Ordinary Men
Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.29
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kevin Gallagher
About this listen
“A remarkable - and singularly chilling - glimpse of human behavior...This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust." (Newsweek)
Now available in audio for the first time, Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers of tens of thousands of Jews - now with a new afterword and additional photographs.
Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions.
Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever. While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.
Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2017 Christopher R. Browning (P)2020 HarperAudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
The Guns of August
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-28-08
-
Maps of Meaning
- The Architecture of Belief
- By: Jordan B. Peterson
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 30 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
-
-
This is NOT an easy book
- By Stephen on 06-19-18
-
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
- A History of Nazi Germany
- By: William L. Shirer
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 57 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
-
-
Held my interest for 57 hours and 13 minutes
- By Jonnie on 11-08-10
-
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
-
-
Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
The Guns of August
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Mike From Mesa on 10-28-08
-
Maps of Meaning
- The Architecture of Belief
- By: Jordan B. Peterson
- Narrated by: Jordan B. Peterson
- Length: 30 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos comes a provocative hypothesis that explores the connection between what modern neuropsychology tells us about the brain and what rituals, myths, and religious stories have long narrated. A cutting-edge work that brings together neuropsychology, cognitive science, and Freudian and Jungian approaches to mythology and narrative, Maps of Meaning presents a rich theory that makes the wisdom and meaning of myth accessible to the critical modern mind.
-
-
This is NOT an easy book
- By Stephen on 06-19-18
-
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
- A History of Nazi Germany
- By: William L. Shirer
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 57 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
-
-
Held my interest for 57 hours and 13 minutes
- By Jonnie on 11-08-10
-
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
-
-
Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
-
The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
-
-
Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
-
The Nuremberg Interviews
- An American Psychiatrist's Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses
- By: Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine, Joshua Kane
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nuremberg Interviews reveals the chilling innermost thoughts of the former Nazi officials under indictment at the famous postwar trial. The architects of one of history’s greatest atrocities speak out about their lives, their careers in the Nazi Party, and their views on the Holocaust. Their reflections are recorded in a set of interviews conducted by a US Army psychiatrist. Dr. Leon Goldensohn was entrusted with monitoring the mental health of the two dozen German leaders charged with carrying out genocide, as well as that of many of the defense and prosecution witnesses.
-
-
Interesting
- By John & Becky on 02-17-22
By: Leon Goldensohn, and others
-
Operation Paperclip
- The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the chaos following World War II, the US government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder and slavery.
-
-
The Osenberg list
- By Jean on 08-07-14
By: Annie Jacobsen
-
Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
-
-
Enjoyable listen with some facts incorrect
- By Jim on 09-11-19
By: Malcolm Gladwell
-
The Master of Auschwitz:
- Memoirs of Rudolf Hoess, Kommandant SS
- By: Rudolf Hoess
- Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-hand account of the life, career, and the practices of horror at Auschwitz, written by Auschwitz Kommandant SS Rudolf Hoss as he awaited execution for his crimes. Including his psychological interviews at Nuremberg.
-
-
The Banality of Evil…a Memoir
- By Tim on 03-16-17
By: Rudolf Hoess
-
Rise and Kill First
- The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations
- By: Ronen Bergman
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 25 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small....
-
-
Eye Opening
- By Ari Safari on 02-09-18
By: Ronen Bergman
-
Gulag
- A History
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
-
-
Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
- By Thucydides on 08-03-17
By: Anne Applebaum
-
Devils
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 25 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Devils, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is a classic political satire exploring the effects of imported European ideologies such as atheism and nihilism on Christian Russia. Based on the true-life political murder of Ivan Ivanov by the revolutionary Sergey Nechayev, Dostoevsky wrote this tale of society scandals, doomed marriages and fatally misguided idealism after returning from exile in Siberia.
-
-
Unlistenable
- By J. Mulrooney on 04-09-17
-
War and Genocide
- A Concise History of the Holocaust
- By: Doris L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Collene Curran
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.
