Europe Audiobooks | Travel

Northern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction (2nd Edition)

From the Plantation of Ulster in the seventeenth century to the entry into peace talks in the late twentieth century the Northern Irish people have been engaged in conflict-Catholic against Protestant, Republican against Unionist. Marc Mulholland explores the pivotal moments in Northern Irish history-the rise of republicanism in the 1800s, Home Rule and the civil rights movement, the growth of Sinn Fein and the provisional IRA, and of the opposition, the DUP, led by Dr. Ian Paisley. His detailed examination of the violent upheaval of the last century, epitomized by the killing of thirteen civilian demonstrators on Bloody Sunday, culminates in the controversy surrounding the current ongoing peace process. Over 300 years on, the question still remains: can two identities and national allegiances be accommodated in the same state without oppression, rebellion, or violence?

Marc Mulholland (Author), Roger Clark (Narrator)

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Cognac: The Seductive Saga of the World's Most Coveted Spirit

Called the brandy of the gods by Victor Hugo, Cognac is a universal symbol of refinement and quality. In the first comprehensive history of this celebrated drink, Kyle Jarrard charts Cognac's birth in the 1500s and its transformation into the world's most coveted brandy. Along the way, he reveals how Cognac distillers weathered vineyard die-offs, the German occupation, and other challenges over the years-and offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Hennessy, Remy-Martin, Courvoisier, Martell, and other legendary brands.

Kyle Jarrard (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

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The Book of the City of Ladies

Shocked and distressed by a male writer's vilification of women, Christine de Pizan has a powerful dreamlike vision in which she is visited by three personified Virtues: Reason, Rectitude and Justice. They tell her she has been chosen to write a book which will be like a city, housing virtuous women and protecting them from feminist attack. Heroines past and present form the foundations of this city - biblical and mythical heroines, ruling queens, Christian saints, and inventors are among them. Partly myth, partly fact, The Book of the City of Ladies is an extraordinary, pioneering and impassioned defence of women that set out to shatter medieval misogynist clichés, and serve to instil self-worth in its female readers of the time.

Christine De Pizan (Author), Georgina Sutton (Narrator)

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'J'ACCUSE' par Emile Zola: Texte intégral interprété par David Serero

Emile Zola (Author), David Serero (Narrator)

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John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic of 1854: The History of the Outbreak and Its Impact on Public Hea

Plague and pestilence have both fascinated and terrified humanity from the very beginning. Societies and individuals have struggled to make sense of them, and more importantly they’ve often struggled to avoid them. Before the scientific age, people had no knowledge of the microbiological agents – unseen bacteria and viruses – which afflicted them, and thus the maladies were often ascribed to wrathful supernatural forces. Even when advances in knowledge posited natural causes for epidemics and pandemics, medicine struggled to deal with them, and for hundreds of years religion continued to work hand-in-hand with medicine. In the case of cholera, once among the most dreaded diseases, a breakthrough in Victorian England occurred in the mid-19th century during one of several epidemics to assault the island. In that instance, an unassuming physician named John Snow was able to trace the environmental component in which cholera was carried. He accomplished this in large part through a painstaking map cross-referencing location and specific cases of infection within a small area of London. Eventually, he narrowed the source down to a single manual water pump in the midst of the poverty-stricken neighborhood of Soho. At the time, however, in the face of resistance launched by more powerful and pedigreed members of the medical profession, Snow was rewarded with criticism for not successfully revealing the entirety of the disease’s inner mechanics. It was only over the course of several decades that Snow was able to persuade the medical community at large of the disease’s source, and the British successfully established policies that helped prevent future outbreaks. Ironically, Snow eventually gained membership in Britain’s high circle of elite medical practitioners, but it was not his work on cholera that initially propelled him to global fame.

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

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The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World

A revelatory examination of the global impact of Emmanuel Macron's tumultuous presidency. A political novice leading a brand new party, in 2017 Emmanuel Macron swept away traditional political forces and emerged as president of France. Almost immediately he realized his task was not only to modernize his country but to save the EU and a crumbling international order. From the decline of NATO, to Russian interference, to the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protestors, Macron's term unfolded against a backdrop of social conflict, clashing ambitions, and resurgent big-power rivalries. In The Last President of Europe, William Drozdiak tells with exclusive inside access the story of Macron's presidency and the political challenges the French leader continues to face. Macron has ridden a wild rollercoaster of success and failure: he has a unique relationship with Donald Trump, a close-up view of the decline of Angela Merkel, and is both the greatest beneficiary from, and victim of, the chaos of Brexit across the Channel. He is fighting his own populist insurrection in France at the same time as he is trying to defend a system of values that once represented the West but is now under assault from all sides. Together these challenges make Macron the most consequential French leader of modern times, and perhaps the last true champion of the European ideal.

