The Islamic Enlightenment
The Struggle Between Faith and Reason: 1798 to Modern Times
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The Islamic Enlightenment
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Narrated by:
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Charles Armstrong
About this listen
This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the 19th and early 20th centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy. With trenchant political and historical insight, de Bellaigue further shows how the violence of an infinitesimally small minority is in fact the tragic blowback from that modernization. This revolutionary argument, which completely refutes the misconception that Muslims live in a benighted state of backwardness, reveals the folly of Westerners demanding modernity from their Islamic neighbors.
©2017 Christopher de Bellaigue (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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Destiny Disrupted
- A History of the World through Islamic Eyes
- By: Tamim Ansary
- Narrated by: Tamim Ansary
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,965
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,651
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,643
Until about 1800, the West and the Islamic realm were like two adjacent, parallel universes, each assuming itself to be the center of the world while ignoring the other. As Europeans colonized the globe, the two world histories intersected and the Western narrative drove the other one under. The West hardly noticed, but the Islamic world found the encounter profoundly disrupting.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A history of the world before the West mattered
- By David on 05-05-14
By: Tamim Ansary
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Incarnations
- India in Fifty Lives
- By: Sunil Khilnani
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
For all of India's myths, its sea of stories and moral epics, Indian history remains a curiously unpeopled place. In Incarnations, Sunil Khilnani fills that space, recapturing the human dimension of how the world's largest democracy came to be. His trenchant portraits of emperors, warriors, philosophers, film stars, and corporate titans - some famous, some unjustly forgotten - bring feeling, wry humor, and uncommon insight to dilemmas that extend from ancient times to our own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen, the author is biased
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-19
By: Sunil Khilnani
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Jews, God, and History
- By: Max I. Dimont
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 225
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 174
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 178
Vitality floods its pages. Philosophers and kings, warriors and merchants, poets and financiers come alive as the story ranges across time and the globe. From ancient Palestine through Europe and the Orient, to America and modern Israel, Max Dimont shows how the saga of the Jews is interwoven with the history of virtually every nation on earth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Grand in scope and depth
- By Joe on 08-27-12
By: Max I. Dimont
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The Story of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 191
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 168
The Story of Russia is about how the Russians defined themselves―and repeatedly reinvented such definitions along the way. Moving from Russia’s agrarian beginnings in the first millennium to subsequent periods of monarchy, totalitarianism, and perestroika, all the way up to Vladimir Putin and his use of myths of Russian history to bolster his regime, celebrated historian Orlando Figes examines the ideas that have guided the country’s actions.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Almost perfect…
- By Samantha Dispenzieri on 02-21-23
By: Orlando Figes
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Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,315
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,171
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,163
The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
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Worlds at War
- The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 533
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 295
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Story4 out of 5 stars 292
In the tradition of Jared Diamond and Jacques Barzun, prize-winning historian Anthony Pagden presents a sweeping history of the long struggle between East and West, from the Greeks to the present day.
The relationship between East and West has always been one of turmoil. In this historical tour de force, a renowned historian leads us from the world of classical antiquity, through the Dark Ages, to the Crusades, Europe's resurgence, and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire, which almost shattered Europe entirely. Pagden travels from Napoleon in Egypt to Europe's carving up of the finally moribund Ottomans - creating the modern Middle East along the way - and on to the present struggles in Iraq.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great story, with a lot of unfamiliar names
- By Tad Davis on 07-02-08
By: Anthony Pagden
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1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War
- By: Charles Emerson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4 out of 5 stars 106
Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features last summers in grand aristocratic residences or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of revolution, violence in the Balkans.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good book ruined by bad read
- By GANESHi on 08-02-13
By: Charles Emerson
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Inglorious Empire
- What the British Did to India
- By: Shashi Tharoor
- Narrated by: Shashi Tharoor
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 516
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 452
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 450
In the 18th century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannons, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial "gift" was designed in Britain's interests alone.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An entertaining and provocative history
- By James Moseley on 01-07-20
By: Shashi Tharoor
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Foundation
- The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors: The History of England, Book 1
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 844
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 765
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 760
In Foundation the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past - a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The Most Annoying Narrator EVER
- By JudieBee on 12-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Phantom Terror
- Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789 - 1848
- By: Adam Zamoyski
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By Mike Johnson on 07-14-15
By: Adam Zamoyski
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Bible and Sword
- England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 430
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 359
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 358
Two-time Pulitzer Prize - winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state - and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book, but not quite objective
- By Kellie on 04-25-11
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The English and Their History
- By: Robert Tombs
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 43 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 688
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 603
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 595
Robert Tombs' momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Should be called, The English and their politics
- By Mary Elizabeth Reynolds on 08-24-16
By: Robert Tombs
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The Pursuit of Italy
- A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples
- By: David Gilmour
- Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
- Length: 19 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
Did Garibaldi do Italy a disservice when he helped its disparate parts achieve unity? Was the goal of political unification a mistake? These questions are asked and answered in a number of ways in this engaging, original consideration of the many histories that contribute to the brilliance - and weakness - of Italy today. David Gilmour's exploration of Italian life over the centuries is filled with provocative anecdotes as well as personal observations.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good history: Tough Narration
- By C.S. on 11-12-18
By: David Gilmour
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Empire
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's age of empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and the institutions of representative government - all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the 17th century until the mid-20th. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not Balanced till Conclusion
- By Hectoris on 08-13-20
By: Niall Ferguson