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Savage Continent
- Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Second World War might have officially ended in May 1945, but in reality it rumbled on for another 10 years....
The end of the Second World War in Europe is one of the 20th century's most iconic moments. It is fondly remembered as a time when cheering crowds filled the streets, danced, drank and made love until the small hours. These images of victory and celebration are so strong in our minds that the period of anarchy and civil war that followed has been forgotten.
Across Europe, landscapes had been ravaged, entire cities razed and more than thirty million people had been killed in the war. The institutions that we now take for granted-such as the police, the media, transport, local and national government-were either entirely absent or hopelessly compromised. Crime rates were soaring, economies collapsing, and the European population was hovering on the brink of starvation.
In Savage Continent, Keith Lowe describes a continent still racked by violence, where large sections of the population had yet to accept that the war was over. Individuals, communities and sometimes whole nations sought vengeance for the wrongs that had been done to them during the war. Germans and collaborators everywhere were rounded up, tormented and summarily executed. Concentration camps were reopened and filled with new victims who were tortured and starved. Violent anti-Semitism was reborn, sparking murders and new pogroms across Europe. Massacres were an integral part of the chaos and in some places-particularly Greece, Yugoslavia and Poland, as well as parts of Italy and France - they led to brutal civil wars. In some of the greatest acts of ethnic cleansing the world has ever seen, tens of millions were expelled from their ancestral homelands, often with the implicit blessing of the Allied authorities.
Savage Continent is the story of post WWII Europe, in all its ugly detail, from the end of the war right up until the establishment of an uneasy stability across Europe toward the end of the 1940s. Based principally on primary sources from a dozen countries, Savage Continent is a frightening and thrilling chronicle of a world gone mad, the standard history of post WWII Europe for years to come.
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Why?
- Explaining the Holocaust
- By: Peter Hayes
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite the outpouring of books, movies, museums, memorials, and courses devoted to the Holocaust, a coherent explanation of why such ghastly carnage erupted from the heart of civilized Europe in the 20th century still seems elusive even 70 years later. Numerous theories have sprouted in an attempt to console ourselves and to point the blame in emotionally satisfying directions - yet none of them are fully convincing.
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Outstanding book! A must read
- By Pierre on 11-13-21
By: Peter Hayes
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Black Earth
- The Holocaust as History and Warning
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first. Based on untapped sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors, Black Earth recounts the mass murder of the Jews as an event that is still close to us, more comprehensible than we would like to think and thus all the more terrifying.
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Tough book but worth it!
- By Amazon customer on 11-20-15
By: Timothy Snyder
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The Korean War
- A History
- By: Bruce Cumings
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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In sobering detail, The Korean War chronicles a US home front agitated by Joseph McCarthy, where absolutist conformity discouraged open inquiry and citizen dissent. Cumings incisively ties our current foreign policy back to Korea: an America with hundreds of permanent military bases abroad, a large standing army, and a permanent national security state at home, the ultimate result of a judicious and limited policy of containment evolving into an ongoing and seemingly endless global crusade.
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A real eye-opener
- By Bookworm on 10-09-19
By: Bruce Cumings
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Operation Nemesis
- The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide
- By: Eric Bogosian
- Narrated by: Eric Bogosian
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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In 1921 a small group of self-appointed patriots set out to avenge the deaths of almost one million victims of the Armenian Genocide. They named their operation Nemesis after the Greek goddess of retribution. Over several years the men tracked down and assassinated former Turkish leaders. The story of this secret operation has never been fully told until now.
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Avenging Turkish Denial with Reason
- By PKsweets on 05-12-15
By: Eric Bogosian
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One Long Night
- A Global History of Concentration Camps
- By: Andrea Pitzer
- Narrated by: Andrea Pitzer
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
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For over 100 years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the 21st century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own solemn promise of "never again".
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Important subject. Horrible narration.
- By wmorrison on 07-04-19
By: Andrea Pitzer
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The Third Reich in History and Memory
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
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In the 70 years since the demise of the Third Reich, there has been a significant transformation in the ways in which the modern world understands Nazism. In this brilliant and eye-opening collection, Richard J. Evans offers a critical commentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in recent years. Drawing on his most notable writings, Evans reveals the shifting perspectives on Nazism's rise to political power, its economic intricacies, and its subterranean extension into postwar Germany.
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Word Nazi
- By David Erdody on 10-18-24
By: Richard J. Evans
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Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War
- By: Robin Yassin-Kassab, Leila Al-Shami
- Narrated by: Fergus Nicoll
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Burning Country explores the complicated reality of life in present-day Syria with unprecedented detail and sophistication, drawing on new first-hand testimonies from opposition fighters, exiles lost in an archipelago of refugee camps, and courageous human rights activists. Yassin-Kassab and Al-Shami expertly interweave these stories with an incisive analysis of the militarization of the uprising, the rise of the Islamists and sectarian warfare, and the role of Syria’s government in exacerbating the brutalization of the conflict.
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Definitive Account of the Syrian Revolution
- By Theo Horesh on 06-07-18
By: Robin Yassin-Kassab, and others
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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- By: Ilan Pappe
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred, and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing."
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Crucial for understanding Israel-Palestine today
- By Mark on 12-27-18
By: Ilan Pappe
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Moral Combat
- Good and Evil in World War II
- By: Michael Burleigh
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 26 hrs and 22 mins
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In this sweepingly ambitious overview of World War II, Michael Burleigh combines meticulous scholarship with a remarkable depth of knowledge and an astonishing scope. By exploring the moral sentiments of entire societies and their leaders and how such attitudes changed under the impact of total war, Burleigh presents listeners with a fresh and powerful perspective on a conflict that continues to shape world politics.
