The Making of Modern Britain
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The Making of Modern Britain
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Narrated by:
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David Timson
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By:
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Andrew Marr
About this listen
In The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the 20th century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire.
Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and surprising. As the political forum moved from Edwardian smoking rooms to an increasingly democratic Westminster, the people of Britain experimented with extreme ideas as they struggled to answer the question 'how should we live?' Socialism? Fascism? Feminism?
Meanwhile, fads such as eugenics, vegetarianism and nudism were gripping the nation, and the popularity of the music hall soared. It was also a time that witnessed the birth of the media as we know it today and the beginnings of the welfare state.
Beyond trenches, flappers and Spitfires, this is a story of strange cults and economic madness, of revolutionaries and heroic inventors, sexual experiments and raucous stage heroines. From organic food to drugs, nightclubs and celebrities to package holidays, crooked bankers to sleazy politicians, the echoes of today's Britain ring from almost every chapter.
©2016 Andrew Marr (P)2016 Macmillan Digital AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 123
Best-selling author Winston Groom tells the complex story of how Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin - the three iconic and vastly different Allied leaders - aligned to win World War II and created a new world order.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read
- By Kindle Customer on 05-26-19
By: Winston Groom
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1946
- The Making of the Modern World
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 103
In 1946, Victor Sebestyen creates a taut, panoramic narrative and takes us to meetings that changed the world: to Berlin in July 1945, when Truman tells Stalin that we have successfully tested the bomb; to Ye'nan, China, in January 1946, when General George Marshall tells the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong that Americans won't send troops to China, assuring that the Communists will attain power.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An education. Somber, detailed, many-faceted
- By Philo on 08-20-16
By: Victor Sebestyen
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To End All Wars
- A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 464
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 382
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 376
World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A story of personalities
- By Tad Davis on 06-09-11
By: Adam Hochschild
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Churchill
- Walking with Destiny
- By: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 50 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 4,493
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,990
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3,973
When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman, and leader can finally be fully understood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superb Biography
- By Jean on 03-03-19
By: Andrew Roberts
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Citizens of London
- The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour
- By: Lynne Olson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,589
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,198
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,206
Here is the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and John Gilbert Winant. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and a reluctant American public to support the British at a critical time.
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4 out of 5 stars
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If we are together nothing is impossible
- By Susan on 03-06-10
By: Lynne Olson
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Crucible
- The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917-1924
- By: Charles Emmerson
- Narrated by: Charles Emmerson
- Length: 25 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
In Petrograd, a fire is lit. The Tsar is packed off to Siberia. A rancorous Russian exile returns to proclaim a workers' revolution. In America, black soldiers who have served their country in Europe demand their rights at home. An Austrian war veteran trained by the German army to give rousing speeches against the Bolshevik peril begins to rail against the Jews. A solar eclipse turns a former patent clerk into a celebrity. An American reporter living the high life in Paris searches out a new literary style.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Splendid in all respects
- By Paul Custer on 02-11-20
By: Charles Emmerson
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Bitter Freedom
- Ireland in a Revolutionary World
- By: Maurice Walsh
- Narrated by: Michael Healy
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
The Irish Revolution has long been mythologized in American culture but seldom understood. For too long the story of Irish independence and its aftermath has been told only within an Anglo-Irish context. Now, in the critically acclaimed Bitter Freedom, journalist Maurice Walsh, with "a novelist's eye for the illuminating detail of everyday lives in extremis" ( Prospect), places revolutionary Ireland in the panorama of the global disorder born of the terrible slaughter of World War I and provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human face of the conflict.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Helpful for Irish Americans
- By Matthew Tozer on 04-12-17
By: Maurice Walsh
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Lenin
- The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
- By: Victor Sebestyen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 583
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 498
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 485
Drawing on new research, including the diaries, memoirs, and personal letters of both Lenin and his friends, Victor Sebestyen's unique biography - the first in English in nearly two decades - is not only a political examination of one of the most important historical figures of the 20th century but a portrait of Lenin the man. Unexpectedly, Lenin was someone who loved nature, hunting, and fishing and could identify hundreds of species of plants, a despotic ruler whose closest ties and friendships were with women.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
- By John Gathly on 05-14-19
By: Victor Sebestyen
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Gandhi & Churchill
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 748
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 513
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 516
In this fast-paced epic, best-selling historian and master storyteller Arthur Herman spotlights two giants of the 20th century. Gandhi & Churchill shows how their 40-year rivalry revolutionized India and the British Empire, paving the way for a new era. Gandhi championed India's independence, Churchill the British Empire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A motif that works well
- By Maine Dave on 11-30-09
By: Arthur Herman
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April 1945
- The Hinge of History
- By: Craig Shirley
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
Acclaimed historian and New York Times best-selling author Craig Shirley delivers a compelling account of 1945, particularly the watershed events in the month of April, that details how America emerged from World War II as a leading superpower.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing.
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-22
By: Craig Shirley
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Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
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The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume I: Visions of Glory 1874-1932
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,654
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,152
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2,146
Winston Churchill is perhaps the most important political figure of the 20th century. His great oratory and leadership during the Second World War were only part of his huge breadth of experience and achievement. Studying his life is a fascinating way to imbibe the history of his era and gain insight into key events that have shaped our time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superb - Review of Both Volume I & Volume II
- By Wolfpacker on 01-23-09
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Lenin on the Train
- By: Catherine Merridale
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
In April 1917, as Tsar Nicholas II's abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was far away, exiled in Zurich. To lead the revolt, Lenin needed to return to Petrograd immediately. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia's adversaries and betraying his homeland.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Deteriorates into Unhinged Lenin-Bashing
- By Ike Nahem on 03-18-19
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The General
- Charles De Gaulle and the France He Saved
- By: Jonathan Fenby
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 28 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 76
No leader of modern times was more uniquely patriotic than Charles de Gaulle. As founder and first president of the Fifth Republic, General de Gaulle saw himself as "carrying France on [his] shoulders." In his 20s, he fought for France in the trenches and at the epic battle of Verdun. In the 1930s, he waged a lonely battle to enable France to better resist Hitler's Germany. Thereafter, he twice rescued the nation from defeat and decline by extraordinary displays of leadership, political acumen, daring, and bluff, heading off civil war and leaving a heritage adopted by his successors of right and left.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Book Great Read. Narrator Horrible-slow dead voice
- By marigoyle on 10-23-13
By: Jonathan Fenby
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Year Zero
- A History of 1945
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Year Zero is a landmark reckoning with the greatdrama that ensued after war came to an end in 1945. One world had ended and anew, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come across Asia and all of continental Europe. It was the greatest global powervacuum in history, and out of the often vicious power struggles thatensued emerged the modern world as we know it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great historical overview
- By marykk on 10-14-13
By: Ian Buruma