Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in World

Why can't we solve our problems anymore? Why do threats such as the Gulf oil spill, worldwide recession, terrorism, and global warming suddenly seem unstoppable? Are there limits to the kinds of problems humans can solve? Rebecca Costa confronts - and offers a solution to - these questions in her highly anticipated and game-changing book, The Watchman's Rattle.

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign.

In Born in Africa, Martin Meredith follows the trail of discoveries about human origins made by scientists over the last hundred years, recounting their intense rivalry, personal feuds, and fierce controversies, as well as their feats of skill and endurance. The results have been momentous. Scientists have identified more than 20 species of extinct humans. They have firmly established Africa as the birthplace not only of humankind but also of modern humans.

In this audiobook, Helen Forrester continues the moving story of her early life with an account of the war years in blitz-torn Liverpool, and the happiness which she so nearly captured, but which was to elude her twice.

Taking a tour through history, from the Romans to the Second World War via Tudor courts, medieval castles and more, this hugely entertaining debut from an award-winning history teacher explores a variety of historical topics in a thoughtful and engaging way. It will appeal to anybody seeking to expand their historical knowledge, with an approachable and accessible style that will take you on an eye-opening and jaw-dropping journey.

In 1941, a young Harvard-educated classicist named Varian Fry arrived in occupied France on a daring mission to rescue more than 2,000 of Europe's leading writers, artists, and intellectuals from the Nazis. Hounded by the Gestapo, he smuggled Marchel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt and dozens of other 20th century cultural luminaries out of France and brought them to America. So why did even the people Fry saved want to forget him?

The Brewer's Tale is a beer-filled journey into the past: the story of brewers gone by and one brave writer's quest to bring them - and their ancient, forgotten beers - back to life, one taste at a time. This is the story of the world according to beer, a toast to flavors born of necessity and place - in Belgian monasteries, rundown farmhouses, and the basement nanobrewery next door. So pull up a barstool and raise a glass to 5,000 years of fermented magic.

At the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, 13-year-old Nanchu watched Red Guards burst into her home and arrest her parents, whom they tortured and jailed. She was left to fend for herself and her younger brother on the streets of Shanghai, enduring poverty and near-starvation. As she grew older she herself became a Red Guard and was sent down to the largest work camp in China. There she faced primitive conditions, predatory officials, a viper's nest of party jealousies, and near-fatal injury before she finally won admittance to Madame Mao's university in Shanghai.

On 16 July 1940, Hitler issued Directive No. 16, setting in motion Operation Sea Lion: his plan to invade England. The success of Operation Sea Lion hinged entirely on the destruction of the RAF and the Royal Navy, but even as Hitler's plans swung into action and England, barely recovered from Dunkirk, rallied her defences, the Battle of Britain began and in just a few months Germany had lost all hope of dominating England's skies and with it, the key to the invasion. On 17 September, 1940, Hitler postponed Operation Sea Lion indefinitely and the entire episode faded from memory.

In 1942 the young soldier Arthur Dodd was taken prisoner by the German Army and transported to Oswiecim in Polish Upper Silesia. The Germans gave it another name, now synonymous with mankind’s darkest hours. They called it Auschwitz. Forced to do hard labour, starved and savagely beaten, Arthur thought his life would end in Auschwitz. Determined to go down fighting, he sabotaged Nazi industrial work, risked his life to alleviate the suffering of the Jewish prisoners and aided a partisan group planning a mass breakout.

Why did the medieval Church bless William of Normandy's invasion of Christian England in 1066 and authorise cultural genocide in Provence? How could a Christian army sack Christian Constantinople in 1204? Why did thousands of ordinary men and women, led by knights and ladies, kings and queens, embark on campaigns of fanatical conquest in the world of Islam? The word 'Crusade' came later, but the concept of a 'war for the faith' is an ancient one.

For thousands of years, we have set out sailing for all kinds of reasons - for battle, for infinite wealth, for the excitement of exploring the unknown, and for escape from the mundane. We have always had a primal relationship with the sea - even those who have never been to sea remain fascinated by the seafaring life and tales of salty adventure. Now in a brand–new series collection, The Best Sailing Stories Ever Told brings together such diverse authors as Charles Dickens, Jack London, John Masefield, Stephen Crane, Herman Melville, and dozens more.

In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim "the Grim" conquered Egypt and brought his empire for the first time in history into direct contact with the trading world of the Indian Ocean. During the decades that followed, the Ottomans became progressively more engaged in the affairs of this vast and previously unfamiliar region, eventually to the point of launching a systematic ideological, military and commercial challenge to the Portuguese Empire, their main rival for control of the lucrative trade routes of maritime Asia.

Today, 1913 is inevitably viewed through the lens of 1914: as the last year before a war that would shatter the global economic order and tear Europe apart, undermining its global pre-eminence. Our perspectives narrowed by hindsight, the world of that year is reduced to its most frivolous features last summers in grand aristocratic residences or its most destructive ones: the unresolved rivalries of the great European powers, the fear of revolution, violence in the Balkans.

The history of the Great Warming of a half millennium ago suggests that we may yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives todayand our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the silent elephant in the room.

A remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal, and survival set in one of the world's most inhospitable places. In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, hundreds of miles from another human being, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a line of mysterious peaks looming in the distance. He called this unexplored realm "Crocker Land". Scientists and explorers agreed that the world-famous explorer had discovered a new continent rising from the frozen Arctic Ocean.

By the age of six, Zhanna had developed a repertoire fellow students twice her age would envy. Scholarships to the most prestigious conservatories in the Soviet Union soon followed - conservatories that had produced legends like Rachmaninoff, Kogan, and Horowitz.

This is the story of the average Canadian who volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force told through the lens of one battalion - the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division. This Highland Regiment fought in the Ypres Salient and in the Somme, at Vimy, Passchendaele, and Amiens. It suffered the first gas attack; its ranks were decimated as it fought at virtually every major battle in the European theatre.

In this groundbreaking work, Kwame Anthony Appiah, hailed as "one of the most relevant philosophers today" (New York Times Book Review), changes the way we understand human behavior and the way social reform is brought about. In brilliantly arguing that new democratic movements over the last century have not been driven by legislation from above, Appiah explores the end of the duel in aristocratic England, the tumultuous struggles over foot binding in 19th-century China, the uprising of ordinary people against Atlantic slavery, and much more.

The breaking of the Enigma machine is one of the most heroic stories of the Second World War and highlights the crucial work of the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, which prevented Britain's certain defeat in 1941. But there was another German cipher machine, used by Hitler himself to convey messages to his top generals in the field. A machine more complex and secure than Enigma. A machine that could never be broken.