavelli
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his perspective in Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli's aim in this classic work was to resolve conflict with the ruling prince, Lorenzo de Medici. Machiavelli based his insights on the way people really are rather than an ideal of how they should be. This is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power. Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince, a king, or a president.
-
-
You have to know what you get with The Prince
- By Cody Brown on 02-10-15
-
Powers and Thrones
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes listeners on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West.
-
-
Hard to take a break from it!
- By Mariano's Music on 12-09-21
By: Dan Jones
-
SPQR
- A History of Ancient Rome
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.
-
-
Shallow and unsatisfying
- By Joe on 02-19-17
By: Mary Beard
-
The Crusades
- The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land
- By: Thomas Asbridge
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 25 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Comprehensive
- By Tad Davis on 10-04-16
By: Thomas Asbridge
-
Israel
- A Concise History of a Nation Reborn
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world's attention, aroused its imagination, and, lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future? We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel's people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions.
-
-
Excellent, mildly but honestly biased, terrible narration
- By Schaq on 04-01-17
By: Daniel Gordis
Publisher's summary
A riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone
This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia.
Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments - from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad's use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic - have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today's politically fractured post-Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity.
More from the same
What listeners say about Arabs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 09-18-19
Good book bad narration
It’s a shame (almost a disgrace) that the narrator doesn’t speak a word of Arabic and completely butchers the pronunciations of countless names, places, and things. It takes away from the story and makes it very difficult to understand some of the messages.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
31 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jefferson
- 05-22-21
“The hourglass that swallows you”
Whereas other history books I’ve read focus on Islamic history, Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes, and Empires (2019) by Tim Mackintosh-Smith details Arabs and their history and culture. The book of course has lots on Mohammed and his successors and their initial great wave of expansion and early division and dynasties and declining periods and reawakening periods and modern situation, but it interestingly starts the history of Arabs 1000 years or so before Mohammed. “When we do take that longer, wider view, we find that Islam was not something that shot up suddenly in Mecca. It is a vast slow growth whose roots lie deep in time and all over the Peninsula, particularly in its South, where they cultivated by a people who did not even call themselves Arabs.”
And Mackintosh-Smith’s book is illuminating and entertaining. I learned many things from it, like the following:
--Arabs had no identity as Arabs until outside imperial forces (e.g., Rome and Persia) started meddling and exploiting and being manipulated by them etc.
--The Arabs’ unique combination of the camel (to carry supplies) and the horse (to charge into battle) led their nomads to become formidable mercenaries and then power brokers and then power breakers.
--Arabs tend to value rhetorical truth more highly than empirical truth, the way one says things (especially in high Arabic) being more important than what one says, with great Arabic leaders usually being eloquent (“swordsmen and wordsmen”), for words were and still are seen as cultural products and defensive walls and tools of war.
--The great glue holding Arabs together in their fractious identity—along with the Koran and Islam—has been high Arabic language (fusa, or pure milk).
--Arabic did not originally show vowels and has no capital letters, and due to its cursive calligraphy was very difficult to print with moveable type, which limited and slowed Arabic development during the time of the western Renaissance.
--One vital Arabic quality (linguistic and cultural) is a dualistic yin-yang ethos, which manifests in the fluid interaction between nomad and settled (Bedouin and citified, tribes and peoples, raiders and traders, etc.) and in the many cases in Arabic of the same words being used for opposite (or very different) things like black and white, big and small, unity and division, tradition and modern, collection/union and disunion/division, voice and vote, master and dependent, martyrdom and school certificate, bad regime and order.
Mackintosh-Smith provides other interesting etymological features of Arabic, like the same word meaning herd and citizens, or the word for politics deriving from the word for the management and training of camels and horses. He also points out that Arabic is a language of many synonyms: eighty synonyms for honey, two hundred for beard, five hundred for lion, eight hundred for sword, and at least a thousand for camel. (Arabists say that every word in Arabic has at least three meanings: itself, its opposite, and a camel!)
Indeed, Mackintosh-Smith really likes language in general and Arabic in particular, and brings it all vividly to life as he tells the history of the Arab people, whether in his translations of Arabic texts (poems, sermons, speeches, letters, books, etc.) or in his own prose, for he often coins nifty words (e.g., demonarchs, anarcharchs, and tyrannosaurs/tyrants) and turns a fine phrase, like the following:
--“In my first book, I wrote that in Yemen I felt like both the guest at the feast and the fly on the wall. Nowadays, I feel more like the skeleton at the feast and the fly in the soup… Seeing the land I live in and love falling apart is like watching an old and dear friend losing his mind and committing slow, considered suicide.”
--“Like so many revolutions, Mohammed's included, it was begun by those who are hungry for justice but was hijacked by those who are hungry for power.”
--“Meaning was mummified.”
--“No checks and balances, only checkbooks and bank balances, held ultimately by one man, but if nothing else, the system has the imprimatur of long usage.”
