France
An Adventure History
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France
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Narrated by:
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Tom Lawrence
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By:
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Graham Robb
About this listen
Beginning with the Roman army's first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending in the era of Emmanuel Macron, France takes listeners on an endlessly entertaining journey through French history. Frequently hilarious, always surprising, Graham Robb's France combines the stylistic versatility of a novelist with the deep understanding of a scholar.
Robb's own adventures and discoveries while living, working, and traveling in France connect this tour through space and time with on-the-ground experience. There are scenes of wars and revolutions from the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris. Robb conveys with wit and precision what it felt like to look over the shoulder of a young Louis XIV as he planned the vast garden of Versailles, and the dangerous thrill of having a ringside seat at the French revolution. Some of the protagonists may be familiar, but appear here in a very different light—Caesar, Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte, General Charles de Gaulle.
This extraordinary narrative is the fruit of decades of research and thirty thousand miles on a self-propelled, two-wheeled time machine (a bicycle). Even seasoned Francophiles will wonder if they really know that terra incognita on the edge of Europe that is currently referred to as "France."
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Graham Robb (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Black Dragon River is a personal journey down one of Asia's great rivers. The world's ninth largest river, the Amur serves as a large part of the border between Russia and China. As a crossroads for the great empires of Asia, this area offers journalist Dominic Ziegler a lens with which to examine the societies at Europe's only borderland with East Asia.
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5 out of 5 stars
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INFORMATIVE
- By JK on 10-14-22
By: Dominic Ziegler
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The Trigger
- Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War
- By: Tim Butcher
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
The Trigger tells the story of a young man who changed the world forever. It focuses on the drama of the incident itself by following Princip's journey. By retracing his steps from the feudal frontier village of his birth, through the mountains of the northern Balkans to the great plain city of Belgrade, and ultimately to Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding of Princip and makes discoveries about him that have eluded historians for 100 years.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Good, but not what I was looking for
- By Kendra on 07-08-14
By: Tim Butcher
-
Conquistadors
- By: Michael Wood
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 597
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 510
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 504
Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hernán Cortés, Francisco, and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Horrific anti-European bias
- By Anonymous User on 08-30-20
By: Michael Wood
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Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A daunting undertaking pulled off superlatively
- By SGS on 12-24-17
By: Bettany Hughes
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Rome
- By: Matthew Kneale
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
Rome, the Eternal City. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity. This is all the more remarkable considering what the city has endured. It has been ravaged by fires, floods, earthquakes, and - most of all - by roving armies. Matthew Kneale uses seven of these crisis moments to create a powerful and captivating account of Rome’s extraordinary history. He paints portraits of the city before each assault, describing how Romans, both rich and poor, lived their everyday lives.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Lack of language skills an irritation
- By lmc on 07-16-18
By: Matthew Kneale
-
Jungle of Stone
- The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya
- By: William Carlsen
- Narrated by: Paul Michael Garcia
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 617
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 550
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 553
In 1839 rumors of extraordinary yet baffling stone ruins buried within the unmapped jungles of Central America reached two of the world's most intrepid travelers. Seized by the reports, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood sailed together out of New York Harbor on an expedition into the forbidding rainforests of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. What they found would rewrite the West's understanding of human history.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Unsung Explorers at the Heart of History
- By thomas on 01-10-17
By: William Carlsen
-
A Voyage Long and Strange
- Rediscovering the New World
- By: Tony Horwitz
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 251
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 185
On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz makes an unsettling discovery. A history buff since early childhood, expensively educated at university - a history major, no less! - he's reached middle age with a third-grader's grasp of early America. In fact, he's mislaid more than a century of American history, the period separating Columbus' landing in 1492 from the arrival of English colonists at Jamestown in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Just Not For Me
- By Sara on 10-25-15
By: Tony Horwitz
-
Lords of the Horizons
- A History of the Ottoman Empire
- By: Jason Goodwin
- Narrated by: Grahame Edwards
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 62
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 57
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 56
The Ottoman Empire has long exerted a strong pull on Western minds and hearts. For over 600 years the empire swelled and declined, rising from a dusty fiefdom in the foothills of Anatolia to a power which ruled over the Danube and the Euphrates with the richest court in Europe. But its decline was prodigious, protracted and total.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Good introduction to the Ottomans, bad narration
- By Skeptical on 06-06-18
By: Jason Goodwin
-
The Fracture Zone
- A Return to the Balkans
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 110
Award-winning journalist and author Simon Winchester takes readers on a personal tour of the Balkans. Combining history and interviews with the people who live there, Winchester offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex issues at work in this chaotic region. Unrest in the Balkans has gone on for centuries. A seasoned reporter, Winchester visited the region twenty years ago. When Kosovo reached crisis level in 1997, Winchester thought a return visit to the beleaguered area would help to make sense out of the awful violence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this-Great combo:Story and History Explained
- By Jeremy on 07-10-14
By: Simon Winchester
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Iberia
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 37 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 267
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 229
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 231
Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Michener's Masterpiece
- By ahusmc on 09-14-17
-
The Marches
- A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland
- By: Rory Stewart
- Narrated by: Rory Stewart
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 61
Ten years after the walk across Central Asia and Afghanistan that he memorialized in The Places in Between, Rory Stewart set out on a new journey, traversing a thousand miles between England and Scotland. Stewart was raised along the border of the two countries, the frontier taking on poignant significance in his understanding of what it means to be both Scottish and English, of his relationship with his father, who's lived on this land his whole life, and of his ties to the rich history and culture of the region.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Uneven and unexpected, still worth it.
