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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd, read by Mark Elstob. Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes. The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously unexamined German documents, it put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined.
Nick Lloyd (Author), Mark Elstob (Narrator)
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Partition of Ireland: A Historic Summary and Explanation
The Federal government of the U.K. of Great Britain and Ireland segmented Ireland into 2 independent polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. The Federal Government of Ireland Act 1920 was handed down May third, 1921. Both parts were to stay inside the UK, and the Act included arrangements for supreme reunification. Northern Ireland was established with a devolved federal government and stayed a part of the U.K. Most occupants of Southern Ireland didn't recognize the self-proclaimed Irish Republic, choosing to recognize the larger Northern Ireland. The area of Southern Ireland withdrew from the U.K. and ended up being the Irish Free State, which is today the Republic of Ireland, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In this book, we will look at further details of the partition of Ireland.
Kelly Mass (Author), Doug Greene (Narrator)
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Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
The secrets of the City of Light, revealed in the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten-by the author of the acclaimed The Discovery of France. This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night, Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. An aristocratic woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohème, Proust, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt on himself in Notre Dame)—these and many more make up Robb's cast of characters. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel.
Graham Robb (Author), Simon Vance, Simon Vance (Narrator)
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Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Creation of Paris
Acclaimed historian Mary McAuliffe vividly recaptures the Paris of Napoleon III, Claude Monet, and Victor Hugo as Georges Haussmann tore down and rebuilt Paris into the beautiful City of Light we know today. Paris, City of Dreams traces the transformation of the City of Light during Napoleon III’s Second Empire into the beloved city of today. Together, Napoleon III and his right-hand man, Georges Haussmann, completely rebuilt Paris in less than two decades—a breathtaking achievement made possible not only by the emperor’s vision and Haussmann’s determination but by the regime’s unrelenting authoritarianism, augmented by the booming economy that Napoleon fostered. Yet a number of Parisians refused to comply with the restrictions that censorship and entrenched institutional taste imposed. Mary McAuliffe follows the lives of artists such as Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Claude Monet, as well as writers such as Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and the poet Charles Baudelaire, while from exile, Victor Hugo continued to fire literary broadsides at the emperor he detested. McAuliffe brings to life a pivotal era encompassing not only the physical restructuring of Paris but also the innovative forms of banking and money-lending that financed industrialization as well as the city’s transformation. This in turn created new wealth and lavish excess, even while producing extreme poverty. More deeply, change was occurring in the way people looked at and understood the world around them, given the new ease of transportation and communication, the popularization of photography, and the emergence of what would soon be known as Impressionism in art and Naturalism and Realism in literature—artistic yearnings that would flower in the Belle Epoque. Napoleon III, whose reign abruptly ended after he led France into a devastating war against Germany, has been forgotten. But the Paris that he created has endured, brought to vivid life through McAuliffe’s rich illustrations and evocative narrative.
Mary McAuliffe, Mary Mcauliffe (Author), Tim H. Dixon (Narrator)
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For history readers, travelers, and scholars alike, an indispensable behind-the-scenes guide to the great cathedrals of Paris. Over the years, R. Howard Bloch has become renowned for the insider tours of Paris that he gives to students abroad. Long sought after by travelers and history buffs for his near-encyclopedic knowledge of French cathedrals, the eminent scholar finally shares his expertise with a wider audience. In Paris and Her Cathedrals, six of the most sublime cathedrals in the penumbra of Paris-Saint-Denis, Notre-Dame, Chartres, Sainte-Chapelle, Amiens, Reims-are illumined in magnificent detail as Bloch, taking us from the High Middle Ages to the devastating fire that set Notre-Dame ablaze in 2019, traces the evolution of each in turn. Animating the past with lush evocations of architectural splendor, Bloch then contextualizes the cathedrals within the annals of French history. Here thrilling tales of kingly intrigue-as in Saint-Chapelle, where the pious King Louis IX amassed relics, including Christ's crown of thorns-and audacious abbots are interspersed with anecdotes about the meeting of aristocratic and everyday life, culminating in 'a rich, colorful narrative that clearly but expertly explains the history and symbolism of some of the world's most magnificent buildings' (Ross King).
R. Howard Bloch (Author), Matthew Josdal (Narrator)
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Paradoxes of Defence was first published in London in1599. It was written by George Silver, an English gentleman, who was appalled at the influx of Italian rapier fencing into England, and set out his arguments in favour of the traditional English weapons: the short sword, the short staff, the forrest bill, the morris pike, and all manner of additional arms such as daggers, bucklers, and targes. He rails against the fashionable new style on the grounds that it is both dangerous to the practitioners, and of no use in warfare. Whether he was right or wrong, history was against him and the fashionable Italian rapier took over. But his work offers a vital window into the theory and practice of martial arts in England in Tudor times, and ironically provides much of what we know about several Italian rapier masters: Rocco Bonetti, Vincentio Saviolo, and Jeronimo Saviolo. In this edition, the text has narrated by Ben Crystal in Original Pronunciation. The original text includes marginalia, which have been incorporated into the audio files. We have also produced a version that has been modernised and edited by Guy Windsor, and narrated in modern pronunciation by Jonathan Hartman. For more information please see guywindsor.net/silver
George Silver (Author), Ben Crystal (Narrator)
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Paradise of the Damned: The True Story of an Obsessive Quest for El Dorado, the Legendary City of Go
From the bestselling author of Born to Be Hanged comes a transporting account of the obsessive quest to find El Dorado, set against the backdrop of Elizabethan England's political intrigues and the rival Spanish conquistadors vying for El Dorado's treasure. As early as 1530, rumors of El Dorado, the mythical city of gold, beckoned to European colonizers. Whether there was any truth to the story remained to be seen, but the allure of wealth alone was enough to ensnare dozens of would-be heroes and glory-hungry hopefuls. Among them was Sir Walter Raleigh: ambitious courtier, confidant to Queen Elizabeth, and, before long, El Dorado fanatic. Throughout his tenuous rise to prominence and fall from grace, the unwavering siren song of El Dorado hypnotized Raleigh. The glittering promise of its wealth appeared to be the solution to all Raleigh's troubles, from his long imprisonment in the Tower of London to his multitude of cutthroat enemies. Captivating, witty, and lush with historical detail, Keith Thomson's Paradise of the Damned charts Raleigh's quixotic search for El Dorado-as well as the many other doomed voyages that preceded and accompanied it.
