Vienna

How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World

By: Richard Cockett

Narrated by: Gareth Richards

How can one European capital be responsible for most of the West's intellectual and cultural achievements in the twentieth century?

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens—every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna.

The city of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt was the melting pot at the heart of a vast metropolitan empire. But with the Second World War and the rise of fascism, the dazzling coteries of thinkers who squabbled, debated, and called Vienna home dispersed across the world, where their ideas continued to have profound impact.

Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of this extraordinary story. Tracing Vienna's rich intellectual history from psychoanalysis to Reaganomics, Cockett encompasses everything from the communist rebels of Red Vienna to the neoliberal economists of the Austrian School. This is the panoramic account of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

©2023 Richard Cockett (P)2023 Tantor

worst narration ever. I’d like my money back.

I have hundreds of books from audible and have never complained about a narration before. The substance of the book is good, so good that I decided I would buy the audible version although I thought the narrator might irritate me a bit from the sample I tried. As a student of the period who does speak German and lives part of the year in Vienna I must tell you I can barely continue listening to this recording. The narrator has a strange, affected verbal style. Worse he seems to have done no research on pronunciation of German or Viennese terms. Did the author not have any input on the narrator? “Vine -er Werk-stat” for Wiener Werkstaette was the last straw. If you’re trying to learn about Vienna, please be very careful about repeating names and terms you hear on this recording. This book deserves to be re-recorded and if there was a way to demand my money back, I would do so immediately.

Excellent book. Thorough and well- planned. Terrible narration.

Although the book is excellent, the narration is quite bad. The narrator makes no attempt at correct German pronunciation. This is very distracting as many of the concepts, titles and names of people discussed are German. The narrator not only mispronounces them, but mispronounces them inconsistently. Basic German words, pronounced incorrectly throughout. When would think more care would be given in choosing a narrator for an academic book on Vienna.
Come, come, come come

Interesting but dry account, terrible narration

This book presents an interesting thesis about Vienna’s role over the last century and a half. Conceptually, it is somewhat of an intellectual descendent of Zweig’s The World of Yesterday. However, I did not enjoy the narration of this audiobook. The narrator, who is not the author, has the cheesiest, most nasal and annoying British accent that made listening to this book simply painful for me. I wish they had chosen someone with a more neutral accent.

Great information about the influence of the Austrian diaspora on the time between WWI and WWII and beyond

The way the reader butchers German words and Austrian names is horrible. Even being from Austria, I had a hard time recognizing the names.

Fascinating book! HORRIBLE narration

Love the book - purchased it hard copy in London in April. As a devoted Audible listener I also eagerly purchased the Audio!
Sadly: Worst narrator ever — irritating pacing and inexcusable pronunciation of German words. Totally unacceptable

Inadequate reader!

The content of the book is interesting but the narrator‘s voice and his lack of knowledge of the German language makes it very difficult to enjoy it. Please bring out this book with a voice of someone who actually speaks both languages. It was unbearable to listen to this one.

Impossible to listen to

German names, concepts, and basic words are all mispronounced and twisted. It creates a distorted image of Vienna and I would highly recommend a new recording.

Great book, not so good (mis)pronunciations

History and knowledge, the scholarship and depth of this was quite good very good. In fact, however you probably can see that there are other criticisms of the narration that even this non-German speaker, though having traveled and Red, Vietnam and German literature I know that this man is terribly challenged and his pronunciation of things such as gangsta , etc. he also sometimes inconsistently mispronounces things. He was not a good choice. The publisher should look at having it narrated again by someone else.

Fascinating book, extremely poor narration

This book is so well written with so many insights into 20th century thinking and inventions, but the narrator was the frustratingly wrong choice for this book. The amount of utterly mispronounced German words and names is shocking for a professionally produced audiobook for sale. Even the German word for Vienna (“Wien”) is repeatedly mispronounced by this narrator. In addition, the English parts of this book are read in a stilted, robotic way with awkward emphasis of random words. I highly recommend reading this book but avoid the audiobook.

Great book, poorly narrated.

I've tried to push through and finish this one but I'll just have to buy the book and read it. The content is excellent and I really want to finish, however, I just can't get past the narrator's oddly placed pauses, inflections where they aren't warranted and unfortunately nasally voice. I've never abandoned an ebook, but this is one I can't continue with.