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Audiobooks Narrated by James Cameron Stewart
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"The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the 'neglected half-millennium' now known as late antiquity was crucial to the development of modern Europe and the Middle East. In Journeys of the Mind, Brown recounts his life and work, describing his efforts to recapture the spirit of an age. As he and other scholars opened up the history of the classical world in its last centuries to the wider world of Eurasia and northern Africa, they discovered previously overlooked areas of religious and cultural creativity as well as foundational institution-building.
Documenting both his own intellectual development and the emergence of a new influential field of study, Brown describes his childhood and education in Ireland, his university and academic training in England, and his extensive travels. He discusses fruitful interactions with the work of scholars and colleagues and offers fascinating snapshots of such far-flung places as colonial Sudan, midcentury Oxford, and prerevolutionary Iran. With Journeys of the Mind, Brown offers an essential account of the 'grand endeavor' to reimagine a decisive historical moment."
"Celebration is in the air at Wrexford and Charlotte's country estate as they host the nuptials of their friends. But the festivities are interrupted when the local authorities arrive with news that a murdered man has been discovered at the bridge over King's Crossing, his only identification an invitation to the wedding. Lady Cordelia is horrified when the victim is identified as Jasper Milton, her childhood friend and a brilliant engineer who is rumored to have discovered a revolutionary innovation in bridge design. That he had the invitation meant for her cousin Oliver, who never showed up for the wedding, stirs a number of unsettling questions. Both men were involved in a scientific group dedicated to making radical improvements in transportation. Is someone plotting to steal Milton's designs? And why has her cousin disappeared?
Wrexford and Charlotte were looking forward to spending a peaceful interlude in the country, but when Lady Cordelia resolves to solve the mystery, they offer their help, along with that of the Weasels and their inner circle of friends. The investigation turns tangled and soon all of them are caught up in a treacherous web of greed, ambition, and dangerous secrets. And when the trail takes a shocking turn, Wrexford and Charlotte must decide what risks they are willing to take with their family to bring the villains to justice . . ."
"What happens to a composer when persecution and exile means their true music no longer has an audience?
In the 1930s, composers and musicians began to flee Hitler's Germany to make new lives across the globe. The process of exile was complex: although some of their works were celebrated, these composers had lost their familiar cultures and were forced to navigate xenophobia as well as entirely different creative terrain. Others, far less fortunate, were in a kind of internal exile—composing under a ruthless dictatorship or in concentration camps and ghettos.
Michael Haas sensitively records the experiences of this musical diaspora. Torn between cultures and traditions, these composers produced music that synthesized old and new worlds, some becoming core portions of today's repertoire, some relegated to the desk drawer. Encompassing the musicians interned as enemy aliens in the United Kingdom, the brilliant Hollywood compositions of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the Brecht-inspired theater music of Kurt Weill, Haas shows how these musicians shaped the twentieth-century soundscape—and offers a moving record of the incalculable effects of war on culture."
"The ancient philosopher Diogenes—nicknamed 'The Dog' and decried by Plato as a 'Socrates gone mad'—was widely praised and idealized as much as he was mocked and vilified. A favorite subject of sculptors and painters since the Renaissance, his notoriety is equally due to his eccentric behavior, scorn of conventions, and biting aphorisms, and to the role he played in the creation of the Cynic school, which flourished from the 4th century B.C. to the Christian era. Jean-Manuel Roubineau paints a new portrait of an atypical philosopher whose life left an indelible mark on the Western collective imagination and whose philosophy courses through various schools of thought well beyond antiquity.
Roubineau sifts through the many legends and apocryphal stories that surround the life of Diogenes. Was he a counterfeiter? Did he meet Alexander the Great? Was he an apologist for incest, patricide, and anthropophagy? How did he actually die? Roubineau retraces the known facts of Diogenes' existence.
Beyond the rehashed clichés, this book inspires us to rediscover Diogenes' philosophical legacy—whether it be the challenge to the established order, the detachment from materialism, the choice of a return to nature, or the formulation of a cosmopolitan ideal strongly rooted in the belief that virtue is better revealed in action than in theory."
"Winter 1953. Beneath a pitch-black Leningrad sky, two bodies lie near the towering statue of Lenin outside the Finland Station. 'Nothing sinister, here, just a simple hit and run,' an officer in the MGB secret police assures militia detective Revol Rossel. Now he knows it's murder.
Only recently released from a brutal Siberian labour camp and determined to find his missing sister at last, Rossel wants nothing to do with this new case. But his alcoholic, broken superior officer, Captain Liphukin, seizes upon it as his salvation – a last chance to be a true Soviet hero.
Along with sharp-witted Sergeant Lidia Gerashvili, and Major Nikitin, the interrogator who once cut off Rossel's fingers, Rossel sets off on the trail of a murderer whose crimes surpass those of even the deranged tsar Ivan the Terrible. A trail leading to a dark, hidden episode in Bolshevik history filled with unspeakable horrors.
There is only one eyewitness – Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, whose giant right hand stretches out towards the frozen River Neva. Lenin, Rossel thinks, seems to be pointing at someone. But who?"