--“A strange dark symbiosis, the continual presence of an aggressive Israel, behaving with grotesque injustice towards the people of the territories it occupies in the face of international law, merely prolongs the life of Tyrannosaurus Rex Arabicus, also aggressive, also unjust towards his own countrymen.”
One interesting, at times devastating feature of the book is the way that Mackintosh-Smith—who’s lived in Yemen for decades—links the past to the present, often saying things like, “Outside my window now, poets are persuading fourteen-year-old boys to blow themselves up while killing other Arabs.”
Ralph Lister reads the book with gusto. Because I don’t know Arabic, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of his pronunciation of the many Arabic words, phrases, and names, but it all sounds exotic and consistent. However, Lister sometimes swallows or quickens (English) words or syllables at the ends of sentences or phrases, such that I sometimes miss the last word in such a case. Otherwise, he's a good reader with an appealing quality to his voice.
Readers interested in Arabs, Arabic, and Islam in relation to other cultures and religions in the past and present should find much to learn and think about with this book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
29 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Farrah
- 02-20-22
Interesting topic. Recommend different narrator.
The book brings up interesting points but it’s hard to follow because of the narration. The narrator doesn’t pronounce the Arabic words in Arabic. Instead, he uses a British accent. This is incredibly frustrating as the book’s entire premise hinges on linguistics and etymology. Recommend a different narrator that can say Arabic words in Arabic.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- blank_by_design
- 09-17-19
Blah blah blah...
I keep waking up thinking, "get to the point!" The foreword had better not be an indication of the rest of the book. There's a metric ton of hyperbole here. It seems like there might be some facts in here someplace. But the author seems to be thinking out loud and trying out the different ways of saying each thought. Where the hell was the editor?!?! Will there be any coherent narrative at all? More as I slog through this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Raritan2002
- 04-04-21
Ambitious but disappointing history of the Arabs
We need a good popular English language history of the Arabs that goes back farther than Albert Hourani's classic History of the Arab Peoples and brings the history up to the present. This book, which is well written and well read, purports to be that book. Regrettably it isn't. The author's attempt at pushing the history back before rise of Islam is mostly tendentious speculation. He cannot decide if he writing a history of ethnic Arabs, speakers of the Arab language, or Muslims and slides among these possible subjects. His account of the response of Arabs to western modernism is very generalized and omits the detail that makes that history so complex and paradoxical. Worst of all, the author embraces a single-theory version of history: all of the history of Arabs can be explained as a recurring conflict between tribes and settled towns. There is a speck of insight to this theory, but the author's attempt to inflate this speck into the single explanation for the history of Arabs is an insult to the Arabs and the thoughtful listener.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ann kimball
- 07-19-19
this is textbook reading
this is not a light read, and unless you know something about what he is talking about you will find this a bit of a challenge. I learned, but it's not good for an audible experience.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mohammed K
- 07-12-19
interesting and eyeopening
loved it and couldnt put it down. my only comment goes towards taking a biased approach on islams influence not giving it its right on how it transformed the peninsula as well as a few other points when it comes to regional politics .. overall an interesting read
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephen Giordano
- 05-21-19
Narration
Can’t understand every third word the narrator says - tried slowing down the speed of narration- didn’t help.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ahmad al-khayyat
- 07-09-21
The best book about Arabs ever to be written.
Tim has a deep understanding of the Arab culture and language. He dives deep and connects the history of the Arabs with insight and meaning. Most histories about the Arabs only take a superficial look at the Arabs from only just before the advent of Islam. Tim takes it back to the Seventh Century BCE shedding light on a much deeper culture. Although he neglects to link the Arab history back to the Phoenicians, Canaanites, Assyrians, Hatties, Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians. But in the end it is a truly insightful book. It was a pleasure to read it.
Ahmad
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Drew
- 10-02-19
Excellent Prose
The language of this book is absolutely incredible, and certainly represents its strong point. The author makes repeated points about the poetry of Arabic and it has trickled through to his English, as this is a history full of rhyme, simile, and alliteration,that makes for fun reading. As far as the actual story goes, this book is much more a cultural history than a narrative one, which was a little disappointing to me, as the history between the fall of the Abbasids and the rise of nations is glossed over as un-arab. I think there's a tad too much hand wringing over what is and isn't truly Arab. The narrator is excellent, however, and I find everything clear and conversational.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Rhys
- 06-07-19
The best book I've bought on Audible.
This is, to date, the best book I've purchased on Audible. So much so that I will pick up a hard copy companion as well.
The book is written extremely well, it is a brilliant history of the Arab peoples, lands, language, and culture. It is respectful, whilst maintaining academic rigour. I would most certainly recommend it to anyone with even the faintest interest in the region. The book also contains ample humour, I laughed aloud several times while listening, and several times further when reading passages I've found in online samples.