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terror
- By Ed on 02-12-12
By: Michael Burleigh
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No Simple Victory
- World War II in Europe, 1939-1945
- By: Norman Davies
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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If history really belongs to the victor, what happens when there's more than one side declaring victory? That's the conundrum Norman Davies unravels in his groundbreaking book No Simple Victory. Far from being a revisionist history, No Simple Victory instead offers a clear-eyed reappraisal, untangling and setting right the disparate claims made by America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in order to get at the startling truth.
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The Best Account of WWII in Europe
- By Nikoli Gogol on 12-27-07
By: Norman Davies
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Weimar Culture
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Engaging book, terrible narrator
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What listeners say about Savage Continent
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- Steve Pennock
- 01-07-15
A story that needed to be told
Very well researched, balanced, insightful, clearly told. Describes the anarchy throughout Europe in the years after the war and before there was a Marshall plan. Explores the many facets of chaos and destruction that occurred after the official end of hostilities, and explains the complexities of the situation without bogging down. Illuminates a very dark period that has been all but forgot but which has implications for today.
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- Dean
- 01-04-15
war within a war after a war
Any additional comments?
I have read many books about WWII and this book was very direct in reminding us how personal every "global conflict" is. no war is only between countries or ideologies, it is between people, and affects people. This book was very moving for me as my God-Mother is from Dresden and has many times made comments that this helps bring perspective to. Thank you K Lowe.
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- Simone
- 11-01-13
“Savage” is an understatement!
When WW2 ended, it wasn’t as if a switch was flipped and everyone in Europe went back to their old lives; the place was decimated!! We’ve all seen images of bombed-out cities; the hollow, barely recognizable shells of buildings stretching for miles and miles… multiply that by tens or hundreds of cities all across Europe – where are all the people! What did all the displaced peoples do? Where did they go? How did they rebuild?
This concept always intrigued me and I was happy to come across a book that explored it all in detail.
The first part of the book grabbed me right away, but by the time I was roughly half way through it was getting difficult to keep going. All the death and slaughter and annihilation and destruction, the worst of human nature in the need to seek revenge and retribution… it’s such a downer!!
I was not expecting rainbows and cheerful stories of communities who lived happily ever after, but after a while it was like my brain did not want to take in any more negativity or brutality and I started tuning out. I also found that the intricacies of all the sub-wars going on in Europe until well into the late 40s hard to follow – after a while I got confused and lost track of the details.
What I should have done is put the book aside at the mid-point, go read something else (something “fluffy”) and then come back to it.
I recommend this book if you are interested in the subject matter, but perhaps it’s better to read it in instalments!
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- Kindle Customer
- 09-15-16
eye opening
I was expecting history of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, particularly right after the war. Rather I got a full depth history of West & East political fortunes and misfortunes.
I learned alot..well worth it.
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- VTMan
- 03-09-24
Harrowing but illuminating story of post WWII Europe
A must read to understand past and current geopolitical realities in Europe and globally. Not for the faint of heart
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- Jaroslaw
- 08-19-13
I don't cry but this book made me
Eastern Poland was my home until collage years, as kids we find unused ammunition quite often, once whole 9 yards of anti aircraft bullets. What took place there during my parents generation is so horrible, so unimaginable and yet somehow real. I see this book as mirror reflection of humanity, it was not meteor or volcano but people like us living couple hundred kilometers away first east then west who came and destroy pretty much everybody and everything. Can we even comprehend today what really took place then? One quick story, after socialism collapsed in '89 on of our neighbor was finally recognized for being in resistance after war, he was one one of those partisans, he get some medals and government pension. He absolutely deserve it, it was also a common knowledge he shot and kill a 14 years old boy who came with polish army and stationed with them helping around horses, reason? he was Russian, lost every member of his family and just followed whoever did not deny him piece of bread.
One shortcoming of this book is just that, too short. Author scratch surface but he did not take sides or have hidden agenda. I honestly cry couple times and choke in almost every paragraph. I only hope future politician reads it now and learns about human nature a thing or two and as result we all will have peaceful future. Personal Thank you Mr Keith Lowe.
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- David
- 07-12-15
Another Top Shelf Reference
I have never adequately studied the immediate ww2 era and this helped greatly. To the same purpose 'Iron Curtain' is another work I recommend.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Beecher Bailey
- 12-06-17
Must read for understanding 20th century Europe
Very sobering but an important account of how man's inhumanity to man continued after WWII ended.
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- Charlie D.
- 03-24-16
War is not over when it's over....
if there's something to be learned from this book is that war is definitely not the way to end a dispute, and that the winners can be losers too.
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- Jeff Lacy
- 07-20-19
Excellent account of aftermath of WWII in Europe
As in his other narrative work, John Lee does an adequate job here. The only gripe I have is that every time he tries to read in the dialect of the character, he always sounds Polish. His German is Polish, his Italian is Polish, even his Frenchman is Polish. (My advice: Just stop it John. You already have a weird delivery; don’t compound it.) Yet his American dialect is good. He does a good Eisenhower.
As to the book, it is a superb account of the last years and immediate aftermath of WWII in Europe. Lowe disabuses the traditional view that WWII ended in Europe when Germany surrendered in May 1945. He maintains that this only ended one aspect of the fighting. Fierce conflicts raged over the continent over race, nationality, and politics for month and years.
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