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Catherine the Great & Potemkin
- The Imperial Love Affair
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 27 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
A widely acclaimed biography from the bestselling author of The Romanovs: "One of the great love stories of history” (The Economist) between Catherine the Great and the wildly flamboyant and talented Prince Potemkin. • "Captures the genius of two extraordinary Enlightenment figures—and of the age as well." —The Wall Street Journal
Catherine the Great was a woman of notorious passion and imperial ambition. Prince Potemkin was the love of her life and her co-ruler. Together they seized Ukraine and Crimea, territories that define the Russian sphere of influence to this day. Their affair was so tumultuous that they negotiated an arrangement to share power, leaving each of them free to take younger lovers. But these “twin souls” never stopped loving each other.
Drawing on the pair’s intimate letters and on vast research, Simon Sebag Montefiore restores these imperial partners to their rightful place as titans of their age.
"Biography in the grand tradition...Riveting...The author [is] a gifted storyteller." —The Washington Post
Critic reviews
"One of the great love stories of history...Excellent with dazzling mastery of detail and literary flair." —The Economist
"Montefiore conveys [Russian] history with vivid detail and narrative momentum...Captures the genius of two extraordinary Enlightenment figures—and of the age as well." —The Wall Street Journal
"Biography in the grand tradition...Riveting...The author [is] a gifted storyteller." —The Washington Post
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- Michelle
- 03-09-21
Liked the book, hated the narrator
I found the book to be very interesting and it filled in a lot of details about Catherine and Potemkin. However the narrator is awful. She changes how she pronounces names and cities, has a poor cadence and an uneven inflection, and at times made listening to the book very difficult. Her Russian pronunciations are dreadful and her French isn't great either (yes, I speak both - semi-fluent in French and enough Russian to get by). The poor and inconsistent pronunciations are jarring and at times interrupt the flow. At other times, you have to stop and try to figure out if she is talking about the same place she mentioned 5 minutes earlier.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Felisa Kay Chaloupek.
- 06-29-20
good in-depth book
it really does just focus on their love. years only after Catherine is empress basically. I didn't know much about Potemkin, and the author was ODVIOUSLY a fan of him.. and set out to deliver ALL the facts with a zeal to the truth about t this man and women, whos real history have previously been passed down unfairly.
but I wasn't aware of any of the bias and ended up seeing Potemkin was really a great man.
so while I could clearly see the author was sort of defending these figures, overall, instead of being annoyed by what could be seen as 'one sided efforts ' of author; I actually found his information well researched. He had A LOT of info that really supported all the admiration the author has for his books subjects.
it has lots of clear detail, delivered in a pretty easy-to-follow presentation of it. and as I said , I am weary of authors who set out to'defend' a personage I didn't feel this was the case here. as the book went on, I agreed with the author that this mans life deserved a closer look, and the facts he shared made me agree that Potemkin was a great man and history seems to have jaded the truth of him and Catherine. In this book, facts are laid bear with wonderful sources of great ACTUAL archived letters between them and contemporarys.
but it only follows the events important to Catherine and mostly Potemkin. it does not cover anything else happening in that time period unless it involved them.
but it was performed well, and the info was entertaining and inspired. I liked it. Catherine an Potemkins relationship was TRUELY a unique relationship by all means. I found that interesting and appreciated that aspect more seeing it unfold. the people in the story are unique and they don't let you down but surprise you .
I appreciate the work the author did to present this vast and extensive work.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- wanda
- 05-26-20
Sheds light on subject
I've read books on Catherine the great but never on Potemkin and I'm so glad I got this book because I now have a wider view on this wonderful man.
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3 people found this helpful
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- David E. Manning
- 06-26-22
Excellent
This is a wonderful book peryou're full book. Wonderfully performed and very informative on a little known period of history particularly to Americans. It is quite informative formative regarding the history of the Southern Empire in Russia which interestingly enough is quite relevant today given the war in the Ukraine.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jose
- 08-30-23
Potemkin- a force of Nature
For a non Russian like me that has read many Russian History books, a great education on Prince Potemkin. A great man that left an incredible contribution to his nation. A builder of such scale, that people had trouble believing their own eyes. A General, Statesman, and a personal Maximalist. Potemkin was basically an overlapping life (birth and death) to George Washington. Readers of GW will be amazed how these guys were similar and so different. They almost personify their national identities. How did Russia get to the Black Sea. What they sacrificed and what they risked to push their frontier to the Danube and into the Caucuses. Russia moving South was like the USA moving West and South.
