Europe Audiobooks | Travel

The Conquistadors: A Captivating Guide to the Spanish Explorers, Conquest of the Americas, Cultural

Have you ever heard about the Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca, who survived eight years wandering from Florida to Texas? Find his story and more in this audiobook! In the early 16th century, Spanish adventurers swarmed over the islands of the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America. Portuguese explorers and merchants pushed into the Indian Ocean and beyond to the Spice Islands of the South Pacific. The names of the leaders of these overseas conquests are well known: Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Hernando de Soto, Afonso de Albuquerque, and Ferdinand Magellan. This audiobook explores the details of their incredible lives in service of their monarchs and personal wealth. Conquistadors set about to acquire gold, land, and monopolies in lucrative trade. In doing so, they systematically destroyed indigenous civilizations wherever they encountered them. This audiobook explores the negative aspects of early European exploration. When a local population had been pacified, some conquistadors attempted to dispense with competition among their own men. Listen to how one of Francisco Pizarro’s lieutenants rose up against him soon after conquering Peru. This audiobook presents the conquistadors in a new light. This introductory guide has been created in a neutral tone, presenting the facts as they are. In this audiobook, you will discover: - How the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean was used as a jumping-off point for Spanish expeditions; - The details of many failed and few successful Spanish expeditions to settle the lands around the Caribbean; - How the Portuguese came to dominate Brazil; - Why the Portuguese dominated trade in the East; - How Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs and defeated his Spanish rival for control of Mexico; Scroll up and click the “add to cart” button to learn about the exciting history of the conquistadors!

Captivating History (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Georgy Zhukov: The Life and Legacy of the Soviet Union’s Greatest General during World War II

In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania – stood poised to carry out Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise attack against the country of his putative ally, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Of the Soviet generals, none played as crucial a role in the war as Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, one of the most highly decorated army officers in Russian military history. At critical stages during the Second World War, it seemed as if it was Zhukov alone who stood between Russian defeat and German victory. Zhukov was ultimately involved in all the major battles on the Eastern Front, including Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk, Bagration, and the final assaults into Poland and Germany to capture Berlin. Stalin came to depend on Zhukov’s ruthless military skills for victory, but in the cut-throat Soviet Union, that was always a double-edged sword, because it seemed that Stalin envied Zhukov and feared him as well. Zhukov, who could be as aggressive and blunt as Stalin, was one of the few people prepared to stand up to the Soviet dictator and argue with him, and as many Soviet politicians and generals learned to their detriment, going toe to toe with one of the most brutal leaders of the 20th century was a highly risky venture. However, the mutual understanding they forged as they confronted the Germans may have played the biggest role in Hitler’s demise.

Charles River Editors (Author), Steve Knupp (Narrator)

Audiobook

Henry VIII: The Charismatic King who Reforged a Nation

Henry VIII is Britain's most notorious monarch, remembered for his six wives and splitting the church in two for the sake of annulling his first marriage. But few know the full story of his tempestuous reign. This captivating biography chronicles Henry VIII's life and times, from his early childhood at Eltham to his dominant role as one of the leading players on the international stage. It includes his love affairs, military campaigns, the scheming and plotting of his courtiers and the way in which sex and politics were sometimes fatally intertwined with the Tudor Court.

Kathy Elgin (Author), Jack Bennett (Narrator)

Audiobook

Crypt

The new book by Sunday Times bestselling author of Ancestors and Buried - the final instalment in Professor Alice Roberts' acclaimed trilogy. In her previous two bestsellers, Professor Alice Roberts powerfully and evocatively revived people of the past through examining their burial rites, bringing a fresh perspective on how they lived. In Crypt, Professor Roberts brings us face to face with individuals who lived and died between ten and five centuries ago. The stories in this book are not comforting tales; there's a focus on pathology, on disease and injury, and the experience of human suffering in the past. We learn of an episode of terrible brutality, when hate speech unleashed a tide of violence against an ethnic minority; of the devastation caused by incurable epidemics sweeping through medieval Europe; of a protracted battle between Church and State for the heart of England - a battle that saw the most famous tomb in the country created and destroyed; and a tumultuous story, forged in the heat of warfare, that takes us out of the Middle Ages into the sixteenth century and the reign of Henry VIII. In the Middle Ages, there's barely a written note for most people's lives. The information we can extract from archaeological human remains represents is an essential tool for understanding our history. Most of these dead will remain anonymous. But, in the thrilling final chapter, Professor Roberts introduces an individual whose life and bones were marked by chronic debilitating disease - and whose name might just be found in history… Beautifully written, vividly drawn, and expertly researched, this is a brilliant and unexpected portrait of modern Britain.