-
-
Agency - the capacity or state of exerting power
- By Angela on 03-22-17
By: Doris L. Bergen
-
The Reconstruction of Nations
- Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569-1999
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern nationalism in northeastern Europe has often led to violence and then reconciliation between nations with bloody pasts. In this fascinating book, Timothy Snyder traces the emergence of Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian nationhood over four centuries, discusses various atrocities (including the first account of the massive Ukrainian-Polish ethnic cleansings of the 1940s), and examines Poland's recent successful negotiations with its newly independent Eastern neighbors, as it has channeled national interest toward peace.
-
-
just a text book
- By Anonymous User on 03-01-23
By: Timothy Snyder
-
Why We Fought
- Inspiring Stories of Resisting Hitler and Defending Freedom
- By: Jerry Borrowman
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The struggle to combat the Nazis during World War II encompassed front lines far beyond conventional battlefields. In a panoramic and compelling account, author Jerry Borrowman shares seven largely untold stories of people who undertook extraordinary efforts to defeat the Third Reich at enormous personal risk.
-
-
Heavily Biased Recountings
- By FirstWaveAgent on 11-17-22
By: Jerry Borrowman
-
Road to Jonestown
- Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
- By: Jeff Guinn
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness.
-
-
An Important Accurate Historical Report
- By Julia on 08-24-17
By: Jeff Guinn
Related to this topic
-
Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine
- By: Wendy Lower
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lower provides the most complete assessment available of German colonization and the Holocaust in Ukraine, the "jewel" of the Nazi empire. In this unprecedented attempt at Nazi empire building, violence, racism, antisemitism, and militarism pervaded all aspects of everyday life. Lower argues that it was in the eastern outposts of the Reich, such as Ukraine, that the regime's core beliefs, aims, and practices were revealed.
By: Wendy Lower
-
The Nazis
- A Warning from History
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the success of Rees's best-selling Auschwitz, this substantially revised and updated edition of The Nazis - A Warning from History tells the powerfully gripping story of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. During a 16-year period, acclaimed author and documentary-maker Laurence Rees met and interviewed a large number of former Nazis, and his unique insights into the Nazi psyche and World War II received enormous praise.
-
-
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY
- By Bowen Florsheim on 09-14-21
By: Laurence Rees
-
The Third Reich at War
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war’s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people - from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict’s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s suicide in the bunker.
-
-
Masterful
- By Karen on 09-03-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
War and Genocide
- A Concise History of the Holocaust
- By: Doris L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Collene Curran
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.
-
-
Agency - the capacity or state of exerting power
- By Angela on 03-22-17
By: Doris L. Bergen
-
Otto Skorzeny
- The Devil’s Disciple
- By: Stuart Smith
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny became a legend in his own time. "Hitler's favorite commando" acquired a reputation as a man of daring, renowned for his audacious 1943 mission to extricate Mussolini from a mountain-top prison. He could be brave and resourceful, but was also a notorious egoist and an unrepentant Nazi until the end of his life. Stuart Smith draws on years of in-depth research to uncover the truth about Skorzeny's career and complex personality.
-
-
Balanced and fascinating story of Skorzeny
- By MortonC on 04-14-19
By: Stuart Smith
-
Stormtroopers
- A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts
- By: Daniel Siemens
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Germany's Stormtroopers engaged in a vicious siege of violence that propelled the National Socialists to power in the 1930s. Known also as the SA or Brownshirts, these "ordinary" men waged a loosely structured campaign of intimidation and savagery across the nation from the 1920s to the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, when Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm and many other SA leaders were assassinated on Hitler's orders.
-
-
Tedious
- By AudioFile on 10-21-19
By: Daniel Siemens
-
Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine
- By: Wendy Lower
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lower provides the most complete assessment available of German colonization and the Holocaust in Ukraine, the "jewel" of the Nazi empire. In this unprecedented attempt at Nazi empire building, violence, racism, antisemitism, and militarism pervaded all aspects of everyday life. Lower argues that it was in the eastern outposts of the Reich, such as Ukraine, that the regime's core beliefs, aims, and practices were revealed.
By: Wendy Lower
-
The Nazis
- A Warning from History
- By: Laurence Rees
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following the success of Rees's best-selling Auschwitz, this substantially revised and updated edition of The Nazis - A Warning from History tells the powerfully gripping story of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. During a 16-year period, acclaimed author and documentary-maker Laurence Rees met and interviewed a large number of former Nazis, and his unique insights into the Nazi psyche and World War II received enormous praise.
