Empire of Sand
How Britain Made the Middle East
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Empire of Sand
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Narrated by:
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Derek Perkins
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By:
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Walter Reid
About this listen
At the end of the First World War, Britain, and to a much lesser extent France, created the modern Middle East. The possessions of the former Ottoman Empire were carved up with scant regard for the wishes of those who lived there. From the outset, the project was destined to fail.
Conflicting and ambiguous promises had been made to the Arabs during the war but were not honored. Brief hopes for Arab unity were dashed, and a harsh belief in western perfidy persists to the present day. Britain was quick to see the riches promised by the black pools of oil that lay on the ground around Baghdad. When France, too, grasped their importance, bitter differences opened up and the area became the focus of a return to traditional enmity. The wartime allies came close to blows and then drifted apart, leaving a vacuum of which Hitler took advantage.
Working from both primary and secondary sources, Walter Reid explores Britain's role in the creation of the modern Middle East and the rise of Zionism from the early years of the twentieth century to 1948, when Britain handed over Palestine to United Nations' control. From the decisions that Britain made has flowed much of the instability of the region and of the worldwide tensions that threaten the twenty-first century; this thought-provoking book considers how much Britain was to blame.
©2011 Walter Reid (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in Eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Bad Melodramatic Reading
- By Tess on 08-18-20
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Revolutionary Iran
- A History of the Islamic Republic
- By: Michael Axworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 19 hrs
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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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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a defining moment of the modern era. Its success unleashed a wave of Islamist fervor across the Middle East and signaled a sharp decline in the appeal of Western ideologies in the Islamic world. Michael Axworthy takes listeners through the major periods in Iranian history over the last 30 years: the overthrow of the old regime and the creation of the new one; the Iran-Iraq war; the reconstruction era following the war; the reformist wave led by Mohammed Khatami; and the present day, in which reactionaries have re-established control.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Questionable Narration
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By: Michael Axworthy
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Appeasement
- Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War
- By: Tim Bouverie
- Narrated by: John Sessions
- Length: 22 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 115
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Story5 out of 5 stars 115
On a wet afternoon in September 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stepped off an airplane and announced that his visit to Hitler had averted the greatest crisis in recent memory. It was, he later assured the crowd in Downing Street, "peace for our time." Less than a year later, Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began. Appeasement is a groundbreaking history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy, and parliamentary infighting that enabled Hitler's domination of Europe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I cannot tolerate the narrator
- By DrBCFR on 06-05-19
By: Tim Bouverie
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The Russian Revolution
- By: Richard Pipes
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 41 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 287
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 248
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 246
Groundbreaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world", The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that aroused great controversy. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at all but a coup d'etat - "the capture of governmental power by a small minority."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Destruction of the Lenin Myth
- By philip on 09-08-19
By: Richard Pipes
-
The Biggest Prison on Earth
- A History of the Occupied Territories
- By: Ilan Pappe
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
Published on the 15th anniversary of the Six-Day War that culminated in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Pappe offers a comprehensive exploration of one of the world's most prolonged and tragic conflicts. Using recently declassified archival material, Pappe analyses the motivations and strategies of the generals and politicians-and the decision-making process itself - that laid the foundation of the occupation. Pappe paints a picture of what is to all intents and purposes the world's largest "open prison".
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1 out of 5 stars
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Polemic
- By Frank on 01-21-24
By: Ilan Pappe
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The Sleepwalkers
- How Europe Went to War in 1914
- By: Christopher Clark
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 883
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 771
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 773
The Sleepwalkers is historian Christopher Clark's riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I. Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Very interesting take on a complex problem
- By Steve on 01-24-15
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The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
- A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917--2017
- By: Rashid Khalidi
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi, Rashid Khalidi - introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,141
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,034
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,030
Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members - mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thoroughly Researched and Evidence-Based, but...
- By K on 05-24-21
By: Rashid Khalidi
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Diplomacy
- By: Henry Kissinger
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 37 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 306
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 260
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 257
Moving from a sweeping overview of history to blow-by-blow accounts of his negotiations with world leaders, Henry Kissinger describes how the art of diplomacy has created the world in which we live, and how America's approach to foreign affairs has always differed vastly from that of other nations. Brilliant, controversial, and profoundly incisive, Diplomacy stands as the culmination of a lifetime of diplomatic service and scholarship. It is a must-listen for anyone concerned with the forces that have shaped our world today and will impact upon it tomorrow.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great foreign policy overview!
