Discover the Best Sellers Audiobooks in History, European

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Title: Farewell the Trumpets

Subtitle: An Imperial Retreat: Pax Britannica, Vol. 3

Author: Jan Morris

Narrator: Roy McMillan

Format: Abridged

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-04-12

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris magnificent history of the British Empire from 1837 to 1965. It is an extraordinary achievement, as entertaining as it is informative, and as vivid and immediate as it is huge in scope and ambition. This final volume charts the decline and dissolution of what was once the largest empire the world had known.

From the first signs of decay in the imperial ambition in the Boer Wars, through the global shifts in power evident in the two World Wars, it offers a perspective that is honest, evocative, and occasionally elegiac.

Editorial Reviews:

Tracing the decline and fall of the British Empire, Jan Morris beloved volume of history, Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat, the third volume in the Pax Britannica series, is every bit as entertaining as the first two. Roy McMillans vivid performance opens this definitive popular history up and expands its accessibility yet further. His intelligent, thoughtful voice allows the listener to sit back and enjoy the ride from a new imperialist fervor at the close of the 19th century to the death of Winston Churchill, signaling the true end of British Imperialism.

Members Reviews:

How to Learn to be Humble

At 20+ hours the unabridged version of this, the 3rd in a trilogy, daunted me. I now wish it hadn't because this abridged one was so informative and well read that I wanted more straight away. I shall now download the unabridged versions of the other two books in the series (and maybe of this one too).

Jan Morris, writing this particular volume in the late 1970's captures well, as far as I know, the tortuous, but usually dignified, decline of Great Britain's imperial power in the first half of the 20th century. Peppered with interesting vignettes this is not a heavy tome but still gives a real sense of how our nation managed such a vast empire and how differently we approached each territory - something I had not previously recognised. It seems that men (always men) with 3rd class degrees were the preferred agents of Albion because of their malleability.

Finally, some praise for the narrator, whose pace and tone never intrude and always lead one on to the next interesting fact. An extremely deftly executed reading.

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Title: God's Jury

Subtitle: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World

Author: Cullen Murphy

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-27-12

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 67 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

The Inquisition conducted its last execution in 1826-the victim was a Spanish schoolmaster convicted of heresy. But as Cullen Murphy shows in this provocative new work, not only did its offices survive into the 20th century, in the modern world its spirit is more influential than ever. God's Jury encompasses the diverse stories of the Knights Templar, Torquemada, Galileo, and Graham Greene. Established by the Catholic Church in 1231, the Inquisition continued in one form or another for almost seven hundred years. Though associated with the persecution of heretics and Jews - and with burning at the stake - its targets were more numerous and its techniques more ambitious. The Inquisition pioneered surveillance and censorship and "scientific" interrogation. As time went on, its methods and mindset spread far beyond the Church to become tools of secular persecution. Traveling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantánamo to the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy.

With the combination of vivid immediacy and learned analysis that characterized his acclaimed Are We Rome?, Murphy puts a human face on a familiar but little-known piece of our past, and argues that only by understanding the Inquisition can we hope to explain the making of the present.

Critic Reviews:

"When virtue arms itself - beware! Lucid, scholarly, elegantly told, God's Jury is as gripping as it is important." (James Carroll)

Members Reviews:

Disappointing

Any additional comments?

No more books with "modern world" in its title. I was hoping for a history of the Inquisitions, but I got to here more about Guantanamo than I really wanted.

A balanced review based on new material

I really enjoyed the book but I wish he spent more time on the Church and the Inquisition(s) themselves. Although the premise concerns how the Inquisition shaped the modern world, there is not much new in the last quarter of the book.

It begins by explaining that there were actually 3 major Inquisitions, the Medieval, Spanish and Roman, each with its own personality. He then delves into the historical context and actual transcripts from the trials. The latter have only recently been made available by the Vatican which makes this an early work of an entirely new genre of historically researched scholarship in this area.

He takes care to point out that the reality is less sensational than the myth. He is also eager to present a view of the Inquisition that is not driven by any particular agenda, and here he succeeds. He is neither a Church apologist nor a torch bearing towns-person.

