Download the New Releases Audiobooks in History, Military

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Title: Reflections on a Ravaged Century

Author: Robert Conquest

Narrator: Ron Butler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-12-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 38 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Robert Conquest has been called by Paul Johnson "our greatest living modern historian". As a new century begins, Conquest offers an illuminating examination of our past failures and a guide to where we should go next. Graced with one of the most acute gifts for political prescience since Orwell, Conquest assigns responsibility for our centurys cataclysms not to impersonal economic or social forces but to the distorted ideologies of revolutionary Marxism and National Socialism. The final, sobering chapters of Reflections on a Ravaged Century concern themselves with some coming storms, notably that of the European Union, which Conquest believes is an economic, cultural, and geographical misconception divisive of the West and doomed to failure. Winner of the Ingersoll Prize; winner of the Richard M. Weaver Prize; a New York Times Notable Book.

Critic Reviews:

"Illuminates the past with a mighty searchlight and clears away mountains of nonsense." (Gabriel Schoenfeld, Wall Street Journal)

Members Reviews:

A great historian and an economic study

Conquest, one of the great historians of our time, shows his commanding knowledge of events throughout the world, drawing extensively on the works of notable figures and his own experiences. Its a rather serious read, demands ones full attention, and I would not take it up for leisurely enjoyment. Even so, the narrator does a great job making the book a pleasant experience. As an expert in Soviet history, Conquest deals in mostly with the impacts of communism. My criticism is that he, presents history as mainly an economic conflict of capitalism, communism, socialism, etc. This mistakes the superstructure for the foundations. History is shaped by a societys theistic beliefs, which dictate its moral and ethical behavior. Considering whats going in in the Middle East, India, Myanmar, with recent US elections, and pretty much everywhere, its hard to see history in terms of rubles and cents. These are difficult issues, so I can understand its easier to take a materialistic view and say they are solvable by trade agreements, treaties, and the dissolving of treaties. I would recommend the book for broadening ones understanding of recent events and where we are now, but not as offering solutions to root causes of the ravages of our past century.

Former Marxists make the best counterrevolutionaries.

The scope of this book is very wide, but it is an interesting book for those with some familiarity of the topics discussed. This book is perhaps more relevant today then when it was published. For those trying to make sense of the ideologies that prevail today it's important understand the influence of Marxism had in shaping them.

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Title: Forgotten Voices of the Great War

Author: Max Arthur

Narrator: Richard Bebb

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 03-06-14

Publisher: Random House Audiobooks

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing ordinary men and women who had lived through one of the most harrowing periods of modern history, the First World War. Veterans were interviewed in details about their day-to-day experiences, on and off the front. The project has since grown to be the most important archive of its kind in the world, and provides a unique account of life during the Great War.

Forty years on, the Imperial War Museum gave author Max Arthur and his team of researchers unlimited access to the complete WWI tapes. These are the forgotten voices of an entire generation of survivors of the Great War. The resulting audiobook is an important and compelling history of WWI, in the words of those who experienced it.This collection includes:

Members Reviews:

Astounding listen

Where does Forgotten Voices of the Great War rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

I am a new member, this is my first book downloaded. I first read this book many years ago, but am completly in awe, listening to the actual veterans first hand accounts really brings home the true reality, of the worst conflict in living history. Chaper 30 by George Ashusrt is particually poingant, as he relives Christmas day, Ypres, 1914, in the trenches.

Who was your favorite character and why?

No favourite

What about Richard Bebbs performance did you like?

Richard Bedd was outstanding

Wow!!!

Listening to the actual voices of those soldiers that were part of this terrible episode in human history is unbelievable! Their accounts and thoughts, built in order with the historical events makes this audio book one of a kind.

