Just how much a successful audiobook depends on the match of voice to text is demonstrated by Arthur Morey’s excellent rendering of Hochschild’s history of individual Britons’ response to WWI. Initially, Morey may seem too mellow a voice for a military history, but Hochschild looks at loyalists as well as opponents to the war, and Morey wisely lets their words and the author’s speak for themselves. Even those who know the history of The Great War will feel the anger and heartache build here. Best known as the author of KING LEOPOLD’S GHOSTS, the most damning of all books on the evils of European imperialism in Africa, Hochschild is an impressive historian and prose stylist. He requires, and gets in Morey, a narrator who measures feeling with restraint and can articulate every word clearly at the author’s own pace. Hochschild focuses on individuals, but this is a book that encompasses the whole history of the war, its origins, and its awful toil.
Pub Date: May 4, 2011
Duration: 17 hrs
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
GENERAL HISTORY | WORLD | MILITARY | HISTORY
A fresh look at Europe’s long, contentious history.
Hearing all of European history compressed into 14 hours could be comparable to seeing Earth from outer space. Everything is familiar, yet wondrous and new. Even those familiar with the history will find this audiobook to be a unique listening experience. Actor and narrator Alisdair Simpson is a familiar voice from dozens of British documentaries, and his performance here is highly polished, exacting, and attuned to every word. History compressed becomes history clarified. Drama is lost—the Huns, Charlemagne, the fall of Constantinople, all here and gone in a minute. At the same time, patterns emerge. Simpson’s flawless voice carries listeners effortlessly into a wider and more timeless perspective.
A fresh look at Europe’s long, contentious history.Pub Date: yesterday
Duration: 14 hrs, 10 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668656204
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
Buruma’s subtle and effective narration style is essential to this chronicle.
Bard College historian Buruma has a personal link to WWII-era Berliners, his Dutch father having been a forced laborer in wartime Berlin. Buruma’s account highlights instances of the survival and rescue of Jews and of the Berlin residents who came forward to assist them. But of most Berliners, he says, “Their main aim was to stay out of trouble.” Buruma’s performance as both historian and narrator is a model of restraint and reliance on fact. He shapes a powerful narrative around Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad and year-by-year shifts in civilian morale. As deprivation and disillusion with the Nazi regime set in, the struggle for survival extended to all Berliners.
Buruma’s subtle and effective narration style is essential to this chronicle.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
Duration: 12 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217282210
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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