The Great Halifax Explosion
A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
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The Great Halifax Explosion
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Narrated by:
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Johnny Heller
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By:
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John U. Bacon
About this listen
From New York Times best-selling author John U. Bacon, a gripping narrative history of the largest manmade detonation prior to Hiroshima: In 1917, a ship laden with the most explosives ever packed on a vessel sailed out of Brooklyn's harbor for the battlegrounds of World War I; when it stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, an extraordinary disaster awaited....
On Monday, December 3, 1917, the French freighter SS Mont-Blanc set sail from Brooklyn carrying the largest cache of explosives ever loaded onto a ship, including 2,300 tons of picric acid, an unstable, poisonous chemical more powerful than TNT. The US had just recently entered World War I, and the ordnance was bound for the battlefields of France to help the Allies break the grueling stalemate that had protracted the fighting for nearly four demoralizing years. The explosives were so dangerous that Captain Aimé Le Medec took unprecedented safety measures, including banning the crew from smoking, lighting matches, or even touching a drop of liquor.
Sailing north, the Mont-Blanc faced deadly danger, enduring a terrifying snowstorm off the coast of Maine and evading stealthy enemy U-boats hunting the waters of the Atlantic. But it was in Nova Scotia that an extraordinary disaster awaited. As the Mont-Blanc waited to dock in Halifax, it was struck by a Norwegian relief ship, the Imo, charging out of port. A small fire on the freighter's deck caused by the impact ignited the explosives below, resulting in a horrific blast that, in 1/15 of a second, leveled 325 acres of Halifax - killing more than 1,000 people and wounding 9,000 more.
In this definitive account, Bacon combines research and eyewitness accounts to re-create the tragedy and its aftermath, including the international effort to rebuild the devastated port city. As he brings to light one of the most dramatic incidents of the 20th century, Bacon explores the long shadow this first "weapon of mass destruction" would cast on the future of nuclear warfare - crucial insights and understanding relevant to us today.
©2017 John U. Bacon (P)2017 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story5 out of 5 stars 32
Their names were Bob Palmer, Gordy Cox, Tim McCoy, and Chuck Vervalin, and in 1941, when they joined the Navy, they were not trying to prove their patriotism - they were just looking for a job that would provide "three hots and a cot". But on April 22, 1943, the war took a terrible turn for them. Their submarine, the USS Grenadier, was torpedoed. Listed as lost in action and given up for dead, all four had in fact miraculously escaped, only to be captured by the Japanese.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Prisoner of War Tale
- By Lynn on 03-20-11
By: Larry Colton
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All the Gallant Men
- An American Sailor's Firsthand Account of Pearl Harbor
- By: Donald Stratton, Ken Gire
- Narrated by: Mike Ortego
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 470
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 436
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 437
An unforgettable and moving story of tragedy, heroism, resilience, and redemption that is sure to become an enduring document of American history, All the Brave Men is a sailor's moment-by-moment eyewitness account of the Japanese surprise attack that decimated the US Pacific Fleet in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and his inspiring return to active duty to carry on the Allied fight in the Pacific.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely wonderful book!
- By Cris Conerty on 01-15-17
By: Donald Stratton, and others
-
The Mathews Men
- Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler's U-boats
- By: William Geroux
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 252
From the author of The Ghost Ships of Archangel, one of the last unheralded heroic stories of World War II: The U-boat assault off the American coast against the men of the US Merchant Marine who were supplying the European war, and one community’s monumental contribution to that effort. Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery - but it sent an unusually large concentration of sea captains to fight in World War II.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Engaging Read Not About Brothers, but Men
- By Gillian on 04-22-16
By: William Geroux
-
Ship Ablaze
- The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum
- By: Edward T. O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
There were few experienced swimmers among over 1,300 Lower East Side residents who boarded the General Slocum on June 15, 1904. It shouldn't have mattered since the steamship was only chartered for a languid excursion from Manhattan to Long Island Sound. But a fire erupted minutes into the trip, forcing hundreds of terrified passengers into the water. By the time the captain found a safe shore for landing, 1,021 had perished. It was New York's deadliest tragedy prior to September 11, 2001.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
I love learning the “rest of the story”
- By Mark Mears on 07-17-18
-
The Storm of the Century
- Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900
- By: Al Roker, William Hogeland
- Narrated by: Byron Wagner
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, 200-mile-per-hour winds and 15-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the prosperous and growing port city on Texas' Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, when the storm had passed, the city that had existed just hours before was gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen: 8,000 corpses littered the streets and were buried under the massive wreckage.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Review of "The Storm of the Century "
- By S. Noe on 09-04-15
By: Al Roker, and others
-
Dark Tide
- The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
- By: Stephen Puleo
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 376
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 327
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 327
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like, "a roaring surf," one of them said later. Like, "a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence," said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window - "Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
INTERESTING STORY - ABOUT 2x TOO LONG
- By The Louligan on 09-07-14
By: Stephen Puleo
-
No Ordinary Joes
- The Extraordinary True Story of Four Submariners in War and Love and Life
- By: Larry Colton
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 32
Their names were Bob Palmer, Gordy Cox, Tim McCoy, and Chuck Vervalin, and in 1941, when they joined the Navy, they were not trying to prove their patriotism - they were just looking for a job that would provide "three hots and a cot". But on April 22, 1943, the war took a terrible turn for them. Their submarine, the USS Grenadier, was torpedoed. Listed as lost in action and given up for dead, all four had in fact miraculously escaped, only to be captured by the Japanese.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Prisoner of War Tale
- By Lynn on 03-20-11
By: Larry Colton
-
Wreck of the Carl D.
