Audiobooks by A. N. Wilson

Charles Darwin: Victorian Mythmaker Audiobook

With the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, hailed as the man who "discovered evolution," was propelled into the pantheon of great scientific thinkers, alongside Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. Eminent writer A. N. Wilson challenges this long-held assumption. Contextualizing Darwin and his ideas, he offers a groundbreaking critical look at this revered figure in modern science.In this beautifully written, deeply erudite portrait, Wilson argues that Darwin was not an original scientific thinker, but a ruthless and determined self-promoter who did not credit the many great sages whose ideas he advanced in his book. Furthermore, Wilson contends that religion and Darwinism have much more in common than it would seem, for the acceptance of Darwin's theory involves a significant leap of faith.Armed with an extraordinary breadth of knowledge, Wilson explores how Darwin and his theory were very much a product of their place and time. The "survival of the fittest" was really the survival of middle class families like the Darwins-members of a relatively new economic strata who benefited from the rising Industrial Revolution at the expense of the working classes. Following Darwin's theory, the wretched state of the poor was an outcome of nature, not the greed and neglect of the moneyed classes. In a paradigm-shifting conclusion, Wilson suggests that it remains to be seen, as this class dies out, whether the Darwinian idea will survive, or whether it, like other Victorian fads, will become a footnote in our intellectual history.Brilliant, daring, and ambitious, Charles Darwin explores this legendary man as never before, and challenges us to reconsider our understanding of both Darwin and modern science itself.

A. N. Wilson (Author), Richard Burnip (Narrator)

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The Book of the People: How To Read the Bible

From renowned historian, biographer, and novelist A.N. Wilson comes a deeply personal, literary, and historical exploration of the Bible. In The Book of the People, A. N. Wilson explores how readers and thinkers have approached the Bible, and how it might be read today. Charting his own relationship with the Bible over a lifetime of writing, Wilson argues that it remains relevant even in a largely secular society, as a philosophical work, a work of literature, and a cultural touchstone that the western world has answered to for nearly two thousand years: Martin Luther King was "reading the Bible" when he started the Civil Rights movement, as was Michelangelo when he painted the fresco cycles in the Sistine Chapel. Wilson challenges the way fundamentalists-whether believers or nonbelievers-have misused the Bible, either by neglecting and failing to recognize its cultural significance or by using it as a weapon against those with whom they disagree. Erudite, witty, and accessible, The Book of the People seeks to reclaim the Good Book as our seminal work of literature and a book for the imagination. "Wilson, a convert from atheism to Christianity, weaves together meditations on the Bible with personal anecdotes...Wilson soars in describing how we can find this imaginative Bible through George Herbert's poetry or the work of Simone Weil or Martin Luther King Jr., or in the Hagia Sophia or a Eucharist service. Those who enjoyed Brock and Parker's Saving Paradise will likely take pleasure in this similarly positive take on viewing the Bible through the lens of the arts."-Publishers Weekly

A. N. Wilson (Author), Derek Perkins (Narrator)

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Victoria: A Life

Acclaimed historian A. N. Wilson gives a sweeping, definitive biography of one of the most recognizable yet enigmatic monarchs of all time. The longest reigning British monarch and female sovereign in history, Queen Victoria was a figure of profound paradox who has mystified historians for over a century. Now in this magisterial biography, A. N. Wilson rebukes the conventional wisdom about her life—that she was merely a “funny little woman in a bonnet” who did next to nothing—to show she was in fact intensely involved in state affairs despite a public façade of inaction. More than just the stock image of a stuffy, unsmiling widow in mourning, Wilson’s complete immersion in Victoria’s countless letters and journals reveals a carefully nuanced portrait of a monarch possessed by family immigrant insecurities, a reluctant public figure who learned to exploit public display, a mother who hated pregnancy, and above all, a political luminary who created and controlled the story of her life, true or otherwise. Victoria brings to life its subject in all her many moods and phases: her so-called miserable childhood, her early years of political inexperience as a pawn to advisers and statesmen, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and the incessant public criticism, her famed mourning period after Albert’s early death, and finally, the captivating last decades of her rule as Empress of India. After nearly two decades as an eccentric, reclusive mourner, she emerged, self-confident and robust, as an out-and-out imperialist who harnessed royalty with British foreign policy and as the figurehead of military and economic world domination. Wilson tells a story of victory against painful odds and gives the portrait of a woman battling with demons and overcoming them, largely alone. Despite everything, she came to embody the British people’s experience of their own lives. “A shimmering portrait of a tempestuous monarch…British novelist and biographer Wilson…lends a lively expertise to his portrayal of the forthright, formidable, still enigmatic sovereign…A robust, immensely entertaining portrait from a master biographer.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A. N. Wilson (Author), Clive Chafer (Narrator)

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Hitler

Written by acclaimed biographer A. N. Wilson, Hitler is a short, sharp, gripping account of one of the twentieth century's most notorious figures. In it, Wilson offers a fresh interpretation of the life of the "ultimate demon-tyrant of history." In 1923, thirty-four-year-old Adolf Hitler was languishing in prison after leading an unsuccessful putsch to overthrow the German government. Within a decade he was German chancellor, one of the most powerful men in Europe. How did he do it? Had Hitler been a regular politician, Wilson argues, he would have vanished without trace after his prison experience. He was not, however, a regular politician but rather a conjurer, seeing politics not as the art of the possible but as the art of the impossible. Among the book's many insights, Wilson shows how Hitler had an intuitive sense, which amounted to genius, that the spoken word was going to be of more significance than the written word during the twentieth century. In this respect, the Führer is presented as a man ahead of his time, who foreshadowed Hollywood and television stars and postwar politicians. In a field dense with lengthy tomes, this brief, penetrating portrait provides a compelling introduction to a man whose evil continues to fascinate and appall. "The author once again gives us a multifaceted portrait of an era. Like its predecessors, the book is enlivened by Mr. Wilson's gift for anecdote [and] character analysis."-Wall Street Journal on Our Times

A. N. Wilson (Author), Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

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Our Times: The Age of Elizabeth II

When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, there were many who proclaimed that a new Elizabethan Age had begun. Few could have any inkling, however, of the stupendous changes that were going to take place, in Britain and around the world. The collapse of British power in the world and the near-evaporation of its wealth were established facts, but few people had even begun to understand them. In the third book in A. N. Wilson’s acclaimed histories, Our Times follows the beginnings of modern Britain from the 1950s with the Suez crisis, immigration, the Angry Young Men, and Harold Macmillan, to the 1960s and changes in attitudes towards divorce and homosexuality, the rise of satire and the boom in pop music and fashion, through the 1970s, with Vietnam and the Cold War looming large and the Labour government that ushered in the Winter of Discontent, to the Thatcher government of the ’80s and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which signalled the end of a political era in Britain, up to the current period of, according to Wilson, unprecedented peace and prosperity. “One of the most important books of recent years.”—Daily Mail (London)

A. N. Wilson (Author), Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

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London: A History

This entertaining volume provides a concise history of one of the world's premiere cities. Acclaimed author A.N. Wilson starts at the beginning, when London was founded by the Romans, and continues to contemporary times, hitting all the historical highlights along the way. London is the perfect starter book for anyone wishing to understand this great city a little better, and even seasoned London fans will find new information here.

A. N. Wilson, A.N. Wilson (Author), Christopher Kay (Narrator)

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