Listen to Best Sellers Audiobooks in History, 21st Century

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Title: Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now - As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It

Author: Craig Taylor

Narrator: Anna Bentinck, Stephen Crossley, Sartaj Garewell, Jo Hall, Robert Slade

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-04-12

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks Ltd

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 25 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

Here are the voices of London - rich and poor, native and immigrant, women and men. From the woman whose voice announces the stations on the London Underground to the man who plants the trees along Oxford Street; from a Pakistani currency trader to a Guardsman at Buckingham Palace - together, these voices paint a vivid, epic and wholly fresh portrait of 21st Century London.

Craig Taylor, an acclaimed journalist, playwright, and writer, spent five years exploring the city and listening to its residents to create this amazingly rich portrait of London.

Members Reviews:

An interesting look at what makes London tick.

Having lived near London over the last 10 years, now living on Canada's West Coast near the author's origin, I really enjoyed this book.I learned a lot about many facets of life in London that normally you take for granted (the tube train announcer, for example)

It was fun to move onto each new experience and reminiscence and I looked forward to listen to what was coming next

The narrators were spot on and often very amusing.

A really good listen

Great audiobook for commutes

What's better than listening to an audiobook about Londoners while watching Londoners on your commute? Great collection of stories.

Tired of London? I don't think so.

I write this as a Londoner and as someone who loves the city. This is a fascinating insight into the people that make it such a great place to live and work. There's much pleasure to be had in the recognition of "yes that's how it is."

It's frequently funny and always interesting and the interviews are quite short so you can easily skip forward if you get bored, although I don't think that will happen.

My only gripe is that this is meant to be the many, many voices of London, but the audio version uses only half-a-dozen different actors and you quickly get to recognise each voice as they tend to voice each person the same rather than "get into character." This distracted me a little so I felt I was listening to the actor rather than the interviewee. Otherwise it's a very good book.

Distractingly random

If you could sum up Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now - As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It in three words, what would they be?

Why even try?

What other book might you compare Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now - As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It to, and why?

I can't think of anything similar. Can't I just review the darned thing on its own terms?

Which scene did you most enjoy?

It's not really about enjoyment and it's not really about scenes. The eyewitness account of a suicide on the Underground was particularly compelling but I certainly wouldn't say I enjoyed it. The book pleased me because it was London from such a diverse set of viewpoints - some interesting, some boring, some admirable and some which invited contempt - but all valid enough to the people who said the words.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

It's not that kind of book.

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Title: Smoke Signals

Subtitle: A Social History of Marijuana - Medical, Recreational, and Scientific

Author: Martin A. Lee

Narrator: Nick Podehl

Format: Unabridged

Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-14-12

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 314 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Martin A. Lee traces the dramatic social history of marijuana, from its origins to its emergence in the 1960s as a defining force in a culture war that has never ceased. Lee describes how the illicit marijuana subculture overcame government opposition and morphed into a dynamic, multibillion-dollar industry.

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. Similar laws have followed in more than a dozen other states, but not without antagonistic responses from federal, state, and local law enforcement. Lee, an award-winning investigative journalist, draws attention to underreported scientific breakthroughs that are reshaping the therapeutic landscape. By mining the plants rich pharmacopoeia, medical researchers have developed promising treatments for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers, diabetes, chronic pain, and many other conditions that are beyond the reach of conventional cures. Colorful, illuminating, and at times irreverent, this is a fascinating listen for recreational users and patients, students and doctors, musicians and accountants, Baby Boomers and their kids, and anyone who has ever wondered about the secret life of this ubiquitous herb.

Members Reviews:

A hard book for me to rate

As someone who is really close to this issue, and fairly well informed on the subject, I might be more critical than someone with less information. My rating is really 3.5 stars, but with Audible not having the in-between option, I could not justify giving it four stars.

My main complaint about the book is the way that the information is presented. The case the author is making is strong enough that he didn't have to go down the road of making his contempt for the opposition so blatant. The facts about cannabis are so overwhelmingly in his favor that he would have been better off going out of his way to be fair instead of so obviously allowing his politics and philosophical views to bleed into the text. History is an examination of the facts as they are available, not telling a story with good guys and bad guys. Don't get me wrong, I'm on his side on almost every issue covered, I just got sick of hearing him pick apart every criticism leveled at pot and pot smokers, indignant at the lack of fairness, and then turn around and paint his opponents with a broad brush, even resorting to name calling and mockery, over and over again. It sounded more like a speech being delivered to a friendly audience at hempfest to rally the troops than a book for the general public. I kept expecting him to break out the Pom poms and lead a cheer for the almighty weed.

