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Napoleon
- A Life
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 27 hrs and 10 mins
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Napoleon
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Publisher's summary
The definitive biography of Napoleon, revealing the true man behind the legend.
"What a novel my life has been!" Napoleon once said of himself. Born into a poor family, the callow young man was, by 26, an army general. Seduced by an older woman, his marriage transformed him into a galvanizing military commander. The pope crowned him as emperor of the French when he was only 35. Within a few years, he became the effective master of Europe, his power unparalleled in modern history. His downfall was no less dramatic.
The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.
Critic reviews
"Napoleon is an out and out masterpiece and a joy to read." (Sir Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege)
"A biography of Napoleon Bonaparte that avoids the well-established military details and gives us the story of a singular man...Illuminating." (Kirkus)
"Zamoyski tells the personal side of Napoleon's life...his hopes, his dreams, his self-doubts." (New York Journal of Books)
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 208
A major biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, French hero of the American Revolution, looks past the storybook general and selfless champion of righteous causes who, at the age of 19, volunteered to fight under George Washington, casting aside fortune and family (from one of France's oldest families; his ancestors served in the Crusades and alongside Joan of Arc) to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and justice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lafayette: A Hit Abroad! & A Miss at Home!
- By James on 03-05-15
By: Laura Auricchio
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The Pope Who Would Be King
- The Exile of Pius IX and the Emergence of Modern Europe
- By: David I. Kertzer
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
Only two years after Pope Pius IX’s election in 1846 had triggered great popular enthusiasm across Italy, the pope found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. The revolutions that swept through Europe and shook Rome threatened to end the popes’ thousand-year reign over the Papal States, if not the papacy itself. The resulting drama was rife with treachery, tragedy, and international power politics. David Kertzer, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of Italy and the Vatican, brings this pivotal moment vividly to life.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Imbalanced and theologically confused
- By A. Moran on 06-18-19
By: David I. Kertzer
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Vienna 1814
- How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace
- By: David King
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
The Napoleonic Wars had torn Europe apart, and the peace conference of 1814 was to be held in the continent's grandest city: Vienna. Everyone had an agenda in the postwar world, and spy networks, bitter hatreds, illicit affairs, and tangled alliances ensued.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not bad, but pronunciation not so good!
- By Mary-Jo on 10-06-08
By: David King
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Peter the Great
- His Life and World
- By: Robert K. Massie
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 43 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,200
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,016
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,005
This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Narrater ruins everything
- By BrendaLouQuilts on 12-30-11
By: Robert K. Massie
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Napoleon
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Paul Johnson's book is a refreshing return to a concept whose time has come once again: the Great Man theory of biography. It serves as "the greatest possible refutation of those who hold that events are governed by forces, classes, economics, and geography rather than the powerful wills of men and women". Napoleon truly was the Great Man of his age, a towering and terrible genius who managed to conquer the Continent.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not your standard biography
- By Mark Grannis on 04-24-05
By: Paul Johnson
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Bolivar
- American Liberator
- By: Marie Arana
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,388
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,211
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,206
It is astonishing that Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of South America, is not better known in the United States. He freed six countries from Spanish rule, traveled more than 75,000 miles on horseback to do so, and became the greatest figure in Latin American history. His life is epic, heroic, straight out of Hollywood: he fought battle after battle in punishing terrain, forged uncertain coalitions of competing forces and races, lost his beautiful wife soon after they married and died relatively young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.
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4 out of 5 stars
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There will be blood.
- By Joselo on 08-02-13
By: Marie Arana
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The Thirty Years War
- By: C. V. Wedgwood
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 849
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 742
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 738
Initially, the Thirty Years War was precipitated in 1618 by religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. But the conflict soon spread beyond religion to encompass the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire, and then later to the other European powers. By the end, it became simply a dynastic struggle between Bourbon France and Habsburg Spain. And almost all of it was fought out in Germany. Entire regions were depopulated and destroyed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the World's Great History Books.
- By Judith A. Weller on 08-25-12
By: C. V. Wedgwood
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Sicily
- An Island at the Crossroads of History
- By: John Julius Norwich
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 14 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 164
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Story4 out of 5 stars 162
"Sicily," said Goethe, "is the key to everything." It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily's strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world's most powerful dynasties.
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3 out of 5 stars
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DISAPPOINTING
- By SRdto on 11-22-16
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Washington
- A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 41 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 13,280
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 11,527
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Story5 out of 5 stars 11,469
In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A sad day when my book was done!
- By ButterLegume on 12-13-10
By: Ron Chernow
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Augustus
- First Emperor of Rome
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,613
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,409
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,396
Caesar Augustus's story, one of the most riveting in western history, is filled with drama and contradiction, risky gambles and unexpected success. He began as a teenage warlord, whose only claim to power was as the heir of the murdered Julius Caesar. Mark Antony dubbed him "a boy who owes everything to a name," but in the years to come the youth outmaneuvered all the older and more experienced politicians and was the last man standing in 30 BC.
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5 out of 5 stars
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You know my name...say it.
- By Steven on 12-10-14
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Return of a King
- The Battle for Afghanistan
- By: William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Sagar Arya
- Length: 20 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story5 out of 5 stars 81
In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the 19th century.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Read the hard copy
- By Gina Czupka on 11-28-23
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Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician
- By: Anthony Everitt
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,429
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,268
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,264
In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life here as a witty and cunning political operator.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An eloquent man, and a patriot
- By Darwin8u on 01-19-15
By: Anthony Everitt
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The Innocence of Kaiser Wilhelm II
- And the First World War
- By: Christina Croft
- Narrated by: Jack Wynters
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
Almost a century after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Kaiser Wilhelm II is still viewed as either a warmonger or a madman, as the hundred-year-old propaganda posters remain fixed in the general consciousness. Was he, though, truly responsible for the catastrophe of the First World War, or was he in fact a convenient scapegoat, blamed for a conflict which he desperately tried to avoid?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Really make you re-think what your were told
- By Andrew Marsh on 11-09-18
By: Christina Croft
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Four Princes
- Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe
- By: John Julius Norwich
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 165
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
John Julius Norwich - whom the Wall Street Journal called "the very model of a popular historian" - has crafted a big, bold tapestry of the early 16th century, when Europe and the Middle East were overshadowed by a quartet of legendary rulers, all born within a 10-year period. Against the vibrant background of the Renaissance, these four men laid the foundations for modern Europe and the Middle East, as they collectively impacted the culture, religion, and politics of their respective domains.
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4 out of 5 stars
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For the most part, very informative.
- By Paula on 02-05-18
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- A Concise Biography
- By: David A. Bell
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David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility that Napoleon represented. Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Perfect introduction to Napoleon
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Phantom Terror
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- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I.