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Chicago's Great Fire
- The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
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The Johnstown Flood
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,801
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,000
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,987
At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A page-turner! HIstory that reads like a novel
- By Susan K Donley on 06-17-05
By: David McCullough
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Dark Tide
- The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
- By: Stephen Puleo
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 319
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 276
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 276
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Don't Pass it by Because You Don't Like Molasses!
- By Matthew on 08-18-16
By: Stephen Puleo
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Maniac
- The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 218
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 195
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 195
In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school - one of the most modern in the Midwest - Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it.
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3 out of 5 stars
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One of my favorite true crime authors flops.
- By John L on 03-14-21
By: Harold Schechter
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We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant. Pure pleasure.
- By Jim Dunn on 03-22-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
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The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- A History
- By: Thomas Helling MD
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By ieatbroccoli on 03-30-22
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Collision on Tenerife
- The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster
- By: Jon Ziomek, Caroline Hopkins - contributor
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
The world's worst air disaster happened more than 40 years ago on a remote Atlantic Ocean island, when two fully loaded 747 passenger jets collided after a horrendous series of human errors. One of the jets, KLM Flight 4805, was traveling more than 150 miles an hour and was within seconds of lifting off when it crashed into Pan Am Flight 1736 taxiing in its path. The loss of lives was staggering - 583 dead. The crash happened after a lengthy series of major and minor human errors. In the intervening years, has aviation advanced to the point that such a disaster can't happen again?
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1 out of 5 stars
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90 percent filler
- By Laura747 on 11-01-21
By: Jon Ziomek, and others
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The Johnstown Flood
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,801
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,000
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,987
At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon.
-
5 out of 5 stars
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A page-turner! HIstory that reads like a novel
- By Susan K Donley on 06-17-05
By: David McCullough
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Dark Tide
- The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
- By: Stephen Puleo
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 319
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 276
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 276
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Don't Pass it by Because You Don't Like Molasses!
- By Matthew on 08-18-16
By: Stephen Puleo
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Maniac
- The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 218
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 195
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 195
In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school - one of the most modern in the Midwest - Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it.
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3 out of 5 stars
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One of my favorite true crime authors flops.
- By John L on 03-14-21
By: Harold Schechter
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We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant. Pure pleasure.
- By Jim Dunn on 03-22-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
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The Great War and the Birth of Modern Medicine
- A History
- By: Thomas Helling MD
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The Great War of 1914-1918 burst on the European scene with a brutality to mankind not yet witnessed by the civilized world. Modern warfare was no longer the stuff of chivalry and honor; it was a mutilative, deadly, and humbling exercise to wipe out the very presence of humanity. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of maimed, beaten, and bleeding men surged into aid stations and hospitals with injuries unimaginable in their scope and destruction. Doctors scrambled to find some way to salvage not only life but limb.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By ieatbroccoli on 03-30-22
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Collision on Tenerife
- The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster
- By: Jon Ziomek, Caroline Hopkins - contributor
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
The world's worst air disaster happened more than 40 years ago on a remote Atlantic Ocean island, when two fully loaded 747 passenger jets collided after a horrendous series of human errors. One of the jets, KLM Flight 4805, was traveling more than 150 miles an hour and was within seconds of lifting off when it crashed into Pan Am Flight 1736 taxiing in its path. The loss of lives was staggering - 583 dead. The crash happened after a lengthy series of major and minor human errors. In the intervening years, has aviation advanced to the point that such a disaster can't happen again?
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
90 percent filler
- By Laura747 on 11-01-21
By: Jon Ziomek, and others
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Vanderbilt
- The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,657
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,235
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,208
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Wonderful modern history…
- By P. J. Jough-Haan on 09-22-21
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
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A Furious Sky
- The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
With A Furious Sky, Eric Jay Dolin has created a vivid, sprawling account of our encounters with hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus's New World voyages to the destruction wrought in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Weaving a story of shipwrecks and devastated cities, of heroism and folly, Dolin introduces a rich cast of unlikely heroes and puts us in the middle of the most devastating storms of the past, none worse than the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed at least 6,000 people, the highest toll of any natural disaster in American history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good start but went political at the end.
