Metternich
Strategist and Visionary
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Metternich
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Narrated by:
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Nigel Patterson
About this listen
Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized.
Clemens von Metternich emerged from the horrors of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Siemann shows, committed above all to the preservation of peace. That often required him, as the Austrian Empire's foreign minister and chancellor, to back authority. He was, as Henry Kissinger has observed, the father of realpolitik. But short of compromising on his overarching goal Metternich aimed to accommodate liberalism and nationalism as much as possible. Siemann draws on previously unexamined archives to bring this multilayered and dazzling man to life.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 587
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 525
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 521
Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The heart of evil
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By: Ian Kershaw
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The War That Ended Peace
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- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 990
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 894
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 883
From the best-selling and award-winning author of Paris 1919 comes a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, a fascinating portrait of Europe from 1900 up to the outbreak of World War I.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Detailed review of 1882 to 1914
- By smarmer on 04-06-14
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The Sleepwalkers
- How Europe Went to War in 1914
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- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 24 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 883
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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
-
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
- By: Herbert P. Bix
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 29 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 133
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 120
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 121
In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose 63-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix describes what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation's political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not what I bargained for
- By Alexander Crowell on 08-21-20
By: Herbert P. Bix
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American Sphinx
- The Character of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Susan O'Malley
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight. Historian Joseph J. Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today "hover[s] over the political scene like one of those dirigibles cruising above a crowded football stadium, flashing words of inspiration to both teams".
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3 out of 5 stars
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So: they did the DNA and … time to change appendix
- By Jamanosa on 11-03-21
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Phantom Terror
- Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789 - 1848
- By: Adam Zamoyski
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing
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By: Adam Zamoyski
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Napoleon
- Soldier of Destiny
- By: Michael Broers
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Written with great energy and authority - and using the newly available personal archives of Napoleon himself - the first volume of a majestic two-part biography of the great French emperor and conqueror.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Clarity
- By Tad Davis on 03-25-19
By: Michael Broers
-
Lost Kingdom
- The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and the prizewinning author of Chernobyl, the essential history of Russian imperialism. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion of Ukraine - only the latest iteration of a centuries-long effort to expand Russian boundaries and create a pan-Russian nation. In Lost Kingdom, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues that we can only understand the confluence of Russian imperialism and nationalism today by delving into the nation's history.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
More like a history of Languages spoke in Russia.
- By kucherv on 10-24-17
By: Serhii Plokhy
-
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
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Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 331
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 296
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 295
This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
-
Constantine the Emperor
- By: David Potter
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 88
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 79
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 79
This year Christians worldwide will celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Constantine's conversion and victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. No Roman emperor had a greater impact on the modern world than did Constantine. The reason is not simply that he converted to Christianity but that he did so in a way that brought his subjects along after him. Indeed, this major new biography argues that Constantine's conversion is but one feature of a unique administrative style that enabled him to take control of an empire beset by internal rebellions and external threats by Persians and Goths.
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4 out of 5 stars
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In this sign thou shalt conquer!
- By Darwin8u on 06-11-18
By: David Potter
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Hitler
- By: Joachim C. Fest, Richard Winstton - translator, Clara Winstton - translator
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 106
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
This masterful biography by one of Germany’s best known journalists was the leading nonfiction best seller in Germany. Fest shows Hitler as the receptacle of the dreads and resentments of a shaken social order, gifted with an uncanny instinct for all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Though a warped human being, he was neither clown nor puppet, as many liked to think; Hitler appears here as an enormously astute politician, impressing and hypnotizing Germans and foreigners alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality....
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Should be part of high school education
- By Rex Riethmeier on 12-25-18
By: Joachim C. Fest, and others
-
Japan 1941
- Countdown to Infamy
- By: Eri Hotta
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 332
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 293
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 293
When Japan attacked the United States in 1941, argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a conflict they were bound to lose. Availing herself of rarely consulted material, Hotta poses essential questions overlooked by historians in the seventy years since: Why did these men - military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor - put their country and its citizens in harm's way? Why did they make a decision that was doomed from the start?
