by Hannah Arendt ; Read by Wanda McCaddon ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2011
Arendt was an influential German-American thinker who analyzed human society and why it developed into the raw era of the mid-twentieth century. (She died in 1975.) Using the Adolf Eichmann trial that took place in Jerusalem in 1961-62 as a point of analysis--she was in the audience--she details how the Holocaust came about through the manipulated thinking of apathetic European masses. Narrator Wanda McCaddon brings a cultured British slant to the narrative, sometimes gently delivering various European accents while moving forward calmly and rationally. Were Arendt to have narrated, the text would have come across more adamantly, as one can hear in audios from her academic lectures. D.R.W. 2012 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Pub Date: March 28, 2011
Duration: 12 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781452671659
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
by Meg Hamand ; Read by Emily Sutton-Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 24, 2025
Emily Sutton-Smith narrates a story of Auschwitz and the Nazi regime throughout Europe in a low, wistful tone without an accent. The novel features Rachael, a Jewish woman imprisoned in Auschwitz who finds a diamond ring in the mud, and Samual, a Jewish man living and working in Prague who is in love with a woman named Hanna. Sutton-Smith's slow-paced delivery portrays Rachael's ebbing strength and feelings of hopelessness, which contrast with the hopeful feelings of lovesick Samual, who attempts to hide his past from everyone, including himself. Sutton-Smith's attempts at Hebrew and Yiddish are barely recognizable, and she uses German accents sparingly. This poignant story, both imagined and based on the historical accounts of survivors, grows increasingly depressing as life leaches out of characters who are in the iron grip of the Nazi regime.
Pub Date: June 24, 2025
Duration: 12 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9781632999986
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
by Richard J. Evans ; Read by Leighton Pugh ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024
Narrator Leighton Pugh's calm British demeanor provides an effective vehicle for this scathing critique of the Nazi character. In these two dozen brief biographies of Hitler and his circle, Pugh strips bare the venality and pretentiousness that characterized so many of the dictator's underlings: Goebbels and Goering, Himmler and Hess and Heydrich, and don't forget Albert Speer and Leni Riefenstahl. The portraits are unsparing, the indictments backed by compelling evidence. The opening biography of Hitler is largely familiar but provides a foundation and context for the individual portraits that follow, which by necessity parallel the same timeline. For those who don't know the history well, this audiobook proves an excellent vehicle for understanding the Nazi movement and the individuals who shaped it.
Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
Duration: 12 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593864654
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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