Unfortunately, the last quarter of the book provides a lengthy discussion of Nazi Germany, McCarthyism and Guantanamo Bay and tries to paint them as latter day Inquisitions. I did not find the comparison particularly insightful (Can't nearly any act of official oppression be likened to the Inquisitions?) and the book lost momentum for me in the end.

The performance was very good--thoughtful, well paced and clear.

I would recommend it to someone interested in the Inquisitions, but lower your expectations for the "making of the modern world" aspect.

The Inquisition? It Isn't Over

Begun in 1231, The Inquisition left a dark stain on the Catholic Church which remains to date.

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Title: The Discovery of Jeanne Baret

Subtitle: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe

Author: Glynis Ridley

Narrator: Gabriella Cavallero

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-20-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new expedition: the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships' official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources - medicines, spices, timber, food - that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire.

Jeanne Baret, Commerson's young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the 26-year-old, known to her shipmates as "Jean" rather than "Jeanne", the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class.

When the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on the ships' decks with her obvious strength and stamina. Less obvious were the strips of linen wound tight around her upper body and the months she had spent perfecting her masculine disguise in the streets and marketplaces of Paris.

Expedition commander Louis-Antoine de Bougainville recorded in his journal that curious Tahitian natives exposed Baret as a woman, eighteen months into the voyage. But the true story, it turns out, is more complicated.

In The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, Glynis Ridley unravels the conflicting accounts recorded by Baret's crewmates to piece together the real story: How Baret's identity was in fact widely suspected within just a couple of weeks of embarking, and the painful consequences of those suspicions; the newly discovered notebook, written in Baret's own hand, that proves her scientific acumen; and the thousands of specimens she collected, most famously the showy vine bougainvillea.

Ridley also richly explores Baret's awkward, sometimes dangerous interactions with the men on the ship, including Baret's lover, the obsessive and sometimes prickly naturalist; a fashion-plate prince who, with his elaborate wigs and velvet garments, was often mistaken for a woman himself; the sour ship's surgeon, who despised Baret and Commerson; even a Tahitian islander who joined the expedition and asked Baret to show him how to behave like a Frenchman.

But the central character of this true story is Jeanne Baret herself, a working-class woman whose scientific contributions were quietly dismissed and written out of history - until now. Anchored in impeccable original research and bursting with unforgettable characters and exotic settings, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret offers this forgotten heroine a chance to bloom at long last.

Critic Reviews:

"Ridley is incandescent in her passion for the truth." (Booklist)

Ridley quickly crushes modern romantic ideas of the golden age of explorationCaptures both the optimism that inspired Barets groundbreaking and courageous trip and the sordid reality she encountered. (Publishers Weekly)

Inquisitive biography of the first woman to circle the globe by seaRidley has definitely done her homework in recognizing Baret as an overlooked but important historical figure.

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Title: The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England

Author: Ian Mortimer

Narrator: Mike Grady

Format: Unabridged

Length: 17 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-09-12

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 37 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

What was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer answers the key questions that a visitor to late 16th-century England would ask.

Members Reviews:

Almost but not quite

I read the earlier Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England in good old fashioned paperback and enjoyed it . So it was an easy choice to pick this on the track record of the earlier book. I wish I'd stuck to paperback again.TTG to Elizabethan England is not a bad book, however it doesn't work as an audiobook as well as many other books. The narration is fine and clear but the book suffers from too many facts and figures, lists and statistics. In print these work, but as the spoken word they serve to bog down the book and break up flow and imagination. A pity . Perhaps this is a (to my preference) rare example of a book that would honestly be improved for audio by being abridged.

What it was like to live in the 16th Century

The Tudor period has spawned many historical books, TV programmes and films, but these tend to focus on the monarchy and the major historical events, and give a rather air-brushed view of the period, whereas this author delves into how most people lived in contrast to the rich and powerful. He draws the listener into the streets of 16th century and describes the the bustle of people at work, the buildings, smells, and sounds. He has done an immense amount of research using private papers and other documents to glean the minutia of day-to day living, such as how people cleaned their teeth, bodies, clothes, and got rid of bodily waste. What they wore, ate and drank; how they travelled and earned money. What afflictions they suffered from and what medical treatments were available. The authors other two time travellers guides (about the 14th and 16th centuries) have similar details and its interesting to learn what had changed and what had not.