Simon Sebag Montefiore is excellent as expected. Captures the time of Potemkin and Catherine. The culture, domestic politics, and international politics. The influence of France, Britain, Prussia, Austria, America, and Ottomans on Russia. To spice up the timeline - Potemkin was at his best as the USA won independence, France destroyed itself, Europe was in full "enlightenment", Austria was at limits, and Britain entering its Golden Age. This book is like a prequal to War and Peace. Many of the hero's of 1812 making an appearance in the late 18th century - Bagatrion, Subarov, and Kutuzov. Even the complex Russian love lives. I thought Anna Karenia was an oddity, but not an oddity if Catherine was an influential role model in the culture.
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- A. Visserman
- 07-30-23
Somewhat disappointing
I expected more about Catherine’s rule and achievements. Instead I got the intimate details of their relationship and their relationships with others ad nauseam. I am still in the dark about how she earned the “Great” sobriquet.
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Fascinating woman in a horrible period in history
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Peter Finn
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The King and the Catholics
- England, Ireland, and the Fight for Religious Freedom, 1780-1829
- By: Antonia Fraser
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The Gordon Riots marked a crucial turning point in the fight for Catholic emancipation. Over the next 50 years, factions battled to reform the laws of the land. Kings George III and George IV refused to address the “Catholic Question,” even when pressed by their prime ministers. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O’Connell and the support of the great Duke of Wellington, the watershed Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed, opening the door to the radical transformation of the Victorian age.
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Peaceful Revolution. How it was done.
- By Albert C Reichelt on 10-16-18
By: Antonia Fraser
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Written in History
- Letters That Changed the World
- By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Simon Russell Beale, Tuppence Middleton, Rupert Penry-Jones, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Written in History: Letters that Changed the World celebrates the great letters of world history, and cultural and personal life. Bestselling, prizewinning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects letters that have changed the course of global events or touched a timeless emotion—whether passion, rage, humor—from ancient times to the twenty-first century. Some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling, some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse, and frankly outrageous, many are erotic, others heartbreaking.
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A great collection.
- By brian on 06-11-20
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The Lion House
- The Coming of a King
- By: Christopher de Bellaigue
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his wife. Christopher de Bellaigue tells not just the story of rival superpowers, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world.
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Amazing Magical Storytelling
- By Amazon Customer on 02-23-23
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Gibraltar
- The Greatest Siege in British History
- By: Lesley Adkins, Roy Adkins
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than three and a half years, from 1779 to 1783, the tiny territory of Gibraltar was besieged and blockaded, on land and at sea, by the overwhelming forces of Spain and France. It became the longest siege in British history, and the obsession with saving Gibraltar was blamed for the loss of the American colonies in the War of Independence.
By: Lesley Adkins, and others
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How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch
- In Search of the Recipe for Our Universe, from the Origins of Atoms to the Big Bang
- By: Harry Cliff
- Narrated by: Harry Cliff
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Harry Cliff - a University of Cambridge particle physicist and researcher on the Large Hadron Collider - sets out in pursuit of answers. He ventures to the largest underground research facility in the world, deep beneath Italy's Gran Sasso mountains, where scientists gaze into the heart of the Sun using the most elusive of particles, the ghostly neutrino. He visits CERN in Switzerland to explore the "Antimatter Factory," where the stuff of science fiction is manufactured daily (and we're close to knowing whether it falls up).
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Down the rabbit hole in a most fascinating way!
- By Rick B on 10-04-21
By: Harry Cliff
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A Guest of the Reich
- The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre's Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany
- By: Peter Finn
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Gertrude "Gertie" Legendre was a big-game hunter from a wealthy industrial family who lived a charmed life in Jazz Age America. Her adventurous spirit made her the inspiration for the Broadway play Holiday, which became a film starring Katharine Hepburn. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Legendre, by then married and a mother of two, joined the OSS, the wartime spy organization that preceded the CIA.
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Fascinating woman in a horrible period in history
- By Marlette on 12-03-19
By: Peter Finn
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Einstein's War
- How Relativity Triumphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War I
- By: Matthew Stanley
- Narrated by: Matthew Stanley
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Few recognize how the Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918, shaped Einstein’s life and work. While Einstein never held a rifle, he formulated general relativity blockaded in Berlin, literally starving. He lost 50 pounds in three months, unable to communicate with his most important colleagues. Some of those colleagues fought against rabid nationalism; others were busy inventing chemical warfare - scientists trapped in the power plays of empire. Meanwhile, Einstein struggled to craft relativity and persuade the world that it was correct.
