Holland's sensationalistic, even profane, account of the first five Caesars takes all the scurrilous stories about the emperors at face value--but still gives insightful, thought-provoking takes on such notorious figures as Caligula and Nero. Narrator Derek Perkins's strong voice, clipped accent, and brisk pacing keep the narrative vivid and energetic. His reading makes the history into something between a news dispatch and a compelling novel--it's anything but dry--and he has the intelligence to deliver handily both the historical detail and Holland's interesting interpretations of character. He manages to carry off Holland's occasional use of four-letter words without discomfort. This is lurid popular history built on a solid intellectual frame, and Perkins has the gifts to handle all of it. W.M.
Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2015
Duration: 16 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781504653633
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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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