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Title: Getting Away with Murder

Subtitle: Benazir Bhutto's Assassination and the Politics of Pakistan

Author: Heraldo Muñoz

Narrator: Fajer Al-Kaisi

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-25-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

By the lead commissioner of the UN investigation, an authoritative account of Benazir Bhuttos assassination

On December 27, 2007, a suicide bomber killed Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan. Brilliant and charismatic, the head of a political family as important to Pakistani history as the Gandhis in India or the Kennedys in the United States, Bhutto had recently returned from exile to challenge military dictator Pervez Musharraf in a democratic election. In the aftermath of the assassination, some blamed Musharraf; others blamed terrorists linked to the Pakistani security service, the ISI; still others pointed the finger at Bhuttos own spouse and entourage; and some speculated that it was a lone wolf attack. Though the individuals behind the conspiracy have never been found, in Getting Away with Murder Heraldo Munoz goes further than anyone else to unravel the mystery of Bhuttos death. Moreover, he explains the unexpected role America played in the tragic events, the byzantine relationship between Pakistan and the United States, and how Bhuttos assassination impacted world politics.

In a country ruled more often by military dictators than by elected governments, Bhutto offered a secular, democratic hope. Arguably one of Pakistans most iconic political figures, she became one of the worlds few female heads of government. Her assassination tore the country apart, destabilizing the entire region.

Leading the United Nations inquiry, Munoz delved into murky world of Pakistani politics and the infamous Bhutto family, awash in charisma and power, controversy and violence. His year-long investigation frames a story of betrayals, corruption, foreign influence, and unsolved political assassinations.

Munoz provides new insight into Bhuttos unprecedented rise and an unflinching, minute-by-minute narrative of the assassination itself. With impeccable research, Munoz also situates Bhutto in the decades-long history of U.S.-Pakistan relations and the emergence of global terrorism, pinpointing her death as the moment when those relations changed forever.

The result is a gripping narrative of Pakistans turbulent political realities and the death of its leading politician.

Members Reviews:

A Fascinating Read

Heraldo Munoz was assigned by the United Nations to investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007. Munoz came from Chile, a country that has little business with Pakistan. Therefore, he approached the investigation as a neutral investigator.

Bhutto had been prime minister of Pakistan twice. She was educated at Oxford and Harvard universities and was considered too western for some Pakistani. She had returned to Pakistan from England to again run for prime minister. She was killed by a suicide bomber along with 38 other people.

Bhutto knew that Pervez Musharraf wanted to kill her as well as some extremist groups. Nevertheless, she felt she had to risk going back to Pakistan and run again for prime minister. There was no autopsy performed, but the evidence uncovered indicated she was shot in the head by a sniper just as the suicide bomber set off the bomb near her vehicle. Munoz discovered that al-Qaida ordered the assassination and the Pakistani Taliban executed it. The local police were involved in a cover up by immediately removing important evidence and they also failed to provide the required security.

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Title: From Babel to Dragomans

Subtitle: Interpreting the Middle East

Author: Bernard Lewis

Narrator: William Neenan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 23 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-17-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 21 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Bernard Lewis is recognized around the globe as one of the leading authorities on Islam. Hailed as "the world's foremost Islamic scholar" (Wall Street Journal), as "a towering figure among experts on the culture and religion of the Muslim world" (Baltimore Sun), and as "the doyen of Middle Eastern studies" (New York Times), Lewis is nothing less than a national treasure, a trusted voice that politicians, journalists, historians, and the general public have all turned to for insight into the Middle East. Now, this revered authority has brought together writings and lectures that he has written over four decades, featuring his reflections on Middle Eastern history and foreign affairs, the Iranian Revolution, the state of Israel, the writing of history, and much more. The essays cover such urgent and compelling topics as "What Saddam Wrought", "Deconstructing Osama and His Evil Appeal", "The Middle East, Westernized Despite Itself", "The Enemies of God", and "Can Islam Be Secularized? "

Members Reviews:

Fifty Years Of Good Stuff

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the ME affairs.

The author is almost 100 years old and first visited ME prior to WWII. Accordingly, the material accumulated in this book spans an unbroken body of work of a duration one seldom sees.

The casual reader, however, needs to know many of the topic chapters (and there are a lot of them) might be a bit tedious if you do not know much about the subject. However, if you are the kind of person who knows the phrase Four Rightly Guided Caliphs you may be up to speed well enough. The matterial is not very difficult, however, and the reader kept my attention.

I plan to listen to much of it again and might even buy the Kindle version. This is because not all of the readings include the original date and they span well over 50 years. A tablet PC would be good as well in order to look up some maps, photos of places and the like.

