Incendiary Circumstances
A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Incendiary Circumstances
Buy for $25.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sam Dastor
-
By:
-
Amitav Ghosh
About this listen
A journalist who “illuminates the human drama behind the headlines” writes about today’s dramatic events, from terrorist attacks to tsunamis (Publishers Weekly).
“An uncannily honest writer,” Amitav Ghosh has published firsthand accounts of pivotal world events in publications including the New York Times, Granta, and the New Yorker (The New York Times Book Review). This volume brings together the finest of these pieces, chronicling the turmoil of our times.
Incendiary Circumstances begins with Ghosh’s arrival in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands just days after the devastation of the 2005 tsunami. We then travel back to September 11, 2001, as Ghosh retrieves his young daughter from school, sick with the knowledge that she must witness the kind of firestorm that has been in the background of his life since childhood.
In his travels, Ghosh has stood on an icy mountaintop on the contested border between India and Pakistan; interviewed Pol Pot’s sister-in-law in Cambodia; shared the elation of Egyptians when Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize; and stood with his threatened Sikh neighbors through the riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. In these pieces, he offers an up-close look at an era defined by the ravages of politics and nature.
“Ghosh is the perfect chronicler of an increasingly globalized world...Reading [him] is a mind-expanding experience. Once you’ve finished this book, you’re very likely to press it into your friends’ hands and beg them to read it as well.”—Sunday Oregonian
©2005 Amitav Ghosh (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing , Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Nutmeg's Curse
- Parables for a Planet in Crisis
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
performance....
- By Bonnie on 11-15-22
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
In an Antique Land
- History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 68
Once upon a time an Indian writer name Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some 700 years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with 20th-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Worlds
- By Roger on 10-26-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 754
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 518
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 519
At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
The Great Derangement
- Climate Change and the Unthinkable
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 291
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 245
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 244
Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability - at the level of literature, history, and politics - to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Deranged
- By Michael on 03-07-20
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
My Seditious Heart
- Collected Nonfiction
- By: Arundhati Roy
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 36 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 17
My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights, and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Radical and superbly listenable, the essays speak in a voice of unique spirit, marked by compassion, clarity, and courage. Roy offers a powerful defense of the collective, of the individual, and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military, and governmental elites.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
real face of secular india
- By bilal on 11-26-19
By: Arundhati Roy
-
Victory City
- A Novel
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 190
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 159
In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga—“victory city”—the wonder of the world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Rushdie never fails to engage.
- By Tom on 02-23-23
By: Salman Rushdie
-
The Nutmeg's Curse
- Parables for a Planet in Crisis
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
performance....
- By Bonnie on 11-15-22
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
In an Antique Land
- History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 68
Once upon a time an Indian writer name Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some 700 years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with 20th-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Worlds
- By Roger on 10-26-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 754
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 518
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 519
At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
The Great Derangement
- Climate Change and the Unthinkable
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 291
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 245
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 244
Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability - at the level of literature, history, and politics - to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Deranged
- By Michael on 03-07-20
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
My Seditious Heart
- Collected Nonfiction
- By: Arundhati Roy
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 36 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 19
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 17
My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights, and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Radical and superbly listenable, the essays speak in a voice of unique spirit, marked by compassion, clarity, and courage. Roy offers a powerful defense of the collective, of the individual, and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military, and governmental elites.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
real face of secular india
- By bilal on 11-26-19
By: Arundhati Roy
-
Victory City
- A Novel
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sid Sagar
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 190
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 159
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 159
In the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl’s mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana’s comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga—“victory city”—the wonder of the world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Rushdie never fails to engage.
- By Tom on 02-23-23
By: Salman Rushdie
-
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Jack Weatherford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 19,927
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 16,477
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16,473
The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Golden Horde/Platinum Listen
- By Cynthia on 12-11-13
By: Jack Weatherford
-
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
- By: Shehan Karunatilaka
- Narrated by: Shivantha Wijesinha
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 229
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 192
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 192
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely Splendid...
- By Paul Frandano on 02-07-23
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,877
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,762
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,750
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Every Man for Himself and God Against All
- A Memoir
- By: Werner Herzog, Michael Hofmann - translator
- Narrated by: Werner Herzog
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 292
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 270
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 270
Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids, Herzog’s mother took him and his older brother to a remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhood hungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there, as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely incredible, memoir of the year
- By Susie Bright on 10-16-23
By: Werner Herzog, and others
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 726
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 603
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 602
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,147
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,847
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,829
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Modern Dictators & President who wants to be them
- By AJ on 07-23-20
By: Anne Applebaum
-
Azadi
- Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.
