Thunder at Twilight

Vienna 1913/1914

By: Frederic Morton

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Thunder at Twilight is a landmark historical vision, drawing on hitherto untapped sources to illuminate two crucial years in the life of the extraordinary city of Vienna - and in the life of the 20th century.

It was during the carnival of 1913 that a young Stalin arrived in Vienna on a mission that would launch him into the upper echelon of Russian revolutionaries, and it was here that he first collided with Trotsky. It was in Vienna that the failed artist Adolf Hitler kept daubing watercolors and spouting tirades at fellow drifters in a flophouse. Here, Archduke Franz Ferdinand had a troubled audience with Emperor Franz Joseph - and soon the bullet that killed the archduke would set off the Great War that would kill 10 million more.

With luminous prose that has twice made him a finalist for the National Book Award, Frederic Morton evokes the opulent, elegant, incomparable sunset metropolis - Vienna on the brink of cataclysm.

©2014 Frederic Morton (P)2015 Random House Audio

Very good

I like Frederic Morton's writing very much. I lived and worked in Vienna Austria. He describes the information and ambiance with skill.

Don

Excellent detail surrounding the events in Hapsburg Vienna and Sarajevo before the Guns of August 1914 were unleashed.

great era great book great narrator

Vienna during an 18-month period, 1913-1914, political and high-cultural history. excellent description and analysis.

Very well written

The way the author writes this book is quite amazing. He brings the reader right to the spot where events happened and right into the hearts and minds of the historical figures. It is the closest experience one can get other than living through the time period himself. This book became a perfect supplement to my recent trip to Vienna. Highly recommended!

A classic

Great story of Vienna and the mood that led to world war 1. Excellent reading

Excellent story but mediocre performance

I've read all Morton's books and have thoroughly enjoyed the way he weaves interesting, some not well known details into the history. His knowledge and love of Vienna is clearly evident, perhaps not surprising since his family were long-time residents before having to flee after the Anschluss.

What makes this audiobook a bit of a challenge is the narrator: his voice is almost always highly pitched and overexcited sounding, as if each line is the climax to an entire section. Becomes irritating after a short while. Also, his German pronunciation is annoyingly Anglicized. I'm not fluent but can distinguish mispronounced words and phrases; he would have been well advised to have done some brushing up before making the recording.