William Drozdiak (Author), Paul Hodgson (Narrator)

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Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West

‘Meticulously researched and superbly written … The Putin book that we’ve been waiting for.’ Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland ‘Books about modern Russia abound … Belton has surpassed them all. Her much-awaited book is the best and most important on modern Russia … Hair-raising’ The Times A chilling and revelatory expose of the KGB’s renaissance, Putin’s rise to power, and how Russian black cash is subverting the world. In Putin’s People, former Moscow correspondent and investigative journalist Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and his entourage of KGB men seized power in Russia and built a new league of oligarchs. Through exclusive interviews with key inside players, Belton tells how Putin’s people conducted their relentless seizure of private companies, took over the economy, siphoned billions, blurred the lines between organised crime and political powers, shut down opponents, and then used their riches and power to extend influence in the West. In a story that ranges from Moscow to London, Switzerland and Trump’s America, Putin’s People is a gripping and terrifying account of how hopes for the new Russia went astray, with stark consequences for its inhabitants and, increasingly, the world.

Catherine Belton (Author), Dugald Bruce-Lockhart (Narrator)

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Love in the Blitz: The Greatest Lost Love Letters of the Second World War

‘Eileen is an ambitious, kind and achingly funny observer’ The Times ‘Passionate, gossipy, vivacious’ Marina Warner ‘A unique insight into home-front life and romance’ Mail on Sunday With the intimacy and wit of a Second World War Bridget Jones, Eileen Alexander offers a portal into life during the Blitz: – The sex, joys and cruelties of young love – for Eileen with a man who had just inadvertently involved her in a car crash, for her friends with some less-than-honourable specimens – The frustrations of coming of age in an era ‘suspended between an unborn tomorrow & dead yesterday’ – The tragedies of rationed textiles (‘apropos French Knickers & Respectability … You’ve no idea what a lot of difference a bit of elastic can make’), With Eileen, a Jewish woman in her twenties crackling with intelligence, we sink into the reality of wartime London – particularly as it was lived for women. She is hilariously caustic about colleagues and political figures, confessional to the gossipy and emotional extremes, and brilliantly frank on the feeling of derailed hopes and ambition. Above all, these letters – rescued from oblivion by a chance eBay purchase – tell an unbelievable love story. This is a one-of-a-kind chronicle, seared with the pain of loving a man away at the front and the terrible uncertainty of war. ‘I wonder what anyone would think if they suddenly came across my letters to you & started reading them in chronological order?’ Eileen wrote in 1941. ‘I think they’d say “This girl never lived till she loved” – and it would be true, darling.’

Eileen Alexander (Author), Oswyn Murray, Sian Clifford, Stephanie Racine (Narrator)

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Soviet Invasion of Hungary in 1956, The: The History and Legacy of the Hungarian Uprising and the Mi

After D-Day had all but sealed the Allied victory, Stalin’s Red Army became more aggressive in retaking land formerly held by Germany. Concerned over the ever-widening Soviet map, Churchill met with Stalin in October 1944 (Roosevelt was by this time too frail to join them) and, while ceding Rumania and Bulgaria to the Soviets, insisted that Yugoslavia and Hungary be shared among the allies. The sticking point at the time seemed to be Poland. Stalin demanded that the very anti-communist Polish government in exile be overturned in favor of a one more sympathetic to his regime. Churchill, on the other hand, felt a sense of obligation to the government as it stood, since they were hiding out in London. However, he wisely agreed to table the subject until the end of the war was clearly in sight. When the Hungarians rose up against the status quo in October 1956, they were met with a brutal response from Moscow. The history of Hungary is one of a country that experienced almost constant expansion and contraction, along with waves of autonomy and domination. It is this sense of history that played such a dominant role in 1956 and why the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution has such a searing place in the national consciousness. Above all, 1956 brought about a sense of helplessness that Hungary had little chance to tread a path of national self-determination, as the threat of Soviet military intervention hung over the country. Of course, that was the Soviets’ intention all along. By crushing the Hungarian Uprising, the Soviets dampened the hopes of the people of Central and Eastern Europe that they might be able to pursue a more independent-minded path. The one exception to this rule would be Tito’s Yugoslavia.

