History Audiobooks | LoveReading

Brought to you by Penguin. There can be few more important but also more contentious issues than attempting to understand the human propensity for conflict. Our history is inextricably tangled in wave after wave of inter-human fighting from as far back as we have records. How can we make sense of what Einstein called 'the dark places of human will and feeling'? Richard Overy draws on a lifetime's study of conflict to write this challenging, invaluable book. Studying every facet of war from biology to belief, psychology to security, Overy allows readers to understand the many contradictory or self-reinforcing ways in which warfare can suddenly appear a legitimate option. Repeatedly humans have foresworn war, have understood its appalling risks and have wished to create more pacific, productive societies. And yet almost inevitably circumstances emerge under which war once more seems inevitable or even desirable. ©2024 Richard Overy (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Richard Overy (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey through Occupied Myanmar

Brought to you by Penguin. In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together. Her journey would take her from Myanmar's tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that border India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in disrepair, through contested ethnic states and former sites of forced labour, visiting temples, tea shops and festivals, Clare encountered a colourful and contradictory Myanmar through the stories of its people. Simultaneously a lush and evocative travelogue, an unsparing account of Myanmar's recent history, and an astonishing, conversation-shifting engagement with Britain's colonial legacy, On the Shadow Tracks is that rare and necessary thing: a book that finds and tells the truth. ©2024 Clare Hammond (P) 2024 Penguin Audio

Clare Hammond (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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Downfall: Prigozhin and Putin, and the new fight for the future of Russia

Brought to you by Penguin. Evgeny Prigozhin emerged as one of the most dangerous warlords in the world and as one of Vladimir Putin's chief rivals in Russia's tumultuous political climate, exiled after leading Wagner's attempted coup and killed in a mysterious plane crash. But what is the truth about this enigmatic figure, his role in the war with Ukraine, and the chaos unleashed across Russia by his turn against Putin? And, the aftermath of his death, what is next for Russia in the new stage of late Putinism that Prigozhin's life forged? Drawing on years of research, this book traces the rise of Russia's most prominent non-state actor and examines the political climate that propelled a convicted gangster with no government office to the formidable role he has come to occupy. An essential story of Russia's recent history, The Warlord is also a compelling insight into its likely future. ©2024 Anna Arutunyan & Mark Galeotti (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Anna Arutunyan, Mark Galeotti (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum and the US-Mexican Border and Beyond

Arnovis couldn't stay in El Salvador. If he didn't leave, a local gangster promised that his family would dress in mourning-that he would wake up with flies in his mouth. 'It was like a bomb exploded in my life,' Arnovis said. The Dispossessed tells the story of a twenty-four-year-old Salvadoran man, Arnovis, whose family's search for safety shows how the United States-in concert with other Western nations-has gutted asylum protections for the world's most vulnerable. Crisscrossing the border and Central America, John Washington traces one man's quest for asylum. Arnovis is separated from his daughter by US Border Patrol agents and struggles to find security after being repeatedly deported to a gang-ruled community in El Salvador, traumatic experiences relayed by Washington with vivid intensity. Adding historical, literary, and current political context to the discussion of migration today, Washington tells the history of asylum law and practice through ages to the present day. Packed with information and reflection, The Dispossessed is more than a human portrait of those who cross borders-it is an urgent and persuasive case for sharing the country we call home.

John Washington (Author), Zac Aleman (Narrator)

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Broadway Butterfly: Vivian Gordon, The Lady Gangster of Jazz Age New York

Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune. Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess. She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman. But given her dangerously intimate associations, Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life. On February 26, 1931, Vivian's bludgeoned and garroted body was found dumped in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. Now, in the first in-depth biography of its kind, Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano unravels her tumultuous life and the headline-making murder that became an obsession for many. The evidence Vivian left behind was damning: a diary with more than three-hundred names implicating powerful officials, philanthropists, businessmen, and every major gangland figure in collusion and corruption. The investigation eventually resulted in the career-ending of James 'Jimmy' Walker, disgraced mayor of New York City. Broadway Butterfly finally finds a place in history for Vivian, a woman with a rare legacy in gangster lore, whose demise was as tragically inevitable as the brutality of the city's demimonde during Prohibition.

