Audiobooks narrated by Colin Fluxman

Zulu War and Boer War, The: The History and Legacy of the Conflicts that Cemented British Control of

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together, to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event—known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885—galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa. The conference established two fundamental rules for European seizure of Africa. The first of these was that no recognition of annexation would granted without evidence of a practical occupation, and the second, that a practical occupation would be deemed unlawful without a formal appeal for protection made on behalf of a territory by its leader, a plea that must be committed to paper in the form of a legal treaty. This began a rush, spearheaded mainly by European commercial interests in the form of Chartered Companies, to penetrate the African interior and woo its leadership with guns, trinkets and alcohol, and having thus obtained their marks or seals upon spurious treaties, begin establishing boundaries of future European African colonies. The ease with which this was achieved was due to the fact that, at that point, traditional African leadership was disunited, and the people had just staggered back from centuries of concussion inflicted by the slave trade. Thus, to usurp authority, to intimidate an already broken society, and to play one leader against the other was a diplomatic task so childishly simple, the matter was wrapped up, for the most part, in less than a decade.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Zimbabwe under the British Empire: The History of Great Britain’s Colonization and Decolonization Be

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together, to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event—known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885—galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa. The conference established two fundamental rules for European seizure of Africa. The first of these was that no recognition of annexation would granted without evidence of a practical occupation, and the second, that a practical occupation would be deemed unlawful without a formal appeal for protection made on behalf of a territory by its leader, a plea that must be committed to paper in the form of a legal treaty. This began a rush, spearheaded mainly by European commercial interests in the form of Chartered Companies, to penetrate the African interior and woo its leadership with guns, trinkets and alcohol, and having thus obtained their marks or seals upon spurious treaties, begin establishing boundaries of future European African colonies. The ease with which this was achieved was due to the fact that, at that point, traditional African leadership was disunited, and the people had just staggered back from centuries of concussion inflicted by the slave trade. Thus, to usurp authority, to intimidate an already broken society, and to play one leader against the other was a diplomatic task so childishly simple, the matter was wrapped up, for the most part, in less than a decade.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Zebulon Pike: The Life and Legacy of One of Early America’s Most Important Explorers

Given that Lewis and Clark remain so famous, it was inevitable that the other American explorers would be overlooked, particularly William Eaton, the hero of the Battle of Derna in the Barnaby Wars, and Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the explorer of the Mississippi. In the case of Pike, Orsi suggests that the explorer is overlooked and in some cases slighted due to what the expeditions did and did not accomplish. Eaton and Pike represented “the first wave of Manifest Destiny, expanding the republican principles of liberty and citizenship in the world.”[1] Contrasted to that patriotic sentiment are caveats and questions. The career of Zebulon Pike was “dominated by ambiguously motivated explorations of the American West.”[2] With the procurement of the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the nation, Pike had the full force of American authority at his disposal, and his travels through the Colorado Rockies into New Mexico pushed the boundaries between America and Spain. Captured by Spanish officials for illegal entry, he was finally released back into American custody after a year’s time with a volume of new information on Spanish territory, its economy, and its military configuration. This sparked a debate about whether the capture was planned by the American government itself. Pike’s return is still debated, as is his relationship with General James Wilkinson and Aaron Burr. The controversy is relevant to Burr’s alleged conspiracy to establish a competing empire in the American Southwest, or perhaps as a way of conquering Spanish America without involving the White House. Pike’s papers, confiscated by the Spanish, have complicated the search for the truth, and any evidence of his complicity remains confidential, in part because of the unpredictable explorer’s unpredictable demise.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Young Turks, The: The History and Legacy of the Political Movement that Attempted to Reform the Otto