Charles River Editors (Author), Stephen Platt (Narrator)

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Cumans and Magyars, The: The History and Legacy of the Steppe Nomads Who Raided Europe Throughout th

Before the Mongols rode across the steppes of Asia and Eastern Europe, the Cumans were a major military and cultural force that monarchs from China to Hungary and from Russia to the Byzantine Empire faced, often losing armies and cities in the process. The Cumans were a tribe of Turkic nomads who rode the steppes looking for plunder and riches, but they rarely stayed long after they got what they wanted. Of all the steppe peoples in the medieval period, perhaps none were more important to European history than the Magyars. Like the Huns and Avars before them and the Cumans and Mongols after them, the Magyars burst into Europe as a destructive, unstoppable horde, taking whatever they wanted and leaving a steady stream of misery in their wake. They used much of the same tactics as the other steppe peoples and lived a similar, nomadic lifestyle. The Magyars also had many early cultural affinities with other steppe peoples, following a similar religion and ideas of kingship and nobility, among other things. That said, as similar as the Magyars may have been to other steppe nomads before and after them, they were noticeably different in one way: the Magyars settled down and became a part of Europe and Western Civilization in the Middle Ages.

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

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Cola di Rienzo: The Controversial Life and Legacy of the Medieval Roman Who Attempted to Unify Italy

In the wake of the Roman Empire’s collapse, Italy found itself fractured, and nearly 1,000 years after Rome lost its grip in the late 5th century, there were several sovereign regional powers on the peninsula, such as Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States, and Naples. Centuries of conflict ensued, precipitating great anxiety among Western thinkers, and Italians responded to the fragmentation of the area in many ways. While local leaders often maintained rivalries or alliances in an attempt to increase their power, some always held on to the idea of reestablishing the Roman Empire, a concept that had compelled rulers as far back as Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great to attempt to conquer the entire peninsula. Among the Italians of the Middle Ages, the most famous – and controversial – man who sought to unify Italy was, somewhat fittingly, a Roman. Cola di Rienzo was a man whose life and actions have reverberated down the centuries, as his charismatic, yet unsuccessful dictatorship has spawned legends and comparisons with movements of later ages. His attempt to bring the greatness of Roman antiquity into the reality of the 14th century, the city’s lowest point, is inspiring on its face. In 1938, Iris Origo saw how Cola was being used by her present era and noted that 'within the last century Emperor, Communist and Fascist in turn have paid tribute to Cola di Rienzo as a kindred spirit or precursor. But historical parallels are deceptive. To measure a man of one century against a man of another is to see neither of them in the light of his own time…'

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

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Battle on the Ice, The: The History and Legacy of the Slavs’ Decisive Victory Against the Teutonic K

In 1938, the Soviet Union film company Mosfilm released the motion picture Alexander Nevsky, directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It is a historical drama depicting the defense of the Republic of Novgorod against an invasion of the Teutonic Knights in the mid-13th century. The eponymous hero of the story, the Prince of Novgorod, leads his troops against the German knights on a field of solid ice. During the battle, called the Battle on the Ice or the Battle of Lake Peipus, the ice breaks and many of the knights drown in the freezing waters, but Nevsky is victorious and the pernicious Germans are vanquished forever. Far from an attempt to portray historical events, Alexander Nevsky is a Stalinist propaganda piece in which the Russian people defy and halt the eastward expansion of the German menace. It is an obvious allegory of the Soviet Union defying Nazi Germany at a time when Soviet-German relations were at their most acrid before World War II. The clothing of the Teutonic warriors inaccurately display swastikas,[1] and the famous scene where they are swallowed up by the ice is also a Stalinist embellishment.[2] Of course, Soviet Russia was not the first to use the historical conflict between the German West and the Slavic East for propaganda purposes. The German defeat of Russia at the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914 was portrayed as revenge for the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

Charles River Editors (Author), Stephen Platt (Narrator)

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Europe Audiobooks in Travel