Conqueror Collection

Biographies on Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great

By: Adam Morrow

Narrated by: Jim D Johnston

This collection contains biographies on: Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great.

©2018 Combray Media (P)2018 Combray Media

Good Start

Interesting and informative summary of the lives of four great conquerors. The book/audiobook provides intriguing and less known facts about their early years, upbringing, and family lives, as well as a summary of important events. The narration was even and well-paced. If you are really interested in any of these individuals, you will want a more indepth treatise, but for the casual listener/historian, this is a good start.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

A Snapshot of Four Historical Figures

This is a really good collection on four different historical figures. Considering the time allotted for each figure there's only time for the highlights of their lives. This is a snapshot that will either satisfy your curiosity or set it off and give you a good idea what to look for. The narration was excellently done. Jim D Johnston has a nice voice for smooth reading and he reads at a very nice pace. Overall, I was pleased to have this book and think anyone interested in history and those who helped to mold it would enjoy it as well.

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Synopsis Histories

This collection of Histories of famous conquerors gives you short, but complete bites of their lives and what shaped them into the men they were to become. I loved that it was not driven by theories when possible but facts as they were known. The narrator was clear and understandable.

four quick overviews

Coming in at two hours in length, and covering four major historical figures, means that each person here only gets 30 minutes. Thirty minutes is only enough to give a little taste, a sparks notes version, of each of these people. While the small amount of time given is well used, it it never going to be enough to get a full appreciation of the conquerors and their achievements.

What Morrow has put together here is pretty good. He covers the major events and formative actions of the figures. He gives a bit of context for their period, how they rose to power and how their reign ended.

There are small things that while inconsequential took away form the overall package - there is no apparent rhyme or reason for the order of the four parts. They aren't chronological. And they aren't even in the same order as they are listed in the title. It is four smaller books collected together, and there is no references between them, no building on items learnt in the previous chapters to give a wider context of where the events sat in relation to one another.

The book gives a good overview and introduction and maybe it's enough to inspire you to go find a larger, more complete book.

Narration by Jim D Johnston is good. Nothing outstanding, but certainly a solid performance. He is clear and well paced, with no obvious errors or production problems. There is not a whole lot of work with for showing a range of talent in the narration, due to the nature of the book, but he does well with what he is working with.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this review voluntarily.

A good start, needs more

This is the first book I’ve read/listened to by this author. Such a short book does not mean much time is given to cover each person. These biographies mention a bit about their younger years (if it’s known to history), several of the major battles of each conquer, and of course, the likely cause of their deaths. Although I feel this offers enough information to interest someone oblivious to one or all these leaders, there were not really any “ah ha” moments for me. A half an hour more spent on each leader could have rounded things out nicely. Maybe expand on how their methods were advantageous and how they assimilated the cultures?
An overall theme to tie them together would have made the book more cohesive. Instead it was a bit jarring switching to the next conqueror.

This is the first book I’ve listened to by this narrator ( Jim D Johnson ) and I feel he did well reading this content. He had a nice pace and spoke clearly.

There are no explicit sex scenes, excessive violence or swearing.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and voluntarily left this unbiased review.
Please feel free to comment on whether you found my review helpful.

Story
Narration