The Rise of Absolutism and of the Middle Class

By: Lynn Thorndike

Narrated by: Andrea Giordani

Length: 1 hr and 1 min

Publisher's summary

The era of absolutism as exemplified by the "Sun King" Louis XIV of France marks the rise of rulers throughout Europe who had absolute power over their nations. Mercantilism became the primary form of economy and gave rise to a middle class.

"The Rise of Absolutism and of the Middle Class" is an excerpt from The History of Medieval Europe by Lynn Thorndike.

Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks

Dry text, odd narration

The text itself, representative of the kind of history that was written 100 years ago, is a dry recitation of "great men," the important dates in their lives, and droning lists of the territories that were added to or lost from their realms. The essay does not divulge how the author defines "absolutism," or how absolutism is differentiated from what came before or after. It barely scratches the changing relationships between monarchs and nobles, or between monarchs and peasants. It also only covers from about 1450-1520, thus leaving out some of the most important absolutists, like Louis XIV in the 17th century and the absolutists of the Enlightenment in the 18th century. This is odd because the publisher's description of this essay specifically mentions Louis XIV, but when you actually get into the essay, the author states that even the German Peasants' War of 1525 is beyond the chronological scope of this essay. As for the development of the middle class, probably less than 2 minutes out of the 1 hour length of this recorded essay are devoted to talking about the rise of the middle class at all. This essay is more of a low-quality Wikipedia or encyclopedia article than something that will inform the listener about the mechanics of how absolutism actually evolved and what absolutism meant.

The narration also leaves something to be desired. The narrator's voice seems to be a mix of British with Eastern and Southern European accents, which makes it hard to follow the idiosyncratic pronunciations of words. Some of the pronunciations are just flat-out incorrect, regardless of which accent someone has. For instance, the narrator pronounces Cesare Borgia like "Caesar" (it's supposed to be pronounced like CHE-sa-REY). The narrator's accent also causes her to put emphases on odd syllables (like pronouncing "political" as "PAW-lee-TEE-kal" instead of "po-LIT-i-CAL"), which breaks the listener's flow of concentration and causes the listener to have to pause and think, "Wait, what word did she just say?" Also, the audio equipment used by the narrator seems to be of low quality, as her plosives pop and pierce through one's headphones/speakers too sharply.