Nick Pohdel is a competent narrator, he's steady, clear and I only noticed one mispronounciation. I'm not sure he was the right choice for this book, however. Pohdel's reading can sometimes make Lee's writing sound preachy or indignant when it doesn't have to. His stiff, overly serious sounding style and dorky, white guy accent prevented the humor and lightheartedness of the writing from coming through.

All this being said, there's a lot of good information here. A lot of it was covered in Jack Herer's "The Emperor Wears No Cloths", but the later chapters provide a good crash course in what has taken place in the last twenty years.

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Title: In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race That Took It Down

Author: Stanley Reed, Alison Fitzgerald

Narrator: Todd McLaren

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-09-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 9 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

The truth behind the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history....

In 2005, fifteen workers were killed when BP's Texas City Refinery exploded. In 2006, corroded pipes owned by BP led to an oil spill in Alaska. Now, in 2010, eleven men drilling for BP were killed in the blowout of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.

What's next? In In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race That Took it Down, Stanley Reed a journalist who has covered BP for over a decade and investigative reporter Alison Fitzgerald answer not only that question, but also examine why these disasters happen to BP so much more than other large oil companies.

Members Reviews:

Biased Naritive

A simplistic analysis of a complex industry, a misfortnat accident, and rich history. Daniel Yergin's books remained the best classics that captures the multifaceted nature of the energy industry.

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Title: Hostage Nation

Subtitle: Colombia's Guerrilla Army and the Failed War on Drugs

Author: Victoria Bruce, Karin Hayes, Jorge Enrique Botero

Narrator: Yetta Gottesman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-12

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

The crash of a U.S. reconnaissance plane into the Colombian jungle on February 13, 2003, set off a series of events that, five years later, would bring three South American countries on a collision course toward war, pit a giant government contractor against its employer - the U.S. government - and catapult a 40-year-old guerrilla army to the international stage as one of the most active and successful terrorist organizations in the world.

Hostage Nation follows the players in this international drama in which lives interweave across a chaotic and deadly chessboard. While at first the case appeared to be a one-dimensional kidnapping of three American contractors that would play out in backdoor negotiations, as many had before, the paradigm shift that took over Washington after 9/11 made impossible any such path to win the freedom of the hostages.

This is the story of Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell, and Marc Gonsalves, three Americans who went to work for the U.S. government's ill-fought "War on Drugs" and crash-landed into their worst nightmare, five years in captivity of the FARC rebel Army. It is the story of Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, poster child for all the prisoners in Colombia. It is the story of corporate malfeasance by Northrop Grumman, one of the largest defense contractors in America. It is the story of a paradigm shift that turned poor Colombian guerrillas into the biggest drug mafia in the world and earned them a prominent position on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

This is also a fascinating expose about the way that civilian soldiers have become the main players in covert wars that fly under the radar of the American people. It is the story of the U.S. government's ambivalence concerning victims who don't have to be tallied on the nightly news. It is the story of fragmented government factions that refuse to work together, and of foreign-policy blunders that put government contracts above American lives. It is the story of lives unraveling, of abandoned women and children, and of feuding families. And it is a revealing truth about the disastrous failure of the war on drugs that began back in 1970.

Critic Reviews:

"[A] thrilling account of the origins and workings of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).... [T]he authors real achievement is their objectivity - no book published in the U.S. in the last decade details the activities of the FARC, the Colombian and U.S. military, the flailing war on drugs, and President Alvaro Uribe's administration in such a well-rounded and unbiased way, covering recent history from so many perspectives." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Insightful and Thought Provoking

Hostage Nation provides readers with critical examination of the FARC, how it functions, how it's activities disrupt an entire nation, and how it's hostage taking shatters individual lives. In the midst of these larger issues is the plight of three American defense contractors engaged in the war against drugs in Colombia. Their hostage ordeal calls into question the very purpose and effectiveness of the U.S. government's initiatives in that country. It often seemed as though the U.S. government's larger policy objectives took precedence over efforts to secure the safe and timely release of the three men.