Finally, I recommend YouTube University! I made that term up, but Richard Bulliet has some of the best lectures on the subject I have heard. These are full length lectures, often more then an hour long. I listened to them prior to listening to this book and it was fun to have a heads up!

Communication and the Diversity of World Views

What made the experience of listening to From Babel to Dragomans the most enjoyable?

This book seeks to identify basis of the problems currently faced in the middle east. They may be rooted in ethnici diversity and language barriers. The subtleties of language are frequently missed when trying to translate from one language to another. Some elements of cognition are not readily translatable. We use language to describe how we view the world . Some views are not readily translatable or understood by others holding different views.

What was one of the most memorable moments of From Babel to Dragomans?

I much appreciated the lucid description of the historic foundations for the problems of the Middle East. This is one of the best descriptions of the root causes of the Middle East problem that I have read. It is comprehensive, far reaching and in my opinion balanced in perspective.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Most people have good intentions.

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Titolo: Stalingrado [Stalingrad]

Sottotitolo: L'assedio più lungo della Seconda guerra mondiale [The longest siege of the Second World War]

Autore: Francesco Ficarra

Narratore: Lorenzo Visi

Formato: Unabridged

Durata: 3 hrs and 17 mins

Lingua: Italiano

Data di pubblicazione: 12-05-13

Editore: Area51 Publishing

Valutazioni: 1 su 5 su 1 voti

Categoria: History, Military

Riepilogo Editore:

I combattimenti più duri, le battaglie più spietate, lassedio più lungo: il fronte orientale fu il concentrato di tutte le violenze della Seconda guerra mondiale. Agli uomini che combatterono e vissero nellEuropa orientale non fu risparmiata nessuna delle barbarie del conflitto, che anzi vissero nel modo più travolgente e cruento: deportazioni, esecuzioni di massa, rappresaglie. Milioni di persone soffrirono la fame, la sete, il freddo e la stanchezza, in una Russia sconvolta dalle gigantesche battaglie di carri, aerei e fanteria. Le armate tedesche, i soldati vittoriosi dellEuropa occidentale, si ridussero a una moltitudine stremata e affamata, in marcia nella steppa rovente destate, gelida dinverno, sempre ugualmente inospitale alla ricerca di una vittoria impossibile, o per sfuggire alle controffensive russe. Esaurite le munizioni, esauriti i viveri, bloccati i carri e i camion, continuarono a battersi fino al limite estremo della spossatezza; solo i più fortunati fecero ritorno a casa, dopo traversie infinite. Per molti, invece, la campagna ordinata dal Führer finì con la morte, o con una prigionia destinata a durare più di dieci anni.I soldati sovietici, sottoposti al più duro regime marziale che si possa immaginare, furono dapprima travolti dalloffensiva tedesca, opposero una tenace, spesso disperata resistenza, e infine conobbero lebbrezza della riscossa e della vittoria. Sarebbero stati loro, quattro anni dopo, a piantare per primi la bandiera della pace sulle rovine fumanti della cancelleria del Reich. Avrebbero pagato questa vittoria con anni, settimane, giorni di sofferenze inaudite, con un incalcolabile tributo di sangue.Questa è la loro storia.

[The hardest fighting, battles the most ruthless, the longest siege: the eastern front was the focus of all the violence of the Second World War. To the men who fought and lived in Eastern Europe was not spared none of the barbarity of the conflict, which indeed lived in the most overwhelming and bloody: deportations, mass executions, reprisal. Millions of people suffered hunger, thirst, cold and fatigue, upset by Russia in a gigantic battles of tanks, aircraft and infantry. The German armies, the victorious soldiers in Western Europe, were reduced to a multitude exhausted and hungry, marching in the desert - hot in summer, cold in winter, always equally inhospitable - looking for a victory impossible, or to escape the Russian counter-offensive. Run out of ammo, exhausted supplies, blocked the wagons and trucks continued to fight to the extreme limit of exhaustion, only the lucky ones they returned home, after endless hardships. For many, however, the campaign ordered by the Führer ended with death, or with imprisonment meant to last more than ten years. Soviet soldiers, subjected to the toughest martial regime imaginable, were at first overwhelmed by the offensive German, offered strong, often desperate resistance, and finally knew the thrill of revenge and victory. They would have been them, four years later, to plant the first flag of peace over the smoking ruins of the Reich Chancellery. Would pay this victory with years, weeks, days of unimaginable suffering, with an incalculable toll.