-
-
HOW TO STEAL A COUNTRY
- By Bowen Florsheim on 09-14-21
By: Laurence Rees
-
The Third Reich at War
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 35 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war’s progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people - from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict’s great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler’s suicide in the bunker.
-
-
Masterful
- By Karen on 09-03-10
By: Richard J. Evans
-
War and Genocide
- A Concise History of the Holocaust
- By: Doris L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Collene Curran
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.
-
-
Agency - the capacity or state of exerting power
- By Angela on 03-22-17
By: Doris L. Bergen
-
Otto Skorzeny
- The Devil’s Disciple
- By: Stuart Smith
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny became a legend in his own time. "Hitler's favorite commando" acquired a reputation as a man of daring, renowned for his audacious 1943 mission to extricate Mussolini from a mountain-top prison. He could be brave and resourceful, but was also a notorious egoist and an unrepentant Nazi until the end of his life. Stuart Smith draws on years of in-depth research to uncover the truth about Skorzeny's career and complex personality.
-
-
Balanced and fascinating story of Skorzeny
- By MortonC on 04-14-19
By: Stuart Smith
-
Stormtroopers
- A New History of Hitler's Brownshirts
- By: Daniel Siemens
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Germany's Stormtroopers engaged in a vicious siege of violence that propelled the National Socialists to power in the 1930s. Known also as the SA or Brownshirts, these "ordinary" men waged a loosely structured campaign of intimidation and savagery across the nation from the 1920s to the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, when Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm and many other SA leaders were assassinated on Hitler's orders.
-
-
Tedious
- By AudioFile on 10-21-19
By: Daniel Siemens
-
Undercover War
- By: Harry McCallion
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is Harry McCallion's blistering account of the history of Britain's war against the IRA between 1970 and 1998. From new insights into high-profile killings and riveting accounts of enemy contact, to revelations about clandestine missions and the strategies used in combating a merciless enemy, Undercover War is the definitive inside story of the battle against the IRA, one of the most dangerous and effective terrorist organisations in recent history.
-
-
I liked it
- By WCHBlok on 12-22-21
By: Harry McCallion
-
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- By: Ilan Pappe
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred, and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing."
-
-
Crucial for understanding Israel-Palestine today
- By Mark on 12-27-18
By: Ilan Pappe
-
The Volunteer
- One Man, an Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz
- By: Jack Fairweather
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a young Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: intentionally get captured and transported to the new camp to report back on what was going on there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside - where the Germans would least expect it. The name of the camp was Auschwitz.
-
-
It is impossible to hear of the atrocities of Auschwitz without being. Forced to consider man’s infinite cruelty
- By Marge Greenwald on 07-15-19
By: Jack Fairweather
-
What Really Happened: The Death of Hitler
- By: Robert J. Hutchinson
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After World War II, 50 percent of Americans polled said they didn’t believe Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun had committed suicide in their bunker in 1945, as captured Nazi officials claimed. Instead, they believed the dictator faked his death and escaped, perhaps to Argentina. This wasn’t a crazy opinion: Joseph Stalin told Allied leaders that Soviet forces never discovered Hitler’s body and that he personally believed the Nazi leader had escaped justice. At least two German submarines crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Argentina in July 1945.
-
-
Grover Gardner rocks
- By IM on 07-10-22
-
A Savage War of Peace
- Algeria 1954-1962
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 29 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. From the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one.
-
-
Excellent history of France's Viet Nam
- By David on 04-10-16
By: Alistair Horne
-
Hell Before Their Very Eyes
- By: John C. McManus
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On April Fourth, 1945, United States Army units from the 89th Infantry Division and the Fourth Armored Division seized Ohrdruf, the first of many Nazi concentration camps to be liberated in Germany. In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler's Germany. These men discovered the very depths of human-imposed cruelty and depravity.
-
-
loved it
- By A. Adams on 10-11-20
By: John C. McManus
-
One Long Night
- A Global History of Concentration Camps
- By: Andrea Pitzer
- Narrated by: Andrea Pitzer
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For over 100 years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on Earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the 21st century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our own solemn promise of "never again".