- By thebreeze on 03-24-21
By: Eric Jay Dolin
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Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 13,176
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 11,723
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 11,704
On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Larson writes history that reads like fiction
- By Max on 03-22-15
By: Erik Larson
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Peril
- By: Bob Woodward, Robert Costa
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,048
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,984
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,933
The transition from President Donald J. Trump to President Joseph R. Biden Jr. stands as one of the most dangerous periods in American history. But as number one internationally best-selling author Bob Woodward and acclaimed reporter Robert Costa reveal for the first time, it was far more than just a domestic political crisis. Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people at the center of the turmoil, resulting in more than 6,000 pages of transcripts - and a spellbinding and definitive portrait of a nation on the brink.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Clear Portrait of Chaotic Presidential Transition
- By Peter W. Kalnin on 09-21-21
By: Bob Woodward, and others
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Disaster!
- A History of Earthquakes, Floods, Plagues, and Other Catastrophes
- By: John Withington
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
A comprehensive catalog of the most devastating and deadly events-natural or man-made-in human history. If you follow the news it can seem like injury, sickness, and death are now constant, inescapable occurrences that threaten us every second of every day. But such catastrophic events - as terrible and frightening as they are - have been happening for as long as mankind has walked the Earth.... and even before. From ancient volcanoes and floods to epidemics of cholera and smallpox to Hitler's mass killings in the 20th century, humanity's continued existence has always seemed perilous.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic account of disasters!
- By Gardenstate Reader on 12-30-19
By: John Withington
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The Day the World Came to Town
- 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
- By: Jim DeFede
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,319
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,056
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2,041
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of US airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill.
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5 out of 5 stars
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👍👍 From one of the Plane People
- By Timothy on 12-30-19
By: Jim DeFede
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Firepower
- How Weapons Shaped Warfare
- By: Paul Lockhart
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare, but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable and informative.
- By Kathy Neal on 01-25-22
By: Paul Lockhart
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War: How Conflict Shaped Us
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 190
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 155
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 153
Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control?
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2 out of 5 stars
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Horrible choice of narrator derails this book
- By Steve Winnett on 02-25-21
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Destiny of the Republic
- A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,730
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,970
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,952
James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Marvelous, Magnificent, Millard
- By Mel on 02-08-12
By: Candice Millard
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A Short History of Humanity
- A New History of Old Europe
- By: Johannes Krause, Thomas Trappe, Caroline Waight - translator
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics - archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology - which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time. In this surprising account, Krause and journalist Thomas Trappe rewrite a fascinating chapter of this history, the peopling of Europe, that takes us from the Neanderthals and Denisovans to the present.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not a short history of humanity
- By Brent on 05-02-21
By: Johannes Krause, and others
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The Children's Blizzard
- By: David Laskin
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 235
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 215
January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Flawed opinion
- By Kathy Whitham on 01-20-21
By: David Laskin
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Chernobyl 01:23:40
- The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster
- By: Andrew Leatherbarrow
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 915
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 817
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Story4 out of 5 stars 816
At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands, and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated, and inaccurate stories.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Modern Trip to Chernobyl Almost Ruins a Great Book
- By Benjamin on 03-21-17
Publisher's Summary
From an acclaimed historian, the full and authoritative story of one of the most iconic disasters in American history, told through the vivid memories of those who experienced it.
Between October 8-10, 1871, much of the city of Chicago was destroyed by one of the most legendary urban fires in history. Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago had grown at a breathtaking pace in barely three decades, from just over 4,000 in 1840 to greater than 330,000 at the time of the fire. Built hastily, the city was largely made of wood. Once it began in the barn of Catherine and Patrick O’Leary, the fire quickly grew out of control, twice jumping branches of the Chicago River on its relentless northeastward path through the city’s three divisions. Close to one of every three Chicago residents was left homeless and more were instantly unemployed, though the death toll was miraculously low.
Remarkably, no carefully researched popular history of the Great Chicago Fire has been written until now, despite it being one of the most cataclysmic disasters in US history. Building the story around memorable characters, both known to history and unknown, including the likes of General Philip Sheridan and Robert Todd Lincoln, eminent Chicago historian Carl Smith chronicles the city’s rapid growth and place in America’s post-Civil War expansion.
The dramatic story of the fire - revealing human nature in all its guises - became one of equally remarkable renewal, as Chicago quickly rose back up from the ashes thanks to local determination and the world’s generosity and faith in Chicago’s future.
As we approach the fire’s 150th anniversary, Carl Smith’s compelling narrative at last gives this epic event its full and proper place in our national chronicle.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