In August 2017, Turkey's President Recip Tayyip Erdogan gave a directive to the Foreign Ministry to go into ravaged Syria and rescue an 87-year-old Turkish man stranded in Damascus by the civil war. The elderly gentleman lived his life simply and quietly. He disliked drawing attention to himself, and he was grieving for his wife who had just died. The man called himself Dundar Abdulkerim Osmanoglu, but many affixed the title Sehzade ("Prince") to his name, for he was Head of the imperial House of Osman and heir to the defunct throne of the Ottoman Empire. His ancestors had created an Empire that had lasted for over 600 years and caused the greatest rulers of both the Muslim East and the Christian West to tremble. When studying the fall of the Ottoman Empire, historians have argued over the breaking point that saw a leading global power slowly become a decadent empire, but to men like Erdogan, the long agony of the "sick man of Europe," an expression used by the Tsar of Russia to depict the falling Ottoman Empire, blinds people to its incredible power and history. Overall, the history of the dissolution of the empire can be defined as a race between the empire's growing "illness" on one side (the Ottomans' inability to appease and federate the various people within its territory) and constant attempts to find a cure in the form of broad reforms. As this all suggests, the story of the Young Turks and the last years of the Ottoman Sultanate is a complex and interesting one. It is the history of a state struggling to survive against seemingly impossible odds, featuring a long battle for the minds and souls of the inhabitants of a declining empire between nationalism and liberal imperialism. It is a struggle that has produced not only modern Turkey but several states in the Balkans and the Middle East as they exist today. The Young Turks were triumphant, but in many ways it was a Pyrrhic victory.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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World Health Organization, The: The History and Legacy of the UN’s Top International Public Health A

April 7 is World Health Organization Day, in honor of the day that the World Health Organization held the first World Health Assembly in 1948. International health conferences had been held nearly a century before this date, and international health organizations had been established in the half-century prior to the creation of the World Health Organization, but 1948 marked the year that a formal institution was created to direct and implement a concerted and truly global effort to investigate, prevent, control, and cure disease. As the world recovered from the Second World War, which included the reconstruction of Europe, the emergence of the United States as a world superpower, the spread of Communism in large parts of the world, and the end of European colonial empires, the World Health Organization had to respond to these economic and political challenges in order to coordinate international health policy. Since the inception of the World Health Organization (WHO), the nature of public health issues has evolved greatly. An initial focus on preventing the spread of communicable diseases led to addressing poor health outcomes as a result of poverty, population growth, lifestyle changes, and globalization which meant that diseases could spread around the world faster than ever before. The WHO has also had to adopt mechanisms to respond to rapidly to major outbreaks of disease which can lead to negative economic outcomes and severe strains on health care systems in the affected regions. Economic and political changes over the last 72 years have altered the WHO’s global authority, its funding model, and the manner in which it carries out its mandate. Although medical science has advanced greatly since the WHO was established, newly emerging diseases have tested the WHO’s ability to understand the epidemiology of these diseases and to combat them.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Windrush Scandal, The: The History of the Modern Controversy and Race Relations in the British Empir

On the morning of June 22, 1948, the HMT Empire Windrush, a repurposed German troopship, drew up alongside the Tilbury docks, lowering its gangplanks onto the wide, cobbled quays. To the casual interest of the dockworkers, a small army of well-dressed, luggage laden blacks stepped onto the shores of England, looking around for the first time at their new home. Most originated from Kingston, the capital of the British island colony of Jamaica, with a few others from Trinidad and a handful of other British Caribbean dependencies. These were the men and women who led the vanguard of what would come to be known as the Windrush Generation, the first substantial wave of non-white immigration to the British Isles from the outer marches of the Empire. Ultimately, between 1948 and 1970, more than half a million souls would migrate to the United Kingdom from the Caribbean and other non-white Commonwealth countries, establishing the bedrock of the British black community and prompting the first ripples of racial discomfort that would conclude in the infamous Windrush Scandal of 2018. The issue of race in the British Empire is as complex as the history of the British Empire itself. The origins of the British Empire lie in the settlement of North America and the Caribbean, both of which led to complex intersections of imperialism, commerce and race. While the first European encounters with the New World were Spanish, the British arrived on the scene in a permanent way with the establishment of a General Assembly of the Leeward Islands in 1674, after which, in a complex evolution in competition and conflict with other European trading powers, the British West Indies finally comprised the British Leeward Islands, the British Windward Islands, Jamaica, and other colonies such as the Cayman Islands, British Honduras and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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War of the Sicilian Vespers, The: The History and Legacy of Sicily’s Rebellion against the French in