That brings me to the narrator, who also may be one of the best narrators I've listened to. He manages to carry all the intonation, humour, and emphasis perfectly.
Overall, I can not recommend this highly enough.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
19 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 06-30-19
Weird
Difficult listening, as the narrator’s tone and delivery is like some 1970s DJ, selling soap powder.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Mr. Justin Roxburgh
- 07-21-21
An extraordinary book with wonderful prose
I’ve finished 25 books since joining Audible 16 months ago. I’m listening to another 7 at the moment & have never bothered writing a review.
This incredible book however merits one.
Mackintosh-Smith has an extraordinary gift. His writing verges on poetry with the clever or witty, (often both) one-liners that pepper the story of the Arabs.
I’m not too sure why I even downloaded this book originally. I’ve never been particularly interested in the people or culture, (although as he points out there is no such thing as a homogeneous Arab people or culture), or the language.
However I loved it so much, I will now go down to Waterstones & buy a copy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Paul M Major
- 08-05-19
A deep insight.
A good book for anyone wanting an understanding of the Middle East and the role of Islam in its evolution.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ed L
- 01-08-20
Great historical overview of ‘Arab’ history
Excellent overview of ‘Arab’ peoples history over 3000 years. Audio could’ve been better by correct pronunciations of Arabic names and terms.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- mouhamad aboshokor
- 07-14-21
just amazing
As an Arab it was fantastic to have an outer perspective over the region that is both respective yet open, and while I don't agree with all of the conclusions, the points raised are very interesting, the writing is extremely smart, the flow is seemless and feels like a storytelling. but most of all the translation of Arabic quotes is outstanding. the book is a bit dark but feels so fucking real.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 06-11-21
Interesting subject but poorly structured.
I struggled to finish this despite the very interesting subject and a very knowledgeable author.
The author aims to cover all angles and describe the complexity as fully as possible. This is amicable, but means I was often left more confused than enlightened since it makes it difficult to work out what is essential and what is less important. Especially since it is presented in a very unstructured way, flicking back and forth in time, adding anecdotes and small stories, all with a lot of superfluous words and phrases thrown in.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Khan
- 09-29-19
absolutely amazing!!!
loved it thoroughly! perhaps the most powerful book on Arab (&Islamic) history. would definitely recommend!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Angus
- 06-15-19
Fantastic account of an often overlooked period
I tried to find a book which would give me more detail of the prelude, rise and explosive expansion of early Islam, this book fitted perfectly with what I was looking for. The latter periods were also very interesting but I feel that the account of pre 1000 CE Arabs was the strongest part of the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Eleanor
- 11-25-23
Love the topic but sends me to sleep
I am fascinated by this topic and I am persevering with the book because it is so comprehensive and detailed. However that also makes it very long and sometimes very dry and if I listen to this while sitting still, I have found myself falling asleep ! I listen to it now when cleaning and cooking and I’m enjoying it but again, you really need to concentrate to pick up all the detail.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
A New World Begins
- The History of the French Revolution
- By: Jeremy D. Popkin
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Jeremy D. Popkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
-
-
Narration
- By Kindle Customer on 04-26-22
By: Jeremy D. Popkin
-
Empires of the Sky
- Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.
-
-
Actually, a One-Sided Story
- By JP on 08-03-20
By: Alexander Rose
-
A World Undone
- The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 27 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a summer day in 1914, a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. While the world slumbered, monumental forces were shaken. In less than a month, a combination of ambition, deceit, fear, jealousy, missed opportunities, and miscalculation sent Austro-Hungarian troops marching into Serbia, German troops streaming toward Paris, and a vast Russian army into war, with England as its ally. As crowds cheered their armies on, no one could guess what lay ahead in the First World War.
-
-
Very well done
- By Tony Pritchard on 10-10-22
By: G. J. Meyer
-
The Verge
- Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World
- By: Patrick Wyman
- Narrated by: Patrick Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.
-
-
Like the Podcast but Better.
- By Michael S. Labrow on 07-21-21
By: Patrick Wyman
-
Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
-
-
Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
-
The Serpent and the Rainbow
- A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic
- By: Wade Davis
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1982, ethnobotanist Wade Davis arrived in Haiti to investigate two documented cases of zombies - people who had reappeared in Haitian society years after they had been officially declared dead and had been buried. Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti.
-
-
Wade Davis is a wonderful storyteller
- By J Plotnikoff on 10-31-22
By: Wade Davis
-
A New World Begins
- The History of the French Revolution
- By: Jeremy D. Popkin
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Jeremy D. Popkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.
-
-
Narration
- By Kindle Customer on 04-26-22
By: Jeremy D. Popkin
-
Empires of the Sky
- Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.
-
-
Actually, a One-Sided Story
- By JP on 08-03-20
By: Alexander Rose
-
A World Undone
- The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 27 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance