17 Best Jewish, History Books
Jewish, History is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Jewish, History audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 17 Jewish, History audiobooks below.
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Never Alone
- By: Natan Sharansky
- Narrator: Natan Sharansky
- Length: 22 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: September 08, 2020
- Language: English
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4.66(71 ratings)
4.66(71 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.98 USDA classic account of courage, integrity, and most of all, belongingIn 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist in the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested by the KGB. He spentA classic account of courage, integrity, and most of all, belongingIn 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist in the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested by the KGB. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. Every day, Sharansky fought for individual freedom in the face of overt tyranny, a struggle that would come to define the rest of his life.Never Alone reveals how Sharansky’s years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for a very public life after his release. As an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky brought extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising, often uncomfortable, honesty. His story is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, and from his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people.Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man who embraced the essential human struggle: to find his own voice, his own faith, and the people to whom he could belong.... Read more -
The Volunteer
- By: Jack Fairweather
- Narrator: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 25, 2019
- Language: English
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4.34(3493 ratings)
4.34(3493 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDThe incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his daring escape to warn the Allies about the Nazis’ true plans for a “Final Solution.” To uncoverThe incredible true story of a Polish resistance fighter’s infiltration of Auschwitz to sabotage the camp from within, and his daring escape to warn the Allies about the Nazis’ true plans for a “Final Solution.”
To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a young Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: intentionally get captured and transported to the new camp to report back on what was going on there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside–where the Germans would least expect it.
The name of the camp was Auschwitz.
Over the next two and half years, Pilecki forged an underground army within Auschwitz that sabotaged facilities, assassinated Nazi informants and officers, and smuggled out evidence of terrifying abuse and mass murder. But as the annihilation of innocents accelerated, Pilecki realized he would have to attempt another perilous mission: escape Auschwitz and somehow–with more than 900 miles of Nazi-occupied territory in the way–deliver his alert to London before all was lost. . .
Completely erased from the historical record by Poland’s Communist government, Pilecki remains almost unknown to the world. Now, with exclusive access to previously hidden diaries, family and camp survivor accounts and recently declassified files, Jack Fairweather reveals Witold’s exploits with vivid, cinematic bravura. He also uncovers the tragic outcome of Pilecki’s mission, in which the ultimate betrayal came not on the Continent, but England.
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Israel
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrator: Fred Sanders
- Length: 16 hours 19 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 18, 2016
- Language: English
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4.33(1403 ratings)
4.33(1403 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0038.99 USDThe first comprehensive yet accessible history of the state of Israel from its inception to present day, from Daniel Gordis, “one of the most respected Israel analysts” (The Forward) living and writing in Jerusalem. Israel is a tinyThe first comprehensive yet accessible history of the state of Israel from its inception to present day, from Daniel Gordis, “one of the most respected Israel analysts” (The Forward) living and writing in Jerusalem.
Israel is a tiny state, and yet it has captured the world’s attention, aroused its imagination, and lately, been the object of its opprobrium. Why does such a small country speak to so many global concerns? More pressingly: Why does Israel make the decisions it does? And what lies in its future?
We cannot answer these questions until we understand Israel’s people and the questions and conflicts, the hopes and desires, that have animated their conversations and actions. Though Israel’s history is rife with conflict, these conflicts do not fully communicate the spirit of Israel and its people: they give short shrift to the dream that gave birth to the state, and to the vision for the Jewish people that was at its core. Guiding us through the milestones of Israeli history, Gordis relays the drama of the Jewish people’s story and the creation of the state. Clear-eyed and erudite, he illustrates how Israel became a cultural, economic and military powerhouse–but also explains where Israel made grave mistakes and traces the long history of Israel’s deepening isolation.
With Israel, public intellectual Daniel Gordis offers us a brief but thorough account of the cultural, economic, and political history of this complex nation, from its beginnings to the present. Accessible, levelheaded, and rigorous, Israel sheds light on the Israel’s past so we can understand its future. The result is a vivid portrait of a people, and a nation, reborn.
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X Troop
- By: Leah Garrett
- Narrator: John Lee
- Length: 9 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 25, 2021
- Language: English
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4.31(350 ratings)
4.31(350 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDWALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH “This is the¬†incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain‚Äôs most secretive special-forces unit‚Äîbut whose story has gone untold until now.”WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH
“This is the¬†incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain‚Äôs most secretive special-forces unit‚Äîbut whose story has gone untold until now.” ‚ÄîWall Street Journal
“Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees—a top-secret band of brothers—who waged war on Hitler.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and The Liberator
The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now
June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad.
Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.
“Garrett’s detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge.”—Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler’s Furies
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The Art of Inventing Hope
- By: Howard Reich
- Narrator: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 5 hours 55 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.19(139 ratings)
4.19(139 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Art of Inventing Hope offers an unprecedented, in-depth conversation between the world’s most revered Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, and a son of survivors, Howard Reich. During the last four years of Wiesel’s life, he metThe Art of Inventing Hope offers an unprecedented, in-depth conversation between the world’s most revered Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, and a son of survivors, Howard Reich. During the last four years of Wiesel’s life, he met frequently with Reich in New York, Chicago, and Florida–and spoke often on the phone–to discuss the subject that linked them: both Wiesel and Reich’s father, Robert Reich, were liberated from Buchenwald death camp on April 11, 1945. What had started as an interview assignment from the Chicago Tribune quickly evolved into a friendship and a partnership. Reich and Wiesel believed their colloquy represented a unique exchange between two generations deeply affected by a cataclysmic event. Wiesel said to Reich, “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
Here Wiesel–at the end of his life–looks back on his ideas and writings on the Holocaust, synthesizing them in his conversations with Reich. The insights that Wiesel offered and Reich illuminates can help the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors understand their painful inheritance, while inviting everyone else to partake of Wiesel’s wisdom on life, ethics, and morality.
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We Stand Divided
- By: Daniel Gordis
- Narrator: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 10, 2019
- Language: English
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4.17(149 ratings)
4.17(149 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDFrom National Jewish Book Award Winner and author of Israel, a bold reevaluation of the tensions between American and Israeli Jews that reimagines the past, present, and future of Jewish life. Relations between the American Jewish community andFrom National Jewish Book Award Winner and author of Israel, a bold reevaluation of the tensions between American and Israeli Jews that reimagines the past, present, and future of Jewish life.
Relations between the American Jewish community and Israel are at an all-time nadir. Since Israel’s founding seventy years ago, particularly as memory of the Holocaust and of Israel’s early vulnerability has receded, the divide has grown only wider. Most explanations pin the blame on Israel’s handling of its conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s attitude toward non-Orthodox Judaism, and Israel’s dismissive attitude toward American Jews in general. In short, the cause for the rupture is not what Israel is; it’s what Israel does.
These explanations tell only half the story. We Stand Divided examines the history of the troubled relationship, showing that from the outset, the founders of what are now the world’s two largest Jewish communities were responding to different threats and opportunities, and had very different ideas of how to guarantee a Jewish future.
With an even hand, Daniel Gordis takes us beyond the headlines and explains how Israel and America have fundamentally different ideas about issues ranging from democracy and history to religion and identity. He argues that as a first step to healing the breach, the two communities must acknowledge and discuss their profound differences and moral commitments. Only then can they forge a path forward, together.
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Hitler
- By: Brendan Simms
- Narrator: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 29 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.12(227 ratings)
4.12(227 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.98 USDFrom a prize-winning historian, the definitive biography of Adolph HitlerHitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator’s main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s,... Read moreFrom a prize-winning historian, the definitive biography of Adolph HitlerHitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator’s main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary. The war against the Jews was driven both by his anxiety about combatting the supposed forces of international plutocracy and by a broader desire to maintain the domestic cohesion he thought necessary for survival on the international scene.A powerfully argued and utterly definitive account of a murderous tyrant we thought we understood, Hitler is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the origins and outcomes of the Second World War. -
Jews, God, and History
- By: Max I. Dimont
- Narrator: Anna Fields
- Length: 17 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2010
- Language: English
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4.11(884 ratings)
4.11(884 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.95 USDVitality floods its pages. Philosophers and kings, warriors and merchants, poets and financiers come alive as the story ranges across time and the globe. From ancient Palestine through Europe and the Orient, to America and modern Israel, Max DimontVitality floods its pages. Philosophers and kings, warriors and merchants, poets and financiers come alive as the story ranges across time and the globe. From ancient Palestine through Europe and the Orient, to America and modern Israel, Max Dimont shows how the saga of the Jews is interwoven with the history of virtually every nation on earth.
Brilliantly narrated in a thousand and one episodes, this newly revised and updated edition tells the story of a people escaping annihilation and cultural death, fighting, falling back, advancing. Infused with an almost miraculous life force, they have survived the death of civilizations and have triumphantly contributed to man’s spiritual and intellectual heritage for some four thousand years.
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Cursed Victory
- By: Ahron Bregman
- Narrator: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hours 16 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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4.11(114 ratings)
4.11(114 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDIn a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and Sinai Peninsula in 1967’s brief but pivotal Six Day War. Cursed Victory is the first complete history of theIn a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and Sinai Peninsula in 1967’s brief but pivotal Six Day War. Cursed Victory is the first complete history of the war’s troubled aftermath–a military occupation of the Palestinian territories that is now well into its fifth decade.
Drawing on unprecedented access to high-level sources, top secret memos and never-before-published letters, the book provides a gripping and unvarnished chronicle of how what Israel promised would be an “enlightened occupation” quickly turned sour and the anguished diplomatic attempts to bring it to an end. Bregman sheds fresh light on critical moments in the peace process, taking us behind the scenes as decisions about the fate of the territories were made, and more often, as crucial opportunities to resolve the conflict were missed.
As the narrative moves from Jerusalem to New York, Oslo to Beirut, and from the late 1960s to the present day, Cursed Victory provides vivid portraits of the key players in this unfolding drama, including Moshe Dayan, King Hussein of Jordan, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat. Yet Bregman always reminds us how diplomatic and backroom negotiations affected the daily lives of millions of Arabs and how the Palestinian resistance, especially during the first and second intifadas, in turn shaped political developments. As Bregman concludes, the occupation has become a dark stain on Israel’s history and an era when international opinion of the country shifted decisively.
Cursed Victory is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in the region.
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50 Children
- By: Steven Pressman
- Narrator: Robert Fass
- Length: 8 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: April 22, 2014
- Language: English
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4.02(1715 ratings)
4.02(1715 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDBased on the acclaimed HBO documentary, the astonishing true story of how one American couple transported fifty Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Austria to America in 1939–the single largest group of unaccompanied refugee children allowedBased on the acclaimed HBO documentary, the astonishing true story of how one American couple transported fifty Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Austria to America in 1939–the single largest group of unaccompanied refugee children allowed into the United States–for readers of In the Garden of Beasts and A Train in Winter.
In early 1939, America’s rigid immigration laws made it virtually impossible for European Jews to seek safe haven in the United States. As deep-seated anti-Semitism and isolationism gripped much of the country, neither President Roosevelt nor Congress rallied to their aid.
Yet one brave Jewish couple from Philadelphia refused to silently stand by. Risking their own safety, Gilbert Kraus, a successful lawyer, and his stylish wife, Eleanor, traveled to Nazi-controlled Vienna and Berlin to save fifty Jewish children. Steven Pressman brought the Kraus’s rescue mission to life in his acclaimed HBO documentary, 50 Children. In this book, he expands upon the story related in the hour-long film, offering additional historical detail and context to offer a rich, full portrait of this ordinary couple and their extraordinary actions.
Drawing from Eleanor Kraus’s unpublished memoir, rare historical documents, and interviews with more than a dozen of the surviving children, and illustrated with period photographs, archival materials, and memorabilia, 50 Children is a remarkable tale of personal courage and triumphant heroism that offers a fresh, unique insight into a critical period of history.