Keith Thomson (Author), TBD, Timothy Andrés Pabon (Narrator)
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Christopher Fowler's memoir captures life in suburban London as it has rarely been seen: through the eyes of a lonely boy who spends his days between the library and the cinema, devouring novels, comics, cereal packets - anything that might reveal a story. Caught between an ever-sensible but exhausted mother and a DIY-obsessed father fighting his own demons, Christopher takes refuge in words. His parents try to understand their son's peculiar obsessions, but fast lose patience with him - and each other. The war of nerves escalates to include every member of the Fowler family, and something has to give, but does it mean that a boy must always give up his dreams for the tough lessons of real life? Beautifully written, this rich and astute evocation of a time and a place recalls a childhood at once entertainingly eccentric and endearingly ordinary.
Christopher Fowler (Author), Gordon Griffin (Narrator)
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Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis
“A Nazi resistance story like none you’ve ever heard or read.” —Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers and On Desperate Ground 'Every page is gripping, and the amount of new research is nothing short of mind-boggling. A brilliant book for the ages!” —Douglas Brinkley, author of American Moonshot Paper Bullets is the first book to tell the history of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey. Devising their own PSYOPS campaign, they slipped their notes into soldier’s pockets or tucked them inside newsstand magazines. Hunted by the secret field police, Lucy and Suzanne were finally betrayed in 1944, when the Germans imprisoned them, and tried them in a court martial, sentencing them to death for their actions. Ultimately they survived, but even in jail, they continued to fight the Nazis by reaching out to other prisoners and spreading a message of hope. Better remembered today by their artist names, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, the couple’s actions were even more courageous because of who they were: lesbian partners known for cross-dressing and creating the kind of gender-bending work that the Nazis would come to call “degenerate art.” In addition, Lucy was half Jewish, and they had communist affiliations in Paris, where they attended political rallies with Surrealists and socialized with artists like Gertrude Stein. Paper Bullets is a compelling World War II story that has not been told before, about the galvanizing power of art, and of resistance.
Jeffrey H. Jackson (Author), Susan Bennett (Narrator)
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Panzers on the Eastern Front: General Erhard Raus and His Panzer Divisions in Russia 1941-1945
General Erhard Raus was one of the German Army's finest panzer generals and a leading exponent of blitzkrieg in the east. German panzers were witnesses to the incredible onslaught that was the first few months of Barbarossa, then the gradual strengthening of Russian resistance, counterattack and, ultimately, the long and drawn-out German retreat. Raus and his panzers were tested in every conceivable tactical situation and, inevitably, Raus became highly versed in all aspects of mobilized warfare. This account by Erhard Raus, edited by leading Eastern Front expert Peter G. Tsouras, concentrates on German efforts to relieve Stalingrad. Raus, as commander of 6th Panzer Division, was in the thick of this bitter action, urging his panzers forward in a massive effort to break the Soviet stranglehold. These journals were originally written to brief the US Army at the height of the Cold War.
Erhard Raus, Peter G. Tsouras (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)
Audiobook
Panzer General: Heinz Guderian and the Blitzkrieg Victories of WWII
Kenneth Macksey's highly regarded biography of Generaloberst Heinz Guderian gives clear insight into the mind and motives of the father of modern tank warfare. Panzer General shows Guderian as a man of ideas equipped with the ability to turn inspiration into reality. A master of strategy and tactics, he was the officer most responsible for creating blitzkrieg in World War II.BR> Guderian built the Panzerwaffe in the face of opposition from the German General Staff and personally led the lightning campaigns by tanks and aircraft that put a large part of Europe under domination by the Third Reich. Kenneth Macksey, a tank man himself for more than twenty years, reveals the man as a brilliant rebel in search of ideals and a general whose personality, genius, and achievements far transcended those of Rommel.BR> As well as throwing light on the crucial campaigns in Poland, France, and Russia, this biography illuminates the struggles within the German hierarchy, both in the military and in the Nazi Party, for control of the Panzer forces. Based on information from the extensive family archives, Panzer General demonstrates why Guderian was so admired by some while denigrated by others.
Kenneth Macksey (Author), Jonathan Cowley (Narrator)
Audiobook
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