However diverse Sicily might be, it is also paradoxically considered to be an emblem of Italy itself, a paradox it shares with Naples. In fact, Frederick II was the last ruler of a fully autonomous Sicily, and his son, Manfred (r. 1254-1258), was the final Norman ruler in Sicily. Manfred met his death heroically on the battlefield, fighting the army of Charles of Anjou after Charles was made King of Rome by the Vatican in 1266. Charles chose Naples as the capital of his lands, and this created tensions between his people and the Sicilians, culminating with a rebellion known as the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. According to legend, the rebellion started after a French soldier harassed a Sicilian woman on Easter Sunday outside the Church of Santo Spirito. When it came about, the rebellion inaugurated a period of anarchy in Sicily, and for a time was unclear who would take the crown. Two warring factions, the Aragonese and the Angevins, competed for the crown for 90 years, to the detriment of all involved. At one point, there were two different kings of Sicily, one from each side, and it was not until 1372 that peace was finally reached and the Aragonese were awarded rule of Sicily. As a result of all this geopolitical turmoil, Sicily’s status in the world was greatly diminished. Spain was on the rise, and even if Palermo received certain bureaucratic dispensations, nothing would shift the center of power back into Sicily’s orbit. In the wake of the infighting, Sicily was affected by other major geopolitical events elsewhere. When Constantinople fell in 1453, the ascent of the Ottoman Turks meant that Sicily was constantly being threatened. Pirates and corsairs from North Africa continued to besiege the coastal towns, and the island became an important staging ground for those trying to counter the Muslims.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Varangian Guard, The: The History and Legacy of the Byzantine Empire’s Elite Mercenary Unit

The Byzantine Empire was the heir to two great cultures that cradled and nurtured European civilization: Greece and Rome. Constantinople, now called Istanbul, became a center of power, culture, trade, and technology poised on the edges of Europe and Asia, and its influence was felt not only throughout Europe but the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and the Far East. Coins dating from the reign of Emperor Justinian I (r.527-565) have been found in southern India, and Chinese records show that the “Fulin,” as the Chinese named the Byzantines, were received at court as early as 643 CE. For a thousand years, the Byzantine Empire protected Europe from the Islamic Arab Empire, allowing it to pursue its own destiny. Finally, Byzantium was a polyglot society in which a multitude of ethnic groups lived under the emperor prizing peace above war, an inspiration surely for the modern age when divisive nationalism threatens to dominate society once more. The Byzantines relied heavily on mercenaries, and the Hetairoi or foreign soldiers formed an important and often vital component of the army. The ability to call upon warriors from many nations demonstrated the power and wealth of the emperor, so they were recruited as much for prestige as for military utility. The most famous of the foreign units was without question the Varangian Guard. The Varangians came from the land in Eastern Europe known in the Middle Ages as Rus, which is now part of modern Russia and Ukraine. They were descendants of Viking warriors from Sweden who came to rule the waterways and population of Russia. Varangian mercenaries were fighting for the Byzantines by the 10th century, and in 988 they formed a permanent elite guard for the emperor. They took an oath of allegiance to him and served directly under the Acolyte or Akolouthos, who was usually of Byzantine origin. They also assumed responsibilities for the security of Constantinople.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Ur: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Sumerian Capital