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I Belong to Vienna
- By: Anna Goldenberg
- Narrator: Christa Lewis
- Length: 5 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: June 09, 2020
- Language: English
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3.97(66 ratings)
3.97(66 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDIn autumn 1942, Anna Goldenberg’s great-grandparents and one of their sons are deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hans, their elder son, survives by hiding in an apartment in the middle of Nazi-controlled Vienna. But this is noIn autumn 1942, Anna Goldenberg’s great-grandparents and one of their sons are deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Hans, their elder son, survives by hiding in an apartment in the middle of Nazi-controlled Vienna. But this is no Anne Frank-like existence; teenage Hans passes time in the municipal library and buys standing-room tickets to the Vienna State Opera. Hans never sees his family again.
Goldenberg reconstructs this unique story in magnificent reportage. She also portrays Vienna’s undying allure–although they tried living in the United States after World War Two, both grandparents eventually returned to the Austrian capital. The author, too, has returned to her native Vienna after studying and working in New York, and her fierce attachment to her birthplace enlivens her engrossing biographical history. This probing tale of heroism, identity, and belonging is marked by a surprising freshness as a new generation comes to terms with history’s darkest era.
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Hitler in Los Angeles
- By: Steven J. Ross
- Narrator: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 14 hours 0 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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3.95(440 ratings)
3.95(440 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDThis is the chilling, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles and the Jewish leaders and spies they recruited who stopped it. No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, the greatestThis is the chilling, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles and the Jewish leaders and spies they recruited who stopped it.
No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine in the world. The Nazis plotted to kill the city’s Jews and to sabotage the nation’s military installations. Plans existed for hanging twenty prominent Hollywood figures such as Al Jolson, Charlie Chaplin, and Samuel Goldwyn; for driving through Boyle Heights and machine-gunning as many Jews as possible; and for blowing up defense installations and seizing munitions from National Guard armories along the Pacific Coast.
US law enforcement agencies were not paying close attention–preferring to monitor Reds rather than Nazis–and only Leon Lewis and his daring ring of spies stood in the way. From 1933 until the end of World War II, attorney Leon Lewis, the man Nazis would come to call “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles,” ran a spy operation comprising military veterans and their wives who infiltrated every Nazi and fascist group in Los Angeles. Often rising to leadership positions, this daring ring of spies uncovered and foiled the Nazis’ disturbing plans for death and destruction.
Featuring a large cast of Nazis, undercover agents, and colorful supporting players, Hitler in Los Angeles, by acclaimed historian Steven J. Ross, tells the story of Lewis’ daring spy network in a time when hate groups had moved from the margins to the mainstream.
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Defiance
- By: Nechama Tec
- Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 10 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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3.91(1526 ratings)
3.91(1526 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0020.95 USDThe prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims. But in fact, many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. This is the riveting history of one such group, a forest community numbering more thanThe prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims. But in fact, many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. This is the riveting history of one such group, a forest community numbering more than 1,200 Jews, that carried out the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Nechama Tec reconstructs the amazing details of how these men and women of all ages—hungry, largely unarmed, and exposed to harsh winter weather—managed not only to survive but to take on the duel role of fighters and rescuers. Under the guidance of their charismatic leader, Tuvia Bielski, they smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, led retaliatory raids against Nazi collaborators, and offered protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them.
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When Paris Went Dark
- By: Ronald C. Rosbottom
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hours 0 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: August 05, 2014
- Language: English
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3.89(1428 ratings)
3.89(1428 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.98 USDThe spellbinding and revealing chronicle of Nazi-occupied Paris. On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie senseThe spellbinding and revealing chronicle of Nazi-occupied Paris.... Read moreOn June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. Subsequently, an eerie sense of normalcy settled over the City of Light. Many Parisians keenly adapted themselves to the situation-even allied themselves with their Nazi overlords.
At the same time, amidst this darkening gloom of German ruthlessness, shortages, and curfews, a resistance arose. Parisians of all stripes — Jews, immigrants, adolescents, communists, rightists, cultural icons such as Colette, de Beauvoir, Camus and Sartre, as well as police officers, teachers, students, and store owners — rallied around a little known French military officer, Charles de Gaulle.
When Paris Went Dark evokes with stunning precision the detail of daily life in a city under occupation, and the brave people who fought against the darkness. Relying on a range of resources — memoirs, diaries, letters, archives, interviews, personal histories, flyers and posters, fiction, photographs, film and historical studies — Rosbottom has forged a groundbreaking book that will forever influence how we understand those dark years in the City of Light.
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The Pity of War
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrator: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 21 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: June 23, 2020
- Language: English
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3.86(2346 ratings)
3.86(2346 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War IThe Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England’s fault. According to Niall Ferguson, EnglandFrom a bestselling historian, a daringly revisionist history of World War I
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The Pity of War makes a simple and provocative argument: the human atrocity known as the Great War was entirely England’s fault. According to Niall Ferguson, England entered into war based on naive assumptions of German aims, thereby transforming a Continental conflict into a world war, which it then badly mishandled, necessitating American involvement. The war was not inevitable, Ferguson argues, but rather was the result of the mistaken decisions of individuals who would later claim to have been in the grip of huge impersonal forces.
That the war was wicked, horrific, and inhuman is memorialized in part by the poetry of men like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, but also by cold statistics. Indeed, more British soldiers were killed in the first day of the Battle of the Somme than Americans in the Vietnam War. And yet, as Ferguson writes, while the war itself was a disastrous folly, the great majority of men who fought it did so with little reluctance and with some enthusiasm. For anyone wanting to understand why wars are fought, why men are willing to fight them and why the world is as it is today, there is no sharper or more stimulating guide than Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War. -
Hitler and the Holocaust
- By: Robert S. Wistrich
- Narrator: Robert S. Wistrich
- Length: 9 hours 8 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: February 24, 2008
- Language: English
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3.76(196 ratings)
3.76(196 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDFor over 50 years scholars and philosophers alike have attempted to make some sense of the Third Reich and its “Final Solution” campaign. Historian Robert Wistrich takes listeners on a guided tour through the death camps and meticulouslyFor over 50 years scholars and philosophers alike have attempted to make some sense of the Third Reich and its “Final Solution” campaign. Historian Robert Wistrich takes listeners on a guided tour through the death camps and meticulously details the events that led to this horrific tragedy and the lasting repercussions it had on the world community.
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Their Promised Land
- By: Ian Buruma
- Narrator: Ian Buruma
- Length: 7 hours 24 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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3.54(190 ratings)
3.54(190 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA family history of surpassing beauty and power, Their Promised Land is Ian Buruma’s account of his grandparents’ enduring love through the terror and separation of two world wars. During the almost six years England was at war with NaziA family history of surpassing beauty and power, Their Promised Land is Ian Buruma’s account of his grandparents’ enduring love through the terror and separation of two world wars.
During the almost six years England was at war with Nazi Germany, Winifred and Bernard Schlesinger, Ian Buruma’s grandparents, were, like so many others, thoroughly sundered from each other. Their only recourse was to write letters back and forth. And write they did, often every day. In a way they were just picking up where they left off in 1918, at the end of the war that swept Bernard away to some of Europe’s bloodiest battlefields. The thousands of letters between them were part of an inheritance that ultimately came into the hands of their grandson, Ian Buruma. Now, in a labor of love that is also a powerful act of artistic creation, Ian Buruma has woven his own voice in with theirs to provide the context and counterpoint necessary to bring to life their remarkable marriage, a class, and an age.
Winifred and Bernard inherited the high European cultural ideals and attitudes that came of being born into prosperous German-Jewish emigre families. To young Ian, who would visit from Holland every Christmas, they seemed the very essence of England, their spacious Berkshire estate the model of genteel English country life at its most pleasant and refined. It wasn’t until years later that he discovered how much more there was to the story.
At its heart, Their Promised Land is the story of cultural assimilation. The Schlesingers were very British in the way their relatives in Germany were very German, until Hitler destroyed that option. The problems of being Jewish and facing anti-Semitism even in the country they loved were met with a kind of stoic discretion. But they showed solidarity when it mattered most. As the shadows of war lengthened again, the Schlesingers mounted a remarkable effort, which Ian Buruma describes movingly, to rescue twelve Jewish children from the Nazis and see to their upkeep in England.
Many are the books that do bad marriages justice; precious few take readers inside a good marriage. In Their Promised Land, Buruma has done just that, introducing us to a couple whose love was sustaining through the darkest hours of the century.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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