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Japanese viewpoint
- By Jean on 01-01-14
By: Eri Hotta
-
Becoming Hitler
- The Making of a Nazi
- By: Thomas Weber
- Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
In Becoming Hitler, award-winning historian Thomas Weber examines Adolf Hitler's time in Munich between 1918 and 1926, the years when Hitler shed his awkward, feckless persona and transformed himself into a savvy opportunistic political operator who saw himself as Germany's messiah. The story of Hitler's transformation is one of a fateful match between man and city. After opportunistically fluctuating between the ideas of the left and the right, Hitler emerged as an astonishingly flexible leader of Munich's right-wing movement.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
talented malevolence c a dash of amazing luck
- By emilio squillante on 11-05-18
By: Thomas Weber
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Unsurpassed
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mixed feelings on this one.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 321
The Napoleonic Wars saw fighting on an unprecedented scale in Europe and the Americas. It took the wealth of the British Empire, combined with the might of the continental armies, almost two decades to bring down one of the world's greatest military leaders and the empire that he had created. Napoleon's ultimate defeat was to determine the history of Europe for almost 100 years. From the frozen wastelands of Russia, through the brutal fighting in the Peninsula to the blood-soaked battlefield of Waterloo, this book tells the story of the dramatic rise and fall of the Napoleonic Empire.
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2 out of 5 stars
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No description of battles
- By John Gaston on 01-15-21
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The Origins of The Second World War
- By: A.J.P. Taylor
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
From influential British historian A. J. P. Taylor comes the audio edition of The Origins of the Second World War. Controversial for its thesis that Hitler was an opportunist with no thorough plan, The Origins of the Second World War is an extensive exploration of the international politics and foreign policy that led up to the one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dense but very enlightening
- By Hannah C. on 08-07-21
By: A.J.P. Taylor
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On Politics
- A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present
- By: Alan Ryan
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 46 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 14
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Story5 out of 5 stars 14
Both a history and an examination of human thought and behavior spanning three thousand years, On Politics thrillingly traces the origins of political philosophy from the ancient Greeks to Machiavelli in Book I and from Hobbes to the present age in Book II. Whether examining Lord Acton's dictum that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" or explicating John Stuart Mill's contention that it is "better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," Alan Ryan evokes the lives and minds of our greatest thinkers in a way that makes hearing about them a transcendent experience.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simply no book quite like this
- By Jack Raineri on 12-21-22
By: Alan Ryan
What listeners say about Metternich
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
- David Erdody
- 07-10-24
Outstanding in all ways
Excellent writing to narration. Perfect last words for the book by the great arbiter and figure of history
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- PDH
- 04-11-23
Very intensely researched
Remarkably deep view into the details of a remarkable life that had an outsized impact on European history.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- john brimelow
- 07-16-22
Superb and informative
Deeply rooted in freshly accessed sources.
Some phases of history are glaciated by the polemics of the time. Metternich’s career is one.
This book effects a tremendous thaw. All future scholarship will have to contend with it.
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1 person found this helpful
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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
- Fredo
- 10-09-24
wonderful if you love history
Very interesting and detailed. This book gave me a wonderful insight on historical events and the shaping of European nations from an absolute fantastic perspective. Metternick is a fascinating figure and was at incredibly pivotal moments in history. So far ahead of his time that the later mockery of his contemporaries is expected. Well written and excellently performed.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Donald
- 11-21-22
Dull
Reads like a textbook, and somehow takes an interesting statesman living in the most interesting of times, and turns the story into a dull slog.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- JPwns
- 08-04-23
Like listening to your teacher read a textbook
I am several hours in and had to push myself to get this far. Unfortunately I can’t find the motivation to continue, the 14 generations of history and details about his station in life, I’m so bored and none of this is what I was interested in hearing about the icon of “RealPolitik”.
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