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Title: SEAL Target Geronimo

Subtitle: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden

Author: Chuck Pfarrer

Narrator: Erik Bergmann

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-08-11

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 383 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. in Pakistan, a satellite uplink was sent from the town of Abbottabad, crackling into the situation room of the White House in Washington, D.C.: "Geronimo, Echo, KIA." These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, put paid to Osama bin Ladens three-decade-long career of terror.

SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Bin Ladens relentless hunters and how they took down the terrorist mastermind, told by Chuck Pfarrer, a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six and author of the best-selling Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details of the historic raid and the men who planned and conducted it in an exclusive boots-on-the-ground account of what happened during each minute of the mission - both inside the building and outside. Pfarrer takes readers inside the operation as the SEALs flew over the wall of Bin Ladens shabby, litter-strewn compound and then penetrated deeper and deeper into the terrorists lair, telling us just what it looked, sounded, and smelled like in that sweltering Pakistani suburb. He takes us out to the courtyard to witness the near-disaster of the malfunctioning helicopter and brings us to the exact spot where the al-Qaeda leader was cowering when the bullet entered his head. SEAL Target Geronimo is an explosive story of unparalleled valor, clockwork military precision, and deadly accuracy, carried out by the most elite fighting force in the world: the U.S. Navys SEAL Team Six.

Members Reviews:

Great Book, Misleading Title

For 9 hours and change, I thought "the inside story of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden" would take up more than 1.5 to 2 hours. The filler was about SEAL infrastructure, SEAL training, the SEAL sniper mission off the coast of Somalia, and, primarily, an in-depth biography of bin Laden and the rise of al Qeada. It was all very good, but I feel misled. I did not buy this book to learn about the roots of Osama and al Qeada. I already knew most of that stuff. I wanted to know ALL about the mission to kill bin Laden. I got that, but not as much as I wanted. However, the last hour is gripping, and makes the book a good buy.

AWESOME

If you are interested in SEAL teams, or the raid in Abbottabad, this is the first book you should read, and maybe the only one you'll need to read.

The first half is about other SEAL operations focusing on the rescue of the Captain taken hostage by Somali pirates.

The second half is all about bin Laden in Abbottabad and this version, in my opinion, rings truest. The narrator is terrific and that helps too.

Great Story Providing a new Angle

Chuck provides some new angles to the story and provides a good background, some is contested but adds great value to the story.

Learned Aot

Pfarrer gives us a great in-depth history lesson written so well that you could feel like you are listening to a novel. He gives us a great look at some of the inside workings of the SEALs from their inception until now. This book also contains a over-all look at the decades of turmoil in the Middle East. Here you might be thinking "yawn, ho hum." Think Again! The media has always painted bin Laden as great warrior and leader of men. When really neither is true.

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Title: Warriors of God

Subtitle: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel

Author: Nicholas Blanford

Narrator: Rob Shapiro

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-25-11

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 76 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

Hezbollah is the most powerful Islamist group operating in the Middle East today, and no other Western journalist has penetrated as deeply inside this secretive organization as Nicholas Blanford. Now Blanford has written the first comprehensive inside account of Hezbollah and its enduring struggle against Israel. Based on more than a decade and a half of reporting in Lebanon and conversations with Hezbollahs determined fighters, Blanford reveals their ideology, motivations, and training, as well as new information on military tactics, weapons, and sophisticated electronic warfare and communications systems.

Using exclusive sources and his own dogged investigative skills, Blanford traces Hezbollahs extraordinary evolution - from a zealous group of raw fighters motivated by Irans 1979 Islamic revolution into the most formidable non-state military organization in the world, whose charismatic leader vows to hasten Israels destruction. With dramatic eyewitness accounts, including Blanfords own experiences of the battles, massacres, triumphs, and tragedies that have marked the conflict, the story follows the increasingly successful campaign of resistance that led to Israels historic withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.

Warriors of God shows how Hezbollah won hearts and minds with exhaustive social welfare programs and sophisticated propaganda skills. Blanford traces the groups secret military build-up since 2000 and reveals the stunning scope of its underground network of tunnels and bunkers, becoming the only journalist to independently discover and explore them. With the Middle East fearful of another, even more destructive war between Lebanon and Israel, Blanford tenaciously pursues Hezbollahs post-2006 battle plans in the Lebanese mountains, earning him newspaper scoops as well as a terrifying interrogation and a night in jail.

Members Reviews:

Collection of anecdotes

Strong on anecdotes, shallow analysis, no claim of objectivity. Loyally represents the Hizballah/Iranian narrative. In urgent need of a moral compass.

