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Rasputin
- Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs
- Narrated by: PJ Ochlan
- Length: 33 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
On the centenary of the death of Rasputin comes a definitive biography that will dramatically change our understanding of this fascinating figure.
A hundred years after his murder, Rasputin continues to excite the popular imagination as the personification of evil. Numerous biographies, novels, and films recount his mysterious rise to power as Nicholas and Alexandra's confidant and the guardian of the sickly heir to the Russian throne. His debauchery and sinister political influence are the stuff of legend, and the downfall of the Romanov dynasty was laid at his feet.
But as the prizewinning historian Douglas Smith shows, the true story of Rasputin's life and death has remained shrouded in myth. A major new work that combines probing scholarship and powerful storytelling, Rasputin separates fact from fiction to reveal the real life of one of history's most alluring figures. Drawing on a wealth of forgotten documents from archives in seven countries, Smith presents Rasputin in all his complexity - man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. Rasputin is not just a definitive biography of an extraordinary and legendary man, but a fascinating portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.
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It is not narrated well - the delivery does not keep it as captivating as this book should be
- By Karina Inigo on 07-14-15
By: David I. Kertzer
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Stalin
- The Court of the Red Tsar
- By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Jonathan Aris
- Length: 27 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research, brilliant synthesis and narrative élan, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the life and lives of Stalin’s court from the time of his acclamation as “leader” in 1929, five years after Lenin’s death, until his own death in 1953 at the age of 73. Through the lens of personality - Stalin’s as well as those of his most notorious henchmen, Molotov, Beria and Yezhov among them - the author sheds new light on the oligarchy that attempted to create a new world by exterminating the old.
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Stalinist Tyranny
- By Kindle Customer on 12-28-19
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The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
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Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
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Bonhoeffer
- Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
- By: Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, Eric Metaxas
- Length: 23 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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As Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seduced a nation, bullied a continent, and attempted to exterminate the Jews of Europe, a small number of dissidents and saboteurs worked to dismantle the Third Reich from the inside. One of these was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and author. In this New York Times bestselling biography, Eric Metaxas takes both strands of Bonhoeffer's life—the theologian and the spy—and draws them together to tell a searing story of incredible moral courage in the face of monstrous evil.
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Mandatory Reading
- By cmb on 03-10-20
By: Eric Metaxas, and others
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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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Performance
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Story
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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Lenin totally took an extra piece of that cake.
- By John Gathly on 05-14-19
By: Victor Sebestyen
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The Miracle Detective
- An Investigative Reporter Sets Out to Examine How the Catholic Church Investigates Holy Visions and Discovers His Own Faith
- By: Randall Sullivan
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
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In a tiny, dilapidated trailer in northeastern Oregon, a young woman saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in an ordinary landscape painting hanging on her bedroom wall. After being met with skepticism from the local parish, the matter was officially placed "under investigation" by the Catholic diocese. Investigative journalist Randall Sullivan wanted to know how, exactly, one might conduct the official inquiry into such an incident, so he set off to interview theologians, historians, and postulators.
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Fascinating book on the study of miracles
- By H Walsh on 11-16-15
By: Randall Sullivan
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Secret Lives of the Tsars
- Three Centuries of Autocracy, Debauchery, Betrayal, Murder, and Madness from Romanov Russia
- By: Michael Farquhar
- Narrated by: Enn Reitel
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
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Scandal! Intrigue! Cossacks! Here the world’s most engaging royal historian chronicles the world’s most fascinating imperial dynasty: the Romanovs, whose three-hundred-year reign was remarkable for its shocking violence, spectacular excess, and unimaginable venality. In this incredibly entertaining history, Michael Farquhar collects the best, most captivating true tales of Romanov iniquity.
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A good introduction to the Romanovs
- By Daniel Burgon on 07-14-14
By: Michael Farquhar
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They Were Christians
- The Inspiring Faith of Men and Women Who Changed the World
- By: Cristobal Krusen
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
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What do Abraham Lincoln, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Louis Pasteur, Frederick Douglass, Florence Nightingale, and John D. Rockefeller, Sr., all have in common? They all changed the world - and they were all Christians. Now the little-known stories of faith behind 12 influential people of history are available in one inspiring volume. They Were Christians reveals the faith-filled motivations behind some of the most outstanding political, scientific, and humanitarian contributions of history.
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Great book
- By Amazon Customer on 12-10-18
By: Cristobal Krusen
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The Empire Must Die
- Russia's Revolutionary Collapse, 1900 - 1917
- By: Mikhail Zygar
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 22 hrs and 9 mins
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The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. Novelists and playwrights blossomed and political ideas were swapped in coffee houses.
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An excellent look at an interesting history.
- By brian on 06-22-18
By: Mikhail Zygar
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Stalin's Daughter
- The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
- By: Rosemary Sullivan
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins
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The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.
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Insightful and thoroughly researched
- By Jean on 06-16-15
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Peter the Great
- His Life and World
- By: Robert K. Massie
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 43 hrs and 38 mins
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Overall
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This superbly told story brings to life one of the most remarkable rulers––and men––in all of history and conveys the drama of his life and world. The Russia of Peter's birth was very different from the Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped. Crowned co-Tsar as a child of ten, after witnessing bloody uprisings in the streets of Moscow, he would grow up propelled by an unquenchable curiosity, everywhere looking, asking, tinkering, and learning, fired by Western ideas.
