Europe Audiobooks | Travel

Pirate Queen: The Life of Grace O'Malley

In a life stranger than any fiction, Grace O'Malley, daughter of a clan chief in the far west of Ireland, went from marriage at fifteen to piracy on the high seas. She soon had a fleet of galleys under her commander, but her three decades of plundering, kidnapping, murder and mayhem came to a close in 1586, when she was captured and sentenced to hang. Saved from the scaffold by none other than Queen Elizabeth herself-another powerful woman in a man's world-Grace's life took another extraordinary turn, when it was rumored she had become intelligencer for the queen's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham. Was this the price of her freedom? Judith Cook explores this and other questions about the life and times of this remarkable woman in a fascinating, thrilling, and impeccably researched book.

Judith Cook (Author), Katherine Anderson (Narrator)

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Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica, and the Masterpiece That Changed the World

From the bestselling author of Beethoven's Hair comes a stirring narrative account of the town that inspired one of the world's most celebrated and controversial paintings, and of the artist whose passion and vision altered the course of modern history and art. In 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was bombed by Hitler's Luftwaffe. This act of terror, the first large-scale attack against civilians in modern warfare, outraged the world, and one man in particular. Pablo Picasso responded to the devastation in his homeland by beginning work on Guernica, what many consider the greatest artwork of the 20th century. Picasso's War sheds light on the conflict that was an ominous prelude to WWII and delivers an unforgettable portrait of a genius whose visionary statement about horror and terrible wounds of war still resonates today.

Russell Martin (Author), Oliver Wyman (Narrator)

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Philomena

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Judi Dench: the heartbreaking true story of an Irishwoman and the secret she kept for 50 years. When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a "fallen woman." Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena' s son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother. A gripping expos'e told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation.

Martin Sixsmith (Author), John Curless (Narrator)

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Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789–1848

For the ruling and propertied classes of the late eighteenth century, the years following the French Revolution were characterized by intense anxiety. Monarchs and their courtiers lived in constant fear of rebellion, convinced that their power—and their heads—were at risk. Driven by paranoia, they chose to fight back against every threat and insurgency, whether real or merely perceived, repressing their populaces through surveillance networks and violent, secretive police action. Europe, and the world, had entered a new era. In Phantom Terror, award-winning historian Adam Zamoyski argues that the stringent measures designed to prevent unrest had disastrous and far-reaching consequences, inciting the very rebellions they had hoped to quash. The newly established culture of state control halted economic development in Austria and birthed a rebellious youth culture in Russia that would require even harsher methods to suppress. By the end of the era, the first stirrings of terrorist movements had become evident across the continent, making the previously unfounded fears of European monarchs a reality. Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I. We still live with the legacy of this era of paranoia, which prefigured not only the modern totalitarian state but also the now preeminent contest between society’s haves and have-nots. These tempestuous years of suspicion and suppression were the crux upon which the rest of European history would turn. In this magisterial history, Zamoyski chronicles the moment when desperate monarchs took the world down the path of revolution, terror, and world war.

Adam Zamoyski (Author), Gildart Jackson (Narrator)

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Phantom Terror

A magnificent and timely examination of an age of fear, subversion, suppression and espionage, Adam Zamoyski explores the attempts of the governments of Europe to police the world in a struggle against obscure forces, seemingly dedicated to the overthrow of civilisation.The advent of the French Revolution confirmed the worst fears of the rulers of Europe. They saw their states as storm-tossed vessels battered by terrible waves from every quarter and threatened by horrific monsters from the deep. Rulers' nerves were further unsettled by the voices of the Enlightenment, envisaging improvement only through a radical transformation of the future role of the monarchy and the Church.Napoleon's arrival on the European stage intensified these fears, and the changes he wrought across Europe fully justified them. Yet he also brought some comfort to those rulers who managed to survive: he had tamed the revolution in France and the hegemony he exercised over Europe was a guarantee against subversion. Once Napoleon was toppled, the monarchs of Europe took over this role for themselves.But their attempts to impose order were not only ineffectual, they weakened the very bases of that order. Their obsessive hunt for hidden conspiracy became self-fulfilling. Their use of force and repressive measures alienated the very classes whose support they needed. Reliance on standing armies only served to politicise the military and to give potential revolutionaries the opportunity to get their hands on a ready armed force.Their policies led to the wave of revolutions in 1848, but these fell short of the long-dreaded Armageddon and revealed the groundlessness of their fears. The masses wanted bread and improved working conditions, not the overthrow of the social order. Nevertheless, the sense of a great, undefined, subversive threat never went away and re-surfaced in the form of various supposed conspiracies to take over the world: it still lingers in many quarters today. Adam Zamoyski's compelling history reveals how paranoia came to grip the minds of rulers and much of society, dictating policies that flew in the face of common sense, and continues to hold lessons for politicians.