Altogether a fascinating insight into the period that I greatly enjoyed. The text is well-suited to being spoken and is done admirably by the narrator.

At the end of the recording theres an interview with the author in which he describes his philosophy of making history relevant to a modern audience and make us realise that people of the past were in many ways very similar to us.

brilliant - Just close your eyes and you are there

I dont' know how you start to write a book like this, I guess you have to have an excellent knowlage of the period, and a gift that allows you to put the reader there, as if you had traveled back as a time travel tourist and had to get a grip on the siutuation you find youslef in. I particually love the way Ian Mortimer somtimes comes at a particular point from an odd angle that makes you wonder where he is going. There is just enough detail to satisfy the novice, not too much that any particular subject can become boring. This is very well read, easy to take in, sometimes a bit upseting, sometimes supprising. I also like the interview with the author at the end. If you like history in an easy to take in format, that makes it relevent, then you will enjoy this.

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Title: A Train in Winter

Author: Caroline Moorehead

Narrator: Patience Tomlinson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-05-12

Publisher: Isis Publishing Ltd

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

In Paris, January 1943, 230 French women resisters were rounded up and sent on a train to Auschwitz - the only train, in the four years of the German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp. The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmers wife of 68; there were among them teachers, biochemists, sales girls, secretaries, housewives and university lecturers. The women turned to one another, finding solace and strength in friendship and shared experience. Forty-nine of them came home.

Drawing on interviews with survivors and their families, on archival research and original sources, A Train in Winter covers a harrowing part of our history but is, ultimately, a portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and endurance.

Members Reviews:

documentary

What disappointed you about A Train in Winter?

It sounded like a documentary not a story.

What could Caroline Moorehead have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

the voice and accent is boring like listening to a history lesson

Nothing like the blurb . . .

This book was supposed to be about a group of women who survived under the horrible French occupation in WWII - and how it impacted their lives. It would better be described as a detailed history of the gruesome lives that men and women lived during this time in French history. On top of this is the falsetto voice of the narrator. She may be good at elocution - but she is miserable to listen to! (sorry about the dangling participle!)

Too many names and dates and facts

What disappointed you about A Train in Winter?

There were too many names and dates distracting from the story line.

What was most disappointing about Caroline Mooreheads story?

There were too many names and dates distracting from the story line.

How could the performance have been better?

Performance was ok....

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

frustration

interesting story

What did you like best about A Train in Winter? What did you like least?

reality of deeds during war

did not like lack of ending detail

Would you be willing to try another book from Caroline Moorehead? Why or why not?

yes: good story teller

What does Patience Tomlinson bring to the story that you wouldnt experience if you just read the book?

do not know

Do you think A Train in Winter needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

yes: characters not completed or closed

Any additional comments?

none

Gripping account of the struggle to survive

Would you listen to A Train in Winter again? Why?

I would recommend the book to anyone interested in the impact of war on ordinary people, or the history of France in a period that still remains surrounded by some taboos. It is important that details be included in any account even though some make for difficult listening. The book was moving and inspiring in its description of human endurance and above all the importance and strength of such an ordinary experience as friendship in such extraordinary circumstances.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator's tone of voice was not entirely attractive to listen to and I cannot understand why more care isn't taken to find a narrator who can pronounce French properly when it is so pre-eminent in the narrative.

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Title: Iron Men and Saints

Author: Harold Lamb

Narrator: Charlton Griffin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-17-12

Publisher: Audio Connoisseur

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 159 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

The first crusade of 1096 unleashed a wave of impassioned, personally felt, deeply pious Christian fury that was expressed in a mass movement centered in France and spreading to other European kingdoms, including Flanders, German speaking principalities, and Italy. Master historian Harold Lamb tells the incredible story of how Pope Urban II fanned the sparks of Christian anger into a mighty conflagration of righteous indignation with his speech of 1095 in Clermont. It was a speech that would occupy the hearts and minds of Europeans for over 200 years.

Tens of thousands of peasants, both men and women, simply left their fields and workshops and joined knights and monks on a journey to take back holy Jerusalem from the infidel Muslims. A river of humanity, often hostile and destructive, flowed across Europe and into Byzantium and Asia. Led by baronial leaders like Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin of Flanders, Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy, and the mighty Bohemond of Taranto, their confrontation with Islamic armies would soon follow. The results of those armed clashes produced some of the most amazing stories you will ever hear.