Insurmountable Research on this Subject

The author lived among the Lebanese people for one-third of his life as a journalist for the English news publication in Lebanon. While there, his insider allowances and relationships with Hezbollah's foundational members, prove insurmountable hermeneutic research into this book's subject matter. He mixes first-hand accounts with dogged research and personal interviews for his information. While this provides incredible insight from one perspective, it sits a bit lacking in Israeli perspective and plight.

-

Though I do not possess a formidable insight into the advent of Hezbollah and their struggles with Israel, I must call attention to the author's tendency to cast Israel as the villain. Not that they don't deserve their share of the blame, given the veracity of this history, and the fact that war comes with a cost. Even so, I felt limited blame was placed on the Shia resistance and their justifications for violence which remain controversial today. This account is brilliant but quite one-sided.

I went into this book not anticipating that but was left with some questions and an opportunity to investigate the opposite viewpoint. This is not a knock on the book, as it was quite good, but merely a "heads-up" to those going in.

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Title: A Decade of Hope

Subtitle: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends

Author: Dennis Smith, Deirdre Smith

Narrator: Stephen Hoye, Joyce Bean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-30-11

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an occasion that is sure to be observed around the world. But among the memorials, political speeches, and news editorials, the most pressing consideration - and often the most overlooked - is the lives and well-being of the 9/11 first responders, their families, and the victims' families over the past decade. Dennis Smith, a former firefighter and the author of the bestselling Report from Ground Zero, addresses this important topic in a series of interviews with the heroes and families of those most affected by the tragedy either through feats of bravery in the rescue efforts or heroic bearing up in the face of unimaginable loss. Smith provides an intimate look at a terrible moment in history and its challenging and difficult aftermath, allowing these survivors to share their stories of loss, endurance, and resilience in their own words. A Decade of Hope is an honest and vitally important look at a decade in the lives of those for whom a national tragedy was a devastatingly personal ordeal.

Members Reviews:

Stories of 9/11 Survivors

Although any Dennis Smith book is excellent, you must keep in mind that this one is primarily quotes of others, not Dennis' writing. He gets the message across in which quotes and stories he puts in the book, so you'll still get the point. It's sort of an updated "Report From Ground Zero" presentation in that it's persons telling their story, in this case what they have experienced in the decade after 9/11. It's a good read.

Heart wrenching

There are no words to describe the feelings you get reading this.It's in depth interviews with survivors was heart wrenching.It just wanted you to reach through the pages and hold these people.

Four Stars

Good book, but sad.

A Decade of Hope

Whereas I know two of the people interviewed for this book, I was glad to know how they and their family members are doing in the ten years since 9/11. Dennis Smith is an excellent writer, and he is able to get the inside stories.

Very Good Book.

Conspiracy theorists must read this book so they will know the truth and heartache of what happened on 9/11/01. The author and those interviewed told only the truth. Well worth reading.

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Title: Brought to Justice

Subtitle: Osama Bin Laden's War on America and the Mission that Stopped Him

Author: LIFE Magazine

Narrator: Peter Ganim

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-21-11

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to Justice is a history of Osama bin Laden's infamous campaign against America and the decade-long U.S. attempt to find and bring him to justice. The last chapter includes a detailed depiction of the mission that eliminated bin Laden.

Members Reviews:

Osam bin Laden, Justice Done

This book would have been a lot better if it was accurate about the raid, which one of the men who was one the raid has since corrected in his book on the subject. Still, there was a lot of interesting stuff in it, and I will keep it along with my other material on bin Laden.

The engrossing story of Osama bin Laden, as well as America's efforts to find him and bring him to justice.

Heard BROUGHT TO JUSTICE (Hachette Audio) by the Editors of LIFE . . . it is the engrossing story of Osama bin Laden, as well as America's efforts to find him and bring him to justice.

I knew little about the man before listening to this brief book . . . I now know some more, though frankly, I would have wanted even more detail . . . that he came from great wealth surprised me . . . as for his deep well of hatred, I'm not sure that I quite understand that--but then again, maybe nobody ever will.

Perhaps most interesting to me was the moment-by-moment account of bin Laden's climatic last day, in both Pakistan and Washington, DC, and how such secrecy was able to be maintained.

The book version apparently has pictures from inside Al Qaeda and in battlegrounds around the globe--including New York City, Somalia, Tora Bora, Abbottabad and the Washington war room. I would have liked to have seen some or all of these; e.g., on a file that could have come with the CDs.