- By Nassir on 04-29-17
By: Rory Stewart
-
King Leopold's Ghost
- A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,942
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,617
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,618
In the late 1890s, Edmund Dene Morel, a young British shipping company agent, noticed something strange about the cargoes of his company's ships as they arrived from and departed for the Congo. Incoming ships were crammed with valuable ivory and rubber. Outbound ships carried little more than soldiers and firearms. Correctly concluding that only slave labor could account for these cargoes, Morel almost singlehandedly made this slave-labor regime the premier human rights story in the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating
- By Edith on 01-20-11
By: Adam Hochschild
-
Seven Ages of Paris
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 20 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 199
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 172
With a keen eye for the telling anecdote and pivotal moment, he portrays an array of vivid incidents to show us how Paris endures through each age, is altered but always emerges more brilliant and beautiful than ever. The Seven Ages of Paris is a great historian's tribute to a city he loves and has spent a lifetime learning to know.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Very well researched, but difficult to follow
- By Aw on 05-23-19
By: Alistair Horne
-
Trail of Hope
- The Anders Army, an Odyssey Across Three Continents
- By: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
In this remarkable work, renowned historian Professor Norman Davies draws from years of meticulous research to recount the compelling story of the Polish II Corps or "Anders Army", and their exceptional journey from the Gulag of Siberia through Iran, the Middle East, and North Africa to the battlefields of Italy to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with Allied forces. Complete with firsthand accounts from the men and women who lived through it, this is a unique record of one of the most fascinating episodes of World War II.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing story of Polish peoples and never giving up hope for free Poland.
- By Peter Chmiel on 09-24-19
By: Norman Davies
-
Lotharingia
- A Personal History of Europe's Lost Country
- By: Simon Winder
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 18 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 90
Following Germania and Danubia, the third installment in Simon Winder's personal history of Europe. In 843 AD, the three surviving grandsons of the great emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited the area we now know as France, another Germany, and the third received the piece in between: Lotharingia.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
The Loquacious Traveler in Middle Earth
- By Doris on 11-22-19
By: Simon Winder
-
African Samurai
- The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan
- By: Thomas Lockley, Geoffrey Girard
- Narrated by: Gary Furlong
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 861
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 747
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 743
The remarkable life of history’s first foreign-born samurai and his astonishing journey from Northeast Africa to the heights of Japanese society.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Not worth finishing
- By William Shehan on 06-12-19
By: Thomas Lockley, and others
-
Freedom at Midnight
- By: Dominique Lapierre, Larry Collins
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
This is the story of the eclipse of the British Raj and the birth of an independent India and Pakistan. The fabled India of the maharajas, with their palaces and harems, their gold-caparisoned elephants and their glittering private armies—the India of Kipling’s legendary army, with its young British officers commanding troops of a dozen races, religions, and castes—the India of tiger hunts and pigsticking.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Awful - Need for diversity
- By RNS on 02-01-20
By: Dominique Lapierre, and others
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Great stories, but...
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John Julius Norwich - called a "true master of narrative history" by Simon Sebag Montefiore - returns with the book he has spent his distinguished career wanting to write, A History of France, a portrait of the past two centuries of the country he loves best. Beginning with Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul in the first century BC, this study of French history comprises a cast of legendary characters - Charlemagne, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, and Marie Antionette, to name a few - as Norwich chronicles France's often violent, always fascinating history.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Kings and Wars
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Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, near the banks of a river that once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state.
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For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters-from medieval lovers Heloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Colette. In this book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of 22 famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the places where they found inspiration and love.
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3 out of 5 stars
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I feel there should be a pdf.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Very well researched, but difficult to follow
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The Devil in the Shape of a Woman
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Author Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in 17th-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society and attempts to answer the question why some women were vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Vital scholarship beautifully narrated.
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The Only Street in Paris
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Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, invites us on a tour of her favorite Parisian street, offering an homage to street life and the pleasures of Parisian living. While many cities suffer from the leveling effects of globalization, the rue des Martyrs maintains its distinct allure. On this street, the patron saint of France was beheaded and the Jesuits took their first vows.
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Not just for Paris lovers.
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The Sweet Life in Paris
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Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Great content, but it needs a different narrator
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History of France
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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France has influenced the course of history in Europe and the world for centuries. Considered one of the world’s most beautiful countries and home to some of the world’s most visited tourist locations, France has enthralled and fascinated the people who’ve discovered that, in many ways, the history of France encompasses both the good and bad in the human character.
