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The Shortest History of War
- From Hunter-Gatherers to Nuclear Superpowers—A Retelling for Our Times
- Narrated by: Gareth Richards
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
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The Shortest History of War
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Publisher's summary
War has always been a defining feature of human society. This new addition to the Shortest History series explains why we do it—and how we can stop.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has punctured the longest stretch of peace between major powers since WWII, bringing the horrors of warfare—past, present, and future—to the forefront of listeners' minds. In The Shortest History of War, internationally acclaimed historian Gwynne Dyer adds urgently needed context.
Dyer ably charts the evolution of violent conflict: tribal aggression, classical combat, limited war, total war, and cold war-followed by present-day terrorism, nuclear threats, and the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). His brilliant, brisk history is a harrowing must-listen for all who wonder: How will rival superpowers with unprecedented weapons shape the future of our interconnected world?
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Speaking the un-speakable
- By Jonathan Gardner on 09-27-10
By: John Mosier
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American Heritage History of World War II
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose, C. L. Sulzberger
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story5 out of 5 stars 102
In planes and foxholes, in deserts and jungles, on ships and beaches, Ambrose shines a light on the people involved - the leaders, the fighters, the victims. With chapters on the atrocities of the Holocaust and revelations about the secret war of espionage, Ambrose's analysis also offers insight into the events that precipitated the Cold War.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent overview of WWII
- By Laura Kernen on 11-15-18
By: Stephen E. Ambrose, and others
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Carnage and Culture
- Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power
- By: Victor Davis Hanson
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 297
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 265
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Story5 out of 5 stars 264
Examining nine landmark battles from ancient to modern times - from Salamis, where outnumbered Greeks devastated the slave army of Xerxes, to Cortes' conquest of Mexico to the Tet offensive - Victor Davis Hanson explains why the armies of the West have been the most lethal and effective of any fighting forces in the world. Looking beyond popular explanations such as geography or superior technology, Hanson argues that it is in fact Western culture and values which have consistently produced superior arms and soldiers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow! This truly is a great book. A rarity!
- By GEJ on 11-12-19
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World War Two
- A Short History
- By: Norman Stone
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
After the unprecedented destruction of the Great War, the world longed for a lasting peace. The victors, however, valued vengeance even more than stability and demanded a massive indemnity from Germany in order to keep it from rearming. The results, as eminent historian Norman Stone describes in this authoritative history, were disastrous. In World War Two, Stone provides a remarkably concise account of the deadliest war of human history, showing how the conflict roared to life from the ashes of World War One.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great primer before taking on the big tomes.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-18
By: Norman Stone
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History of Germany
- A Captivating Guide to German History, Starting from 1871 through the First World War, Weimar Republic, and World War II to the Present
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Germany is one of the richest and most influential countries in the world, which is amazing when you consider that the nation is only about the size of the US states of Oregon and Washington combined. It’s even more astounding when you consider that at the end of World War II, every major German city (and many minor ones) had been flattened by the Allied bombing campaign. Still more amazing is that the country has gone from international pariah and home of the Holocaust to one of the most well-regarded and humanitarian nations on Earth.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Concise
- By J Stewart on 04-09-24
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A History of Warfare
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 19 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 339
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 213
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Story4 out of 5 stars 209
Starting with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies over the course of more than two thousand years. Following the progress of human aggression in its full historical sweep, from the strangely ritualistic combat of Stone Age peoples to the warfare of mass destruction in the present age, his illuminating and lively narrative gives us all the world's great warrior cultures.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not what I expected
- By Mark on 12-05-06
By: John Keegan
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The Second World Wars
- How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won
- By: Victor Davis Hanson
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,367
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,209
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,207
The Second World Wars examines how combat unfolded in the air, at sea, and on land to show how distinct conflicts among disparate combatants coalesced into one interconnected global war. Drawing on 3,000 years of military history, Victor Davis Hanson argues that despite its novel industrial barbarity, neither the war's origins nor its geography were unusual. Nor was its ultimate outcome surprising. The Axis powers were well prepared to win limited border conflicts, but once they blundered into global war, they had no hope of victory.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The story behind the story of WW 2
- By LARRY DINKIN on 02-07-19
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The End Is Always Near
- Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses
- By: Dan Carlin
- Narrated by: Dan Carlin
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 10,188
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 8,975
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 8,922
In The End Is Always Near, Dan Carlin looks at questions and historical events that force us to consider what sounds like fantasy; that we might suffer the same fate that all previous eras did. Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore? The questions themselves are both philosophical and like something out of The Twilight Zone.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hardcore Histories Greatest Hits
- By Steven Glover on 10-31-19
By: Dan Carlin
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War: How Conflict Shaped Us
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 225
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 183
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Story4 out of 5 stars 181
Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control?
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2 out of 5 stars
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Horrible choice of narrator derails this book
- By Steve Winnett on 02-25-21
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The Second Sino-Japanese War
- A Captivating Guide to Military Conflict That Began Between China and Japan, Including Events Such as the Japanese Invasion of Manchuria and the Nanjing Massacre
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 15
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 13
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Story5 out of 5 stars 13
Many people in the West look upon the Second Sino-Japanese War, which took place in the 1930s and 1940s, as a sort of sideshow to the larger Second World War, but there is no separating the two. Imagine the Pacific War, the theater of World War II that took place in the Pacific. If the Japanese were not busy fighting on another front, they would have had millions of more troops available to fight the Americans and the British. In all likelihood, World War II would have ended the same way, but it would have taken much longer and cost that many more lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A good summary of Japan leading up to WW2
- By M Maurer on 11-18-21
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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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Overall4 out of 5 stars 525
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 296
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 291
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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5 out of 5 stars
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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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The New Rules of War
- Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder
- By: Sean McFate
- Narrated by: Joe Knezevich
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 787
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 673
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 669
What is the future of war? How can we survive? If Americans are drawn into major armed conflict, can we win? McFate calls upon the legends of military study Carl von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and others, as well as his own experience, and carefully constructs the new rules for the future of military engagement, the ways we can fight and win in an age of entropy: one where corporations, mercenaries, and rogue states have more power and ‘nation states’ have less.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Refutes Himself Repeatedly...And Never Notices
- By Brian on 01-06-21
By: Sean McFate
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The Storm of War
- A New History of the Second World War
- By: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: Christian Rodska
- Length: 28 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,284
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,107
The Second World War lasted for 2,174 days, cost $1.5 trillion, and claimed the lives of more than 50 million people. Why did the Axis lose? And could they, with a different strategy, have won? Andrew Roberts's acclaimed new history has been hailed as the finest single-volume account of this epic conflict. From the western front to North Africa, from the Baltic to the Far East, he tells the story of the war - the grand strategy and the individual experience, the cruelty and the heroism - as never before.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A very interesting book with some shortcomings.
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-24-11
By: Andrew Roberts
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Hubris
- The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 143
Sir Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than 50 years, and in this wise and masterly work he revisits six battles of the past century and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and geopolitical goals of aggressors and defenders to reveal the one trait that links them all: hubris.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I Never Heard W ll Explained this Way!
- By John on 09-01-16
By: Alistair Horne
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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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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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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5 out of 5 stars
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A real eye-opener
- By Bookworm on 10-09-19
By: Bruce Cumings
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