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Title: Trotsky

Subtitle: Downfall of a Revolutionary

Author: Bertrand M. Patenaude

Narrator: Matthew Waterson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-25-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 21 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

In Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, Stanford University lecturer Bertrand M. Patenaude tells the dramatic story of Leon Trotsky's final years in exile in Mexico. Shedding new light on Trotsky's tumultuous friendship with painter Diego Rivera, his affair with Riveras wife Frida Kahlo, and his torment as his family and comrades become victims of the Great Terror, Trotsky: Downfall ofa Revolutionary brilliantly illuminates the fateful and dramatic life of one of history's most famous yet elusive figures.

Editorial Reviews:

Bertrand Patenaude is an international relations scholar, writer, and professor who has written several well-received books on Russian history. In Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary, Patenaude places the controversial figure of Leon Trotsky in Mexico, where he is in exile before World War II. Interspersed with flashbacks to pivotal moments in Trotsky's career with the Red Army and Stalin in Soviet Russia, the book explores Trotsky's wartime relationships with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Saul Bellow, and others. The book is rich and dramatic, packed with affairs, attempted assassinations, and secret police, and English actor Matthew Waterson apportions his sentences to magnify Trotsky's exciting scenes even further.

Members Reviews:

Good Trotsky Book, BAD conclusions at end

What made the experience of listening to Trotsky the most enjoyable?

It was a good book on Leon Trotsky. Many hard line "Trotskyists" will dislike the book, but they dislike most books that are not 100% in line with their factions views. Trotsky with Lenin were the greatest fighters for humanity; however, the authors final conclusions that "Trotsky had nothing," and his complete discounting of Red October, makes it necessary to take this work with many grains of salt.

Interesting book

What made the experience of listening to Trotsky the most enjoyable?

I didn't know the details of Trotsky's story so it was really interesting to hear the details.

Any additional comments?

Waterson has a good voice and is easy to listen to, but at times it sounds like someone else's voice is dubbed in. It's a little jarring.

Fascinating and frustrating.

This is a very interesting study of the last months of Leon Trotsky's life, culminating in his assassination. Although it alludes to many incidents in Trotsky's earlier years, often during the October revolution, it concentrates on his exile in Mexico, focussing strongly on his domestic relationships; principally with his wife, Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. This domestic focus serves to illustrate how isolated and politically impotent Trotsky had become in real terms, notwithstanding the amount of ideological support and notoriety he still received. A portrait of an increasingly frustrated and stymied former political giant results, perhaps throwing some light on Trotsky's failings as a political leader by exposing his personal foibles. I found the material engaging, if occasionally a little repetitive, and the narration generally pleasing with a good pace. As a personal preference, however, I don't like the marriage of a standard English voice with American pronunciations and usage, and some of the emphases and stresses echoed oddly, perhaps as a result of this.

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Title: Private

Author: Frank D. Gilroy

Narrator: Jones Allen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-25-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 1.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

From Frank D. Gilroy - a prolific and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (The Subject Was Roses), screenwriter (Desparate Characters), novelist (From Noon Till Three) and, most recently, author of a best-selling Kindle Single (Lake) - comes this chilling memoir of a young soldier in World War II confronting the nightmare of death. This isn't the battle cry of a war hero; it's the confessions of a young man pressed into service and searching for answers. In Gilroy's spare yet muscular prose, this saga of a young private's journey becomes a universal story of manhood and military life, told from the ground level of combat.

Editorial Reviews:

A stream-of-consciousness dirge depicting one man's wartime experience, Frank D. Gilroy's Private finds a suitably brooding benefactor in the strains of voice actor Jones Allen. Indeed, with his deft role playing and gloomy atmospherics, Allen brings an element of cohesion to a work widely considered one of Gilroy's more inaccessible. The fictional memoir follows Gilroy's 18-year-old protagonist, recently rejected from Yale, through the conscription process to the front lines of World War II. In the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front, Private paints a wartime landscape devoid of heroism or humor, its characters stilted and numbed by the omnipresence of death.

Members Reviews:

Still compelling after three years

There are some books that simply have to be read; a reviewer can only detract from their power and clarity.