When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians. The exploits and achievements of other Mesopotamian peoples, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians, were already known to a large segment of the population through the Old Testament and the nascent field of Near Eastern studies had unraveled the enigma of the Akkadian language that was widely used throughout the region in ancient times, but the discovery of the Sumerian tablets brought to light the existence of the Sumerian culture, which was the oldest of all the Mesopotamian cultures. Long before Alexandria was a city and even before Memphis and Babylon had attained greatness, the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur stood foremost among ancient Near Eastern cities. Today, the greatness and cultural influence of Ur has been largely forgotten by most people, partially because its monuments have not stood the test of time the way other ancient culture’s monuments have. For instance, the monuments of Egypt were made of stone while those of Ur and most other Mesopotamian cities were made of mud brick and as will be discussed in this report, mud brick may be an easier material to work with than stone but it also decays much quicker. The same is true to a certain extent for the written documents that were produced at Ur. The people of Mesopotamia, which Ur was part of, employed the cuneiform system of writing; since cuneiform was almost always written on clay tablets, modern scholars have been forced with the unfortunate problem that many of those tablets have been broken and made unreadable throughout the centuries. Despite the ephemeral nature of its monuments and to some extent its written texts, Ur proved to be an inspiration to the Sumerians who built the city and also to later cultures and dynasties that inhabited Mesopotamia. An examination of primary sources relating to Ur, as well as archaeological excavations done in the ancient city reveal that the city was a cultural beacon for thousands of years. Ur began as a Sumerian city of secondary importance but quickly grew to be the most important Sumerian city. At its height Ur was the center of a great dynasty that controlled most of Mesopotamia directly through a well maintained army and bureaucracy and the areas that were not under its direct control were influenced by Ur’s diplomats and religious ideas. This study will also reveal that Ur was a truly resilient city because it survived the downfall of the Sumerians, outright destruction at the hands of the Elamites, and later occupations by numerous other peoples, which included Saddam Hussein more recently. Ur inspired the imaginations of ancient peoples, but it has also enraptured the minds of moderns, who have worked for over 150 years to unlock the city’s mysteries. Truly, when it comes to important ancient cities, Ur should be counted among the greatest. Ur: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Sumerian Capital traces the history and legacy of one of the most influential cities of antiquity.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Ulrich Zwingli: The Life and Legacy of the Swiss Reformer Who Fought the Catholic Church during the

"The Christian life, then, is a battle, so sharp and full of danger that effort can nowhere be relaxed without loss. I beseech Christ for this one thing only, that He will enable me to endure all things courageously, and that He break me as a potter's vessel or make me strong, as it pleases Him." - Ulrich Zwingli On March 9, 1522, the first Sunday of Lent, Catholics across Europe ushered in a 40-day period of solemn penitence, self-imposed moderation, and spiritual discipline by marking crosses onto their foreheads with ash-coated fingers. They dutifully adhered to the Lenten laws, immersing themselves in prayer, modulating their consumption of booze, and avoiding meat in preparation for the death and resurrection of Christ. While the dissenters had long been planning a dramatic demonstration of sorts to capture the attention of the Church, their resistance on March 9 was a spontaneous act supposedly prompted by Zwingli himself. According to the legend, Zwingli had stopped by two days earlier to order a stack of copies of his sermons regarding the St. Paul epistles, and under instructions to rush the order, Froschauer and his staff worked overtime to churn out the copies. They completed the project in a timely manner, and in the process, Froschauer invited his staff, along with Zwingli, Juda, and the aforementioned rebels (whom he knew from church) to the front of his workshop, where he had cleared out a table for a small feast. Zwingli was thrilled by Froschauer's idea - breaking the fast was a non-violent yet powerful act of disobedience. This fateful event, now remembered as the "Affair of the Sausages," supposedly triggered the Swiss Reformation, leading to a purge that would soon be enforced in Zurich.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Tupac Amaru II: The Life and Legacy of the Peruvian Leader Who Rebelled against the Spanish Empire

