History of Scotland: A Captivating Guide to Scottish History, the Wars of Scottish Independence and William Wallace

By: Captivating History

Narrated by: Duke Holm, David Patton

Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's Summary

Three captivating manuscripts in one audiobook:
 

• Scottish History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Scotland
• Wars of Scottish Independence: A Captivating Guide to the Battles Between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, Including the Impact Made by King Robert the Bruce
• William Wallace: A Captivating Guide to a Freedom Fighter and Martyr Who Impacted Scottish History and Scotland’s Independence from England

In part one of this audiobook, you will discover topics such as
 

• Medieval strife
• The emergence of the Scottish Nation-State
• The Golden Age
• The Wars of Independence
• The Black Death
• Mary, Queen of Scots: “The Daughter of Debate”
• The King of Great Britain
• The union and the Scottish Enlightenment
• The Industrial Revolution
• Scottish feminism
• The Loch Ness Monster
• And much, much more

In part two of this audiobook, you will discover:
 

• Good fences; Good neighbors
• Crisis
• Defiance
• The martyr
• Power struggles
• Inner strife
• The Battle of Bannockburn
• A worthy King
• The Son of the Bruce & the Second War for Independence
• And much, much more

Some of the topics covered in part three of this audiobook include:
 

• Mysterious origins
• Coming of age in crisis
• Defiance and compliance
• The prophecy
• Uprising
• Love in a time of war
• The Battle of Stirling Bridge
• Invading England
• The Guardian of Scotland
• Defeat at Falkirk
• An outlaw once more
• The execution
• And much more

So if you want to learn more about the history of Scotland, buy this audiobook now!

©2018 Captivating History (P)2018 Captivating History

A broken record

Struggled to finish due to it telling of the same events repeatedly over and over. Every time you think it is finally going to continue with the time line of events it goes back to the same time frame and same story making it hard to follow at times.

Three drafts of the same words...

The length of this audio book is achieved by the fact that it keeps repeating the same narratives three and more times. Imagine listening to many different drafts of the author's much shorter work. Gives an unfortunate new meaning to history repeating itself.

first two books are the worst performance ever.

all 3 books repeat themselves, even with the same sentences. it became boring and repetative.

Good Content But Terrible Narrator

I'm not one to write negative reviews, but this is quite simply the worst narrator of an audiobook I've ever heard. It's not that the reading is unclear; it's that there are so many mispronunciations of words and Scottish place names that it's frankly distracting and mildly insulting (and I'm not even Scottish). A simple google search would teach this narrator how to pronounce Glasgow, Edinburgh, Hebrides, and even words like primogeniture, exorbitant, and adjudicate. The last word forced me to rewind the audiobook a few times so I could understand what word he was trying to say with the context clues. Moreover, there was the botching of dates, like saying 1920 when he absolutely had to have meant 1290. I'm not sure if the narrator read the copy ahead of time, but simple research would help this narrator do his homework. Embarrassingly bad for a profession where thousands of trained actors and readers could have done this better.

Narration was pretty bad

So many truly bad pronunciation mistakes like pronouncing the g-o-w in Glasgow like c-o-w instead of just g-o or pronouncing the g-h in Edinburgh like iceberg. Just weird and rather insulting to Scotland in general. For pity's sake, learn how to pronounce the names of the cities this history is about!

There is also a point in the book where the narrator seems to be audibly, cheerfully, dismissing the practice of child labor abuses during the industrial revolution like those were the good old days. The tone was probably not intentional, but still cringe-worthy!

poorly edited, dryly read

narrator was dry and poorly faked accents. Numerous technical editing mistakes. Is LGBTQ progress a critical criterion for a chapter of Scottish historical advancement that covers millennia when it just pops onto the scene at the last decade?

just say it once

Didn't like the constant repeating of facts already covered in previous chapters and bouncing around

Great way to condense the history in small bites

I would give this 5-stars but nobody taught this narrator how to properly pronounce Scottish words. If you can get past the incorrect pronunciations then it’s a nice, bite-sized way to learn about Scottish history.

Do not get this

Worst history i have ever listened to. I wanted to like it, but the story was a mess and the narration was a mess....

Edinburg, glas-cow, skaland - really?

the reader should have at least made an effort to know how to pronounce city names like Edinburgh and Glasgow. Even Scotland sounded like Skaland. made me cringe each time I heard it, being the offspring if Glasgow parents. should have been narrated by a Scot But the history presentation was wonderful.