This is such a book.

Short, snappy paragraphs.

Images fly off the page.

Poetry doesn't sell so this is called non-fiction or autobiography or memoir.

But it is poetry, blank verse if you prefer:

***

"The first meal is lamb stew.

KP's scrape the remains from each tray into garbage cans.

The task repels me.

"The ventilator purrs.

He and I, in adjoining beds, whisper far into the night.

I go to sleep.

He shakes me:

'I didn't want you to miss anything.'

"Ravaged penises parade the screen in a variety of affliction.

The impact on virgins (me) is four stars.

"Someone says it takes seven men behind the lines to sustain one man at the front.

I find the odds consoling."

***

I found the book compelling.

Robert C. Ross

April 2012

revised 2015

A Soldier Remembers, And Tells Us.

An engrossing and ultimately sad story of what war forces on young and old alike. It is Gilroy's personal story/confession/personal examination. The story is of interest by itself as that of a WW2 soldier who can tell us what it was like for him, but it is of universal value as well. It speaks of what war does to people - us - of how war and what happens changes us irrevocably: takes our innocence; shows us things which are hard to believe; astounds us with what we and our fellow man accepts/does in times of such mind-numbing stress - what we ignore, what we take part in; what we are left with when it is over.

'Private' is told in progressive scenes, like in a movie, with snippets of conversation, thoughts of the moment, intimate confessions which would probably never be spoken aloud - for who in person listening would know how to respond? - yet those confessions can be admitted on the safety of the page. There was one scene, of a recovered thin and weary American prisoner of war seeking chocolate from an unresponsive group of American soldiers, which I found myself shocked at.

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Title: The Road to Safwan

Subtitle: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 Persian Gulf War

Author: Stephen A. Bourque, John Burdan III

Narrator: Gregg A. Rizzo

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-21-13

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

The Road to Safwan is a complete history of the 1st Infantry Division's cavalry unit fighting in Operation Desert Storm. Stephen A. Bourque and John W. Burdan III served in the 1st Infantry--Bourque in Division Headquarters, Burdan as the Operations Officer of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry. Based on extensive interviews and primary sources, Bourque and Burdan provide the most in-depth coverage to date of a battalion-level unit in the 1991 war, showing how the unit deployed, went into combat, and adapted to changing circumstances.

The authors describe how the officers and men moved from the routine of cold war training to leading the Big Red One in battle through the Iraqi defenses and against the Iraqi Republican Guard. The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry participated in the 1st Brigade attack on G-Day, the large tank battle for Objective Norfolk, the cutting of Basra Road, and the capture of Safwan Airfield, the site where General H. Norman Schwartzkopf conducted cease-fire negotiations with the Iraqis. The squadron's activities are placed squarely within the context of both division and corps activities, which illustrates the fog of war, the chain of command, and the uncertainty of information affecting command decisions.

The Road to Safwan challenges the myth that technology won the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Contrary to popular view, it was a soldier's war not much different from previous conflicts in its general nature. What was different was the quality and intensity of the unit's training, which resulted, repeatedly, in successful engagements and objectives secured. It is the story of the people, not the machines, which ultimately led this squadron to the small town of Safwan.

Critic Reviews:

"To my knowledge, this is the first scholarly book focused upon the all-important battalion and squadron level. The documentation is superb." (Brig. Gen. John S. Brown)

"Bourque and Burdan provide a classic, gripping, small-unit history, but it is more than that. They tell the story of how enlightened leaders overcame fatally flawed official organization and doctrine to forge a superb combat unit that spearheaded the drive of our country's premier fighting division during Operation Desert Storm. The Road to Safwan is a timely work in this era of Army transformation." (Peter Kindsvatter, VII Corps Historian during Operation Desert Storm and author of American Soldiers)

"The Road to Safwan puts a human face to the arrows on the map of the 1991 Gulf War. Bourque and Burdan show the reader the strengths and weaknesses of the superb U.S. Army created in the 1980s and tested in 1991 and 2003. This is more than a tactical study for professional soldiers; it is also a fascinating story that will absorb the general reader." (Jonathan M. House, Professor of Military History, U.S. Army Command & General Staff College)

Members Reviews:

hard to get into

I imagine that reading a paperback version of this book would still be difficult to get into and follow due to the shear volume of mind-numbing logistical information and military organizational jargon, but perhaps it might still be a satisfying read due to the dramatic content.