- By: Arundhati Roy
- Narrated by: Shaheen Khan
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 23
The chant of Azadi! - Urdu for "freedom!" - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically it has also become the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. What lies between these two calls for freedom? A chasm or a bridge? In this series of penetrating essays on politics and literature, Arundhati Roy examines this question and challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Eye opener to all the fascist practices in India
- By Samanvitha on 02-02-21
By: Arundhati Roy
-
The Story of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 191
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 168
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 168
The Story of Russia is about how the Russians defined themselves―and repeatedly reinvented such definitions along the way. Moving from Russia’s agrarian beginnings in the first millennium to subsequent periods of monarchy, totalitarianism, and perestroika, all the way up to Vladimir Putin and his use of myths of Russian history to bolster his regime, celebrated historian Orlando Figes examines the ideas that have guided the country’s actions.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Almost perfect…
- By Samantha Dispenzieri on 02-21-23
By: Orlando Figes
-
Around the World in (More Than) 80 Days
- Discovering What Makes America Great and Why We Must Fight to Save It
- By: Larry Alex Taunton
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 25
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 25
A battle rages for the heart and soul of America. For one group, the idea of "American Exceptionalism" is dead. Some never tire of lecturing us about how out of step America is with the rest of the world and how the country needs to get with it. Worse, America, they say, is bad for the world. Its freedom and prosperity are merely historical accidents.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Still the greatest and spells out why
- By Donald L. Huxley on 01-10-21
-
The School That Escaped the Nazis
- The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 35
By 1931, Anna Essinger had read Mein Kampf and knew that Hitler’s world view was violent, utterly destructive, and that many of her pupils in her small progressive school in Herrlingen, Germany were in terrible danger. She decided that in order to offer them a refuge, and a future, she must first move her school entirely out of the Nazis’ reach. So, she did just that, creating a safe haven in Kent, England.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Must Read
- By Amazon Customer on 07-19-23
By: Deborah Cadbury
-
The Road from Raqqa
- A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging
- By: Jordan Ritter Conn
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 40
The Alkasem brothers, Riyad and Bashar, spend their childhood in Raqqa, the city that would later became the capital of ISIS. As a teenager in the 1980s, Riyad witnesses the devastating aftermath of the Hama massacre—an atrocity by the Assad regime. Wanting to expand his notion of government and justice, Riyad moves to the US to study law, but his plans are derailed and he eventually falls in love with a Southern belle. Bashar, meanwhile, stayed in Syria and embarked on a brilliant legal career under the same corrupt Assad government that Riyad despised.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Gripping & Meaningful
- By Amazon Customer on 09-04-20
-
Afropean
- Notes from Black Europe
- By: Johny Pitts
- Narrated by: Johny Pitts
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
In the face of growing racial discrimination, anti-immigrant sentiment and the spectre of terrorism looming large over an economically stricken continent, Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities: too indelibly woven into Europe to identify with Africa and yet struggling with outdated ideas of what it means to be European.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent
- By Suzie M on 04-04-24
By: Johny Pitts
Critic reviews
“This absorbing collection of essays by the novelist, journalist, and travel writer Ghosh...covers some two decades of catastrophe and upheaval, from sectarian violence in his native India during the 1980s through the September 11 attacks...to the recent Indian Ocean tsunami. Written in luminous prose with unusual understanding...an insightful look at a chaotic world.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
Related to this topic
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 252
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
Balkan Ghosts
- A Journey Through History
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Anti religious/anti catholic hit piece
- By Daniel Calvert on 05-04-21
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
The Art of Resistance
- My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
- By: Justus Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 131
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 118
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, 16-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Rosenberg, Please focus
- By Jess on 03-20-22
By: Justus Rosenberg
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 169
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
-
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.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Not much new here if you are already familiar
- By Neil Richert on 07-13-20
By: Michael Booth
-
When We Were Arabs
- A Jewish Family's Forgotten History
- By: Massoud Hayoun
- Narrated by: Massoud Hayoun
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
There was a time when being an "Arab" didn't mean you were necessarily Muslim. It was a time when Oscar Hayoun, a Jewish Arab, strode along the Nile in a fashionable suit, long before he and his father arrived at the port of Haifa to join the Zionist state only to find themselves hosed down with DDT and then left unemployed on the margins of society. In that time, Arabness was a mark of cosmopolitanism, of intellectualism.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
painful to read.
