Try free for 30 days
-
This Mortal Coil
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $25.83
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
There Are No Accidents
- The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster - Who Profits and Who Pays the Price
- By: Jessie Singer
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term accident itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators. to account.
-
-
Great listening for Safety Professionals
- By laurie on 14-04-2022
-
Inventor of the Future
- The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller
- By: Alec Nevala-Lee
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.
-
Ignorance
- A Global History
- By: Peter Burke
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history, every age has thought of itself as more knowledgeable than the last. Renaissance humanists viewed the Middle Ages as an era of darkness, Enlightenment thinkers tried to sweep superstition away with reason, the modern welfare state sought to slay the “giant” of ignorance, and in today’s hyperconnected world seemingly limitless information is available on demand. But what about the knowledge lost over the centuries? Are we really any less ignorant than our ancestors?
-
Magisteria
- The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion
- By: Nicholas Spencer
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It’s about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history–Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it’s about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say–a question that is more urgent in the twenty-first century than ever before.
-
-
Comprehensive, disciplined and scholarly research
- By Michael Patterson on 29-03-2024
-
Money Men
- A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth
- By: Dan McCrum
- Narrated by: Dan McCrum
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When investigative journalist Dan McCrum first came across Wirecard, the hot new tech company that looked poised to challenge Silicon Valley, it all looked a little too good to be true: offices were sprouting up all over the world, and they were reporting runaway growth. In the space of a few short years, the company had come from nowhere to overtake industry giants like Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank on the stock market. As McCrum began to dig deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more compelling than he could have imagined.
-
-
Great story, difficult narration
- By Anonymous User on 02-10-2023
-
The World in a Grain
- The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
- By: Vince Beiser
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other - even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. And, incredibly, we're running out of it. The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it - and sometimes, even kill for it.
-
-
Super interesting
- By Martin on 01-11-2022
-
There Are No Accidents
- The Deadly Rise of Injury and Disaster - Who Profits and Who Pays the Price
- By: Jessie Singer
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term accident itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators. to account.
-
-
Great listening for Safety Professionals
- By laurie on 14-04-2022
-
Inventor of the Future
- The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller
- By: Alec Nevala-Lee
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.
-
Ignorance
- A Global History
- By: Peter Burke
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history, every age has thought of itself as more knowledgeable than the last. Renaissance humanists viewed the Middle Ages as an era of darkness, Enlightenment thinkers tried to sweep superstition away with reason, the modern welfare state sought to slay the “giant” of ignorance, and in today’s hyperconnected world seemingly limitless information is available on demand. But what about the knowledge lost over the centuries? Are we really any less ignorant than our ancestors?
-
Magisteria
- The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion
- By: Nicholas Spencer
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It’s about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history–Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it’s about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say–a question that is more urgent in the twenty-first century than ever before.
-
-
Comprehensive, disciplined and scholarly research
- By Michael Patterson on 29-03-2024
-
Money Men
- A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth
- By: Dan McCrum
- Narrated by: Dan McCrum
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When investigative journalist Dan McCrum first came across Wirecard, the hot new tech company that looked poised to challenge Silicon Valley, it all looked a little too good to be true: offices were sprouting up all over the world, and they were reporting runaway growth. In the space of a few short years, the company had come from nowhere to overtake industry giants like Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank on the stock market. As McCrum began to dig deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more compelling than he could have imagined.
-
-
Great story, difficult narration
- By Anonymous User on 02-10-2023
-
The World in a Grain
- The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
- By: Vince Beiser
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other - even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. And, incredibly, we're running out of it. The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it - and sometimes, even kill for it.
-
-
Super interesting
- By Martin on 01-11-2022
-
The Impossible City
- A Hong Kong Memoir
- By: Karen Cheung
- Narrated by: Karen Cheung
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hong Kong is known as a place of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that now exists at the margins of an ascendant China; a city rocked by mass protests, where residents rally—often in vain—against threats to their fundamental freedoms. But it is also misunderstood, and often romanticized. Drawing from her own experience reporting on the politics and culture of her hometown, as well as interviews with musicians, protesters, and writers who have watched their home transform, Karen Cheung gives us a rare insider’s view of this remarkable city at a pivotal moment.
-
The Economic Weapon
- The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War
- By: Nicholas Mulder
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early twentieth century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war. This view, however, ignores the dark paradox at their core: designed to prevent war, economic sanctions are modeled on devastating techniques of warfare.
-
The Polymath
- A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag
- By: Peter Burke
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements. In this engaging, erudite account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view.
-
-
A thorough guide
- By Daniel Kilov on 10-11-2020
-
The Subplot
- What China Is Reading and Why It Matters
- By: Megan Walsh
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Subplot takes us on a lively journey through a literary landscape like you’ve never seen before: a vast migrant-worker poetry movement, homoerotic romances by “rotten girls”, swaggering literary popstars, millionaire e-writers churning out the longest-ever novels, underground comics, the surreal works of Yu Hua, Yan Lianke, and Nobel laureate Mo Yan, and what is widely hailed as a golden age of Chinese science fiction. Chinese online fiction is now the largest publishing platform in the world.
-
Oddly Informative
- Matters of Fact That Amaze and Delight
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The more we ponder, the odder the world can seem. How do footballers get their shirt numbers? Why does having daughters make couples more likely to divorce? How do you move a horse from one country to another? What counts as a journey into space? The keen minds at the Economist contemplate all these questions and more in their quest for the globe's most extraordinary quandaries and conundrums, with bizarre facts and headscratchers that show the world is even stranger than we might have thought.
-
The Scythian Empire
- Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China
- By: Christopher I. Beckwith
- Narrated by: Jim Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook narrated by Jim Lee provides a rich, discovery-filled account of how a forgotten empire transformed the ancient world.
Publisher's Summary
Dementia, heart failure and cancer are now the leading causes of death in industrialised nations, where life expectancy is mostly above 80. A century ago, life expectancy was about 50 and people died mainly from infectious diseases. In the Middle Ages, death was mostly caused by famine, plague, childbirth and war. In the Palaeolithic period, where our species spent 95 percent of its time, we frequently died from violence and accidents.
Causes of death have changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to strike anyone at any age and where famine could be just one bad harvest away, to one where excess food is more of a problem than a lack of it. Why is this? Why don't we die from plague, scurvy or smallpox anymore? And why are heart attacks, Alzheimer's and cancer so prevalent today?
This Mortal Coil explains why we died in the past, the reasons we die now and how causes of death are about to profoundly change. University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an eye-opening, global portrait of death throughout time, looking at particular causes of death - from infectious disease to genetic disease, violence to diet - who they affected, and the people who made it possible to overcome them.
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about This Mortal Coil
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt Feeney
- 07-03-2022
Public health made so interesting
I loved it, finished it in over a week and am now transformed into a fact-dropping public health nerd.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tom
- 11-12-2022
Worth it
It seems at the start that we might just be in for a history of statistics, but this a highly interesting book covering a range if sub-topics. Informative, interesting and well-read, definitely worth the listen. My partner and I had some great discussions about the topics, in between my listening sessions as I felt the need to share it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Walshes
- 05-01-2024
An extraordinary and insightful journey through the challenges of human existence.
A wonderful collection of the episodes of human existence that have challenged our survival. Fascinating - never a boring moment - despite the details often highlighted. Worth a second listen/read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!