-
-
Important subject. Horrible narration.
- By wmorrison on 07-04-19
By: Andrea Pitzer
-
The Berlin Wall
- By: Frederick Taylor
- Narrated by: Daniel Philpott
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The appearance of a hastily constructed barbed wire entanglement through the heart of Berlin during the night of 12-13 August 1961 was both dramatic and unexpected. Within days, it had started to metamorphose into a structure that would come to symbolise the brutal insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. A city of almost four million was cut ruthlessly in two, unleashing a potentially catastrophic East-West crisis and plunging the entire world for the first time into the fear of imminent missile-borne apocalypse.
-
-
TEAR. DOWN. THIS. WALL
- By Simone on 05-23-13
By: Frederick Taylor
-
At Leningrad's Gates
- The Combat Memoirs of a Soldier with Army Group North
- By: William Lubbeck
- Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the remarkable story of a German soldier who fought throughout World War II, rising from conscript private to captain of a heavy weapons company on the Eastern Front. >William Lubbeck, age 19, was drafted into the Wehrmacht in August 1939. As a member of the 58th Infantry Division, he received his baptism of fire during the 1940 invasion of France. The following spring his division served on the left flank of Army Group North in Operation Barbarossa.
-
-
Another Great German Soldier's Memoir
- By Erik on 12-19-14
By: William Lubbeck
-
Neighbors
- The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
- By: Jan T. Gross
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town's Jews. Neighbors tells their story. This is a shocking, brutal story that has never before been told. It is the most important study of Polish-Jewish relations to be published in decades and should become a classic of Holocaust literature. Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts and other evidence into an engulfing reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but forgotten by history.
-
-
interesting
- By A. Adams on 10-11-20
By: Jan T. Gross
-
Say Nothing
- A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Matthew Blaney
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.
-
-
On a par with I'll Be Gone in the Dark, plus...
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-01-19
-
Gulag
- A History
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 27 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gulag - a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners - was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
-
-
Nice compliment to Solzhenitsyn
- By Thucydides on 08-03-17
By: Anne Applebaum
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
-
-
Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
-
Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency
- By: Dan Abrams, David Fisher
- Narrated by: Adam Verner, Dan Abrams
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the summer of 1859, 22-year-old Peachy Quinn Harrison went on trial for murder in Springfield, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, who had been involved in more than 3,000 cases - including more than 25 murder trials - during his two-decades-long career, was hired to defend him.
-
-
Great Courtroom Drama
- By Jean on 04-26-19
By: Dan Abrams, and others
-
Hitler's Willing Executioners
- Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
- By: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A work of the utmost importance--as authoritative as it is explosive--Hitler's Willing Executioners will fundamentally change our perception of the Holocaust and of Germany in the Nazi period. Goldhagen reaches conclusions that are both uncompromising and savage, rejecting as inadequate the conventional historical explanations for how an entire country could allow the Holocaust to happen, and gives the first detailed, broad-ranging account of the actual killers of the Jews.
-
Hitler's Furies
- German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields
- By: Wendy Lower
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wendy Lower’s stunning account of the role of German women on the World War II Nazi eastern front powerfully revises history, proving that we have ignored the reality of women’s participation in the Holocaust, including as brutal killers. The long-held picture of German women holding down the home front during the war, as loyal wives and cheerleaders for the Führer, pales in comparison to Lower’s incisive case for the massive complicity, and worse, of the 500,000 young German women she places, for the first time, directly in the killing fields of the expanding Reich.
-
-
Terrifying and shocking!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-12-24
By: Wendy Lower
-
Neighbors
- The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
- By: Jan T. Gross
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town's Jews. Neighbors tells their story. This is a shocking, brutal story that has never before been told. It is the most important study of Polish-Jewish relations to be published in decades and should become a classic of Holocaust literature. Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts and other evidence into an engulfing reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but forgotten by history.
-
-
interesting
- By A. Adams on 10-11-20
By: Jan T. Gross
-
The Princess Spy
- The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live “a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious” (Time). As the United States enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes.