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Title: On Liberty

Author: John Stuart Mill

Narrator: Gildart Jackson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-21-11

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 177 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

First published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is an exhaustive exploration of social and civic liberty, its limits, and its consequences. Mill's work is a classic of political liberalism that contains a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state. Drawing upon the empiricism of John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume, and the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, On Liberty defends the representative democracy as the culmination of society's progression from lower to higher stages, even as it recognizes one of the unique dangers of this type of government - namely, the "tyranny of the majority".

Central to Mill's ideology is the harm principle - the idea that individual liberties should only be curtailed when they harm or interfere with the ability of others to exercise their own liberties. Unlike other liberal theorists, Mill did not rely upon theories of abstract rights to support his ideology, but rather grounded his philosophy in ideas of utility.

As relevant to modern audiences as it was to Mill's Victorian readership, On Liberty is an enduring classic of political thought.

Members Reviews:

A Great Thinkery

I truly enjoyed this essay. I think of liberty differently now. everyone should read it

Very insightful!

Very interesting and thought provoking. Highly recommend for thinkers and for those that cherish freedom!

Glad to find the audio book

I am so glad Gildart Jackson read this book. I picked this book up for a political since class and this narration made this essay enjoyable. I liked the ideas contained in it on liberty and when liberty should and shouldn't be permissible.

A Necessary Piece of Political Philosophy

Foundational to modern society, John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" is an essential text for all free thinkers and lovers of liberty. As important today as in Mill's time, "On Liberty" is a remembrance of the principles of Western society that has allowed us to flourish in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I recommend this essay to everyone.

Wonderfully read

A clear, understated reading of an extremely important book. Thoroughly enjoyable and happily quite concise.

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Title: Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929

Subtitle: Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History

Author: Maury Klein

Narrator: Sean Crisden

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-15-11

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 27 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

The first major history of the Crash in over a decade, Rainbow's End tells the story of the stock market collapse in a colorful, swift-moving narrative that blends a vivid portrait of the 1920s with an intensely gripping account of Wall Street's greatest catastrophe.

The book offers a vibrant picture of a world full of plungers, powerful bankers, corporate titans, millionaire brokers, and buoyantly optimistic stock market bulls. We meet Sunshine Charley Mitchell, head of the National City Bank, powerful financiers Jack Morgan and Jacob Schiff, Wall Street manipulators such as the legendary Jesse Livermore, and the lavish-living Billy Durant, founder of General Motors. As Klein follows the careers of these men, he shows us how the financial house of cards gradually grew taller, as the irrational exuberance of an earlier age gripped America and convinced us that the market would continue to rise forever. Then, in October 1929, came a "perfect storm"-like convergence of factors that shook Wall Street to its foundations. We relive Black Thursday, when police lined Wall Street, brokers grew hysterical, customers "bellowed like lunatics," and the ticker tape fell hours behind. This is followed by the even worse Bloody Tuesday, when an irrational desire to sell at any price gripped the market and even blue chip stocks plummeted precariously. This compelling history of the Crash--the first to follow the market closely for the two years leading up to the disaster--illuminates a major turning point in our history.

Members Reviews:

Plenty of fine detail, especially of the 1920s

The crash and Great Depression are of course iconic stories. This book starts in the late teens and follows various threads through the 1920s, culminating in the crash. It is more about the "rainbow" than its end. It adds a lot of telling detail to the more familiar overall story. This is fine business and financial history, with several mini-biographies of key characters.

I've been looking for a book like this...

The topic sparked my interest about a dozen years ago after reading Karen Blumenthal's "Six Days in October - The Stock Market crash of 1929" Her book, was children's book believe it or not and is quite good! I actually got that recommendation from the Wall Street Journal as I recall. It's about 150 pages and you can read it in an afternoon. And do so before you listen to this one because it'll be a good primer for what actually happened. People often get confused and lost in the Stock Market stuff relating to that time frame but Blumenthal's book bridges that gap.

Then pick this one up. "Rainbow's End" does an excellent job of explaining all the events that lead up to the crash including the sentiment of the average American, how spirits were on the rise, marketing was making a big push into every residential home in the country, and people were spending money (often money they didn't have), on having good time and entertaining themselves. That piece is really quite interesting. The book will then take you thru every aspect of the crash and how it came to be, who the major players were, and how they fared.

And the narration was quite good too.