World Audiobooks | History

The Guinea Pig Club: Archibald McIndoe and the RAF in World War II

The history of the Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who were seriously burned in aeroplane fires, is a truly inspiring, spine-tingling tale. Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War. The most rudimentary techniques were only known to a few surgeons worldwide. The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having maverick surgeon Archibald McIndoe – nicknamed 'the Boss', or 'the Maestro' – operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. McIndoe constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch. After arguing with his superiors, he set up a revolutionary new treatment regime. Uniquely concerned with the social environment, or holistic care, McIndoe also enlisted the help of the local civilian population. He rightly secured his group of patients, dubbed the 'Guinea Pig Club', an honoured place in society as heroes of Britain's war.

Emily Mayhew (Author), Karen Cass (Narrator)

Audiobook

Polvo eres. Peripecias y extravagancias de algunos cadáveres inquietos

No importa que sean santos, mandamases, escritores o músicos: algunos personajes no descansan ni después de muertos. Estas amenas y por momentos desternillantes páginas nos cuentan sus innumerables peripecias. ¿Sabía usted que ▪ la momia de Carlos I de España y V de Alemania ha salido varias veces de su tumba? ▪ los huesos de El Cid Campeador y de doña Jimena están repartidos entre Burgos, Francia y la República Checa? ▪ a Napoleón le amputaron el pene durante la autopsia y se guardó como recuerdo por las ridículas dimensiones que presentaba? ▪ el féretro de Carlos Gardel hizo parte de su viaje a lomos de una mula? ▪ a Hitler se le enterró al menos tres veces? ▪ una funeraria de Nueva Jersey fabricaba para la mafia ataúdes con doble fondo? Por si esto fuera poco, Nieves Concostrina −responsable del espacio radiofónico diario 'Polvo eres' en Radio 5 Todo Noticias y colaboradora los fines de semana en el programa No es un día cualquiera de RNE (Radio 1), dirigido por Pepa Fernández− nos deleita también con una miscelánea de esquelas asombrosas, gazapos funerarios y divorcios póstumos. 'Con este libro −afirma− sólo pretendo demostrar que la muerte (de otros) puede llegar a ser tan interesante, extravagante o divertida como la propia vida. Y que Dios, o quien sea, nos pille confesados'. Grabado en español ibérico (España).

Nieves Concostrina (Author), Nuria Martínez (Narrator)

Audiobook

Opening Strategy: Professional Strategists and Practice Change, 1960 to Today

Opening Strategy recounts the origins and development of Strategy as a profession from the middle of the last century to the present day. In particular, it focuses on how strategic planning superseded long-range planning, and the more recent rise of strategic management and open strategy. Together, these practices have contributed to growing inclusiveness and transparency in contemporary organizations. Informed by interviews with corporate strategists at leading companies around the world, eminent consultants at firms such as Bain, the Boston Consulting Group, and McKinsey & Co., and the internal archives of strategic innovators such as General Electric and Shell, this book provides vivid insights into the trials and tribulations of practice innovation in Strategy, and stresses the hard work of the little recognized and sometimes eccentric innovators within the profession. By building on a wide range of examples, covering both successes and failures, the book draws out general lessons for practice innovation in Strategy. Those studying the topic will be able to set standard strategy techniques in historical and social context and develop new areas for investigation, while practicing executives and consultants should gain a sense of how to innovate in Strategy-and how not to.

Richard Whittington (Author), Matthew Lloyd Davies (Narrator)

Audiobook

Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business

We live in an age of addiction, from compulsive gaming and shopping to binge eating and opioid abuse. Sugar can be as habit-forming as cocaine, researchers tell us, and social media apps are hooking our kids. But what can we do to resist temptations that insidiously and deliberately rewire our brains? Nothing, David Courtwright says, unless we understand the history and character of the global enterprises that create and cater to our bad habits. The Age of Addiction chronicles the triumph of "limbic capitalism," the growing network of competitive businesses targeting the brain pathways responsible for feeling, motivation, and long-term memory. We see its success in Steve Wynn's groundbreaking casinos and Purdue Pharma's pain pills, in McDonald's engineered burgers and Tencent video games from China. All capitalize on the ancient quest to discover, cultivate, and refine new and habituating pleasures. Courtwright holds out hope that limbic capitalism can be contained by organized opposition from across the political spectrum. Progressives, nationalists, and traditionalists have worked together against the purveyors of addiction before. They could do it again.