"Part of his trilogy on Scottish history, T. M. Devine's To the Ends of the Earth is a compelling account of the Scots as a 'global people,' charting their forgotten role in the building of the modern world.
The Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women, and children sought their fortunes in every part of the globe, from the British Empire to the United States, in cities and on prairie farms, as traders, bankers, missionaries, soldiers, politicians, and engineers. With To the Ends of the Earth T. M. Devine—acclaimed author of The Scottish Nation and Scotland's Empire—puts this extraordinary epic center stage in Scottish history, cutting through myth and sentiment surrounding stories such as the Highland Clearances and the Enlightenment to show the true impact of Scottish emigration on the world, and on the nation it left behind."
"A sensational, interdisciplinary work which entirely reorients our understanding of Europe from 10,000 BC to the time of the Vikings
In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly favored in facing many seas. These seas, and Europe's great transpeninsular rivers, ensured a rich diversity of natural resources while also encouraging the dynamic interaction of peoples across networks of communication and exchange. The development of these early Europeans is rooted in complex interplays, shifting balances, and geographic and demographic fluidity.
Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and history, Cunliffe has produced an interdisciplinary tour de force. His is a bold book of exceptional scholarship, erudite and engaging, and it heralds an entirely new understanding of Old Europe."
"A guidebook for leaders to create value from sustainability and organizational performance.
In The Adventure of Sustainable Performance, the authors share their many years of experience serving clients and driving performance as the world transitions to a net zero carbon future. A future that uses resources sustainably and that seeks social justice. Through storytelling and interviews from many international leaders in business and sustainability, and by anchoring practical advice with evidence and truth, you will find: the avalanche of new regulations and changes to the compliance landscape; the opportunity for value creation beyond compliance box ticking; inspirational stories on how ambitions can be reset; a destination that supports ongoing prosperity for humanity from sustainable performance models; how purpose driven brands generate superior value; the role of 'Total Value Systems' as we move from shareholder to stakeholder capitalism models; the relationship between sustainability, talent, and customer attraction; and how digital will play an increasingly important role as the world pivots in response to the climate crisis.
Perfect for executives, managers, directors, and other business leaders, The Adventure of Sustainable Performance is an actionable guidebook for the implementation of value-add sustainability programs."
"Responding to an urgent plea from a troubled family friend, the Earl of Wrexford journeys to Oxford only to find the reclusive university librarian has been murdered and a rare manuscript has gone missing. The only clue is that someone overheard an argument in which Wrexford's name was mentioned.
At the same time, Charlotte—working under her pen name, A. J. Quill—must determine whether a laboratory fire was arson and if it's connected to the race between competing consortiums to build a new type of ship—one that can cross the ocean powered by steam rather than sails—with the potential to revolutionize military power and world commerce. That the race involves new innovations in finance and entrepreneurship only adds to the high stakes—especially as their good friend Kit Sheffield may be an investor in one of the competitors.
As they delve deeper into the baffling clues, Wrexford and Charlotte begin to realize that things are not what they seem. An evil conspiracy is lurking in the shadows and threatens all they hold dear—unless they can tie the loose threads together before it's too late . . ."
"For many business professionals, the daily 'to-do' list is hard enough to stay on top of, let alone coming up with the 'big ideas' necessary to take their company—or a whole economy—to the next level. But if coming up with those ideas—or finding startups that do—is your job, then The Zero Transaction Cost Entrepreneur is an absolute must-listen for you.
In this book Dermot Berkery shares the key ingredient successful businesses have in common: Smart transaction cost economics. Simply put, these businesses lower or eliminate transaction costs for their customers. Here's just one of the real-world examples you'll find within: Blockbuster Video scored big by making movies easily available to rent; that's a reduction in a transactional cost. Netflix then removed another transaction cost—a trip to the store—sending DVDs through the mail. They tackled other transaction costs—limited choice and wasted time—by moving to streaming.
In this book, you'll discover how transaction cost economics can work for you, in chapters that include: Why Do Other People Come Up with All the Brilliant Ideas?; The 8 Major Categories of Transaction Costs; Makers of Products Need to Transform them into Services; Why Are Transaction Costs Falling Rapidly Right Now?; and The Trifecta of Accelerators: Idle Assets, the IoT, and Marginal Cost Pricing."
"Hadrian's Wall is the largest and one of the most enigmatic historical monuments in Britain. Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running seventy-three miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least twenty-six miles down the Cumbrian coast. Many of its forts are as large as Britain's most formidable medieval castles, and the wide ditch dug to the south of the Wall, the vallum, is larger than any surviving prehistoric earthwork.
Built in a ten-year period by more than thirty thousand soldiers and laborers at the behest of an extraordinary emperor, the Wall consisted of more than twenty-four million stones, giving it a mass greater than all the Egyptian pyramids put together. At least a million people visit Hadrian's Wall each year, and it has been designated a World Heritage Site.
In this book, based on literary and historical sources as well as the latest archaeological research, Alistair Moffat considers who built the Wall, how it was built, why it was built, and how it affected the native peoples who lived in its mighty shadow. The result is a unique and fascinating insight into one of the wonders of the ancient world."