-
-
Repeat of spy wore red
- By Theresa Pease on 02-18-21
By: Larry Loftis
-
The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
-
-
Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
-
Lincoln's Last Trial: The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency
- By: Dan Abrams, David Fisher
- Narrated by: Adam Verner, Dan Abrams
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the summer of 1859, 22-year-old Peachy Quinn Harrison went on trial for murder in Springfield, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, who had been involved in more than 3,000 cases - including more than 25 murder trials - during his two-decades-long career, was hired to defend him.
-
-
Great Courtroom Drama
- By Jean on 04-26-19
By: Dan Abrams, and others
-
Hitler's Willing Executioners
- Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
- By: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A work of the utmost importance--as authoritative as it is explosive--Hitler's Willing Executioners will fundamentally change our perception of the Holocaust and of Germany in the Nazi period. Goldhagen reaches conclusions that are both uncompromising and savage, rejecting as inadequate the conventional historical explanations for how an entire country could allow the Holocaust to happen, and gives the first detailed, broad-ranging account of the actual killers of the Jews.
-
Hitler's Furies
- German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields
- By: Wendy Lower
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wendy Lower’s stunning account of the role of German women on the World War II Nazi eastern front powerfully revises history, proving that we have ignored the reality of women’s participation in the Holocaust, including as brutal killers. The long-held picture of German women holding down the home front during the war, as loyal wives and cheerleaders for the Führer, pales in comparison to Lower’s incisive case for the massive complicity, and worse, of the 500,000 young German women she places, for the first time, directly in the killing fields of the expanding Reich.
-
-
Terrifying and shocking!
- By Amazon Customer on 09-12-24
By: Wendy Lower
-
Neighbors
- The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
- By: Jan T. Gross
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One summer day in 1941, half of the Polish town of Jedwabne murdered the other half, 1,600 men, women, and children, all but seven of the town's Jews. Neighbors tells their story. This is a shocking, brutal story that has never before been told. It is the most important study of Polish-Jewish relations to be published in decades and should become a classic of Holocaust literature. Jan Gross pieces together eyewitness accounts and other evidence into an engulfing reconstruction of the horrific July day remembered well by locals but forgotten by history.
-
-
interesting
- By A. Adams on 10-11-20
By: Jan T. Gross
-
The Princess Spy
- The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live “a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious” (Time). As the United States enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes.
-
-
Repeat of spy wore red
- By Theresa Pease on 02-18-21
By: Larry Loftis
-
In Broad Daylight
- The Secret Procedures Behind the Holocaust by Bullets
- By: Father Patrick Desbois
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Holocaust by Bullets, Father Patrick Desbois documented for the first time the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Ukraine during World War II, based on wartime documents, interviews with locals, and the application of modern forensic practices on long-hidden gravesites. Nearly a decade of further work by his team, drawing on interviews with 5,000 neighbors of the Jews, has resulted in stunning new findings about the extent and nature of the genocide.
-
-
Wow! From Silence to Hair-Raising Details
- By deb on 01-24-18
-
Unit 731
- The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz
- By: Derek Pua, Danielle Dybbro, Alistair Rogers
- Narrated by: Cathi Colas
- Length: 1 hr and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Japanese invasion of China during the Second Sino-Japanese war has left a strong legacy of hate and disgust among many Chinese today. Much of the atrocities committed by the Japanese are now known to most historians. Under the leadership of Dr. Shiro Isshi, the Japanese subjected three thousand to 250 thousand innocent men, women, and children to cruel experiments and medical procedures that were carried out by the brightest medical students and staff that Imperial Japan had to offer. In this edition, we expanded on the background info of Unit 731.
-
-
Something we should all know
- By r a van der walt on 07-26-18
By: Derek Pua, and others
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
The Perfectionists
- How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
-
-
Somewhat less than perfect
- By enya keshet on 06-19-18
By: Simon Winchester
-
War and Genocide
- A Concise History of the Holocaust
- By: Doris L. Bergen
- Narrated by: Collene Curran
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, this revised, third edition discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: Roma, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the disabled, and other groups deemed undesirable.
-
-
Agency - the capacity or state of exerting power
- By Angela on 03-22-17
By: Doris L. Bergen
-
On War
- By: Carl von Clausewitz
- Narrated by: Malk Williams
- Length: 32 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carl von Clausewitz's On War is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832, it has been enjoyed throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soldiers, political leaders, and intellectuals.
