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The Proud Tower
- A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
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- Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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A Distant Mirror
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-
Overall
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Performance
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The 14th century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.
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-
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Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
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The March of Folly
- From Troy to Vietnam
- Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The March of Folly, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian Barbara Tuchman tackles the pervasive presence of folly in governments through the ages. Defining folly as the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests, despite the availability of feasible alternatives, Tuchman details four decisive turning points in history that illustrate the very heights of folly in government.
Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
-
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- Written by: Robert K. Massie
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- Length: 43 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.
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Written by: Robert K. Massie
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- Written by: Jonathan D. Spence
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 36 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The history of China is as rich and strange as that of any country on earth. Yet for many, China’s history remains unknown, or known only through the stylized images that generations in the West have cherished or reviled as truth. With his command of character and event - the product of 30 years of research and reflection in the field - Spence dispels those myths in a powerful narrative. Over four centuries of Chinese history, Spence fashions the astonishing story of the effort to achieve a modern China.
-
-
Takes some getting used to, but great work.
- By Alexandre Lariviere on 2021-10-28
Written by: Jonathan D. Spence
-
The Thirty Years War
- Written by: C. V. Wedgwood
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Initially, the Thirty Years War was precipitated in 1618 by religious conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire. But the conflict soon spread beyond religion to encompass the internal politics and balance of power within the Empire, and then later to the other European powers. By the end, it became simply a dynastic struggle between Bourbon France and Habsburg Spain. And almost all of it was fought out in Germany. Entire regions were depopulated and destroyed.
Written by: C. V. Wedgwood
Publisher's Summary
"The diplomatic origins, so-called, of the War are only the fever chart of the patient; they do not tell us what caused the fever. To probe for underlying causes and deeper forces one must operate within the framework of a whole society and try to discover what moved the people in it." (Barbara W. Tuchman)
The fateful quarter-century leading up to World War I was a time when the world of privilege still existed in Olympian luxury and the world of protest was heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate. The age was the climax of a century of the most accelerated rate of change in history, a cataclysmic shaping of destiny.
In The Proud Tower, Barbara Tuchman concentrates on society rather than the state. With an artist's selectivity, Tuchman brings to vivid life the people, places, and events that shaped the years leading up to the Great War: the Edwardian aristocracy and the end of their reign; the Anarchists of Europe and America, who voiced the protest of the oppressed; Germany, as portrayed through the figure of the self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; the sudden gorgeous blaze of Diaghilev's Russian Ballet and Stravinsky's music; the Dreyfus Affair; the two Peace Conferences at the Hague; and, finally, the youth, ideals, enthusiasm, and tragedy of Socialism, epitomized in the moment when the heroic Jean Jaures was shot to death on the night the War began and an epoch ended.
What the critics say
"It would be impossible to read The Proud Tower without pleasure and admiration." (The New York Times)
"Tuchman proved in The Guns of August that she could write better military history than most men. In this sequel, she tells her story with cool wit and warm understanding." (Time)
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What listeners say about The Proud Tower
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Matt Peters
- 2018-04-30
Great writer, tedious topic
This is the fourth Barbara W. Tuchman book I've read. In comparison to her other titles, it was hard to finish, I thought there would be more interesting stories in this time period. Great narrator. Still very interesting.
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