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A History of New Zealand in 100 Objects
- Narrated by: Jock Phillips
- Length: 20 hrs and 58 mins
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A History of New Zealand in 100 Objects
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Publisher's summary
Authored by award-winning historian Jock Phillips, The History of New Zealand in 100 Objects is gripping, inclusive, often revelatory and deeply human.
A colourful and characterful retelling of our shared past, relevant to today, particular to all of us.
The sewing kete of an unknown 18th-century Maori woman; the Endeavour cannons that fired on waka in 1769; the bagpipes of an Irish publican Paddy Galvin; the school uniform of Harold Pond, a Napier Tech pupil in the Hawke’s Bay quake; the Biko shields that tried to protect protestors during the Springbok tour in 1981; Winston Reynolds’ remarkable home-made Hokitika television set, the oldest working TV in the country; the soccer ball that was a tribute to Tariq Omar, a victim of the Christchurch Mosque shootings, and so many more – these are items of quiet significance and great personal meaning, taonga carrying stories that together represent a dramatic, full-of-life history for everyday New Zealanders.
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 137
Scandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers — including the most famous, the Vikings — would reshape Europe and beyond.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Confused and not worth the time and money
- By Jacob The Dane on 08-16-21
By: Arthur Herman
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Three Tigers, One Mountain
- A Journey Through the Bitter History and Current Conflicts of China, Korea, and Japan
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 150
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not much new here if you are already familiar
- By Neil Richert on 07-13-20
By: Michael Booth
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The Germans and Europe
- A Personal Frontline History
- By: Peter Millar
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of our continent. Focussing on nine cities (only six of which are in the Germany of today), he takes us on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars and the patchwork states of the Middle Ages to the splendour of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the best books I have listened to on here
- By Shaun on 05-17-18
By: Peter Millar
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1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War
- By: Charles Emerson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4 out of 5 stars 106
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good book ruined by bad read
- By GANESHi on 08-02-13
By: Charles Emerson
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Hong Kong
- By: Jan Morris
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
Hong Kong is the world’s most exciting city, at once fascinating and exasperating, a tangle of contradictions. It is a dazzling amalgam of conspicuous consumption and primitive poverty, the most architecturally incongruous yet undeniably beautiful urban panorama of all. Through firsthand reportage, world-renowned travel writer Jan Morris takes us through the crowded streets of this enigmatic city, offering the most insightful and comprehensive study of Hong Kong thus far. She reviews Hong Kong’s early days as a British opium port controlled by pirates, cutthroats, and scoundrel tycoons, and looks ahead to the city’s future.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An interesting but mild disappointment
- By Jeanette Finan on 06-11-14
By: Jan Morris
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Ireland - Culture Smart!
- The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
- By: John Scotney
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The island of Ireland is famous for its timeless beauty, the variety of its landscape, its quiet towns and lively cities, the poetic and literary genius of so many of its citizens, its music and folklore, and its colorful and bloody history. Businesspeople and visitors who don't know Ireland will find this book an invaluable introduction to the people, the country, and the economic opportunities it offers, while if you think you know Ireland and the Irish, you will find plenty here to broaden and deepen that knowledge, and plenty that will surprise you.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good baseline for a trip to Ireland.
- By Vincent Collins on 07-24-17
By: John Scotney
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California
- A History
- By: Kevin Starr
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 304
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 254
Acclaimed author, historian, and Guggenheim Fellow Kevin Starr is a professor at the University of Southern California. His extensive knowledge shines through this concise, yet comprehensive, depiction of the most fascinating aspects in California's history. From its colonial beginnings through Governor Schwarzenegger's administration, the Golden State has become a uniquely American phenomenon that has enchanted people with the possibility of a better life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting read, until it's not
- By MiamiMe on 03-27-18
By: Kevin Starr
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Ghosts of Gold Mountain
- The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad
- By: Gordon H. Chang
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous western worksite of the Transcontinental Railroad, the migrants spent years dynamiting tunnels through the snow-packed cliffs of the Sierra Nevada and laying tracks across the burning Utah desert. Their sweat and blood fueled the ascent of an interlinked, industrial United States. But those of them who survived this perilous effort would be pushed to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very inspiring, educational, and enlightening!
- By Amazon Customer on 06-25-19
By: Gordon H. Chang
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Land
- How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 418
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 352
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 351
Land - whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city - is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing - and have done - with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Audiobook Version is the Best!
- By semarla on 01-31-21
By: Simon Winchester
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Empire's Crossroads
- A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day
- By: Carrie Gibson
- Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4 out of 5 stars 105
Ever since Christopher Columbus stepped off the Santa Maria onto what is today San Salvador, in the Bahamas, and announced that he had arrived in the Orient, the Caribbean has been a stage for projected fantasies and competition between world powers. In Empire’s Crossroads, British American historian Carrie Gibson traces the story of this coveted area from the northern rim of South America up to Cuba, and from discovery through colonialism to today, offering a vivid, panoramic view of this complex region and its rich, important history.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Careless production mars storytelling
- By Brenda Thomas on 03-31-16
By: Carrie Gibson
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Mayflower Lives
- Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience
- By: Martyn Whittock
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Leading into the 400th anniversary of the voyage of the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock examines the lives of the "saints" (members of the Separatist Puritan congregations) and "strangers" (economic migrants) on the original ship. Collectively, these people would become known to history as "the Pilgrims". The story of the Pilgrims has taken on a life of its own as one of our founding national myths - their escape from religious persecution, the dangerous transatlantic journey, that brutal first winter.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful!
- By Dennis Coello on 11-25-20
By: Martyn Whittock
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Away Off Shore
- Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890
- By: Nathaniel Philbrick
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 101
In his first book of history, Away Off Shore, New York Times best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals the people and the stories behind what was once the whaling capital of the world. Beyond its charm, quaint local traditions, and whaling yarns, Philbrick explores the origins of Nantucket in this comprehensive history. From the English settlers who thought they were purchasing a "Native American ghost town" but actually found a fully realized society, the story of Nantucket is a truly unique chapter of American history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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There once were some (wo)men in Nantucket...
- By Darwin8u on 02-03-19
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A Brief History of Indonesia
- Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of Southeast Asia's Largest Nation
- By: Tim Hannigan
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
Indonesia is by far the largest nation in Southeast Asia and has the fourth-largest population in the world after the United States. Indonesian history and culture are especially relevant today as the island nation is an emerging power in the region with a dynamic new leader. It is a land of incredible diversity and unending paradoxes that has a long and rich history stretching back a thousand years and more.
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4 out of 5 stars
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More Indonesian history please Audible
- By Damien on 08-20-19
By: Tim Hannigan
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The Last Kings of Shanghai
- The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China
- By: Jonathan Kaufman
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 619
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 524
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 522
Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how two rival families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil at their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great story with careless flaws
- By pjdusa on 10-20-20
By: Jonathan Kaufman