Awful. Cant even pronounce Edinburgh correctly

This is just awful. Thomas Cromwell? It was Oliver. Nicola Sturgeon is not the Head of State in Scotland, the Queen is. The book is chalk full of mistakes, not least the fact that Edinburgh is pronounced "Edinburg" as in rhyming with iceberg. Terrible. The mispronounced words are often just awful, even the English spoken is atrocious.

Terrible performance

If you live in the UK this is impossible to listen to. The reader's pronunciation of place names is infuriating. Edinberg. Dunfermleen. Berwick (with the W). I mean come on. If you're getting someone to read a history of Scotland, get a Scottish person, or someone who has been there, or at very least someone who is willing to Google the pronunciations. This takes away any sense of professionalism and authenticity. It would be funny if I hadn't paid for it. My favourite one was when he could pronounce Sturgeon right but not Nicola. Embarrassing to the point of being offensive. Oh and he puts on a terrible Scottish accent regularly. I once worked with a guy who put on a Chinese accent of a similar quality, as a result he's now unemployed. All of the above makes a book that would otherwise be captivating, nothing short of diabolical.

Exceptional content marred by incompetent delivery

This taught me a tonne about Scotland, and was factually interesting, and engaging, but the narration was just awful. It was as if the producers didn't bother to look up even the most basics of how to pronounce place names, or surnames in English. The only way to get through this book is to find the narrator's pronunciation funny, and shrug it off, but I must warn future would-be readers - It's relentless. Not a single Scottish word is pronounced correctly. Such a disappointment.

Terrible pronunciation of place names.

The narrator should really have the professionalism to learn how to pronounce local place names. Especially when one of them is the capital city of the country about which you read a history. Edinburgh does not share a syllable with ice berg. It just doesnt. Berwick is not buurr Wick. There were more than five repeated mispronunciations. I stopped counting. The job of the narrator is to convey the expertise of the author. This narration breaks that link and devalues the product.

Oh and to refer to Alan Turing as Alice Turing, is just not acceptable.

Apart from the mispronunciations, the style of the narrator is fine. Books about other topics might be ok.

The content was quite good. It was three smaller audiobooks put toegether and did the job as advertised. It is not an in depth history but the kind of history that you might listen to before a first visit to Scotland.

NARRATOR AWFUL

Sorry to say. history good information accurate and good.
Narrators are both awful. at least get someone who can pronounce the scottish words properly. it was painful to listen such poor narration constant misuse of words. I cant believe this was released with so many flaws in it. teach them how to pronounce places like Edinburgh. Berwick and Glasgow I was screaming at it constantly to the point that I was forcing myself to continue to listen. then when they attempted a scottish accent sorry poor very poor. made Mel Gibsons attempt in braveheart look good and that's saying a lot.
redo the book properly. I will do it for you.
if you paid the narrators for this you were robbed. big let down

Repetitive

The book started off well but as it develops there are huge overlaps with previous chapters and constant repetition. Sadly the pronunciation of the Scottish place names is quite off.

Dreadful

The reader is abysmal: can't pronounce any Scottish place names (not that unusual for an American) or first names (NicOla) but also can't pronounce a host of fairly common longish words such as "adjudicate".
The writing is pretty substandard too. The second part is repetitive and disjointed, giving the impression of being copied and pasted from Wikipedia articles or something. Basic factual errors jar in my ears: the writer seems to think Stonehenge is in Scotland, for example, and in a passage about gay rights in the UK in general mentions "English playwright Oscar Wilde and english computer scientist Alice Turing". I couldn't finish. It was too painful.

An interesting book ruined by the narration.

Native Scots (and many others) will squirm at this narrators mangled pronunciation of Scottish place names. Surely it is a small matter to research these or take advice before starting on this task. The voice is otherwise rather stilted and unengaging. This is a pity because the book has some interesting information and novel perspectives which I and many others will miss out on because the narration is so unbearable.

For an American audience!

Being Scottish but primarily educated in England I got none of this at School. So in the main enjoyable but did repeat story’s.

Could the narrator not have done his own research on pronunciation though. Rgh towns are not pronounced as Pittsburgh and, well I could go on. Forteviet’s pronunciation did make me laugh and for all at her Americans, the W in Berwick and Glasgow is silent!

narration

a good history comprised by the misprenuciation of scottish place names and titles of the nobility