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Narrater ruins everything
- By BrendaLouQuilts on 12-30-11
By: Robert K. Massie
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Seven Women
- And the Secret of Their Greatness
- By: Eric Metaxas
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 7 hrs
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In his eagerly anticipated follow-up to the enormously successful Seven Men, New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas gives us seven captivating portraits of some of history's greatest women, all of whom changed the course of history by following God's call upon their lives - as women.
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A Different Kind of Inspiring
- By Samuel Hudnet on 09-11-15
By: Eric Metaxas
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What listeners say about Rasputin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JShak
- 01-24-18
Important work, but unreflected
The endeavor of adjusting historical records after the release of new data is of great value and in itself historic. I appreciated the book, although on some occasions the lack of introspection and reflection of the author's own biases became very annoying and almost prevented me from listening on. Likewise and probably fueled by the unreflected nature of the author, source criticism is missing sometimes entirely. Perhaps the research and the writing of the book constituted a journey for the author himself, as he appears very critical of his subject in the beginning, whereas in the end he is heralding the image of the real Rasputin. Because the book is important in what it attempts to do the lack of reflection on the part of the author hurts the value of the entire book as it makes it easy for critics to dismiss the entire work.
For the narrator, who appears to be familiar with the Russian pronunciation for each and every name, but for Rasputin, which he pronounces in the American way. Some of the arrogance and expressions of unreflectedness especially in the beginning of the book may have been emphasized by how the narrator is reading.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jeff Wise
- 07-06-17
Good, but longer than it needed to be.
This is a very well researched and explained book, but there are about 35 chapters in the middle that get repetitive to the point of exhaustion. The author used his source material well, and didn't let any of it go unmentioned. I really appreciated the way he cut through the myth, and explained the man.
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1 person found this helpful
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- D. K. Parshall
- 12-21-16
The Rascal Rasputin
This is a very intense and emotional story about one of the most dubious characters in history. A deluded person this Rasputin and who was able to mislead so many others.
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3 people found this helpful
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- LEIGHANN FOLEY
- 06-29-24
very good read/listen but.....
overall it was a great read, something I've listened to numerous times, however, as remarked previously from other reviews, you can get lost with all the references to Russian names.
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- CRISTINA C.
- 11-28-18
Well documented life of Rasputin.
This is the story of Rasputin base on historic testimonies and documents. Many aspects of his life are unveiled and full of unknown anecdotes displayed along his life. Is the most interesting version I known about the life of this very strange and opportunist personage.
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- Lynn C.
- 01-10-18
Lots of information!
This is a very long book. It could be very confusing because there are so characters and situations.
I had learned about Rasputin while on a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia. It really intrigued me.
Perseverance paid off. I found things falling into place and enjoyed the experience very much.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-02-24
Comprehensive!
The great amount of detail and how the mythology of Rasputin was created, used and manipulated by his enemies and followers.
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- James
- 01-27-18
A story that deserves a better narrator.
Pity poor Douglas Smith, he has written a master work of Revisionist History and Revisionist Biography only to have it gainsaid by one of the worst readings ever inflicted on a book.
The actual book is solid, a retelling of the Rasputin narrative using newly found and sometimes ignored sources. Forget the Mad Monk and meet the real man, a symptom of the collapse of the Tsarist Autocracy, but not its cause. Forget the tawdry stories of aristocratic lasciviousness and see the more tawdry exploits with ladies for hire. Explore the rot at the very top of the Russian nation and abject failure of the monarchy to adjust to modernity. It's a great story... ruined.
And the man who ruined it is right between your ears. It's not just the flat, uninspired monotone of the delivery, it's also the actual voice as well. It's high, poorly modulated, yet droning. The pacing is bad, really bad, almost unbearable.
I can not tally the times I had to rewind the performance because my mind drifted off, or worse--fell asleep. Part of the issue here was the complexity of the personalities, and their Russian names, but most of problem is directly related to the presentation.
That presentation rarely rises to level of mediocrity, and mostly plumbs the depths of poor to God-awful. The voice when not grating, is stultifying and sing-song. There is not emotional moment in the narrative, or a heart-rending quote from a participant that is not totally flubbed. It's as if the production was rushed, or telephoned in. The presenter is an alien presence in the narrative. To call it a robotic performance is an insult to both Alexa and Siri would might have done a better job of it.
For the TL;DR crowd, buy the print book, skip the audiobook. Audible needs to pink-slip this particular reader; pronto.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Chris D. Stevenson
- 11-28-19
Mesmerizing
I remember being fascinated by this wild monk from Siberia in school. The book was well researched and riveting - particularly hearing accounts of Rasputin's eyes/hypnotic persona.
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- NetBoss
- 01-09-17
Slooooow narrator
Ran it at 1.5x to achieve a relatively normal pace. I have never heard a narrator this slow.
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4 people found this helpful