- A True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea
- By: Michael Schumacher
- Narrated by: Gary D. MacFadden
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
On November 18, 1958, a 623-foot limestone carrier - caught in one of the most violent storms in Lake Michigan history - broke in two and sank in less than five minutes. Four of the 35-person crew escaped to a small raft, to which they clung in total darkness, braving 30-foot waves and frigid temperatures. As the storm raged on, a search-and-rescue mission hunted for survivors, while the frantic citizens of nearby Rogers City, Michigan, anxiously awaited word of their loved ones' fates.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
A harrowing story of survival and loss
- By Ron T on 03-25-16
-
Midnight in Broad Daylight
- A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds
- By: Pamela Rotner Sakamoto
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 162
After their father's death, Harry, Frank, and Pierce Fukuhara - all born and raised in the Pacific Northwest - moved to Hiroshima, their mother's ancestral home. Eager to go back to his own land - America - Harry returned in the late 1930s. Then came Pearl Harbor. Despite being sent to an internment camp, Harry dutifully volunteered to serve his country. Back in Hiroshima, his brothers, Frank and Pierce, became soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A must listen
- By Jon on 02-01-16
-
Black Snow
- Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb
- By: James M. Scott
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 130
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 107
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 106
Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: "If we lose the war, we'll be tried as war criminals."
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Top notch!
- By anonymous on 10-24-22
By: James M. Scott
-
Dead Wake
- The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 14,017
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12,449
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,426
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Naivety VS Barbarians Of War
- By Sara on 03-05-16
By: Erik Larson
-
The Storm on Our Shores
- One Island, Two Soldiers, and the Forgotten Battle of World War II
- By: Mark Obmascik
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 187
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 166
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 165
The heart-wrenching but ultimately redemptive story of two World War II soldiers - a Japanese surgeon and an American sergeant - during a brutal Alaskan battle in which the sergeant discovers the medic's revelatory and fascinating diary that changed our war-torn society’s perceptions of Japan.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Finished in Two Days
- By Tim on 04-12-19
By: Mark Obmascik
-
Target Tokyo
- Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
- By: James M. Scott
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 20 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,147
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,042
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1,034
The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Vengence is Mine, Thus Sayeth Doolittle
- By Jonathan Love on 06-13-16
By: James M. Scott
-
The Long Way Home
- An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War
- By: David Laskin
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
The United States has always been a nation of immigrants---never more so than in 1917 when the nation entered the First World War. Of the 2.5 million soldiers who fought with U.S. armed forces in the trenches of France and Belgium, some half a million---nearly one out of every five men---were immigrants. In The Long Way Home, David Laskin, author of the prizewinning history The Children's Blizzard, tells the stories of 12 of these immigrant heroes.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Incredible story of immigration and war
- By Daryl on 01-06-14
By: David Laskin
-
An Album of Memories
- Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation
- By: Tom Brokaw
- Narrated by: Tom Brokaw, a full cast
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
In this beautiful American family album of stories from the Greatest Generation, the history of life as it was lived during the Depression and World War II comes alive and is preserved in people’s own words.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A heart touching story
- By Randall on 07-03-16
By: Tom Brokaw
-
First into Nagasaki
- By: George Weller
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 93
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
On September 6, 1945, less than a month after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, George Weller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, became the first free Westerner to enter the devastated city. Going into the hospitals and consulting the doctors of the bomb's victims, Weller was the first to document its unprecedented long-range medical effects. He also became the first to enter the nearby Allied POW camps, which rivaled those of the Nazis for cruelty and bested them for death count.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
First Into Nagasaki
- By Harold on 02-15-07
By: George Weller
-
Dutch Girl
- Audrey Hepburn and World War II
- By: Robert Matzen, Luca Dotti - foreword
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,614
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,303
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,290
Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. According to her son, Luca Dotti, "The war made my mother who she was."