Adam Zamoyski (Author), Geoff Holman (Narrator)

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Petra: The History of the Rose City, One of the New Seven Wonders of the World

When the European armies of the Third Crusade were defeated at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 CE, the region of what is today southern Jordan was overrun by Saladin’s armies, and over the following five centuries knowledge of Petra’s existence was lost to the people of Europe. The ancient city and center of civilization hidden in the desert became a myth, drawn largely upon Biblical accounts of the people and places in the Holy Land. However, during the Enlightenment of the early 18th century, interesting new theories emerged, and there grew a desire to rediscover the rose-red city. It was within this context that the Swiss-born explorer and orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt became the known as the first European to “discover” Petra. Disguised as an Arab, he convinced a local guide to navigate him through the innumerable dangers of the Wadi Araba desert in pursuit of the rumored tomb of Aaron and a timeless city hidden in the hills. On Saturday, August 22nd, 1812, he ascended the high hills of southern Jordan and was led down a deep ravine, which twisted and turned through until a splendid sight was revealed before him: a secret valley filled with ruins and the dark holes of rock-cut tombs. Although his disguise had brought him that far, it also prevented him from being able to fully study the ruins or make copies of what he saw there. After spending only a day exploring the valley, his guide had grown suspicious, so he was forced to move on across the Sinai Peninsula, eventually arriving at Cairo on September 4th. This expedition marked the beginnings of everything that is known about this ancient and mysterious site. Further expeditions and archaeological investigations over the following two centuries have considerably broadened knowledge about Petra’s past, and the ruined Rose City is now an archaeological landscape that has been made famous as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a “new” wonder of the world, and as the repository of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Yet, despite its fame, many people do not know about the religious beliefs, artistic creativity, technological innovation, commerce, and politics of the numerous peoples that resided there. Petra: The History of the Rose City, One of the New Seven Wonders of the World looks at the history of Petra from prehistoric times to the end of the Crusades, as well as the city’s “rediscovery” in the 19th century and how it has entered the world’s imagination since then.

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

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Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832

Perilous Question features an eventful, violent often overlooked period of British history. On 7th June 1832, William IV reluctantly assented to pass the Great Reform Bill, under the double threat of the creation of 60 new peers in the House of Lords and of revolution throughout the country. This led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, a riotous two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings dramatically to life. Perilous Question is an exceptional work of narrative history, one that truly casts a distant mirror on events today.

Antonia Fraser (Author), Mike Grady (Narrator)

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Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson

Sex, fame and scandal in the theatrical, literary and social circles of late-eighteenth-century England. One of the most flamboyant women of the late-eighteenth century, Mary Robinson's life was marked by reversals of fortune. After being raised by a middle-class father, Mary was married, at age fourteen, to Thomas Robinson. His dissipated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. On her release, Mary quickly became one of the most popular actresses of the day, famously playing Perdita in The Winter’s Tale for a rapt audience that included the Prince of Wales, who fell madly in love with her. She later used his copious love letters for blackmail. This authoritative and engaging book presents a fascinating portrait of a woman who was variously darling of the London stage, a poet whose work was admired by Coleridge and a mistress to the most powerful men in England, and yet whose fortunes were nevertheless precarious, always on the brink of being squandered through recklessness, excess and passion.

Paula Byrne (Author), Diana Bishop (Narrator)

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Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest, from Greece t

Cambridge professor and renowned historian Anthony Pagden covers a vast subject in a compact package with Peoples and Empires. This wide-ranging and intellectually stimulating work examines the origins and history of the West with terse, efficient prose. With a captivating narration by Robert O'Keefe, listeners will find this work enjoyable and utterly absorbing.

Anthony Pagden (Author), Robert O'keefe (Narrator)

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Pensées

Blaise Pascal (Author), William Sutherland (Narrator)

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Pensées

Compiled after his death in 1662, Pascal's'pens├®es' (thoughts) are his ideas for a book in defense of faith in a rational world. These fragments give evidence of a profoundly original thinker who had resolved the conflict between his scientific mind and his heart-felt faith. The book begins with an analysis of the difference between mathematical and intuitive thinking and goes on to consider the value of skepticism, contradictions, feeling, memory, and imagination. It is a powerful look at humanity's weakness and the futility of worldly life. Much of the value ofPens├®eslies in the clarity with which Pascal was able to present his intuitive thoughts. Pascal spent much of his life composing this magnum opus, which offers some of the most powerful aphorisms about human experience and behavior ever written.

Blaise Pascal (Author), William Sutherland (Narrator)

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Pedro de Valdivia, El inicio de Chile

Los dos grandes imperios precolombinos del Nuevo Mundo, el azteca en México y el Inca en Perú, han caídos en manos hispanas, América ha dejado de ser una tierra de promesas. España ya es dueña y señora de enormes extensiones de tierra, de millones de súbditos indígenas y de inmensas remesas de oro y plata que regularmente llegan a sus costas desde el otro lado del océano. El sueño de Colón se ha cumplido espléndidamente. Hombres extraordinarios siguieron durante este siglo revelando lejanas culturas, descubriendo, océanos y continentes, conquistando reinos e imperios. La conquista de Chile por obra del Capitán Pedro de Valdivia fue un capítulo más de la asombrosa gesta americana. Esta es la historia sorprendente de este personaje, llena de momentos heroicos, como de fortuitos golpes de suerte, inesperados rasgos de genio o mezquinos episodios de abuso, historia que sin embargo nos deja asombrados frente a la fuerza y valor de los hombres, tanto de indígenas como españoles en defender sus intereses y ambiciones.

Audiopodcast (Author), Audiopodcast (Narrator)

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