History

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Mythos cover art

  • Mythos

  • By: Stephen Fry
  • Narrated by: Stephen Fry
  • Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,393
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars 2,205
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,197

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce....

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Superb!

  • By Anonymous User on 14-11-2017
21 Lessons for the 21st Century cover art

  • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

  • By: Yuval Noah Harari
  • Narrated by: Derek Perkins
  • Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars 981
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars 874
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars 868

Sapiens showed us where we came from. Homo Deus looked to the future. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century explores the present....

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • He's done it again

  • By Anonymous User on 06-09-2018
Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets cover art

  • Stephen Fry's Victorian Secrets

  • By: Stephen Fry
  • Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 70
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars 68
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 66

On the surface, the Victorian age is one of propriety, industry, prudishness and piety. But scratch the surface and you’ll find scandal, sadism, sex, madness, malice and murder....

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Love this!

  • By bridget Huolohan on 28-11-2018
A Short History of Nearly Everything cover art

  • A Short History of Nearly Everything

  • By: Bill Bryson
  • Narrated by: William Roberts
  • Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,642
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,475
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,467

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization....

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Not what I expected but brilliant!

  • By Michael on 27-11-2015

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An Economic History of the World since 1400 cover art

  • An Economic History of the World since 1400

  • By: Donald J. Harreld, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Donald J. Harreld
  • Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 164
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 145
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 142

Most of us have a limited understanding of the powerful role economics has played in shaping human civilization. This makes economic history - the study of how civilizations structured their environments to provide food, shelter, and material goods - a vital lens through which to think about how we arrived at our present, globalized moment. Designed to fill a long-empty gap in how we think about modern history, these 48 lectures are a comprehensive journey through more than 600 years of economic history.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • I have learnt a lot

  • By Anonymous User on 19-06-2018
The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague cover art

  • The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague

  • By: Dorsey Armstrong, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Dorsey Armstrong
  • Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 70
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 64
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 64

Many of us know the Black Death as a catastrophic event of the medieval world. But the Black Death was arguably the most significant event in Western history, profoundly affecting every aspect of human life, from the economic and social to the political, religious, and cultural. In its wake the plague left a world that was utterly changed, forever altering the traditional structure of European societies and forcing a rethinking of every single system of Western civilization: food production and trade, the church, political institutions, law, art, and more.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Fascinating & gripping

  • By Ballina Beach on 08-10-2016
The Vikings cover art

  • The Vikings

  • By: Kenneth W. Harl, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Kenneth W. Harl
  • Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 61
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 58
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 58

As raiders and explorers, the Vikings played a decisive role in the formation of Latin Christendom, and particularly of western Europe. Now, in a series of 36 vivid lectures by an honored teacher and classical scholar, you have the opportunity to understand this remarkable race as never before, studying the Vikings not only as warriors, but in all of the other roles in which they were equally extraordinary - merchants, artists, kings, raiders, seafarers, shipbuilders, and creators of a remarkable literature of myths and sagas.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • Some good information

  • By Naomi on 16-01-2018
The Story of Human Language cover art

  • The Story of Human Language

  • By: John McWhorter, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: John McWhorter
  • Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars 83
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars 73
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 71

Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • This is from 2005

  • By David on 26-07-2018
The Fall and Rise of China cover art

  • The Fall and Rise of China

  • By: Richard Baum, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Richard Baum
  • Length: 24 hrs and 8 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars 88
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars 80
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars 79

For most of its 5,000-year existence, China has been the largest, most populous, wealthiest, and mightiest nation on Earth. And for us as Westerners, it is essential to understand where China has been in order to anticipate its future. These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Accessible overview of modern Chinese history

  • By Ronald McCoy on 20-01-2019
The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World cover art

  • The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World

  • By: Robert Garland, The Great Courses
  • Narrated by: Robert Garland
  • Length: 24 hrs and 28 mins
  • Original Recording
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars 116
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 104
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars 103

Look beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • An eye-opening account of the ancient 99%

  • By Nelson C on 09-07-2015

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Conquest of the Tropics cover art

  • Conquest of the Tropics

  • The Story of the Creative Enterprises Conducted by the United Fruit Company
  • By: Frederick Upham Adams
  • Narrated by: Heidi Wall
  • Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
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This narrative about the creation and early growth of the United Fruit Company comes across like an adventure novel. The author whisks the listener to Central America to experience the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a group of visionaries who carved a commercial empire out of virtually uninhabited Central American tropical jungles. These American businessmen and the people who worked for them were the early pioneers. They overcame tropical disease, financial problems, weather, and other obstacles by innovation and sheer grit.

A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times: Volume V cover art

  • A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times: Volume V

  • By: François Guizot
  • Narrated by: Cate Barratt
  • Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
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 Volume V covers France’s history from the rise of Henry IV (Henry of Navarre) in 1589 to the death of Louis XIV in 1715.

Radical Light cover art

  • Radical Light

  • Studies in World Art, Book 13
  • By: Edward Lucie-Smith
  • Narrated by: Gerard Marquez
  • Length: 9 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    0 out of 5 stars 0
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It is a historical peculiarity of landscape painting that it begins with the artificial, and only after that proceeds towards the natural. For example, landscape paintings, and especially fanciful Nilotic panoramas, were one of the genres produced by artists in Pompeii. When, with the Renaissance, landscape painting once again started to establish itself after a long interval, the representations of the surrounding world that artists began to produce as a separate and independent genre, rather than simply as a background for human figures, were usually more fanciful than real.

First cover art

  • First

  • Sandra Day O'Connor
  • By: Evan Thomas
  • Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
  • Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
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The intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives - by the New York Times best-selling author Evan Thomas.  

White Shoe cover art

  • White Shoe

  • How a New Breed of Wall Street Lawyers Changed Big Business and the American Century
  • By: John Oller
  • Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
  • Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    0 out of 5 stars 0
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The fascinating true story of how a group of visionary attorneys helped make American business synonymous with big business and Wall Street the center of the financial world. 

Queen Mary I: A Life from Beginning to End cover art

  • Queen Mary I: A Life from Beginning to End

  • By: Hourly History
  • Narrated by: Mike Nelson
  • Length: 59 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    0 out of 5 stars 0
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Mary I, perhaps best known by the moniker Bloody Mary, was England’s first female monarch who ruled in her own right. A fighter from birth, she was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Mary would make her way back to her father’s good graces after being cast out by him in favor of his numerous wives and would eventually undo her father’s religious reforms by restoring Roman Catholicism in England. The fourth Tudor to rule England, Mary is remembered for burning around 300 Protestants at the stake on her quest for religious reform.