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Good story, poor narration
- By sas on 07-09-19
By: Robert Matzen, and others
-
Brilliant Beacons
- A History of the American Lighthouse
- By: Eric Jay Dolin
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Set against the backdrop of an expanding nation, Brilliant Beacons traces the evolution of America's lighthouse system, highlighting the political, military, and technological battles fought to illuminate the nation's hardscrabble coastlines.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Great book about Lighthouses
- By Anastasia on 04-25-21
By: Eric Jay Dolin
-
Disaster!
- A History of Earthquakes, Floods, Plagues, and Other Catastrophes
- By: John Withington
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 17 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
A comprehensive catalog of the most devastating and deadly events-natural or man-made-in human history. If you follow the news it can seem like injury, sickness, and death are now constant, inescapable occurrences that threaten us every second of every day. But such catastrophic events - as terrible and frightening as they are - have been happening for as long as mankind has walked the Earth.... and even before. From ancient volcanoes and floods to epidemics of cholera and smallpox to Hitler's mass killings in the 20th century, humanity's continued existence has always seemed perilous.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fantastic account of disasters!
- By Gardenstate Reader on 12-30-19
By: John Withington
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On December 6, 1917, two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One ship was loaded top to bottom with munitions and one held relief supplies, both intended for war-torn Europe. The resulting blast flattened two towns, Halifax and Dartmouth, and killed nearly 2,000 people. As if that wasn’t devastating enough, a blizzard hit the next day, dumping more than a foot of snow on the area and paralyzing much-needed relief efforts. Fascinating, edge-of-your-seat storytelling based on original source material conveys this harrowing tale.
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The Hudson’s Bay Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people - from the lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the tundra, the great plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Distracting and Annoying racist tropes
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The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know.
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In this incisive, fast-paced history, New York Times best-selling author Arthur Herman brilliantly reveals how Lenin and Wilson rewrote the rules of modern geopolitics. Through the end of World War I, countries marched into war only to increase or protect their national interests. After World War I, countries began going to war over ideas. Together, Lenin and Wilson unleashed the disruptive ideologies that would sweep the world, from nationalism and globalism to Communism and terrorism, and that continue to shape our world today.
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Another book you wish was part of every university world history curriculum
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In the late nineteenth century, close diplomatic relations existed between the United States and Russia. All that changed when George Kennan went to Siberia in 1885 to investigate the exile system and his eyes were opened to the brutality Russia was wielding to suppress dissent. Over ten months Kennan traveled eight thousand miles, mostly in horse-drawn carriages, sleighs, or on horseback. He endured suffocating sandstorms in the summer and blizzards in the winter. His interviews with convicts and political exiles revealed how Russia ran on the fuel of inflicted pain and fear.
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In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
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yesterday as fresh as today
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The Adventurer's Son
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In the tradition of Into the Wild comes an instant classic of outdoor literature, a riveting work of uncommon depth. I’m planning on doing four days in the jungle.... It should be difficult to get lost forever: These were the haunting last words legendary adventurer Roman Dial received from his son, before the 27-year old disappeared into the jungles of Costa Rica. This is Dial's intensely gripping and deeply moving account of his two-year quest to unravel the mystery of his son's fate.
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Drawn out attempt to avoid quilt.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 234
“AIR RAID, PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT DRILL.” At 7:58 a.m. on December 7, 1941, an officer at the Ford Island Command Center frantically typed what would become one of the most famous radio dispatches in history as the Japanese navy launched a surprise aerial assault on the American navy stationed in Hawaii. In a little over two hours, the Japanese killed more than 2,400 Americans and propelled the US’s entry into World War II. Dead Reckoning is the story of the mission to avenge that devastating strike.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Half Soap Opera, target audience 20 something male
- By Donald L. Hogan on 03-20-21
By: Dick Lehr
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East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 298
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 263
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Story5 out of 5 stars 260
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
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Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,199
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,034
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,027
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
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The Cold War's Killing Fields
- Rethinking the Long Peace
- By: Paul Thomas Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
In this sweeping, deeply researched book, Paul Thomas Chamberlin boldly argues that the Cold War, long viewed as a mostly peaceful, if tense, diplomatic standoff between democracy and communism, was actually a part of a vast, deadly conflict that killed millions on battlegrounds across the postcolonial world. For half a century, as an uneasy peace hung over Europe, ferocious proxy wars raged in the Cold War’s killing fields, resulting in more than 14 million dead - victims who remain largely forgotten and all but lost to history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but Biased
- By Jonathan W Schneider on 08-13-18
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Three Days at the Brink
- FDR’s Daring Gamble to Win World War II
- By: Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney
- Narrated by: Bret Baier
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 613
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 532
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 528
From the number-one best-selling author of Three Days in Moscow and anchor of Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier, a gripping history of the secret meeting that set the stage for victory in World War II - the now-forgotten 1943 Tehran Conference, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin plotted the war's endgame, including the D-Day invasion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A history lesson and SO much more
- By ScottG on 11-18-19
By: Bret Baier, and others
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Midnight in Chernobyl
- By: Adam Higginbotham
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7,762
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 6,798
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Story5 out of 5 stars 6,759
April 25, 1986 in Chernobyl was a turning point in world history. The disaster not only changed the world’s perception of nuclear power and the science that spawned it, but also our understanding of the planet’s delicate ecology. With the images of the abandoned homes and playgrounds beyond the barbed wire of the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, the rusting graveyards of contaminated trucks and helicopters, the farmland lashed with black rain, the event fixed for all time the notion of radiation as an invisible killer.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Midnight in Chernobyl is the book to listen to.
