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Worlds at War
- The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
The relationship between East and West has always been one of turmoil. In this historical tour de force, a renowned historian leads us from the world of classical antiquity, through the Dark Ages, to the Crusades, Europe's resurgence, and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire, which almost shattered Europe entirely. Pagden travels from Napoleon in Egypt to Europe's carving up of the finally moribund Ottomans - creating the modern Middle East along the way - and on to the present struggles in Iraq.
Throughout, we learn a tremendous amount about what "East" and "West" were and are, and how it has always been competing worldviews and psychologies, more than religion or power grabs, that have fed the mistrust and violence between East and West. In Pagden's dark but provocative view, this struggle cannot help but go on.
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The Islamic Enlightenment
- The Struggle Between Faith and Reason: 1798 to Modern Times
- By: Christopher de Bellaigue
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the 19th and early 20th centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy.
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fascinating story not told.elsewhere in one place
- By Joseph Sullivan on 11-30-21
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Empires of Trust
- How Rome Built - and America Is Building - a New World
- By: Thomas F. Madden
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In Empires of Trust, Professor Thomas F. Madden explores surprising parallels between the Roman and American republics. By making friends of enemies and demonstrating a commitment to fairness, the two republics - both "reluctant" yet unquestioned super-powers - built empires based on trust. Madden also includes vital lessons from the Roman Republic's 100-year struggle with "terrorism."
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Bork, Reagan, and Honest of Rome
- By Nelson Alexander on 12-20-08
By: Thomas F. Madden
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In God's Path
- The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire
- By: Robert G. Hoyland
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.
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Islamic conquest history from the outside
- By SAMA on 01-22-15
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Ancient Rome
- By: Thomas R. Martin
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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With commanding skill, Thomas R. Martin tells the remarkable and dramatic story of how a tiny, poor, and threatened settlement grew to become, during its height, the dominant power in the Mediterranean world for 500 years. Encompassing the period from Rome's founding in the eighth century BC through Justinian's rule in the sixth century AD, he offers a distinctive perspective on the Romans and their civilization by employing fundamental Roman values as a lens through which to view both their rise and spectacular fall.
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Great review and understanding of Christianity
- By David on 12-08-20
By: Thomas R. Martin
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Alexander the Great
- The Hunt for a New Past
- By: Paul Cartledge
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Cartledge, one of the world's foremost scholars of ancient Greece, illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander (356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, and founder of a new world order. Alexander's legacy has had a major impact on military tacticians, scholars, statesmen, adventurers, authors, and filmmakers.
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NOT a Chronology of Alexander’s Life
- By Blane Richoux on 12-30-20
By: Paul Cartledge
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The Bright Ages
- A New History of Medieval Europe
- By: Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The word medieval conjures images of the “Dark Ages”. But the myth of darkness obscures the truth; this was a remarkable period in human history. The Bright Ages recasts the European Middle Ages for what it was, capturing this 1,000-year era in all its complexity and fundamental humanity, bringing to light both its beauty and its horrors. The Bright Ages takes us through 10 centuries and crisscrosses Europe and the Mediterranean, Asia, and Africa, revisiting familiar people and events with new light cast upon them.
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Does exactly what it claims to clarify
- By Aaron Rapozo on 12-13-21
By: Matthew Gabriele, and others
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Thermopylae
- By: Paul Cartledge
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In 480 B.C., a huge Persian army, led by the inimitable King Xerxes, entered the mountain pass of Thermopylae to march on Greece, intending to conquer the land with little difficulty. But the Greeks, led by King Leonidas and a small army of Spartans, took the battle to the Persians at Thermopylae and halted their advance: almost. It is one of history's most acclaimed battles, one of civilization's greatest last stands.
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Requires full attention
- By Euryleia on 01-18-08
By: Paul Cartledge
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Ancient Greece, Second Edition
- From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times
- By: Thomas R. Martin
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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In this compact yet comprehensive history of ancient Greece, Thomas R. Martin brings alive Greek civilization from its Stone Age roots to the fourth century BC. Focusing on the development of the Greek city-state and the society, culture, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age, Martin integrates political, military, social, and cultural history in a book that will appeal to students and general audiences alike. Now in its second edition, this classic work now features updates throughout.
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Just the way I like it!
- By TracyB on 07-25-18
By: Thomas R. Martin
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Cambridge professor and renowned historian Anthony Pagden covers a vast subject in a compact package with Peoples and Empires. This wide-ranging and intellectually stimulating work examines the origins and history of the West with terse, efficient prose. With a captivating narration by Robert O'Keefe, listeners will find this work enjoyable and utterly absorbing.
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A Biography "too tall for the height of the cella"
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For more than two millennia, Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world, perched at the very tip of Europe, gazing across the shores of Asia. The history of this city - known as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul - is at once glorious, outsized, and astounding. Founded by the Greeks, its location blessed it as a center for trade but also made it a target of every empire in history, from Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire, to the Romans and later the Ottomans.
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A History Without People
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Empires of the Normans
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Empire of the Normans tells the extraordinary story of how the descendants of Viking marauders in northern France came to dominate European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern politics. It is a tale of ambitious adventures and fierce pirates, of fortunes made and fortunes lost. Across the generations, the Normans made their influence felt across Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and even to the Holy Land, with a combination of military might, political savvy, deeply held religious beliefs, and a profound sense of their own destiny.
