The Vertigo Years

Europe 1900-1914

By: Philipp Blom

Narrated by: Joel Richards

Europe, 1900 - 1914: a world adrift, a pulsating era of creativity and contradictions. The major topics of the day: terrorism, globalization, immigration, consumerism, the collapse of moral values, and the rivalry of superpowers. The 20th century was not born in the trenches of the Somme or Passchendaelebut rather in the 15 vertiginous years preceding World War I.

In this short span of time, a new world order was emerging in ultimately tragic contradiction to the old. These were the years in which the political and personal repercussions of the Industrial Revolution were felt worldwide: Cities grew like never before as people fled the countryside and their traditional identities; science created new possibilities as well as nightmares; education changed the outlook of millions of people; mass-produced items transformed daily life; industrial laborers demanded a share of political power; and women sought to change their place in society as well as the very fabric of sexual relations.

From the tremendous hope for a new century embodied in the 1900 Worlds Fair in Paris to the shattering assassination of a Habsburg archduke in Sarajevo in 1914, historian Philipp Blom chronicles this extraordinary epoch year by year. Prime Ministers and peasants, anarchists and actresses, scientists and psychopaths intermingle on the stage of a new century in this portrait of an opulent, unstable age on the brink of disaster. Beautifully written and replete with deftly told anecdotes, The Vertigo Years brings the wonders, horrors, and fears of the early 20th century vividly to life.

©2008 Phillip Blom (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Really great history without pronounciation

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The narrator cannot pronounce a single name or word in the text.

What did you like best about this story?

It is really beautifully done - a detestable amount of detail about King Leopold's unsurpassed genocide in the Congo, but I am behind all of his unpacking of Colonialism.

Would you be willing to try another one of Joel Richards’s performances?

Never, although he has a perky Adam Gopnik-like voice and I listened for way too long because of the book. There is not ONE SINGLE WORD in French in German he can pronounce to save his life, to my regret, as it ruined the book for me. I had to give up.

Do you think The Vertigo Years needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Great book I need to read in text and pronounce in my head correctly before I can decide.

Any additional comments?

Missed opportunity. Great book, I think. A well-meaning perky reader with zilch ability in French/German pronunciation [key to hearing]. I blame the audiobook publisher for not briefing him. A waste. If you doubt me, check out Robert Hughes in Shock of the New on Ubuweb, since it is a lot of the same names and words and he gets 100 percent, and the narrator here, barely a thing.

Excellent

If you could sum up The Vertigo Years in three words, what would they be?

Panoramic view of early 1900's

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Vertigo Years?

Connections between culture changes, social changes, political changes and world historic events

Have you listened to any of Joel Richards’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Any additional comments?

Goes very well with Fracture, by the same author

Distracting pronunciation and poor quality control

The narrator has a pleasant voice and cadence, but this book needed somebody at least somewhat fluent at least in French and German (or somebody who could help him). Normally this is no big deal but this book has hundreds and perhaps thousands of foreign phrases and to have them consistently mispronounced makes it hard to listen to this book. It is a testimony to the quality of the book's thought (if not to it's somewhat disjointed organization and surprisingly intrusive detail repetitions) that I managed to make it most of the way through before abandoning it for the hardcopy I got from the library.

How complicated the world had become in 1900...

Through this reading, I was educated in the field of Eugenics and it's attraction to those who believed they were "inherently" better than others & some people were so inferior that society would be best served if they were euthanized or better yet never be born.
Nazi Germany comes to mind as an answer to this "problem".
Very interesting read.

Ruined by Narrator

This is rich and nuanced book, packed with incidents and characters if great interest. Its themes have a haunting currency. What a shame it was delivered into the hands of a narrator who reveals the thinness of his education on almost every page. He mispronounces names, murders foreign phrases and mangles simple words. His insistence on 'litachur' and 'boogwa' is maddening. Poor casting. He's be great for Brad Easton Ellis--trapped, as he seems to be, in a bookless monolingual hyper-contemporary American sensibility. Where is the director? Producer? Editor? Do any adults listen to these readings before they are published? It seems cruel to leave this narrator to an eternity of self-embarrassment.