- By NH on 03-21-19
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Challenger
- A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
- By: Adam Higginbotham
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 358
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 329
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Story5 out of 5 stars 329
From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that flows like a thriller.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Even though I have read a lot of books about this disaster. This has been the most comprehensive and enjoyable.
- By Andy on 05-25-24
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A Walk in the Park
- By: Kevin Fedarko
- Narrated by: Kevin Fedarko
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 259
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 234
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 234
A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme. The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was richer, and far more complex, than anything the two men had imagined.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I so wanted to love this book but I just couldn’t.
- By Barbara W. on 05-31-24
By: Kevin Fedarko
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The Guns of August
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,658
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,530
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,508
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-28-08
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The Splendid and the Vile
- A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: John Lee, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 11,879
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 10,170
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 10,091
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next 12 months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally - and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless."
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4 out of 5 stars
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John Lee’s narration is a struggle
- By Leslie Rathjens on 03-05-20
By: Erik Larson
What listeners say about The Great Halifax Explosion
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Johnedoorbell
- 03-27-19
A tragic but also very hopeful book
Excellent research. Riveting Writing/Performance Opens with the foibles and blindness to possible tragedy that all humanity suffers from. Describes in detail how real people dealt with the biggest human made explosion in history up to that point in time. Describes how when everything is gone humans are basically good, caring and wanting to help others. Left me feeling that we still have hope to return to less hateful, polarized times. I'm just praying it doesn't take a terrible tragic event to get us there
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- OtakuLoki
- 10-29-24
A Good, Humane, Account of an Inhumane Tragedy
I found the text to be an excellent grounding to contextualize the events leading up to the explosion, as well as being generous to the majority of those he reported upon.
The biggest question I’d always had about the explosion had been to wonder how Mont Blanc got saddled with sole blame at the two initial legal cases. This book offers an explanation that feels very compelling to me.
The narrator does a great job with the text. I recommend this work to all readers.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 07-05-19
tragedy that brought the US & Canada together
We all learn about the war of 1812 but not what ended the hostility between the US & Canada.
great story
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Customer 99999
- 06-06-24
A well told horrifying story
Like Erik Larsen, the author here captures as best as possible a complex web of causes, effects. and the people caught between them.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 11-04-24
Incredible
Just visited Halifax and wanted to understand more about the explosion. This is an account and very informative. Not a story per se and left me wanting to understand more. What a terrible sad tragedy.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 06-15-24
Best Audible book I have listened to.
I never had heard of this explosion. It was well written and the performance was excellent. I binge listened to it over 3 days time. I wish I had known about this before I went to Halifax about 20 years ago!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Sherri Godsey
- 03-06-24
Touching and Memorable
I had never heard about Halifax. I just listened to another book about how disasters can bring together a “survivalist” community that brings out the best in people and helps them overcome such disasters, and Halifax was mentioned. It peaked my curiosity and I purchased this book. At first I thought it was way too slow, and couldn’t understand why the writer spent so many chapters on Halifax history before ever getting to the explosion incident. However, that background buildup made the event far more poignant and many attitudes more understandable. This ended up being a heartfelt and memorable telling of a terrible tragedy that I feel bad for not having known about. Well worth the listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Pamela L.
- 09-21-20
Informative and interesting
Having visited Halifax a couple of times I found this book to be very informative and appreciated the fine citizens of Canada. Their heroism is to this day very much appreciated.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ella_AZ
- 08-15-19
Unsung heros unearthed amidst overlooked history
Loved this retelling of an all too often forgotten chapter of history that's had ripple effects up to the modern day. This true story uncovered everyday heros who emerged n the middle of one of North America's greatest (and mostly unknown) tragedies.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- BoyMomx3
- 06-16-24
Fascinating Piece of History
I truly enjoyed this audiobook. Like “The Jamestown Flood” and “Under a Flaming Sky”, this book gives a full picture leading up to the event and afterwards. I found the events and characters described fascinating and thought the author’s perspective thought provoking. I would definitely recommend to anyone who loves true history or investigative stories.
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