World History

Connaissez-vous Tamerlan, le chef turco-mongol qui vécut au XIXe siècle et qui massacra à lui seul 5% de la population de l'humanité de l'époque ? Savez-vous que Pythagore a inventé la gamme de musique, qu'il était végétarien, qu'il croyait à la réincarnation, qu'il a inventé les mots « philosophie » et « mathématique », et qu'il était un excellent boxeur et chanteur ? Connaissez-vous les orgues à chats ? Saviez-vous qu'une épidémie de rire se déclencha en Tanzanie en 1962 ?

Your ticket from the twenty-first century to the era of Jesus and the first Christians. A listenable, two-volume introduction placing the entire New Testament and early Christianity in its original context, written by distinguished scholar and author N. T. Wright.

L'histoire des sociétés secrètes modernes commence dans l'Allemagne du début du XVIIe siècle avec la circulation de manifestes mystérieux qui annoncent l'existence d'une confrérie invisible aux pouvoirs prodigieux. Depuis quatre siècles, l'intérêt pour ces confréries n'a jamais faibli et l'emblématique phénix renaît sans cesse de ses cendres.

L'Atlantide est-elle une contrée emportée par un tsunami au milieu de la mer Égée ou une métaphore platonicienne ? Certains pensent que le linceul de Turin a enveloppé le corps du Christ, d'autres sont convaincus du contraire. Qui a sculpté et dressé ces monumentales figures dans une île improbable du Pacifique sud ? Oui ou non, les Vikings ont-ils franchi l'Atlantique et fondé des établissements sur les côtes américaines ? La disparition soudaine de la civilisation maya, son écriture indéchiffrable posent des questions restées sans réponse.

In Goliath’s Curse, Cambridge scholar Luke Kemp conducts a historical autopsy on our species, from the earliest cities to the collapse of modern states like Somalia. He traces the emergence of “Goliaths”: large societies built on a collection of hierarchies that are also terrifyingly fragile, collapsing time after time across the world.

In spring 1945, as the Russians moved on Berlin and it became clear the Nazi cause was lost, Adolf Hitler assured his most trusted henchmen that even if he were to die, "the seed of National Socialism will grow again one day [in]…a radiant rebirth." Several times after the war, the distinguished author Peter Wyden, himself a victim of the Nazis, returned to Germany to discover, to his dismay, that Hitler's prediction was all too true. In this unsettling audiobook, Wyden documents the reality that the "Hitler virus" is still very much alive.

From its humble beginnings as a discount shop on Seventh Avenue, Barneys grew into an international phenomenon, setting the tone for fashion not only in New York, but across the country and worldwide. Told with razor-sharp wit and inimitable style, They All Came to Barneys takes us on an insider’s journey as rakish, would-be rocker Gene Pressman and the global fashion industry grew up and came into their own, side by side.

Knowledge is power! Crush the competition at trivia night or start the most interesting conversation ever with real facts that are hard to believe. This book is loaded with mind-blowing facts that are sure to keep you wondering, "How are these even true?" while equipping you to outsmart everyone in the room.

Unflinchingly honest about the brutality of this nation’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide, the impact of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s 2014 book is profound. This classic is revisited with new material that takes an incisive look at the post-Obama era from the war in Afghanistan to Charlottesville’s white supremacy-fueled rallies, and from the onset of the pandemic to the election of President Biden.

The early Christian Church was a chaos of contending beliefs. Some groups of Christians claimed that there was not one God but two or twelve or thirty. Some believed that the world had not been created by God but by a lesser, ignorant deity. Certain sects maintained that Jesus was human but not divine, while others said he was divine but not human.

In 1714, England's Parliament offered a huge reward to anyone whose method of measuring longitude could be proven successful. The scientific establishment--from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton--had mapped the heavens in its certainty of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had been able to do on land. And the race was on....

In February 1944, in one of the most astonishing battles of World War II, a ragtag collection of British clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers, and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews, managed to defeat a much larger and sophisticated contingent of some of the finest infantry in the Japanese army on their march toward India.

A dramatic countdown of the final months of World War II in Europe, The Last 100 Days brings to life the waning power and the ultimate submission of the Third Reich. To reconstruct the tumultuous hundred days between Yalta and the fall of Berlin, John Toland traveled more than 100,000 miles in twenty-one countries and interviewed more than six hundred people - from Hitler's personal chauffeur to Generals von Manteuffel, Wenck, and Heinrici.

Learn about the history and geography of China with iMinds. China is a fascinating country where mountains tower over vast plains, deserts collide with lush farmlands, and ancient cultures mix with modern cities. So, if you went to China, where would you start? Well, you might want to pack a big bag because China is actually the 3rd largest country in the world!

Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.

An astonishing work of cultural criticism, this book is widely recognized as a brilliant and devastating challenge to conventional views of literature, anthropology, religion, and psychoanalysis. In its scope and interest it can be compared with Freud's Totem and Taboo, the subtext Girard refutes with polemic daring, vast erudition, and a persuasiveness that leaves the listener compelled to respond, one way or another. This is the single fullest summation of Girard's ideas to date, the book by which they will stand or fall.

Tower of Basel is the first investigative history of the world's most secretive global financial institution. Based on extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with key decision-makers -- including Paul Volcker, the former chairman of...

Edward Rutherfurd has enthralled millions of people with his grand, sweeping historical sagas that tell the history of a famous place over multiple generations. Now, in China: The Novel, Rutherfurd takes listeners into the rich and fascinating milieu of the Middle Kingdom. The story begins in 1839, at the dawn of the First Opium War, and follows Chinese history through Mao's Cultural Revolution and up to the present day. Rutherfurd chronicles the rising and falling fortunes of members of Chinese, British, and American families, as they negotiate the tides of history.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."

Série documental de 9 episódios no formato Audible Original, narrando a história do oficial letão Herberts Cukurs, que se mudou com a família para o Brasil ao fim da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Reconhecido por sobreviventes compatriotas e acusado de ter participado ativamente do Holocausto, Cukurs foi alvo de uma polêmica de proporções internacionais. Uma história que se desdobra ao longo de décadas e não encontra fim nem mesmo quando Cukurs é assassinado por uma equipe do Mossad, o serviço de inteligência israelense, numa emboscada em 1965.