The Incas had consolidated their empire only a century before Pizarro and his Spanish conquistadores took control of Inca lands in the 1530s. The Incan heartland was the Andes Mountains from Ecuador down through Peru into parts of northern Chile, including what is now Bolivia, some of Argentina, and in the north, bits of what is now Colombia. It covered about 770,000 square miles, far larger than Spain, and held an estimated 14 million people, more than in Spain, comprised of many different indigenous groups. Lima was the seat of the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included almost all of the Spanish colonial region in South America. Then, Peru meant today’s Peru, Ecuador, and parts of Chile, and in the mid-18th century, a new Viceroyalty of La Plata was set up, based in what is now Buenos Aires. Upper Peru was centered on La Paz and Chuquisaca (since renamed Sucre after the hero of independence), and Peru was centered on Lima and Cuzco. The addition of La Plata as a viceroyalty refocused the necessary slow of silver from Lima and Peru to Buenos Aires and the Atlantic. The Audiencia of Charcas (Bolivia) was placed under La Plata’s authority. In one sense, the Spanish conquest was simply a shift of empires for the indigenous peoples. The Incas were as imperialistic as Spain, and they put down rebellions with the same ferocity. However, Incan rule was generally mild and concerned with the welfare of the empire’s people. The indigenous people chafed under Spanish rule, and the lost Incan days were idolized in popular memory. This set the stage for one of the most famous and mythologized conflicts in the history of the Americas.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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The Vandals: The History and Legacy of Antiquity's Most Famous Barbarians

Today, most people are familiar with the term “vandalism”, but are ignorant as to the word’s etymology. Yes, vandalism refers to the wanton destruction of property in the modern world, but the word’s origin is much more complex, as it was originally the name of an important Germanic tribe that flourished in Europe and North Africa in the fifth and sixth centuries AD. As the Vandals rampaged throughout Western Europe and later into North Africa, they left a swath of destruction in their wake, which is how the term "vandalism" became associated with destruction.. The Vandals were a truly ferocious band of people who used the art of war to achieve its goals in ways that seem cruel and barbaric to modern sensibilities, but it was just one of many groups of people at the time who employed these tactics to seize power and land throughout Europe and the Mediterranean region. An examination of the Vandals through a combination of Latin language Catholic Church sources and Byzantine chroniclers, combined with studies by modern historians, reveals that the Vandals were much more than blood thirsty barbarians whose primary goal was the destruction of Rome. It is true that the Vandals sacked Rome in 455 AD, but even that act was a unique historical accomplishment in itself as they were only the third people to inflict such destruction on one of the world’s greatest cities. Despite living on the lawless marchlands of the Roman Empire, the Vandals were able to establish two different kingdoms, and introduce a fairly complicated code of royal succession, that gave stability to their people for some time. The Vandals also proved to be an extremely clever people in their use of violence and war, as they rarely engaged in violence for its own sake. They also often employed clever tactics on the battlefield to defeat the larger and more sophisticated armies of the Romans, and later, the Byzantines. The examination will also reveal that the Vandals were as adept at the arts of diplomacy and statecraft as they were with warfare. If they could obtain an advantage through negotiation, then they would choose that route over a war that threatened to decimate their forces. Despite having the image of the cruel barbarian warrior, the Vandals were not without God in their lives. Although the Vandals were Christians, they followed a different sect of Christianity, which often put them at odds with Rome and Constantinople, but throughout most of their history they stood fast to their theological beliefs. The bloodthirsty reputation accompanying the Vandals throughout the centuries has largely been the result of their theological beliefs that diverged from the orthodoxies practiced during the period by the church leaders in Rome and Constantinople. Though the Vandal culture was truly as important as any other in Europe and the Mediterranean region at the time, as was the case with many of the Germanic tribes that lived on the fringes of Rome, the Vandals were destined to find themselves the victims of the nascent Byzantine Empire in the end. The Vandals: The History and Legacy of Antiquity’s Most Famous Barbarians looks at the history of the “barbarians” who brought Rome to its knees in the late 5th century CE and helped bring about the final collapse of the Roman Empire.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Colin Fluxman