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Misfire
- The Sarajevo Assassination and the Winding Road to World War I
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
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Misfire
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Publisher's summary
The story has so often been told: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Habsburg Empire, was shot dead on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. Thirty days later, the Archduke's uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph, declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia, producing the chain reaction of European powers entering the First World War.
In Misfire, Paul Miller-Melamed narrates the history of the Sarajevo assassination and the origins of World War I from the perspective of the Balkans. Miller-Melamed embeds the incident in the longer-term conditions of the Balkans that gave rise to the political murder. He thus illuminates the centrality of the Bosnian Crisis and the Balkan Wars of the early twentieth century to European power politics, while explaining how Serbs, Bosnians, and Habsburg leaders negotiated their positions in a dangerous geopolitical environment. Despite the absence of evidence tying official Serbia to the assassination conspiracy, Miller-Melamed shows how it spiraled into a diplomatic crisis that European statesmen proved unable to resolve peacefully.
Contrasting the vast disproportionality between a single deadly act and an act of war that would leave ten million dead, Misfire contends that the real causes for the world war lie in "civilized" Europe rather than the endlessly discussed political murder.
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- A History of the Armenian Genocide
- By: Ronald Grigor Suny
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, unbiased view finally
- By Raffy Afarian on 10-30-15
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The War That Ended Peace
- The Road to 1914
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 975
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 881
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 870
From the best-selling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Detailed review of 1882 to 1914
- By smarmer on 04-06-14
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Blood and Iron
- The Rise and Fall of the German Empire; 1871-1918
- By: Katja Hoyer
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 133
Before 1871, Germany was not yet a nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring 39 individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France - all without destroying itself in the process?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Misleading title/subtitle
- By Ethan Brown on 12-15-21
By: Katja Hoyer
![Inventing Japan [Modern Library Chronicles] Audiobook By Ian Buruma cover art](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51efoHgX5HL._SL320_.jpg)
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Inventing Japan [Modern Library Chronicles]
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 62
LA Times Book Award winner and expert on the past and present Japan, Ian Buruma examines the transformation of a country. Following Japan's history from its opening to the West in 1853 to its hosting of the 1964 Olympics, Buruma focuses on how figures such as Commodore Matthew Perry, Douglas MacArthur, and Emperor Mitsushito helped shape this complex country.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Primer on Modern Japan
- By John Pavliga on 06-13-06
By: Ian Buruma
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Ben-Gurion
- A Political Life
- By: Shimon Peres, David Landau
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Shimon Peres was in his early 20s when he first met David Ben-Gurion. Although the state that Ben-Gurion would lead through war and peace had not yet declared its precarious independence, the "Old Man", as he was called even then, was already a mythic figure. Peres, who came of age in the cabinets of Ben-Gurion, is uniquely placed to evoke this figure of stirring contradictions - a prophetic visionary and a canny pragmatist who early grasped the necessity of compromise for national survival.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great Perfomance, Less than Stellar Story
- By Alexander on 01-02-12
By: Shimon Peres, and others
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Reset
- Iran, Turkey, and America's Future
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer in this paradigm-shifting book. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the 21st century: Turkey and Iran.
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5 out of 5 stars
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challenges stereotypes
- By R.S. on 06-14-10
By: Stephen Kinzer
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Israel
- A Concise History of a Nation Reborn
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,296
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,144
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,135
Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world's attention, aroused its imagination, and, lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future? We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel's people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent, mildly but honestly biased, terrible narration
- By Schaq on 04-01-17
By: Daniel Gordis
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Modern Times
- The World from the Twenties to the Nineties
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 37 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 430
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 304
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 302
Beginning with May 29, 1919, when photographs of the solar eclipse confirmed the truth of Einstein's theory of relativity, Johnson goes on to describe Freudianism, the establishment of the first Marxist state, the chaos of "Old Europe", the Arcadian 20s, and the new forces in China and Japan. Also discussed are Karl Marx, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Castro, Kennedy, Nixon, the '29 crash, the Great Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, and the massive conflict of World War II.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Anti-Howard Zinn
- By Pork C. Fish on 05-22-12
By: Paul Johnson
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Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 318
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 284
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 283
This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
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Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 28 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 575
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 515
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 511
Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The heart of evil
- By Mike From Mesa on 01-20-14
By: Ian Kershaw
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Bully of Asia
- By: Steven W. Mosher
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 139
The signs are everywhere. China unilaterally claims the entire South China Sea as sovereign territory, then builds artificial islands to bolster its claim. It suddenly activates an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea, and threatens to down any aircraft that does not report its position. It builds roads into Indian territory, then redraws the maps to show that it is actually Chinese territory. The People's Republic under President Xi Jinping is quickly becoming The Bully of Asia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Eye opening, up to date
- By Silomi on 01-01-19
By: Steven W. Mosher
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The Story of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 154
The Story of Russia is about how the Russians defined themselves―and repeatedly reinvented such definitions along the way. Moving from Russia’s agrarian beginnings in the first millennium to subsequent periods of monarchy, totalitarianism, and perestroika, all the way up to Vladimir Putin and his use of myths of Russian history to bolster his regime, celebrated historian Orlando Figes examines the ideas that have guided the country’s actions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Good overview of Russia. History that Provides an Effective Premise for Greater Understanding of Current Events
- By James E Mclaughlin on 12-22-22
By: Orlando Figes
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The Islamic Enlightenment
- The Struggle Between Faith and Reason: 1798 to Modern Times
- By: Christopher de Bellaigue
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the 19th and early 20th centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy.
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4 out of 5 stars
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fascinating story not told.elsewhere in one place
- By Joseph Sullivan on 11-30-21
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Napoleon
- Soldier of Destiny
- By: Michael Broers
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
Written with great energy and authority - and using the newly available personal archives of Napoleon himself - the first volume of a majestic two-part biography of the great French emperor and conqueror.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Clarity
- By Tad Davis on 03-25-19
By: Michael Broers
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Buretto
- 09-11-22
Thorough but tends to drag
A thorough account from a Balkan perspective of the originals of the First World War, which unfortunately devolve into a story less engrossing than perhaps intended. A southern Slav story is told in parallel, with Franz Ferdinand and family in one thread and Gavrilo Princip and presumptive Young Bosnian cohorts in the other. There were many parts which held my interest, and theories which sparked some interest. But overall, I can't say the book was altogether memorable.
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