Listen free for 30 days
-
Stalin
- The Court of the Red Tsar
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 27 hrs and 50 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $27.32
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Buy it with
-
Mao
- The Unknown Story
- Written by: Jung Chang, Jon Halliday
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before, and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him, this is the most authoritative biography of Mao ever written.
-
-
Excellent
- By Thor on 2019-02-24
Written by: Jung Chang, and others
-
The Romanovs
- 1613-1918
- Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Simon Beale
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore's gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence, and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries, and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin.
-
-
the worst audiobook I have ever encountered
- By Wade Nelson on 2023-06-02
Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
-
Napoleon
- A Life
- Written by: Adam Zamoyski
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 27 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.
-
-
Great narration. Historically biased writing.
- By Quadratic on 2019-06-10
Written by: Adam Zamoyski
-
Churchill
- Walking with Destiny
- Written by: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 50 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been over a thousand previous biographies of Churchill. Andrew Roberts now draws on over 40 new sources, including the private diaries of King George VI, used in no previous Churchill biography, to depict him more intimately and persuasively than any of its predecessors.
-
-
Not just another Churchill Biography.
- By Anonymous User on 2019-11-14
Written by: Andrew Roberts
-
American Caesar
- Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964
- Written by: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 31 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Virtually all Americans above a certain age hold strong opinions about Douglas MacArthur. They either worship him or despise him. Now, in this superb book, one of our most outstanding writers, after a meticulous three-year examination of the record, presents his startling insights about the man. The narrative is gripping, because the general's life was fascinating. It is moving, because he was a man of vision. It ends, finally, in tragedy, because his character, though majestic, was tragically flawed.
Written by: William Manchester
-
Collapse
- The Fall of the Soviet Union
- Written by: Vladislav M. Zubok
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
-
-
A phenomenal history of the dissolution of the USSR
- By Anonymous User on 2023-05-24
Written by: Vladislav M. Zubok
-
Mao
- The Unknown Story
- Written by: Jung Chang, Jon Halliday
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before, and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him, this is the most authoritative biography of Mao ever written.
-
-
Excellent
- By Thor on 2019-02-24
Written by: Jung Chang, and others
-
The Romanovs
- 1613-1918
- Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Simon Beale
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore's gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence, and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries, and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin.
-
-
the worst audiobook I have ever encountered
- By Wade Nelson on 2023-06-02
Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
-
Napoleon
- A Life
- Written by: Adam Zamoyski
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 27 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of Napoleon has been written many times. In some versions, he is a military genius, in others a war-obsessed tyrant. Here, historian Adam Zamoyski cuts through the mythology and explains Napoleon against the background of the European Enlightenment and what he was himself seeking to achieve. This most famous of men is also the most hidden of men, and Zamoyski dives deeper than any previous biographer to find him. Beautifully written, Napoleon brilliantly sets the man in his European context.
-
-
Great narration. Historically biased writing.
- By Quadratic on 2019-06-10
Written by: Adam Zamoyski
-
Churchill
- Walking with Destiny
- Written by: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 50 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been over a thousand previous biographies of Churchill. Andrew Roberts now draws on over 40 new sources, including the private diaries of King George VI, used in no previous Churchill biography, to depict him more intimately and persuasively than any of its predecessors.
-
-
Not just another Churchill Biography.
- By Anonymous User on 2019-11-14
Written by: Andrew Roberts
-
American Caesar
- Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964
- Written by: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 31 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Virtually all Americans above a certain age hold strong opinions about Douglas MacArthur. They either worship him or despise him. Now, in this superb book, one of our most outstanding writers, after a meticulous three-year examination of the record, presents his startling insights about the man. The narrative is gripping, because the general's life was fascinating. It is moving, because he was a man of vision. It ends, finally, in tragedy, because his character, though majestic, was tragically flawed.
Written by: William Manchester
-
Collapse
- The Fall of the Soviet Union
- Written by: Vladislav M. Zubok
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1945, the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong, 5,000 nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward, the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the 20th century.
-
-
A phenomenal history of the dissolution of the USSR
- By Anonymous User on 2023-05-24
Written by: Vladislav M. Zubok
-
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- A Political Life
- Written by: Robert Dallek
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 29 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an era of such great national divisiveness, there could be no more timely biography of one of our greatest presidents than one that focuses on his unparalleled political ability as a uniter and consensus maker. Robert Dallek's Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life takes a fresh look at the many compelling questions that have attracted all his biographers: how did a man who came from so privileged a background become the greatest presidential champion of the country's needy?
-
-
An excellent biography of a great man
- By Anonymous User on 2020-12-19
Written by: Robert Dallek
-
The War That Made the Roman Empire
- Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium
- Written by: Barry Strauss
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium.
Written by: Barry Strauss
-
Enemy at the Gates
- The Battle for Stalingrad
- Written by: William Craig
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On August 5, 1942, giant pillars of dust rose over the Russian steppe, marking the advance of the 6th Army, an elite German combat unit dispatched by Hitler to capture the industrial city of Stalingrad and press on to the oil fields of Azerbaijan. The Germans were supremely confident; in three years, they had not suffered a single defeat. The Luftwaffe had already bombed the city into ruins. German soldiers hoped to complete their mission and be home in time for Christmas.