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Great story but they should have hired a pro to read it
- By Richard Rozier on 06-18-19
By: Matthew Stanley
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Love and Hate in Jamestown
- John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation
- By: David A. Price
- Narrated by: Josh Innerst
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on period letters and chronicles, and on the papers of the Virginia Company - which financed the settlement of Jamestown - David Price tells a tale of cowardice and courage, stupidity and brilliance, tragedy and costly triumph. He takes us into the day-to-day existence of the English men and women whose charge was to find gold and a route to the Orient, and who found, instead, hardship and wretched misery. Death, in fact, became the settlers' most faithful companion, and their infighting was ceaseless.
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Feels watered down
- By Drop on 12-27-22
By: David A. Price
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A Castle in Wartime
- One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis
- By: Catherine Bailey
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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As war swept across Europe in 1940, the idyllic life of Fey von Hassell seemed a world away from the conflict. The daughter of Ulrich von Hassell, Hitler's Ambassador to Italy, her marriage to Italian aristocrat Detalmo Pirzio-Biroli brought with it a castle and an estate in the north of Italy. Beautiful and privileged, Fey and her two young sons lead a tranquil life undisturbed by the trauma and privations of war. But with Fascism approaching its zenith, Fey's peaceful existence is threatened when Ulrich and Detalmo take the brave and difficult decision to resist the Nazis.
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Excellent account
- By Francis J. Slobodnik on 03-22-20
By: Catherine Bailey
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Father of Lions
- One Man's Remarkable Quest to Save the Mosul Zoo
- By: Louise Callaghan
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Father of Lions is the powerful true story of the evacuation of the Mosul Zoo, featuring Abu Laith the zookeeper, Simba the lion cub, Lula the bear, and countless others, faithfully depicted by acclaimed, award-winning journalist Louise Callaghan in her trade publishing debut. Combining a true-to-life narrative of humanity in the wake of war with the heartstring-tugging account of rescued animals, Father of Lions will appeal to audiences of best sellers like The Zookeeper’s Wife and The Bookseller of Kabul as well as fans of true animal stories.
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Enlightening
- By Tammy on 09-09-21
By: Louise Callaghan
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Mud and Stars
- Travels in Russia with Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Other Geniuses of the Golden Age
- By: Sara Wheeler
- Narrated by: Sara Wheeler
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides - Pushkin and Tolstoy, among others - Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nationalities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Wheeler follows local guides; boards with families in modest homestays; eats roe, pelmeni, and cabbage soup; invokes recipes from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking; learns the language; and observes the pattern of outcry and silence that characterizes life under Vladimir Putin.
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Great idea for a book!
- By GogolGirl on 01-21-20
By: Sara Wheeler
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This America of Ours
- Bernard and Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the Wild
- By: Nate Schweber
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In late-1940s America, few writers commanded attention like Bernard DeVoto. Alongside his brilliant wife and editor, Avis, DeVoto was a firebrand of American liberty, free speech, and perhaps our greatest national treasure: public lands. But when a corrupt band of lawmakers, led by Senator Pat McCarran, sought to quietly cede millions of acres of national parks and other Western lands to logging, mining, and private industry, the DeVotos entered the fight of their lives.
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A Must Read for all who love public lands
- By SUe FUrey on 07-09-22
By: Nate Schweber
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Murder at the Mission
- A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West
- By: Blaine Harden
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding were headed to present-day Washington state and Idaho, where they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. Both would fail spectacularly as missionaries.
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Good history; wanted more indigenous perspective.
- By Anonymous User on 07-06-21
By: Blaine Harden
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Know Thyself
- Western Identity from Classical Greece to the Renaissance
- By: Ingrid Rossellini
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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"Know thyself" - this fundamental imperative appeared for the first time in ancient Greece. For the Greeks, self-knowledge and identity were the basics of their civilization and their sources were to be found in where one was born and into which social group. These determined who you were and what your duties were. In this book the independent scholar Ingrid Rossellini surveys the major ideas that, from Greek and Roman antiquity through the Christian medieval era up to the dawn of modernity in the Renaissance, have guided the Western project of self-knowledge.
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Ideas +major proponents, filtered through the arts
- By Philo on 06-20-18
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Sugar
- The World Corrupted: From Slavery to Obesity
- By: James Walvin
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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