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Title: The Dark Side of the Enlightenment

Subtitle: Wizards, Alchemists, and Spiritual Seekers in the Age of Reason

Author: John V. Fleming

Narrator: Kevin Pariseau

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-13-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 15 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Why spiritual and supernatural yearnings, even investigations into the occult, flourished in the era of rationalist philosophy.

In The Dark Side of the Enlightenment, John V. Fleming shows how the impulses of the European Enlightenment - generally associated with great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion - were challenged by tenacious religious ideas or channeled into the "darker" pursuits of the esoteric and the occult. His engaging topics include the stubborn survival of the miraculous, the Enlightenment roles of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, and the widespread pursuit of magic and alchemy.

Though we tend not to associate what was once called alchemy with what we now call chemistry, Fleming shows that the difference is merely one of linguistic modernization. Alchemy was once the chemistry, of Arabic derivation, and its practitioners were among the principal scientists and physicians of their ages. No point is more important for understanding the strange and fascinating figures in this book than the prestige of alchemy among the learned men of the age.

Fleming follows some of these complexities and contradictions of the "Age of Lights" into the biographies of two of its extraordinary offspring. The first is the controversial wizard known as Count Cagliostro, the "Egyptian" freemason, unconventional healer, and alchemist known most infamously for his ambiguous association with the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which history has viewed as among the possible harbingers of the French Revolution and a major contributing factor in the growing unpopularity of Marie Antoinette. Fleming also reviews the career of Julie de Krüdener, the sentimental novelist, Pietist preacher, and political mystic who would later become notorious as a prophet.

Impressively researched and wonderfully erudite, this rich narrative history sheds light on some lesser-known mental extravagances and beliefs of the Enlightenment era and brings to life some of the most extraordinary characters ever encountered either in history or fiction.

Members Reviews:

Tangled and excruciating

Any additional comments?

While the subject matter of this book is fascinating, it could have hardly fallen into the hands of a less capable author.

The book opens with an hour-long tirade on how the dark ages weren't so very dark. Which, whether or not you believe it, has nothing to do with the topic of the book. And neither does the majority of the rambling, fruitless narrative that follows.

In sum, this book grows around anecdotes following the lives of various faith healers, magicians, and such. The author urges us time and again to consider that these men were not con artists, but have been misunderstood by history, despite evidence to the contrary laying thick about the narrative.

The worst of the book is in the author's complete failure to consider what his audience already knows, and what is new information that needs explaining. He consistently refers to terms and events without explaining what they mean, or explaining far too late. In one chapter, he centers his narrative around how hated the "French Convulsionists" were, without ever quite getting around to explaining what a Convulsionist was.

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Title: Switzerland: Village History

Author: David Birmingham

Narrator: Ayn Czubas

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-12-13

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Switzerland is a remarkable country, half of whose territory lies in the Alps. This is the history of one Swiss alpine village. Raising cattle and making cheese brought modest wealth to its struggling peasants until a destructive Napoleonic invasion brought revolution and poverty. Well-being was slowly restored by a democratic unification of Switzerland. The Alps took on a romantic tourist glow in the Edwardian age and after the disruptions of two world wars the highland farmers and guest house keeps began to prosper.

The book is published by Ohio University Press and Swallow Press.

Critic Reviews:

An enthralling picture of the locality in its broader Swiss and international context. Birmingham's mastery of the minutiae is coupled with an experienced understanding of the development of rural societies and of the complicated cultural, linguistic and political mix which was and is Switzerland. Vivid and delightful. (

English Historical Review)

Members Reviews:

Fascinating history

Sadly the good and comprehensive story of a man to life was ruined by the awful narrator. When there are so many people who actually know how to pronounce the Mountain words, towns families and areas, why oh why did you choose someone who has absolutely no idea how to pronounce anything. He did not even know how to pronounce A range of good English vocabulary the author used.

His narrative ability made it very difficult for me to enjoy the book. I do have to add that I do live in the mountains about 10 minutes away from Château d'Oex. Very sad.