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Wasteland
- The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
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Wasteland
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Publisher's summary
Historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of history, technology, and art that gave us modern horror films and literature.
In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war.
From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, from Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau and Albin Grau to Tod Browning and James Whale, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War. Historian W. Scott Poole chronicles these major figures and the many movements they influenced. Wasteland reveals how bloody battlefields, the fear of the corpse, and a growing darkness made their way into the deepest corners of our psyche.
On the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that brought World War I to a close, W. Scott Poole takes us behind the front lines of battle to a no-man's-land where the legacy of "the War to End All Wars" lives on.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
On the Natural History of Destruction is W.G. Sebald's harrowing and precise investigation of one of the least examined "silences" of our time. In it, the acclaimed novelist examines the devastation of German cities by Allied bombardment, and the reasons for the astonishing absence of this unprecedented trauma from German history and culture. This void in history is in part a repression of things - such as the death by fire of the city of Hamburg at the hands of the RAF - too terrible to bear.
By: W. G. Sebald, and others
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Rites of Spring
- The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
- By: Modris Eksteins
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 93
Dazzling in its originality, Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War", as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point...for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
By: Modris Eksteins
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Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
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Shock Value
- How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror
- By: Jason Zinoman
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 298
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 260
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 261
Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film - aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players, New York Times critic Jason Zinoman's Shock Value delivers the first definitive account of horror's golden age.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good listen, but narrow in scope
- By Billy on 01-31-13
By: Jason Zinoman
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The Great Escape
- Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early 20th century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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very interesting, well-narrated
- By D. Littman on 12-17-06
By: Kati Marton
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,062
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 936
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 930
Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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4 out of 5 stars
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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Russia
- The Story of War
- By: Gregory Carleton
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
No nation is a stranger to war, but for Russians war is a central part of who they are. Their "motherland" has been the battlefield where some of the largest armies have clashed, the most savage battles have been fought, the highest death tolls paid. Having prevailed over Mongol hordes and vanquished Napoleon and Hitler, many Russians believe no other nation has sacrificed so much for the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A bit dry and academic
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-16-17
By: Gregory Carleton
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The Man Who Invented Fiction
- How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
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Severed
- A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
- By: Frances Larson
- Narrated by: Reay Kaplan
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 70
From the Western collectors whose demand for shrunken heads spurred massacres to Second World War soldiers who sent the remains of the Japanese home to their girlfriends, from Madame Tussaud modeling the guillotined head of Robespierre to Damien Hirst photographing decapitated heads in city morgues, from grave-robbing phrenologists to skull-obsessed scientists, anthopologist Frances Larson here explores our macabre fixation with severed heads.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good narrator
- By Caitlin kestell on 04-27-24
By: Frances Larson
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Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
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The Story Paradox
- How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Joshua Kane
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A bit of a mixed bag with some amazing discussion
- By Justin on 04-27-22
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Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
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Batman Unauthorized
- Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City
- By: Dennis O'Neil - editor, Leah Wilson - editor
- Narrated by: Colby Elliott
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4 out of 5 stars 147
Compiled by a veteran writer of the comic series, this collection of essays explores Batman’s motivations and actions, as well as those of his foes. Batman is a creature of the night, more about vengeance than justice, more plagued by doubts than full of self-assurance, and more darkness than light. He has no superpowers, just skill, drive, and a really well-made suit.
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1 out of 5 stars
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batman uninformed opinions
- By Aurey C. on 04-13-17
By: Dennis O'Neil - editor, and others
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War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 380
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 297
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 295
Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful, perceptive, personal
- By Cx30 on 08-08-07
By: Chris Hedges
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Existentialism and Excess
- The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 82
Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.
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2 out of 5 stars
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a capitalista biography of Sartre
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-20
By: Gary Cox
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Making History
- The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Richard Cohen
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
There are many stories we can spin about previous ages, but which accounts get told? And by whom? Is there even such a thing as “objective” history? In this “witty, wise, and elegant” (The Spectator), book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses, such as the writers of the Bible, novelists, and political propagandists, influence what becomes the accepted record. Cohen argues, for example, that some historians are practitioners of “Bad History” and twist reality to glorify themselves or their country.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Missing 20 pages from book
- By Rick, Austin on 04-23-22
By: Richard Cohen
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- Gender in the Modern Horror Film
- By: Carol J. Clover
- Narrated by: Eva Wilhelm
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
From its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a groundbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since the mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Clover looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although such movies have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasures to their mostly male audiences, Clover demonstrates that they align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the females tormented.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Outdated by today’s standards but interesting academic read
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Dark Carnivals
- Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire
- By: W. Scott Poole
- Narrated by: Enrique McGavin
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 6
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 6
The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation's influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
- Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power
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- Unabridged
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