David T. Courtwright (Author), Qarie Marshall (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ungovernable: The Victorian Parent's Guide to Raising Flawless Children

From the author of the 'hysterically funny and unsettlingly fascinating'* New York Times bestseller Unmentionable, a hilarious illustrated guide to the secrets of Victorian child-rearing [*Jenny Lawson] Feminist historian Therese Oneill is back, to educate you on what to expect when you're expecting . . . a Victorian baby! In Ungovernable, Oneill conducts an unforgettable tour through the backwards, pseudoscientific, downright bizarre parenting fashions of the Victorians, advising us on: - How to be sure you're not too ugly, sickly, or stupid to breed - What positions and room decor will help you conceive a son - How much beer, wine, cyanide and heroin to consume while pregnant - How to select the best peasant teat for your child - Which foods won't turn your children into sexual deviants - And so much more Endlessly surprising, wickedly funny, and filled with juicy historical tidbits and images, Ungovernable provides much-needed perspective on -- and comic relief from -- the age-old struggle to bring up baby. **Contact Customer Service for Additional Content**

Therese Oneill (Author), Betsy Foldes Meiman, Dara Rosenberg (Narrator)

Audiobook

How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories

Why we learn the wrong things from narrative history, and how our love for stories is hard-wired. To understand something, you need to know its history. Right? Wrong, says Alex Rosenberg in How History Gets Things Wrong. Feeling especially well-informed after reading a book of popular history on the best-seller list? Don't. Narrative history is always, always wrong. It's not just incomplete or inaccurate but deeply wrong, as wrong as Ptolemaic astronomy. We no longer believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Why do we still believe in historical narrative? Our attachment to history as a vehicle for understanding has a long Darwinian pedigree and a genetic basis. Our love of stories is hard-wired. Neuroscience reveals that human evolution shaped a tool useful for survival into a defective theory of human nature. Stories historians tell, Rosenberg continues, are not only wrong but harmful. Israel and Palestine, for example, have dueling narratives of dispossession that prevent one side from compromising with the other. Henry Kissinger applied lessons drawn from the Congress of Vienna to American foreign policy with disastrous results. Human evolution improved primate mind reading―the ability to anticipate the behavior of others, whether predators, prey, or cooperators―to get us to the top of the African food chain. Now, however, this hard-wired capacity makes us think we can understand history―what the Kaiser was thinking in 1914, why Hitler declared war on the United States―by uncovering the narratives of what happened and why. In fact, Rosenberg argues, we will only understand history if we don't make it into a story.

Alex Rosenberg (Author), Mikael Naramore (Narrator)

Audiobook

Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Execut

In 1960 Argentina, a covert team of Israeli agents hunted down the most elusive war criminal alive: Adolf Eichmann, chief architect of the Holocaust. The young spy who tackled Eichmann on a Buenos Aires street-and fought every compulsion to strangle the Obersturmführer then and there-was Peter Z. Malkin. For decades Malkin's identity as Eichmann's captor was kept secret. Here he reveals the entire breathtaking story-from the genesis of the top-secret surveillance operation to the dramatic public capture and smuggling of Eichmann to Israel to stand trial. The result is a portrait of two men. One, a freedom fighter, intellectually curious and driven to do right. The other, the dutiful Good German who, through his chillingly intimate conversations with Malkin, reveals himself as the embodiment of what Hannah Arendt called 'the banality of evil.' Singular, riveting, troubling, and gratifying, Eichmann in My Hands 'remind[s] of what is at stake: not only justice but our own humanity' (New York Newsday). Now Malkin's story comes to life on the screen with Oscar Isaac playing the heroic Mossad agent and Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley playing Eichmann in Operation Finale.