Be sure to listen to Volume 2 in this series by Harold Lamb:

.

Members Reviews:

The Crusades - By a Talented Writer

This Book is Narrated by Charlton Griffin, who has is own style. It's different, but it's cool. Like an energetic and awesome old man. Plus, there is music in the key chapter transitions.

There is much that this book explains that no movie, no documentary, and no political work ever covers. The west was in mortal and existential danger before the Crusades. The brave people that fought for Christianity are remembered as the conquerors of Jerusalem, but they did much more. They suffered more like the Patriots at Valley Forge, they scaled mountains, they beat numerically superior forces, and they suffered tremendous loses.

Additionally, the trek from Central Europe to Jerusalem was on-foot, without support, and full of extreme danger. What they accomplished was an incredible accomplishment.

Dated but with a listen

This book was originally written in 1930. Some of the terminology and tone is very dated and the book is uncritical of its sources. Nevertheless, it is entertaining and provides a basic framework for the first crusade. It only briefly goes over the next three. The narrator is excellent and makes the book worth listening to.

Not bad but really dated

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

This is the first book by Lamb i had listened too and while it tells a compelling story, half the information is really dated. Lamb mentions that only the strongest warriors could even swing a long-sword. Long-swords are not that heavy and even a child could lift one. He then also speaks of chivalry which is anachronistic to say the least as that concept had not developed in the period of the first crusade. I don't even want to get started on the concept of luxurious eastern despotism.

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Title: Da Vinci's Ghost

Subtitle: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image

Author: Toby Lester

Narrator: Stephen Hoye

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-07-12

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 170 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

Audie Award Nominee, History, 2013

Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vincis iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit; it has also been replicated ad nauseam on mass-produced coffee cups, T-shirts, book covers, and corporate logos. With narrative flair and great intellectual sweep, Lester revives the rich history of Vitruvian Man and endows the drawing with renewed authenticity.

Not only did Leonardo subscribe to the ideafirst conceived by the Roman architect Vitruviusthat the human body was a microcosm geometrically aligned with the divine circle and the earthly square, Lester reveals that by studying the bodys proportions and anatomy, the artist also felt he could obtain a godlike perspective of the world's makeup. Da Vinci's Ghost captures a pivotal time in the history of Western thought, when the Middle Ages was giving way to the Renaissance, when art and science and philosophy all seemed to be converging as one, and when it seemed possible, at least to Leonardo da Vinci, that a single human being might embodyand even understandthe nature of everything.

Critic Reviews:

One of the great contributions of books like this is to keep the reader from taking for granted a familiar object. Lesters detective story has a satisfying number of insightscovers a broad swath of history[and] braids intellectual threadsphilosophy, anatomy, architecture, and arttogether in a way that reaffirms not only Leonardos genius but also re-establishes the significance of historical context in understanding great works of art. (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

"Every once in a while that rare book comes along that is not only wonderfully written and utterly compelling but also alters the way you perceive the world. Toby Lesters Da Vinci's Ghost is such a book. Like a detective, Lester uncovers the secrets of an iconic drawing and pieces together a magisterial history of art and ideas and beauty." (David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z)

"Erudite, elegant, enthralling. This is a wonderful book. Toby Lester understands, and makes us understand, the unique intensity with which Leonardo saw the world. He saw it not only in its infinite diversity but also as an impression of his own self, an explanation of what it means to be human. Hence Vitruvian Man." (Sister Wendy Beckett, author of The Story of Painting)

Members Reviews:

Haunting Expierience

Would you listen to Da Vinci's Ghost again? Why?

Would you look at the Vitruvian man again? So would I, yes and each look would add to the understanding that comes by deep and thorough self study. Yet the value of this book is the way the Author has placed Leonardo into the setting giving a perception of the development of his mind.

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Title: Rome

Author: Robert Hughes

Narrator: David Timson

Format: Abridged

Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-22-11

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Limited

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

Rome - as a city, as an empire, as an enduring idea - is in many ways the origin of everything Robert Hughes has spent his life writing about with such dazzling irreverence and exacting rigour. In this magisterial book he traces the city's history from its mythic foundation with Romulus and Remus to Fascism, Fellini and beyond. For almost a thousand years, Rome held sway as the spiritual and artistic centre of the world.