Anthony M. DeStefano (Author), Romy Nordlinger (Narrator)

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The Defeat of the Damned: The Destruction of the Dirlewanger Brigade at the Battle of Ipolysag, Dece

One of the most notorious yet least understood body of troops that fought for the Third Reich during World War II was the infamous Sondereinheit Dirlewanger, or the 'Dirlewanger Special Unit.' Formed initially as a company-sized formation in June 1940 from convicted poachers, it served under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger, one of the most infamous criminals in military history. After assisting in putting down the Warsaw Uprising during 1944, by November of that year it had been enlarged and retitled as the 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. One month later, it fought one of its most controversial actions near the town of Ipolysag, Hungary. As a result of its overly hasty and haphazard deployment, lack of heavy armament, and a confusing chain of command, it was virtually destroyed by two Soviet mechanized corps. Consequently, the Wehrmacht leadership blamed Dirlewanger and the performance of his troops for the encirclement of the Hungarian capital of Budapest that led to the annihilation of its garrison two months later. The brigade's defeat at Ipolysag also led to its compulsory removal from the front lines and its eventual shipment to a rest area where it would be completely rebuilt. Despite its lackluster performance, the brigade was rebuilt again but never recovered from the thrashing it received at the hands of the 6th Guards Army.

Douglas E. Nash Sr., Douglas E. Nash, Sr. (Author), David Stifel (Narrator)

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The Roman Revolution: Crisis and Christianity in Ancient Rome

It was a time of revolution. The Roman Revolution describes the little known 'crisis of the third century', and how it led to a revolutionary new Roman Empire. Long before the more famous collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, in the years between AD 235-275, barbarian invasions, civil war, and plague devastated ancient Rome. Out of this ordeal came new leaders, new government, new armies, and a new vision of what it was to be Roman. Best remembered today is the rapid rise of Christianity in this period, as Rome's pagan gods were rejected, and the emperor Constantine converted to this new religion. Less well remembered is the plethora of other changes that conspired to provide an environment well suited to a religious revolution. Drawing on the latest research, Nick Holmes looks for new answers to old questions. He charts the rise of the Roman Republic and the classical Roman Empire, examining the roles played by sheer good luck and the benign climate. Focusing on the reigns of the critically important but under-researched emperors in the third century, such as Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine, he vividly brings to life how Rome just escaped catastrophe in the third century, and embarked on a journey that would take it into a brave new world-one which provided the foundations for modern Europe and America.

Nick Holmes (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

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The Fall of Rome: End of a Superpower

A skilled storyteller, Holmes presents a riveting account of the wars, intrigues and personalities that contributed to Rome's decline, with entire chapters devoted to single battles.' Kirkus Reviews Why did Rome Fall? In this gripping retelling of one of the most momentous chapters in history, Nick Holmes presents a new interpretation of an old story. The fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by an environmental disaster. A catastrophic megadrought on the Asian steppes in the fourth century AD forced the migration of entire peoples-Huns, Goths, Vandals, and others-west into the Roman Empire. They met an empire weakened from war with Persia. Rome's misfortunes multiplied as it made tactical errors on the battlefield. Civil war, religious unrest, and political incompetence compounded a worsening situation. The result was one of the greatest disasters in the ancient world-the sack of Rome by the Goths in AD 410.