Harry Stein, Peter Z. Malkin (Author), Jonathan Davis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Flat Earth: A History of Strange Tales, Bizarre Beliefs, and Conspiracy Theories about the Earth's S

The world is filled with mysteries, and even in the modern age, much of the planet remains unexplored. The depths of the oceans and the intricate and extensive cave systems that honeycomb some parts of the Earth are still largely unknown. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when it comes to this terra incognita, people have projected all sorts of ideas. Tales of sunken cities or lost civilizations are just some of the fanciful theories, and those could even be considered tame in comparison to the idea that Earth is flat. Despite this notion being rejected by the scientific community for millennia, and despite the fact that geology, volcanology, oceanography, and physics have all proven that the planet is not flat, the idea of a hollow Earth continues to intrigue people and gain eager and sincere adherents. This is made all the more remarkable by the fact that space programs are more than 60 years old, and people can fly around the world on planes in a matter of hours. Taken at face value, this idea is patently ridiculous, but it provokes strong emotions in some people, sincere people who have thought extensively about their beliefs. These people feel they are privy to a hidden truth, and that the rest of the world is wrong and ignorant, but this feeling of mental superiority isn't the only appeal in clinging to radical notions. There is also the thrill of adventure, the feeling that one is part of a dangerous minority attempting to overthrow the dominant paradigm. It is far better, some would feel, to live in a world full of mystery and hope, than a decaying, "rational" world where everything can be explained but nothing solved. Flat Earth: A History of Strange Tales, Bizarre Beliefs, and Conspiracy Theories about the Earth's Surface offers a sampling of the many strange stories and theories regarding the planet's surface. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the theories like never before.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Johnston (Narrator)

Audiobook

Flat Earth and Hollow Earth Theories: A History of Strange Tales and Bizarre Beliefs about the Plane

The world is filled with mysteries, and even in the modern age, much of the planet remains unexplored. The depths of the oceans and the intricate and extensive cave systems that honeycomb some parts of the Earth are still largely unknown. Thus, it should come as no surprise that when it comes to this terra incognita, people have projected all sorts of ideas. Tales of sunken cities or lost civilizations are just some of the fanciful theories, and those could even be considered tame in comparison to the idea that Earth is flat and/or hollow. Despite this notion being rejected by the scientific community for millennia, and despite the fact that geology, volcanology, oceanography, and physics have all proven that the planet is not flat, the idea of a hollow Earth continues to intrigue people and gain eager and sincere adherents. This is made all the more remarkable by the fact that space programs are more than 60 years old, and people can fly around the world on planes in a matter of hours. Taken at face value, the ideas are patently ridiculous, but they provoke strong emotions in some people, sincere people who have thought extensively about their beliefs. These people feel they are privy to a hidden truth, and that the rest of the world is wrong and ignorant, but this feeling of mental superiority isn't the only appeal in clinging to radical notions. There is also the thrill of adventure, the feeling that one is part of a dangerous minority attempting to overthrow the dominant paradigm. It is far better, some would feel, to live in a world full of mystery and hope than a decaying, "rational" world where everything can be explained but nothing solved. Flat Earth and Hollow Earth Theories: A History of Strange Tales and Bizarre Beliefs about the Planet offers a sampling of the many strange stories and theories regarding the planet's surface and interior. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the theories like never before.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Johnston (Narrator)