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A Quick Overview of French History - Great Reader
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Other Paris
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
Drawing on testimony from a great range of witnesses - from Balzac and Hugo to assorted boulevardiers, rabble-rousers, and tramps - Sante, whose thorough research is matched only by the vividness of his narration, takes the listener on a whirlwind tour.
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4 out of 5 stars
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horrible reading
- By Sergio Remon on 03-28-19
By: Luc Sante
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Dawn of the Belle Epoque
- The Paris of Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
A humiliating military defeat by Bismarck's Germany, a brutal siege, and a bloody uprising - Paris in 1871 was in shambles, and the question loomed, "Could this extraordinary city even survive?" Mary McAuliffe takes the listener back to these perilous years following the abrupt collapse of the Second Empire and France's uncertain venture into the Third Republic. By 1900, Paris had recovered, and the Belle Epoque was in full flower, but the decades between were difficult, marked by struggles.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A massacre
- By BL on 10-02-22
By: Mary McAuliffe
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Paris
- A Curious Traveler's Guide
- By: Eleanor Aldridge
- Narrated by: Emily Ellet
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3
In the last few years, Paris has undergone a huge transformation. It's fostered one of the coolest creative scenes in Europe, some of the continent's best nightlife, and a "bistronomy" movement that has influenced dining around the globe. Yet while millennial travelers pour into the city, travel guides continue to focus on a staid checklist approach to Paris's big attractions. There's currently no book on the market aimed at younger (perhaps more budget-conscious) American visitors that truly captures the city's revived energy - until this one.
By: Eleanor Aldridge
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Paris to the Moon
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner: in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Wish this wasn't abridged!!
- By Sarah D. on 03-25-17
By: Adam Gopnik
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24 Hours in Ancient Rome: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There
- 24 Hours in Ancient History Series, Book 1
- By: Philip Matyszak
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
In this entertaining and enlightening guide, best-selling historian Philip Matyszak introduces us to the people who lived and worked there. In each hour of the day we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Took me back to Latin class and the origin of word
- By tony harris on 05-19-20
By: Philip Matyszak
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When Asia Was the World
- Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the “Riches of the East”
- By: Stewart Gordon
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4 out of 5 stars 26
Author Stewart Gordon has fashioned a fascinating and unique look at Asia from AD 700 to 1500, a time when Asia was the world, by describing the personal journeys of Asia's many travelers - the merchants who traded spices along the Silk Road, the apothecaries who exchanged medicine and knowledge from China to the Middle East, and the philosophers and holy men who crossed continents to explore and exchange ideas, books, science, and culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Learn the names you are reading
- By A. E. on 08-17-18
By: Stewart Gordon
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Two Houses, Two Kingdoms
- A History of France and England, 1100-1300
- By: Catherine Hanley
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of personal monarchy, when the close friendship or petty feuding between kings and queens could determine the course of history. The Capetians of France and the Angevins of England waged war, made peace, and intermarried. In this lively history, Catherine Hanley traces the great clashes, and occasional friendships, of the two dynasties. Along the way, she emphasizes the fascinating and influential women of the houses—including Eleanor of Aquitaine—and shows how personalities and familial bonds shaped the fate of two countries.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great book with a bit of slant
- By Ky on 12-20-22
By: Catherine Hanley
What listeners say about France
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
- Matthew Stein
- 10-30-22
Loved it. Just my kind of history.
My favorite chapter, I admit, was the quirky search for the tree, but I loved it all
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Elliott Wolfe, M.D.
- 09-18-22
A Complex Story
This book’s detailed narratives are history descriptions linked to the author’s visits to sites via bicycle. One learns. Recommend combining audio with reading using Kindle to improve comprehension.
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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
- Meghan S Shepard
- 06-20-23
France’s history through story and vignette
Wonderful. Robb uses small moments in time and place to tell the larger story of France. Funny, smart and illuminating.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- trai
- 12-26-22
Brilliant storytelling
Superbly layered, lots of quality learning; well balanced look at deep core samples and fair, insightful critique of more recent events; narrator could've done better by the French within.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Martha R. Zimiles
- 12-26-22
Wonderful quirky telling. Very erudite and amusing.
Alas, wonderful as the writing is, totally entertaining and idiosyncratic in its views and observations, I nearly lost my mind hearing a very British accent mangle nearly all the French words by placing the accent on the wrong syllable. If you don’t know French it won’t matter but if you do it may prove very irritating. Otherwise I hated it to end.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Lance J. Holt
- 09-24-24
If you like snarky, then you will endure this.
I am okay with the occasional snarky comment, but this just goes on and on, ad infinitum. I also had a hard time keeping track of a present day observation or an anecdote of the 13th century Cathar heretics? The author's focus is not the focus I was looking for and I just had to stop. I tried to skip through the chapters that didn't interest me until I finally just gave up. Maybe it's really awesome at the end...... I will never know.
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