- By Mikhail on 02-02-20
By: Henry Kissinger
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When France Fell
- The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance
- By: Michael S. Neiberg
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rather the fall of France in spring 1940. Michael Neiberg offers a dramatic history of the American response - a policy marked by panic and moral ineptitude, which placed the United States in league with fascism and nearly ruined the alliance with Britain.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Proceeds from a faulty premise
- By Buretto on 12-11-21
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The Inevitability of Tragedy
- Henry Kissinger and His World
- By: Barry Gewen
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries' attempts at democracy.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting but rambles
- By K on 02-17-21
By: Barry Gewen
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Hitler's Empire
- How the Nazis Ruled Europe
- By: Mark Mazower
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 123
Drawing on an unprecedented range and variety of original research, Hitler's Empire sheds new light on how the Nazis designed, maintained, and lost their European dominion - and offers a chilling vision of what the world would have become had they won the war. Mark Mazower forces us to set aside timeworn opinions of the Third Reich, and instead shows how the party drew inspiration for its imperial expansion from America and Great Britain.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Page Turning Scholarship
- By philip on 06-08-19
By: Mark Mazower
-
Tomorrow, the World
- The Birth of US Global Supremacy
- By: Stephen Wertheim
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
For most of its history, the US avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in European-style power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as the world’s armed superpower and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Wertheim traces America’s transformation to the crucible of World War II, especially in the months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation’s new foreign policy came to believe that the US ought to achieve primacy in international affairs forevermore.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Powerful punch to American dogma.
- By JLK on 06-30-21
By: Stephen Wertheim
-
Armed Struggle
- The History of the IRA
- By: Richard English
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 20 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 151
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
The IRA has been a much richer, more complexly layered, and more protean organization than is frequently recognized. It is also more open to balanced examination now - at the end of its long war in the north of Ireland - than it was even a few years ago. Richard English's brilliant audiobook offers a detailed history of the IRA, providing invaluable historical depth to our understanding of the modern-day Provisionals, the more militant wing formed in 1969 dedicated to the removal of the British Government from Northern Ireland and the reunification of Ireland.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
A comprehensive history of the IRA
- By Stefan Filipovits on 02-04-20
By: Richard English
-
A Peace to End All Peace
- The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
- By: David Fromkin
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 23 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 472
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 404
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 405
The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions. All of these conflicts are rooted in the region's political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War. Author David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all seemed possible, he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Still A Great Book On The Topic
- By Nostromo on 02-03-19
By: David Fromkin
-
America and Iran
- A History, 1720 to the Present
- By: John Ghazvinian
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 27 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 214
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 187
In this rich, fascinating history, John Ghazvinian traces the complex story of the relations between these two nations back to the Persian Empire of the 18th century - the subject of great admiration by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams - and an America seen by Iranians as an ideal to emulate for their own government.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Distortions Galore
- By Chuck S. on 03-15-21
By: John Ghazvinian
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For the past three decades, the United States and Iran have been engaged in an unacknowledged secret war. This conflict has frustrated five American presidents, divided administrations, and repeatedly threatened to bring the two nations to the brink of open warfare. Drawing upon unparalleled access to senior officials and key documents of several US administrations, David Crist, a senior historian in the federal government, breaks new ground in virtually every section of The Twilight War.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 197
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Story4 out of 5 stars 197
As a boy, Robert D. Kaplan listened to his truck-driver father's evocative stories about traveling across America as a young man, travels in which he learned to understand the country from a ground-level perspective. In Earning the Rockies, Kaplan undertakes his own cross-country journey to recapture an appreciation and understanding of American geography that is often lost in the jet age.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Magnificent book that found a great narrator!
- By BotakTree on 03-09-17
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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Children of the Night
- The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania
- By: Paul Kenyon
- Narrated by: Paul Kenyon
- Length: 19 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story5 out of 5 stars 70
The country that gave us Vlad Dracula, and whose citizens consider themselves descendants of ancient Rome, has traditionally preferred the status of enigmatic outsider. But this beautiful and unexplored land has experienced some of the most disastrous leaderships of the last century. After a relatively benign period led by a dutiful king and his vivacious, British-born queen, the country oscillated wildly.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A haunting look at Romanian history
- By Steve Adams on 07-19-24
By: Paul Kenyon
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Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler
- The Age of Social Catastrophe
- By: Robert Gellately
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible research as important now as then
- By Jason on 12-30-21
By: Robert Gellately
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The Lost History of Christianity
- The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church --- and How It Died
- By: Philip Jenkins
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 219
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 180
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 180
The Lost History of Christianity will change how we understand Christian and world history. Leading religion scholar Philip Jenkins reveals a vast Christian world to the east of the Roman Empire and how the earliest, most influential churches of the East---those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church---died. In this paradigm-shifting book, Jenkins recovers a lost history, showing how the center of Christianity for centuries used to be the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, extending as far as China.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Worthwhile with caveats
- By Telorast on 03-05-13
By: Philip Jenkins
What listeners say about Empire of Sand
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Aaron C. Jones
- 02-23-24
Very detailed.
A great history of how Britain and its policies shaped the current map of the Middle East.
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