Audiobook

Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie, read by John Sessions. 'Appeasing Hitler is an astonishingly accomplished debut. Bouverie writes with a wonderful clarity and we will no doubt hear a lot more of his voice in future' ANTONY BEEVOR On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped off an aeroplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory. It was, he later assured the crowd in Downing Street, 'peace for our time'. Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began. Appeasing Hitler is a compelling new narrative history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Nazi domination of Europe. Beginning with the advent of Hitler in 1933, it sweeps from the early days of the Third Reich to the beaches of Dunkirk. Bouverie takes us into the backrooms of 10 Downing Street and Parliament, where a small group of rebellious MPs, including the indomitable Winston Churchill, were among the few to realise that the only choice was between 'war now or war later'. And we enter the drawing rooms and dining clubs of fading imperial Britain, where Hitler enjoyed surprising support among the ruling class and even some members of the Royal Family. Drawing on deep archival research, including previously unseen sources, this is an unforgettable portrait of the ministers, aristocrats and amateur diplomats who, through their actions and inaction, shaped their country's policy and determined the fate of Europe. Both sweeping and intimate, Appeasing Hitler is not only eye-opening history but a timeless lesson on the challenges of standing up to aggression and authoritarianism - and the calamity that results from failing to do so.

Tim Bouverie (Author), John L. Sessions, John Sessions (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Stonewall Reader

For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White. June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after. Jason Baumann, the NYPL coordinator of humanities and LGBTQ collections, has edited and introduced the volume to coincide with the NYPL exhibition he has curated on the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation movement of 1969. *Includes a PDF of the list of stories and narrators as well as permissions credits.

New York Public Library, Various (Author), Allen Young, Barbara Rosenblatt, Danny Deferrari, Dick Leitsch, Eric Marcus, Graham Halstead, Hugo Bresson, Jason Bauman, Jay London Toole, Julian Cihi, Kristin Parker, Lillian Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Martin Boyce, Michael Crouch, Minerva Summer, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Morty Manford, Penny Arcade, Rebecca Lowman, Serene Rose, Sylvia Rivera, Tenaja Jordan, Various, Xavier Smith (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Return of Odin: The Modern Renaissance of Pagan Imagination

A controversial examination of the influence and presence of the Norse god Odin in contemporary history and culture • Documents Odin's role in the rise of Nazi Germany, the 1960s counterculture revolution, nationalist and ecological political movements, and the occult revival • Examines the spiritual influence of Odin in relation to Jesus Christ • Profiles key individuals instrumental in the rise of the modern pagan renaissance Exploring the influence of the Norse god Odin in the modern world, Richard Rudgley reveals Odin's central role in the pagan revival and how this has fueled a wide range of cultural movements and phenomena, including Nazi Germany, the 1960s counterculture revolution, the Lord of the Rings, the ecology movement, and the occult underground. Rudgley argues that it is Odin and not Jesus Christ who is the single most important spiritual influence in modern Western civilization. He analyzes the Odin archetype--first revealed by Carl Jung's famous essay on Wotan--in the context of pagan religious history and explains the ancient idea of the Web--a cosmic field of energies that encompasses time, space, and the hidden potentials of humanity—the pagan equivalent to the Tao of Eastern tradition. The author examines the importance of the concept of wyrd, which corresponds to "fate" or "destiny," exploring techniques to read destiny such as the Runes as well as the existence of yoga in prehistoric and pagan Europe, which later produced the Norse Utiseta, an ancient system of meditation. Rudgley documents how the Odin archetype came into play in Nazi Germany with the rise of Hitler and the pagan counterculture of the 1960s. He examines how the concept of subterranean and mythic realms, such as the Hollow Earth, Thule, and Agartha, and mysterious energies like Vril were manifested in both occult and profane ways and investigates key occult figures like Madame Blavatsky, Guido von List, and Karl Wiligut. He provides pagan analyses of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings and documents the impact the Odin archetype has had on nationalist and fascist groups in America and Europe. Examining pagan groups in Europe and America that use the Norse template, Rudgley reveals true paganism as holistic and intimately connected with the forces at work in the life of the planet. Showing how this "green" paganism can be beneficial for dealing with the adverse consequences of globalization and the ongoing ecological crisis, he explains how, when repressed, the Odin archetype is responsible for regressive tendencies and even mass-psychosis--a reflection of the unprecedented chaos of Ragnarok--but if embraced, the Odin archetype makes it possible for like-minded traditions to work together in the service of life.

Richard Rudgley (Author), Micah Hanks (Narrator)

Audiobook

World Audiobooks in History