Europe Audiobooks | Travel

Mr Atkinson’s Rum Contract: The Story of a Tangled Inheritance

‘Rarely has family history been so vivid’ JENNY UGLOW ‘An extraordinarily original work’ AMANDA FOREMAN Richard Atkinson was in his late thirties, and approaching a milestone he had long dreaded – the age at which his father died – when one day he came across a box of old family letters gathering dust on top of a cupboard. This discovery set him on an all-consuming, highly emotional journey, ultimately taking him from the weather-beaten house of his Cumbrian ancestors to the abandoned ruins of their sugar estates in Jamaica. Richard’s searches led him to one forebear in particular, an earlier Richard Atkinson, a brilliant but flawed West India merchant who had shipped all the British army’s supplies during the American War of Independence, and amassed staggering wealth and connections along the way. ‘Rum’ Atkinson died young, at the height of his powers, leaving a vast inheritance to his many nephews and nieces, as well as the society beauty who had refused his proposal of marriage; forty years of litigation followed as his heirs wrangled over his legacy. Drawing on his family’s personal correspondence, Richard writes with rare candour about his worldly ancestors and their involvement in the slave trade – for, like many well-to-do Georgian families, the Atkinsons’ wealth was acquired at a terrible cost, through the lives of enslaved Africans. When the first of the Atkinsons sailed to Jamaica in the 1780s, the island was the jewel in the imperial crown; by the 1850s, when the last of them returned, it was an impoverished backwater. This vivid tale of a single family, their lives and loves, set against a panoramic backdrop of war, politics and slavery, offers a uniquely intimate insight into one of the most disturbing chapters in Britain’s colonial past.

Richard Atkinson (Author), John Banks (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Girl's Story

In A Girl's Story, Annie Ernaux revisits a night fifty years earlier when she found herself submerged and controlled by another person's desire and willpower. It was the summer of 1958, the year she turned eighteen, and the man she had given herself to had moved on. She'd submitted her will to his and then found that she was a slave without a master. Now, fifty years later, she realizes she can obliterate the intervening years and return to consider the young woman who, until now, she had wanted to forget completely. And, in the process, she also discovers that this was the vital, violent, and dolorous origin of her writing life-her writer's identity, built out of shame, violence, and betrayal.

Alison L. Strayer, Annie Ernaux (Author), Tavia Gilbert (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty

In this powerful reassessment of the postwar order in Europe, Norman Naimark suggests that Joseph Stalin was far more open to a settlement on the continent than we have thought. Through revealing case studies from Poland and Yugoslavia to Denmark and Albania, Naimark recasts the early Cold War by focusing on Europeans' fight to determine their future. As nations devastated by war began rebuilding, Soviet intentions loomed large. Stalin's armies controlled most of the eastern half of the continent, and in France and Italy, communist parties were serious political forces. Yet Naimark reveals a surprisingly flexible Stalin, who initially had no intention of dividing Europe. During a window of opportunity from 1945 to 1948, leaders across the political spectrum pushed back against outside pressures. The first frost of Cold War could be felt in the tense patrolling of zones of occupation in Germany, but not until 1948, with the coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin Blockade, did the familiar polarization set in. The split did not become irreversible until the formal division of Germany and establishment of NATO in 1949. In illuminating how European leaders deftly managed national interests in the face of dominating powers, Stalin and the Fate of Europe reveals the real potential of an alternative trajectory for the continent.

Norman M. Naimark (Author), Paul Woodson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria: The Sinking of the World's Most Glamorous Ship

In the tradition of Erik Larson's Dead Wake comes The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria, about the sinking of the glamorous Italian ocean liner. In 1956, a stunned world watched as the famous Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria sank after being struck by a Swedish vessel off the coast of Nantucket. Unlike the Titanic, this sinking played out in real time across radios and televisions, the first disaster of the modern age. Audiences witnessed it all: the unthinkable collision of two modern vessels equipped with radar; perilous hours of uncertainty; the heroic rescue of passengers, and the final gasp as the pride of the Italian fleet slipped beneath the Atlantic, taking some fifty lives with her. Her loss signaled the end of the golden era of ocean liner travel. Now, Greg King and Penny Wilson offer a fresh look at this glittering liner and her untimely end. Andrea Doria represented the romance of travel, the possibility of new lives in the new world, and the glamour of 1950s art, culture, and life. Set against a glorious backdrop of celebrity and La Dolce Vita, Andrea Doria's last voyage comes vividly to life in a narrative tightly focused on her passengers – Cary Grant's wife; Philadelphia's flamboyant mayor; the heiress to the Marshall Field fortune; and brave Italian emigrants – who found themselves plunged into a desperate struggle to survive. The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria follows the effect this trauma had on their lives, and brings the story up to date with the latest expeditions to the wreck. Drawing on in-depth research and new interviews with survivors, many of which have never been published before, The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria offers a fresh look at this legendary liner and her tragic fate, in this vibrant story of fatal errors, shattered lives, and the triumph of the human spirit. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

Greg King, Penny Wilson (Author), David Colacci (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland

“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.'—Newsweek Now available in audio for the first time, Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews—now with a new afterword and additional photographs. Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition. Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Christopher R. Browning (Author), Kevin Gallagher (Narrator)

Audiobook

Why We Swim

Humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not natural-born swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; now in the twenty-first century, we swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. Swimming is an introspective and silent sport in a chaotic and noisy age; it's therapeutic for both the mind and body; and it's an adventurous way to get from point A to point B. It's also one route to that elusive, ecstatic state of flow. These reasons, among many others, make swimming one of the most popular activities in the world. Why We Swim is propelled by stories of Olympic champions, a Baghdad swim club that meets in Saddam Hussein's palace pool, modern-day Japanese samurai swimmers, and even an Icelandic fisherman who improbably survives a wintry six-hour swim after a shipwreck. New York Times contributor Bonnie Tsui, a swimmer herself, dives into the deep, from the San Francisco Bay to the South China Sea, investigating what it is about water-despite its dangers-that seduces us, tempting us to come back to it again and again.

Bonnie Tsui (Author), Angie Kane (Narrator)

Audiobook

Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon-and Islam as a political religion. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war.

Noel Malcolm (Author), Michael Page (Narrator)

Audiobook

Endell Street: The Suffragette Surgeons of World War One

When the First World War broke out, the suffragettes suspended their campaigning and joined the war effort. For pioneering suffragette doctors (and life partners) Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson that meant moving to France, where they set up two small military hospitals amidst fierce opposition. Yet their medical and organisational skills were so impressive that in 1915 Flora and Louisa were asked by the War Ministry to return to London and establish a new military hospital in a vast and derelict old workhouse in Covent Garden's Endell Street. That they did, creating a 573-bed hospital staffed from top to bottom by female surgeons, doctors and nurses, and developing entirely new techniques to deal with the horrific mortar and gas injuries suffered by British soldiers. Receiving 28,000 wounded men over the next four years, Flora and Louisa created such a caring atmosphere that soldiers begged to be sent to Endell Street. And then, following the end of the war and the Spanish Flu outbreak, the hospital was closed and Flora, Louisa and their staff were once again sidelined in the medical profession. The story of Endell Street provides both a keyhole view into the horrors and thrills of wartime London and a long-overdue tribute to the brilliance and bravery of an extraordinary group of women.

Wendy Moore (Author), Antonia Davies (Narrator)

Audiobook

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

Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti

How did the Seregenti become an internationally renowned African conservation site and one of the most iconic destinations for a safari? In this book, Thomas M. Lekan illuminates the controversial origins of this national park by examining how Europe's greatest wildlife conservationist, Bernhard Grzimek, popularized it as a global destination. In the 1950s, Grimzek and his son Michael began a quest to save the Serengeti from modernization by remaking an imperial game reserve into a gigantic zoo for the earth's last great mammals. Grzimek, well-known to German audiences through his long-running television program, A Place for Animals, used the film Seregenti Shall Not Die to convince ordinary Europeans that they could save nature. Yet their message sidestepped the uncomfortable legacies of German colonial exploitation in the region that had endangered animals and excluded local people. After independence, Grzimek raised funds, brokered diplomatic favors, and convinced German tourists to book travel packages-all to persuade Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere that wildlife would fuel the young nation's economic development. Grzimek helped Tanzania to create almost a dozen new national parks by 1975, but wooing tourists conflicted with rights of the Maasai and other African communities to inhabit the landscape on their own terms.

Thomas M. Lekan (Author), Michael Page (Narrator)

Audiobook

...And What Do You Do?: What The Royal Family Don't Want You To Know

... And What Do You Do? is a hard-hitting analysis of the royal family, exposing its extravagant use of public money and the dubious behaviour of some among its ranks. In this book, former government minister Norman Baker argues that the British public deserves better than this puerile diet. ... And What Do You Do? is a hard-hitting analysis of the royal family, exposing its extravagant use of public money and the highly dubious behaviour of some among its ranks, whilst being critical of the knee-jerk sycophancy shown by the press and politicians. Baker also considers the wider role the royals play in society, including the link with House of Lords reform, and the constitutional position of the monarch, which is important given Prince Charles's present and intended approach. ... And What Do You Do? asks important questions about the future of the world's most famous royal family. "With our democracy in turmoil, it's right to be asking questions about constitutional reform. Norman Baker tackles the subject with his trademark energy and in forensic detail looking at the facts beyond the headlines." -CAROLINE LUCAS

Norman Baker (Author), David Vickery, Norman Baker (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe

The Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe. Relations with the Greeks around the shores of the Black Sea were rather different-both communities benefiting from trading with each other. It is from the writings of Greeks like the historian Herodotus that we learn of Scythian life: their beliefs, their burial practices, their love of fighting, and their ambivalent attitudes to gender. It is a world that is also brilliantly illuminated by the rich material culture recovered from Scythian burials, where all the organic material is amazingly well preserved. Barry Cunliffe here marshals this vast array of evidence-both archaeological and textual-in a masterful reconstruction of the lost world of the Scythians, allowing them to emerge in all their considerable vigour and splendour for the first time in over two millennia.

Barry Cunliffe (Author), Matthew Waterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Europe Audiobooks in Travel