Classical history, that most venerable of subjects, is most effectively narrated by British voices, the more cultivated the better. Mark Elstob fills that requirement with grace and precision, and with a composure that keeps the bloodier elements of ancient geopolitics at a comfortable distance. In historian and novelist Goldsworthy's history of the ancient West's most powerful rivals, he finds his thread in the expanse of time and geography covered, rather than in any strict timeline or chain of events. Ancient Persia is lesser known to most listeners, which gives this title a special interest, along with the excellent narration. Unmistakable, too, and profoundly moving, is the frequency with which so many of these ancient points of conflict reappear on the map of today's outbreaks.
Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
Duration: 20 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781549135422
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
WORLD | MILITARY | HISTORY | GENERAL HISTORY | ANCIENT
Author/narrator William Dalrymple shares his fascination with the remarkable history of India's profound worldwide intellectual influence. His idiosyncratic and charming British speech and manner, along with his amiability and intelligence, are engaging throughout. His pacing and phrasing are natural, unaffected, and dictated by the material. He varies longish pauses--which allow the listener to absorb the sometimes complex details--with shorter sentences expressing excitement. His emphasis and shading of words, and his occasional deeply felt reactions, mirror the sense of the text and, therefore, illuminate it. The clear, unpretentious narration that takes the listener through this wide-ranging story of the spread of Indian religion, art, philosophy, mathematics, and science makes for an educational pleasure.
Pub Date: April 29, 2025
Duration: 13 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781639734689
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Narrator Julian Elfer has undertaken many daunting subjects: the pharmacist of Auschwitz, the Borgias, lost expeditions to the Greenland ice cap. Here, he faces down the challenge of a 300-year generational narrative in which all the principals are named either Ptolemy or Cleopatra. At the early death of Alexander, Ptolemy, his shrewdest commander, took the grandest prize: Egypt. Ptolemaic rule ended dramatically three centuries later with the suicide of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE. Those familiar events are compressed here; the focus instead is on the skill and sagacity of Ptolemaic rule over Egypt--for example in honoring Egyptian gods and rituals, and introducing Macedonian agricultural methods to Egyptian farming. This superbly written and expertly performed narrative illuminates one of history's anomalies--and one of its high points.
Pub Date: April 8, 2025
Duration: 11 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781696619202
Publisher: HighBridge Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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