- By Eli Cukierman on 03-13-20
By: Massoud Hayoun
-
The Buried
- An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
- By: Peter Hessler
- Narrated by: Peter Hessler
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 253
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 252
Drawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Fascinating, Funny, and Moving Account of Egypt
- By Jefferson on 07-23-19
By: Peter Hessler
-
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 151
Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
-
Balkan Ghosts
- A Journey Through History
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 296
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the 20th century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Anti religious/anti catholic hit piece
- By Daniel Calvert on 05-04-21
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
The Art of Resistance
- My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir
- By: Justus Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 131
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 118
In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, 16-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Rosenberg, Please focus
- By Jess on 03-20-22
By: Justus Rosenberg
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 169
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 149
-
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.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Not much new here if you are already familiar
- By Neil Richert on 07-13-20
By: Michael Booth
-
When We Were Arabs
- A Jewish Family's Forgotten History
- By: Massoud Hayoun
- Narrated by: Massoud Hayoun
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 49
There was a time when being an "Arab" didn't mean you were necessarily Muslim. It was a time when Oscar Hayoun, a Jewish Arab, strode along the Nile in a fashionable suit, long before he and his father arrived at the port of Haifa to join the Zionist state only to find themselves hosed down with DDT and then left unemployed on the margins of society. In that time, Arabness was a mark of cosmopolitanism, of intellectualism.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
painful to read.
- By Eli Cukierman on 03-13-20
By: Massoud Hayoun
-
On the Plain of Snakes
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 154
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 134
Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A 40-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
A pedantic, poorly narrated, 20 hour lecture
- By Birdshot on 11-16-19
By: Paul Theroux
-
My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great story, poorly narrated
- By Oren Kessler on 09-10-24
By: Ariel Sabar
-
"Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself"
- The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945
- By: Florian Huber
- Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
By the end of April 1945 in Germany, the Third Reich had fallen and invasion was underway. As the Red Army advanced, horrifying stories spread about the depravity of its soldiers. For many German people, there seemed to be nothing left but disgrace and despair. For tens of thousands of them, the only option was to choose death - for themselves and for their children.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This book should be required reading for anyone that seeks to understand how ordinary people could be transformed into monsters.
- By Anonymous User on 05-08-20
By: Florian Huber
-
Known and Strange Things
- Essays
- By: Teju Cole
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 12 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
With this collection of more than 50 pieces on politics, photography, travel, history, and literature, Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. Minute after minute, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments, taking in subjects from Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare, and W. G. Sebald to Instagram, Barack Obama, and Boko Haram.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Book that Teaches and Shares
- By Carolyn J. on 10-08-17
By: Teju Cole
-
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 56
Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
-
Eat the Buddha
- Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 168
A gripping portrait of modern Tibet told through the lives of its people, from the best-selling author of Nothing to Envy.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
TIBET
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 08-24-21
By: Barbara Demick
-
Notes on a Foreign Country
- An American Abroad in a Post-American World
- By: Suzy Hansen
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 203
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 176
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 173
In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the US-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A MUST-READ for all Truth-Seeking American wh
- By Parveen Mehdi-Newton on 12-08-17
By: Suzy Hansen
-
Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
-
In an Antique Land
- History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 68
Once upon a time an Indian writer name Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some 700 years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with 20th-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Mixed Worlds
- By Roger on 10-26-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
-
Inge's War
- A German Woman's Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler
- By: Svenja O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 70
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 64
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Growing up in Paris, the daughter of a German mother and an Irish father, Svenja O'Donnell knew little of her family's German past. In this transporting and illuminating audiobook, the award-winning journalist vividly reconstructs the story of her grandmother Inge's life from the rise of the Nazis through the brutal postwar years, from falling in love with a man who was sent to the Eastern Front just after she became pregnant with his child, to spearheading her family's flight as the Red Army closed in, her young daughter in tow.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Ordinary German Citizens Caught Up
- By Hinterlander on 08-22-23
By: Svenja O'Donnell
-
The Patient Assassin
- A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence
- By: Anita Anand
- Narrated by: Anita Anand
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
The “compelling [and] vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) true story of a man who claimed to be a survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, his elaborate 20-year plan for revenge, and the mix of truth and legend that made him a hero to hundreds of millions.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
more interesting history
- By Autodidact on 09-07-19
By: Anita Anand
-
Afropean
- Notes from Black Europe
- By: Johny Pitts
- Narrated by: Johny Pitts
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
In the face of growing racial discrimination, anti-immigrant sentiment and the spectre of terrorism looming large over an economically stricken continent, Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities: too indelibly woven into Europe to identify with Africa and yet struggling with outdated ideas of what it means to be European.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent
- By Suzie M on 04-04-24
By: Johny Pitts
What listeners say about Incendiary Circumstances
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 07-15-23
Fascinating
It seemed to have a slow start but then I caught on to the fact that he was talking to people who had survived natural disasters wars and catastrophes. I came to see the resilience of the human spirit. After great loss, people are able to remake a life for themselves. It will not be like the old life but it can still be a life worth living.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall3 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story3 out of 5 stars
- J. Dusheck
- 10-26-23
Fascinating essays
Quite a mix of gripping and a little confusing. I prefer some of Ghosh’s more recent work. But very glad I listened to this.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!