Alice Roberts (Author), Alice Roberts, TBD (Narrator)

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The French Revolution: The History and Legacy of the World’s Most Famous Social Revolution

As one of the seminal social revolutions in human history, the French Revolution holds a unique legacy, especially in the West. The early years of the Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system that gave the royalty and aristocracy decisive advantages over the lower classes. But history remembers the French Revolution in a starkly different way, as the same leaders who sought a more democratic system while out of power devolved into establishing an incredibly repressive tyranny of their own once they acquired it. The early years of the French Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system that gave the royalty and aristocracy decisive advantages over the lower classes. But history remembers the French Revolution in a starkly different way, as the same leaders who sought a more democratic system while out of power devolved into establishing an incredibly repressive tyranny of their own once they acquired it. The height of Republican France’s tyranny came during a 10 month period forever known as the Reign of Terror, the most notorious and arguably most memorable part of the French Revolution. One of the first victims of the Reign of Terror was its most famous: former French Queen Marie Antoinette. But Antoinette was followed by thousands more, including everyone from aristocrats to clergy to prostitutes and even instrumental revolutionaries like Danton, Desmoulins, and, most notably, Robespierre. It was Robespierre whose position on the Committee of Public Safety made him the Reign of Terror’s instrumental figure until he himself became a victim of it in July 1794. Robespierre’s date with the guillotine is often considered the official end of the Reign of Terror, but by then it is estimated that at least 16,000 people were guillotined in that time and possibly 25,000 more were summarily executed across the country.

Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)

Audiobook

[German] - Deutschlands verschwundene Orte: Ein Atlas

EIN ATLAS ZUM STAUNEN UND ENTDECKEN Unter der Oberfläche Deutschlands liegen die Reste unzähliger verschwundener Städte, Handelszentren, Dörfer und Industrieanlagen: ein versunkenes, unbekanntes Deutschland. Pia Volk hat sich auf die Suche nach diesen Orten gemacht. Sie erzählt von ihrer einstigen Bedeutung und ihrem Untergang und besichtigt in Wäldern, auf Feldern, im Watt oder in Asphaltwüsten die Überreste einstiger Größe. Ein kurzweiliger Atlas für alle, die schon immer ahnten, dass unter unseren Füßen eine versunkene Welt liegt. Auf dem Grund des Bodensees finden sich Reste großer Pfahlbausiedlungen aus prähistorischer Zeit. An der Ostsee lag die kosmopolitische Siedlung Haithabu, ein Knotenpunkt zwischen Skandinavien, dem Baltikum und Westeuropa. Die nordfriesische Stadt Rungholt versank im 14. Jahrhundert in einer Sturmflut. Als man schon glaubte, sie existiere nur in den Sagen, fand man ihre Überreste im Watt. Von dem großen jüdischen Ghetto an der Außenseite der Frankfurter Stadtmauer, das bis ins 19. Jahrhundert existierte, sind heute nur noch Reste erhalten. Im 20. Jahrhundert mussten Ortschaften der innerdeutschen Grenze oder Stauseen weichen, und bis heute werden Dörfer für den Braunkohleabbau weggebaggert. Pia Volk beschreibt kenntnisreich das Schicksal von 30 exemplarischen Orten, die von unseren Landkarten verschwunden sind, und lässt uns über ein versunkenes Deutschland staunen, das hier und da noch an die Oberfläche ragt.

Pia Volk (Author), Sandra Ragg (Narrator)

Audiobook

[Spanish] - Historia De Alemania

El nombre «Alemania» proviene del pueblo germánico conocido por los romanos como alemanni o alamanni; atestiguado por primera vez por Dion Casio en el contexto de una campaña militar del emperador Caracalla en 213. El historiador bizantino Agatías (siglo vi) cita a Gayo Asinio Cuadrado, quien habría escrito que los alamanni eran «un pueblo mestizo y mezclado», que es lo que significa su nombre. En efecto, alamanni proviene de protogermánico *Alamanniz, con Al, «todos» y manniz «los hombres» (es decir «todos los hombres»). Walafrido Estrabón, monje de San Galo, escribió en el siglo ix que los pueblos que se denominaban a sí mismos suabos eran conocidos como alemanni por los extranjeros. En español y otras lenguas romances, el nombre de este pueblo fue usado para designar a los demás pueblos germánicos y, finalmente, al Imperio alemán surgido en 1871. El nombre del país en alemán es Deutschland, originalmente diutisciu land, ambos con el significado de «tierras alemanas» en español, pero literalmente «del pueblo» en alusión a aquellos que hablaban una lengua germánica y no el latín. Diutisc, «del pueblo» proviene del protogermánico þiudiskaz «del pueblo», el sustantivo correspondiente, þeudō, del protoindoeuropeo *teuta, dio origen al gentilicio teutones, usado para un pueblo germánico y en español, poéticamente, como sinónimo de alemanes. Germania (y su forma inglesa Germany) proviene del latín y fue usado por César para denominar a los pueblos que habitaban al este del Rin. Este topónimo parece ser de origen celta, gair; con el significado de «vecinos» o bien gairm; «grito de guerra», se ha propuesto además una etimología relacionada con el alto alemán medio: gēr, «lanza». Ninguna de estas propuestas es concluyente. En español, germánico se usa de manera histórica, «pueblos germánicos», «Imperio romano germánico», o bien literaria: «poesía germánica», a veces incluyendo a otros pueblos de habla alemana como austríacos y la mayoría de suizos.