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disappointing
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What listeners say about Worlds at War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mrlimmer
- 02-17-16
A Devastating, Deep, and Dreadful Truth
This book had not been recommended to me; I chose it as a lark, a way to use my credit this month to explore a more general, broad-strokes assessment of historical conflict. What I found when I had finished the piece a day and a half later was a chilling, accurate, and altogether revolutionary look at the conflict between east and west trough history, and how they have shaped and altered so much. The tensions herein approached are spilling over once more into the conflict of our days, and any who look at the invasion of Iraq, or other, similar endeavors, as altogether favorable, must reassess their values and heir hopes.
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- Silvia Ohana
- 07-18-18
A MASTERPIECE
Pagden's outstanding work! One of the greatest history books - even for those who don't like history - you'd be surprised by the amount of knowledge gained. A MASTERPIECE, this book is a treasure!
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Overall
- Duff
- 06-06-09
Excellent historical survey
This is a hugely worthwhile survey of east-west relationships if, like me, you didn't specialize in "Oriental Studies". This seemed a balanced political history overall. Gigantic chucks of information are jettisoned in any history; more so one encompassing 2,500 years. Of the periods and traditions I've studied, I can attest that the author covered most well enough to maintain the narrative without sacrificing too much detail. There's nothing about the Viking expansion into the region, and the Russians get short shrift. Never mind. Pagden did a brilliant job at constructing a fascinating, coherent, and challenging essay on the ties and fractures in euro-asian relationships.
I had just finished this a day before President Obama's Cairo speech. Pagden's history and analysis gave me background enough to hear nuances I would have never heard.
Oh, and the narration is excellent as well.
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Ilinca
- 05-03-11
Great book, to be taken with a grain of salt
Sure, the author's viewpoint is militantly secular. That's why it's so very funny to read comments urging him to go to "the source", i.e. the Bible.
For anyone not offended by secularism, it's a great book, extremely well read, with just a few issues that one must take with a grain of salt: his implied definition of what is East/West, his attachment to certain cultures at the expense of others (Russia and China, some have argued), and a sometimes strained polarization of the two notions. But it is all in all a great discussion of history; it can only do you good :)
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5 people found this helpful
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- Mark P.
- 09-26-12
An excellent introduction
Any additional comments?
The author provides a clear history of the clash of civilizations, east versus west. It would be impossible to cover all of the detail for such a lengthy timeline, and the author provides just the right amount to keep the listener interested in what comes next. Of greater value is the perspective provided as to the motivations of the various conflicts. These underpinnings are often lost in history books that merely recite facts and dates, yet it is imperative to understand them if one is to comprehend contemporary affairs. I'd strongly recommend this to anyone who is interested in gaining a wider understanding of the current conflict between western nations and the middle east.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Wilg Flanders
- 10-25-15
Informative not great
Learned a lot re historical interaction of cultures of Europe and Mideast, particularly religion, wars, politics...though audio book not great for absorbing unfamiliar person and place names. A main point is that Muslim conflict in current times is based on version of Islam that does not separate church and state, while "West" does separate. Note that book's notion of East and West excludes anybody not within 1000 miles of the Mediterranean, except a few mentions of the US towards the end. Excludes most of Asia, Africa, the Americas, Oceania.
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- Johnny B. Muir
- 10-25-17
An Excellent Subset of Political History
Pagden's work is an extraordinary overview of a significant subset of Earth's political history. I wish had I had consumed it as required reading early in my life.
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- Greg
- 06-15-12
Sometimes hard to follow but then so is history
Any additional comments?
This is a long and complex story that is told in a long and complex way. Pagden didn't have me in mind when he was writing it I'm sure; if he did he would have used smaller words. To really understand it the way it is written would take a masters of English but never the less it's a good story and I'm glad I pushed through.... twice. Just keep a dictionary at hand if you're a literary nuffer like me.
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- Mountain Lady
- 07-26-22
a must read for history buffs
clarifies the history of the divisions between the cultures and religions of the East and West and how they are affecting current politics
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- Gary
- 06-12-14
Four legs good, two legs bad
The author's make-believe take on the East excludes India, barely mentioned, and China and Japan, mentioned even less. By the East he means the Persian Empire and the Islamic middle east. He has a fantasy that the history of the world can be described by the "battle line drawn" between Europe and the East over 2300 years ago.
The author is never at a wont for describing the East in generic negative terms. I'll bet he referred to directly or quoted others that the East is "feminine" more than 10 times. What does it mean when a culture is feminine? He never tells me, but he clearly uses that as a negative trait. Besides, why would it be bad for a culture to be feminine or good if it were masculine? The East, according to him (or the ones he quotes favorably) are lover of boys and are disordered and not for liberty. Even when he talks about the advances made under Islamic civilizations during the West's dark ages, he just dismisses them by saying since they were ruled by such disordered leaders there indigenous populations got to flourish because they were poorly led and got to be themselves because of the poor leadership, whatever.
Western Civilization History is usually told by looking within and very little of the between is told. The author does tell the story by focusing only on the between providing the listener with insights into the development of the West which is not usually told in such great detail in survey of history books. That's the feature of the book I liked and it's why I tolerated the author's comic book characterizations of the "East", but in the end his characterizations of Persia and Islam sounded like the pigs in Animal farm repeating a mantra over and over that "four legs good, two legs bad" or in his case "Western Christians good, East Muslim bad".
Life is too short to read books that have such an obvious silly take on world history and I would recommend a good book on World History instead such as "The History of the World" by Roberts instead of this comic book characterization.
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