Hughes vividly recreates the ancient Rome of Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Caligula, Cicero, Martial and Virgil. With the artistic blossoming of the Renaissance, he casts his unwavering critical eye over the great works of Raphael, Michelangelo and Brunelleschi, shedding new light on the Old Masters.

In the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Rome's cultural predominance was assured, artists and tourists from all over Europe converged on the city. Hughes brilliantly analyses the defining works of Caravaggio, Velasquez, Rubens and Bernini.

Hughes' Rome is a vibrant, contradictory, spectacular and secretive place; a monument both to human glory and human error.

Members Reviews:

Robert Hughes ..quality and substance..

Robert Hughes' brilliant revelation of Imperial Rome as a complex world chiefly remembered for its art, the only thing that comes out of ancient Rome as an exemplar of beauty and truth, changed so much of what I thought of Rome from Ancient to Modern life and practice.

A great study, the first critic to explode absurd, conventional ideas about culture and not tolerate the evaluations of the unintelligent.

Immersion in the Eternal City

Hughes' Roman biography moves chronologically from the foundation of the city through events of the fascist era. While his previous book about Barcelona is social history, Rome combines cultural, visual and personal history with straightforward political and military narrative.

The focus of Hughes analysis depends on the historical period under consideration. In his chapter on the founding of the city, Hughes confines himself largely to political developments including the first and second Punic wars, the rise and fall of Julius Caeser and the ascent of Octavius. Similarly, his history of the nineteenth century includes tales of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, Pope Pius IX, the Syllabus of Errors and ultramontanism. Along the way, Hughes pauses occasionally to provide the reader with aesthetic insights. He criticizes the Vittoriano monument, for example, on both aesthetic and historical grounds: "Neither in design nor in material does the typewriter look Roman, and, in point of fact, it is not."

In his chapter on the Renaissance, however, Hughes focuses almost exclusively on art and architectural history including discussion of Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo. His work is especially illuminating in sections such as the one covering the Grand Tour and Neoclassicism. Here, Hughes brings to bear his formidable understanding of cultural history to reveal less widely known facts about Roman history. We meet leading English purveyors of inauthentic Italian antiquities Thomas Jenkins and James Byres, first choice for foreigners wanting Roman portraits Pompeo Batoni, master of more than 1,000 engravings of Roman architecture Giovanni Battista Piranesi and inventor of archeological categories Johann Jonachim Winkelmann. We are treated to Hughes sharp insights concerning all things Roman.

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Title: Pax Britannica

Subtitle: The Climax of an Empire - Pax Britannica Vol. 2

Author: Jan Morris

Narrator: Roy McMillan

Format: Abridged

Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-20-11

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morriss magnificent history of the British Empire from 1837 to 1965. Huge in scope and ambition, it is always personal and immediate, bringing the story vividly to life. Pax Britannica, the second volume, is a snapshot of the Empire at the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. It looks at what made up the Empire from adventurers and politicians to communications and infrastructure, as well as anomalies and eccentricities. This humane overview also examines the muddle of jumbled ideologies behind it, and how it affected its 370 million people.

Editorial Reviews:

Part two of Jan Morris eponymous history of the British Empire focuses on Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee of 1897, a year which in many ways represented the zenith of Britains economic, cultural, and political influence. Sonorous English actor Roy McMillan is regal and fluid as he presents Morris vibrant tapestry of anecdotes and testimonies. At the fin de siècle the British Empire included roughly a quarter of the worlds population and territory. British industrial capacity exceeded that of her competitors, as did her military might. Likewise, Victorian music and literature captivated audiences far beyond the empires borders. Morris history delivers a series of snapshots from Britains golden age, its stories and incidents combining to form a celebration as rich and varied as the queens jubilee.

