There's a decidedly irreverent tone to historian Matthew Kneale's account of Rome's repeated sackings, a focus that allows him to compress 24 centuries of Roman history into a concise 13 listening hours. Narrator Neil Gardner's London refinements have their own edge of estuary roughness, and together author and reader are an inspired match, their sometimes horrific tale leavened by dry humor and a degree of ironic detachment. From the Gauls to the Nazis, the Eternal City has been a symbol and a prize, an epic that is more Brecht than Virgil. Told here with considerable energy and high spirits, it's a history rich in detail, action, and human interest, surprisingly accessible and engaging, and one of this spring's true sleepers.
Pub Date: May 15, 2018
Duration: N/A
DD ISBN: 9781508260066
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
GENERAL HISTORY | ANCIENT | WORLD | HISTORY
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