Nick Holmes (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

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Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks, and Triumphs

From beloved CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Mo Rocca, author of New York Times bestseller Mobituaries, comes an inspiring collection of stories that celebrates the triumphs of people who made their biggest marks late in life. Eighty has been the new sixty for about twenty years now. In fact, there have always been late-in-life achievers, those who declined to go into decline just because they were eligible for social security. Journalist, humorist, and history buff Mo Rocca and coauthor Jonathan Greenberg introduce us to the people past and present who peaked when they could have been puttering—breaking out as writers, selling out concert halls, attempting to set land-speed records—and in the case of one ninety-year tortoise, becoming a first-time father. (Take that, Al Pacino!) In the vein of Mobituaries, Roctogenarians is a collection of entertaining and unexpected profiles of these unretired titans—some long gone (a cancer-stricken Henri Matisse, who began work on his celebrated cut-outs when he could no longer paint), some very much still living (Rita Moreno, the EGOT who's still got it). The amazing cast of characters also includes Mary Church Terrell, who at eighty-six helped lead sit-ins at segregated Washington, DC, lunch counters in the 1950s, and Carol Channing, who married the love of her life at eighty-two. Then there's Peter Mark Roget, who began working on his thesaurus in his twenties and completed it at seventy-three (because sometimes finding the right word takes time.) With passion and wonder Rocca and Greenberg recount the stories of yesterday's and today's strongest finishers. Because with all due respect to the Golden Girls, some people will never be content sitting out on the lanai. (PS Actress Estelle Getty was sixty-two when she got her big break. And yes, she's in the book.)

Jonathan Greenberg, Mo Rocca (Author), Mo Rocca, TBD (Narrator)

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Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac

From the best-selling author of Gettysburg, a multilayered group biography of the commanders who led the Army of the Potomac "A masterful synthesis . . . A narrative about amazing courage and astonishing gutlessness . . . It explains why Union movements worked and, more often, didn't work in clear-eyed explanatory prose that's vivid and direct." - Chicago Tribune The high command of the Army of the Potomac was a changeable, often dysfunctional band of brothers, going through the fires of war under seven commanding generals in three years, until Grant came east in 1864. The men in charge all too frequently appeared to be fighting against the administration in Washington instead of for it, increasingly cast as political pawns facing down a vindictive congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. President Lincoln oversaw, argued with, and finally tamed his unruly team of lieutenants as the eastern army was stabilized by an unsung supporting cast of corps, division, and brigade generals. With characteristic style and insight, Stephen Sears brings these courageous, determined officers, who rose through the ranks and led from the front, to life and legend. "[A] massive, elegant study . . . A staggering work of research by a masterly historian." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Stephen W. Sears (Author), Reader Tbd 1 (Narrator)

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The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise

The twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States. An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial to managerial capitalism, brought forth what became a dominant narrative: that administrative coordination by trained professional managers is essential to the efficient running of organizations both public and private. And yet if managerialism was the apotheosis of administrative efficiency, why did both its practice and the accompanying narrative lie in ruins by the end of the century? In The Corporation and the Twentieth Century, Richard Langlois offers an alternative version: a comprehensive and nuanced reframing and reassessment of the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial era. Langlois argues that managerialism rose to prominence not because of its inherent superiority but because of its contingent value in a young and rapidly developing American economy. By the end of the twentieth century, Langlois writes, these market-supporting institutions had reemerged to shift advantage toward entrepreneurial and market-driven modes of organization. This magisterial new account of the rise and fall of managerialism holds significant implications for contemporary debates about industrial and antitrust policies and the role of the corporation in the twenty-first century.

Richard N. Langlois (Author), Stephen Bowlby (Narrator)

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Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization

Western civilization is generally regarded as the child of Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome. That is, in the West, our philosophical and political thought is derived from that of the ancient Greeks; our Christian religion comes from the Jewish religion, and both of these came to us via the Roman Empire. Western society has other forefathers as well: we would be unwise to give the Byzantine Empire short shrift. The ways in which it has influenced our world for the good, and indeed, created the parameters of our society at its healthiest and strongest, are insufficiently appreciated today. If the United States were to last as long as the Roman Empire, including its Byzantine period, it would have to continue as an independent country until the year 2899. To maintain a unified nation state for over eleven hundred years is a remarkable achievement by any standard, and the Romans accomplished it while facing existential threats and efforts to extinguish their polity during virtually every period of their existence. Now, nearly six hundred years after the demise of the empire, its influence still resonates in a number of fields. There is no arguing with success. It's time we took notice.

Robert Spencer (Author), Bob Souer (Narrator)

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