-
-
Entertaining. Historically accurate
- By Langer MD on 2020-09-05
Written by: William Craig
-
Young Stalin
- Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Young Stalin tells the story of an exceptional, charismatic, darkly turbulent young man born into obscurity, fancying himself a poet and a priest, and finally embracing revolutionary idealism as his Messianic mission in life. Equal parts scholar and terrorist, a mastermind of bank robberies, extortion, piracy, and murder, he was so impressive in his brutality that Lenin made him, along with Trotsky, his chief henchman.
-
-
He was
- By Kindle Customer on 2020-09-18
Written by: Simon Sebag Montefiore
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- Written by: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Important context, narrator lacks flow
- By Amazon Customer on 2020-11-13
Written by: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
-
Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dynasty tells the story of Rome's first dynasty of emperors, from its establishment by Augustus Caesar in the last decades of the first century BC to its final, florid extinction less than a century later. The line of autocrats known to historians as the 'Julio-Claudians' remains to this day a byword for depravity. The brilliance of its allure and the blood-steeped shadows cast by its crimes still haunt the public imagination.
-
-
So good!
- By randy hanson on 2019-10-05
Written by: Tom Holland
-
Mussolini's War
- Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse, 1935-1943
- Written by: John Gooch
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 21 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While staying closely aligned with Hitler, Mussolini remained carefully neutral until the summer of 1940. Then, with the wholly unexpected and sudden collapse of the French and British armies, Mussolini declared war on the Allies in the hope of making territorial gains in Southern France and Africa. This decision proved a horrifying miscalculation, dooming Italy to its own prolonged and unwinnable war, immense casualties and an Allied invasion in 1943 which ushered in a terrible new era for the country.
-
-
Mundane
- By Anonymous User on 2022-08-15
Written by: John Gooch
-
The Great War
- A Combat History of the First World War
- Written by: Peter Hart
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
World War I altered the landscape of the modern world in every conceivable arena. Millions died; empires collapsed; new ideologies and political movements arose; poison gas, warplanes, tanks, submarines, and other technologies appeared. "Total war" emerged as a grim, mature reality. In The Great War, Peter Hart provides a masterful combat history of this global conflict.
Written by: Peter Hart
-
Empire
- How Britain Made the Modern World
- Written by: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 16 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red, and Britannia ruled not just the waves but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries.
-
-
A fascinating and well performed audio book.
- By David Selke on 2019-12-26
Written by: Niall Ferguson
-
The First World War
- A Complete History
- Written by: Martin Gilbert
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 33 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was to be the war to end all wars, and it began at 11:15 on the morning of June 28, 1914, in an outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called Sarajevo. It would officially end nearly five years later. Unofficially, however, it has never ended: Many of the horrors we live with today are rooted in the First World War. The Great War left millions of civilians and soldiers maimed or dead. It also saw the creation of new technologies of destruction: tanks, planes, and submarines; machine guns and field artillery; poison gas and chemical warfare.
-
-
good book
- By Matthew laing on 2021-07-25
Written by: Martin Gilbert
-
Alexander the Great
- Written by: Philip Freeman
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian Empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India.
-
-
Edifying
- By Langer MD on 2021-08-03
Written by: Philip Freeman
-
Caesar
- Life of a Colossus
- Written by: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of Julius Caesar's life, Adrian Goldsworthy covers not only the great Roman emperor's accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters. Ultimately, Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar's character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate some 2,000 years later.
-
-
Excellent performance, timeless story.
- By Nicholas Taylor on 2018-02-26
Written by: Adrian Goldsworthy
Publisher's Summary
Winner of the British Book Awards History Book of the Year.
Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
This thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar.
Based on groundbreaking research, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals in captivating detail the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous cruelty of this secret world. Written with extraordinary narrative verve, this magnificent feat of scholarly research has become a classic of modern history writing. Showing how Stalin's triumphs and crimes were the product of his fanatical Marxism and his gifted but flawed character, this is an intimate portrait of a man as complicated and human as he was brutal and chilling.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
More from the same
What listeners say about Stalin
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Matt Luloff
- 2023-04-19
Chilling, informative, incredibly gripping
This book is incredibly well performed and even better written. Highly enjoyable. I chose to read this after Andrew Roberts’ Churchill as the Yalta conference was a fascinating piece of history. I got far more than I bargained for in this book. Do not hesitate to pick this one up.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Professor Woland
- 2022-03-07
Immensely Enjoyable
To date, this my favorite biography of Stalin and his henchmen. Sebag Montefiore does a masterful job of weaving the various personalities and historical events together.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Trevor sawatzky
- 2022-02-05
Excellent
This book is unbelievable. I finished this quickly over about 5 days. If you're interested, I would highly recommend
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- TrueEllipsis
- 2022-06-22
Magnificent
This book is a heroic achievement. The author does an incredible job at stitching together all the evidence and archive documents and paints a very vivid picture of Stalin and his close circles.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 2022-02-26
Riveting
Feels like an edge of your seat screenplay for an emmy award winning HBO series - and the narrator does an excellent job at conveying this. The visceral terror of life under Stalins rule is well captured.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Brendon
- 2021-06-05
LONG, BUT WORTH IT
This gang of thug rogues make Hitlers gang positively tame - literally tame. And Putin loves Stalin? Well, now you know what Putin is.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- David R. Butler
- 2020-12-09
So Good!
I read this about 10 years ago and adored it. Was so pleased to see the unabridged audio version come out.
Both the author and the narrator bring the Stalin period to life. The approach to research and the narrative remind me of Doris Kearns Goodwin, but with all the zaniness of the Stalinist courtiers.
Remains a favourite and I know I will listen to this again down the road.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!