Onofre Quezada (Author), Anonimo, Onofre Quezada (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Spanish and Portuguese in the New World: The History and Legacy of the First European Rivalry in

In 1451, Prince Henry the Navigator helped fund and develop a new type of ship, the caravel, that featured triangular lateen sails and would be able to travel in the open ocean and sail against the wind. In 1488, Bartholomew Diaz rounded the southern tip of Africa, named the Cape of Good Hope by King John of Portugal, and entered the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic. One explorer, Christopher Columbus, sought funding from the Portuguese to search for a passage to Asia by sailing westwards, but he was rejected. At this time in the late 15th century, Portugal’s domination of the western African sea routes prompted the neighboring Crown of Castile and the Catholic monarchs in modern Spain to search for an alternative route to south and east Asia (termed Indies), so they provided Columbus with the funding he required. By the time Christopher Columbus started setting back east from the New World after landing there in October 1492, he had explored San Salvador in the Bahamas (which he thought was Japan), Cuba (which he thought was China), and Hispaniola, the source of gold. As the common story goes, Columbus, en route back to Spain from his first journey, called in at Lisbon as a courtesy to brief the Portuguese King John II of his discovery of the New World. King John subsequently protested that according to the 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas, which divided the Atlantic Ocean between Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence, the newly discovered lands rightly belonged to Portugal. To make clear the point, a Portuguese fleet was authorized and dispatched west from the Tagus to lay claim to the “Indies,” which prompted a flurry of diplomatic activity in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella.

Charles River Editors (Author), Victoria Woodson (Narrator)

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The Rus’: The History and Legacy of the Group that Established a Russian State in the Middle Ages

For many, the Rus might be synonyms for Russia or Russians, perhaps an early form of the civilization that later became Russia. This is partly true. Modern-day Russia lays claim as a successor to the Rus, particularly the Kievan Rus empire that dominated, with oscillating borders, the area around today’s Kiev and Ukraine between the 8th and 11th centuries. Crucially, the Rus had roots in the Nordic region. Initially, they would travel into modern-day Russia, Ukraine, and beyond to trade. Only later would they start to settle in the region and then become known as the Rus. As with many other groups, the origins of the Rus are tied to the dominance of the Vikings over Western Europe in the early part of the Dark Ages or Medieval Era. Their Scandinavian brethren also traveled eastwards, behaving in similar ways but ultimately settling and assimilating in the region in an idiosyncratic manner. The Rus focused on several trade routes. The most important of these was the “eastern” route towards the Caspian Sea and stretching as far as Baghdad in the Middle East. This then gave way to the “western” route leading through Kiev to the Black Sea and Byzantine capital city Constantinople. The Rus also developed other trade routes, including to Western Europe. Eventually, the Rus began to establish permanent settlements, firstly in Novgorod and then south to Kiev. This will be accompanied by the exploration of growing Rus dominance of this region, particularly through historical figures in the Rurikid dynasty such as Rurik, Oleg, Igor, Olga, Svyatoslav, Vladimir, and Yaroslav. During this time, the Kievan Rus empire was established and rose steadily to become a major regional power, even challenging the dominant Byzantines.

Charles River Editors (Author), Kc Wayman (Narrator)