Members Reviews:

WHEN ENGLAND RULED THE WORLD

James Morrisâs PAX BRITANNICA [1968], which uses the British Empire as it was in 1897 for a framework, is the best work of popular history Iâve ever read. Morris (who is now âJanâ rather than âJamesâ) is a terrific writer. This elegant, absorbing, let-things-speak-for- themselves book focuses on the personalities, great and small, who shaped and controlled the Empire in its glory days. Of course there are many diversions, surprises and curiosities, and Morris, a master of dry, gentle irony, fully exploits his brilliant talents as a teller of stories. He is as much travel writer as historian. Much of the pleasure (and credibility) of PAX BRITANNICA rests in the fact that Morris visited most of the places of empire he describes - many of them as they were when he was writing the book in the 1960s. Nothing brings history to life like going to the places where it happened. Thus, you will be charmed, as was Morris, to learn that during a single month of 1897, the domestic animal slaughterer in the tiny West Indian colony of St. Lucia despatched 122 cattle, 52 sheep, two goats, 21 pigs and two turtles and that of the 1,824 people born on the island that year, 1,099 were illegitimate. During your vicarious drive along the glorious ocean-side esplanade in Madras, you will be startled to encounter several statues of George V, the penultimate British Emperor of India, in the center of carefully manicured, beflowered roundabouts. In Bombay, at the junction of several major boulevards, youâll see a small fountain commemorating Arthur Wesleyâs (he became the Iron Duke) 1803 victories over the forces of the Maratha Empire. How odd, youâll think, that such powerful emblems of colonial oppression werenât destroyed long ago, and whatâs more, that at the beginning of the 21st century, these artifacts of Empire are still in place.

PAX BRITANNICA is part of a trilogy.

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Title: Mistress Anne

Subtitle: The Exceptional Life of Anne Boleyn

Author: Carolly Erickson

Narrator: Simon Prebble

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-18-11

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 28 votes

Genres: History, European

Publisher's Summary:

A powerful ruler, an alluring young woman, a scandal that would rock the nation: Anne Boleyns life story sounds more like a juicy TV docu-drama than a chapter of English history. Although she is not of noble birth or even especially beautiful, Anne Boleyn manages to rise to the very pinnacle of the English aristocracy.

Renowned for her extraordinarily vivid recreations of historical events, Carolly Erickson brings out the full fascinating story of the enigmatic Anne Boleyn. Erickson paints an engaging portrait of this intriguing woman and her tragic life, from her early education in court intrigue, through her courtship and controversial marriage to Henry VIII, to the day she mounts the scaffold.

With her expertise in the Tudor period, her sensitivity to sexual and political nuance, and her eminently readable prose style, Carolly Erickson is the ideal biographer for the elusive Anne Boleyn. Narrator Simon Prebbles elegant performance evokes all of the bittersweet drama of Boleyns exceptional life and the tumultuous times in which she lived.

Members Reviews:

Entertaining and enlightening

An enjoyable listen for those interested in the history of the Tudors and the wives of King Henry VIII.

Great Atmosphere!

Carolly Erickson is my second favorite biographer. No one else gives me a sense of the time and place like she does. She also excels at conveying the emotions of the characters about events that occur and giving a sense of their personalities. She bases all of that on solid research, using carefully selected quotes from accounts and letters, NOT baseless conjecture.

Because they were written 20 or so years ago, her books are not quite as accurate in the little details as books written more recently, like Antonia Fraser's "Six Wives". However they are accurate overall.

I would highly recommend her books over a more recent author who is inaccurate, conjectures without evidence, and doesn't cite, and doesn't differentiate between her conjectures and things that were actually said and done. Which I have unfortunately encountered.

TL;DR Love this book, will read again!

It was ok

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The story has been told a lot, but sadly I did not realize when this book was written. The author had included some falisies in her story telling that frustrated me. Examples of the moles over Annes body and the extra digit on her hand.

I picked up this story to listen to Simon Prebble whom I adore as an orator. I know a great deal of the history of Miss Bolyne, and just found this story to be luke warm on details. I then realized when it was published and thus the theories were dated.

What was most disappointing about Carolly Ericksons story?

Nothing in particular, but its a history book that was written a long time ago. With information and discoveries of today, there is a chance to investigate and improve this story.

What about Simon Prebbles performance did you like?

I adore him, I could listen to him perform all day long reading the dictionary. His voice is pleasant and simple. It doesn't fatigue my ear drums. Excellent inflection and his voices for various characters are quite enjoyable. I hope he will do more work. If he wanted to pick up the Harry Potter Series and or the Lord of the Rings, I would listen to that over and over again from him. Simple ADORE his performances.