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The Phoenix
- St Paul's Cathedral and the Men Who Made Modern London
- Narrated by: John Hopkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
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The Phoenix
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The foundations of modern knowledge - philosophy, math, astronomy, geography - were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean....
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Publisher's summary
The remarkable and inspiring story of how London was transformed after the Great Fire of 1666 into the most powerful city in the world and the men who were responsible for that achievement.
Opening in the 1640s, as the city was gripped in tumult leading up to the English Civil War, The Phoenix charts the lives and works of five extraordinary men who would grow up in the chaos of a world turned upside down: the architect, Sir Christopher Wren; gardener and virtuosi, John Evelyn; the scientist, Robert Hooke; the radical philosopher, John Locke; and the builder, Nicholas Barbon.
At the heart of the story is the rebuilding of London's iconic cathedral, St Paul's. Interweaving science, architecture, history and philosophy, The Phoenix tells the story of the formation of the first modern city.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"A tour de force of biography, history, politics, philosophy and experimental science." (Economist)
"Wonderfully rich and informative...a rare achievement." (Tom Holland)
"Fascinating." (Lucy Moore)
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- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 583
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 523
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 520
In this effortlessly erudite account, Russell Shorto traces the idiosyncratic evolution of Amsterdam, showing how such disparate elements as herring anatomy, naked Anabaptists parading through the streets, and an intimate gathering in a 16th-century wine-tasting room had a profound effect on Dutch - and world - history. Weaving in his own experiences of his adopted home, Shorto provides an ever-surprising, intellectually engaging story of Amsterdam from its golden age to the present.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worth Reading - Highly Recommended
- By Whit B on 05-12-14
By: Russell Shorto
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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 827
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 753
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 748
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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Venice
- Pure City
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4 out of 5 stars 70
The Venetians' language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its listeners to that sensual and surprising city. His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers.
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2 out of 5 stars
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An endless droning list.....
- By jack on 03-15-11
By: Peter Ackroyd
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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 116
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4 out of 5 stars 105
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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The Medici
- Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,472
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,282
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,276
Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence as well as the Italian Renaissance, which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Fun Story Bad History
- By Elizabeth Barrett on 05-09-16
By: Paul Strathern
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A World Beneath the Sands
- The Golden Age of Egyptology
- By: Toby Wilkinson
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An entrancing listen, fascinating History
- By L. Ford Ballard, Jr. on 01-27-21
By: Toby Wilkinson
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The Verge
- Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World
- By: Patrick Wyman
- Narrated by: Patrick Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,083
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 915
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 912
In the best-selling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Like the Podcast but Better.
- By Michael S. Labrow on 07-21-21
By: Patrick Wyman
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Millennium
- From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed over a Thousand Years
- By: Ian Mortimer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
In Millennium, best-selling historian Ian Mortimer takes the listener on a whirlwind tour of the last 10 centuries of Western history. It is a journey into a past vividly brought to life and bursting with ideas, that pits one century against another in his quest to measure which century saw the greatest change. We journey from a time when there was a fair chance of your village being burned to the ground by invaders - and dried human dung was a recommended cure for cancer - to a world in which explorers sailed into the unknown and civilizations came into conflict.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Bad ending - literally
- By John Gordon on 12-14-16
By: Ian Mortimer
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Germany: Memories of a Nation
- By: Neil MacGregor
- Narrated by: Neil MacGregor
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Thirty years ago, a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany, both geography and history have always been unstable.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good "listen"
- By astasteel on 07-29-22
By: Neil MacGregor
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The Library
- A Fragile History
- By: Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stays on point
- By Alex on 04-29-23
By: Andrew Pettegree, and others
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A History of Japan
- Revised Edition
- By: R. H. P. Mason, J. G. Caiger
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 254
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 226
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Story4 out of 5 stars 223
A classic of Japanese history, this audiobook is the preeminent work on the history of Japan. Newly revised and updated, A History of Japan is a single-volume complete history of the nation of Japan. Starting in ancient Japan during its early pre-history period, A History of Japan covers every important aspect of history and culture through feudal Japan to the post-Cold War period and collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s. Recent findings shed additional light on the origins of Japanese civilization and the birth of Japanese culture.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Content great - pronunciation not so much
- By A. Weber on 03-08-19
By: R. H. P. Mason, and others
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The Germans and Europe
- A Personal Frontline History
- By: Peter Millar
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the best books I have listened to on here
- By Shaun on 05-17-18
By: Peter Millar
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A History of Future Cities
- By: Daniel Brook
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai. Every month, five million people move from the past to the future. Pouring into developing-world “instant cities” like Dubai and Shenzhen, these urban newcomers confront a modern world cobbled together from fragments of a West they have never seen. Do these fantastical boomtowns, where blueprints spring to life overnight on virgin land, represent the dawning of a brave new world? Or is their vaunted newness a mirage?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engaging and Memorable
- By Marcus Vorwaller on 04-15-14
By: Daniel Brook
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Venice
- A New History
- By: Professor Thomas F. Madden
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 605
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 529
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 523
An extraordinary chronicle of Venice, its people, and its grandeur Thomas Madden’s majestic, sprawling history of Venice is the first full portrait of the city in English in almost thirty years. Using long-buried archival material and a wealth of newly translated documents, Madden weaves a spellbinding story of a place and its people, tracing an arc from the city’s humble origins as a lagoon refuge to its apex as a vast maritime empire and Renaissance epicenter to its rebirth as a modern tourist hub.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Omits slave trade
- By Rocky Stonebreaker on 08-21-16
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Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 31 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 260
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 223
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Story4 out of 5 stars 218
Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A learned, well-balanced postmodern history
- By Jacobus on 11-21-12
By: Peter Brown