Audiobook

[Spanish] - La triste historia de Ignacia Cruzat, una breve crónica

“La triste historia de Ignacia Cruzat, una breve crónica' es una historia verídica reconstruida desde los testimonios que, escondidos en diversos archivos, han llegado hasta hoy. El audiolibro nos traslada a una época a caballo entre los siglos XVII y XVIII para seguir la tormenta que se desata por acceder a la herencia del exgobernador de Filipinas, Fausto Cruzat y Góngora, fallecido en el tornaviaje a México. En el centro de todo el conflicto se encuentra la joven Ignacia, víctima inocente de las confabulaciones de sus familiares más cercanos, del Virrey, del Arzobispo de México, y de facciones de comerciantes, enfrentados todos ellos por conseguir su mano para alguno de sus partidarios. A partir de la historia humana de la desdichada Ignacia, podemos seguir una apasionante batalla jurídica en instancias civiles y religiosas que llegan hasta la justicia papal y el Consejo de Indias, pero también nos asomamos a la compleja sociedad de la época, descubriendo un mundo multiétnico y multicultural. Finalmente, ésta es la historia de otras mujeres, como María Bonal, que pobres y desdichadas, sufrieron las consecuencias de las conspiraciones de los poderosos. Este audiolibro es una versión resumida del trabajo de investigación 'La triste historia de Ignacia Cruzat. Género, honor y poder en el México virreinal', publicado por Alberto Baena Zapatero, profesor de la Universidad de Salamanca, en la editorial Sílex. Diseño de portada: David Rubiales Suárez. Between the XVII and XVIII centuries, Ignacia Cruzat y Góngora, daughter of a governor of the Philippines, loses her father on the return trip to Mexico, and a bitter dispute for her hand, to access her father's rich inheritance, breaks out between two suitors, one supported by her family and the Viceroy of Mexico, and the other by the Archbishop of Mexico. This is a true story populated with characters of every level of the complex society of the time.

Alberto Baena Zapatero (Author), Rafael Baena Zapatero (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Antigua Grecia: 500 datos interesantes sobre la historia de Grecia

¡Desvele los misterios de la antigua Grecia con 500 datos interesantes! Explore el mundo antiguo como nunca antes en Antigua Grecia: 500 datos interesantes sobre la historia de Grecia. Descubra la historia y los misterios de esta gran civilización, desde la prehistoria hasta Alejandro Magno. Conozca la mitología y la religión griegas, así como su cultura y sociedad. Sumérjase en las tácticas y estrategias militares que los llevaron a la victoria. Y descubra cómo establecieron una lengua común mediante un sistema alfabético que aún se utiliza hoy en día. Reviva el camino de la colonización que ejercieron utilizando las rutas comerciales por toda Europa. Descubra los antiguos juegos olímpicos y cómo la tradición griega perdura hasta nuestros días. Hay mucho por descubrir sobre una de las mayores civilizaciones de la historia. En este libro, aprenderá más sobre lo siguiente: - La Grecia antigua (8000 a. C.-1100 a. C.) - La Edad Oscura griega (1100 a. C.-800 a. C.) - El surgimiento de la polis (800 a. C.-600 a. C.) - El periodo arcaico (600 a. C.-500 a. C.) - Las guerras greco-persas (500 a. C.-479 a. C.) - La Edad de Oro de Atenas (479 a. C.- 431 a. C.) - El auge de los reinos helenísticos - Y mucho más Descubra este fascinante mundo y amplíe sus conocimientos con quinientos datos interesantes sobre la antigua Grecia. Desplácese hacia arriba y haga clic en el botón «añadir al carrito» para comenzar su viaje hoy mismo.

Ahoy Publications (Author), Luis Trumper (Narrator)

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The Spanish Armada and English Armada: The History of Both Nations’ Ill-Fated Naval Campaigns agains

On July 12, 1588, the legendary Spanish Armada headed for the English Channel. The Spanish plan was to take this invasion, led by the Duke of Parma, to the coast of southeast England, where they would be unleashed to conquer Elizabethan England for Spain’s King Philip II and Catholic Christendom. The Armada included over 150 ships, 8,000 sailors, and 18,000 soldiers, and it boasted a firepower of 1,500 brass guns and 1,000 iron guns. Just leaving port itself took the entire Armada two days. As everyone who has been taught history now knows, the Armada was one of the most famous military debacles in history. Regardless of the debate over whether it was simple mathematical miscalculation or plain bad luck, coupled with English fire ships assailing the Spanish ships, the Armada was decisively defeated. The Armada ultimately found its reluctant way home in awful conditions, having permanently lost over a third of the ships, and on the Irish coast, the Armada suffered further losses. What has since been overlooked is that the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War continued, and it would do so until 1604. The English and their Dutch allies responded to the spectacular and unexpected defeat of the Armada with an attempt of their own to attack Spain with a fleet often called the 'Counter Armada' in English. In 1589, once the impact of the previous year upon the Hapsburg naval power became clear, Elizabeth ordered Drake to gather the English fleet to take advantage of the situation. Unlike the Spanish, the English had no illusions of being able to invade their opponent's homelands and overthrow their state; instead, the English had far more modest goals. The English wanted to seek out the remainder of the Spanish fleet and burn it, land troops in Portugal and raise a revolution in that country, and capture the Azores Islands. If possible, they would use a base in the Azores to capture the anticipated treasure fleet from the New World.

Charles River Editors (Author), Victoria Woodson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Europe Audiobooks in Travel