-
The Ends of the World
- Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions
- By: Peter Brannen
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our world has ended five times: It has been broiled, frozen, poison gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth's past dead ends, and in the process offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the 21st century have analogs in these five extinctions.
-
-
A Kid's Science Book FOR ADULTS!!
- By aaron on 06-15-17
By: Peter Brannen
-
The Fyodor Dostoyevsky Complete Collection
- The Brothers Karamazov; Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; Notes from the Underground; The Demons; Novellas; Complete Short Stories; Essays; and Letters
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Jonathan Keeble, Malk Williams, and others
- Length: 264 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of all Fyodor Dostoyevky's greatest works: 15 novels and novellas, 18 short stories, a short study of Dostoyevsky by Virginia Woolf, and two books of non-fiction - his Letters and European travel journal.
-
-
A Crucial Human Journey
- By O. on 04-07-24
-
Gray Work
- Confessions of an American Paramilitary Spy
- By: Jamie Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Gurner
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unprecedented audiobook, a paramilitary contractor with more than two decades of experience gives us a firsthand look into the secret lives of America's private warriors and their highly covert work around the world. Author Jamie Smith has planned and executed hundreds of missions on behalf of government agencies and private industry in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots - and lived to tell the tale.
-
-
Don't believe a word of it.
- By Dustin Harry on 08-26-15
By: Jamie Smith
-
Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine
- By: Wendy Lower
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lower provides the most complete assessment available of German colonization and the Holocaust in Ukraine, the "jewel" of the Nazi empire. In this unprecedented attempt at Nazi empire building, violence, racism, antisemitism, and militarism pervaded all aspects of everyday life. Lower argues that it was in the eastern outposts of the Reich, such as Ukraine, that the regime's core beliefs, aims, and practices were revealed.
By: Wendy Lower
-
Persians
- The Age of the Great Kings
- By: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Narrated by: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled. Drawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world’s first superpower—one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance. This is the definitive history of the Achaemenid dynasty and its legacies in modern-day Iran.
-
-
Good History and Historiography
- By David A on 04-19-22
What listeners say about Ordinary Men
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mo
- 08-27-21
excellent but difficult
The book is very informative and the reader is excellent but emotionally challenging to ingest
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Connor Wray
- 10-02-21
Important Psychology
Difficult content to listen to, but an important look into the psychology of man. An important thing to understand to avoid a repeat in future history.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lisa L.
- 04-16-21
Difficult to know how to review
This book is difficult to read/hear, but the contents are a must-read to try to grasp the scope of the horror if the Holocaust. I gave it 5 stars because I think it is an important work, but I cannot say that it was enjoyable in any way. I hope these actions are never, ever repeated again, and that we are never left trying to figure out how it happened.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nice Guy
- 01-14-22
Gives you a feel of the social atmosphere.
This book goes over the atrocities Nazi Germany conducted during the Holocaust but you'll have to wait until the end to hear the author's reasoning for why they did it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tony Bell
- 06-21-22
Very Enlightening
Great job to the reader. Well done with the German pronunciation and the fluidity of the text in speech.
Amazing research and writing done by the author. It was no small task. It was well told and maintained a good story-telling capacity which kept it from sounding quite so much like a source documentary filled with stats and meaningless information. An area of history that isn't discussed much is any.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Topher
- 08-19-21
Well written overview of the descent into darkness
I was curious to learn how a police unit could devolve into becoming mass murderers. the book provides a very thorough factual overview and theoretical framework to understand that process. It is a very good and subtle analysis.
The narration was very good while he was speaking English. While I can't vouch for the the accuracy of his Polish pronunciation, his pronunciation of German words, phrases and names was positively distracting. As a speaker of German I could barely understand his pronunciations at times. It would have been time well spent to improve that before recording the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- viki
- 01-23-22
educational but rambles on with kill numbers for a while….
story would’ve been 5 starts but looses a start for citing the numbers of killings going on and on and the dates, it’s easily forgettable and takes up almost an hour of the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Brantley
- 11-25-22
The Power of Regimes
This book reveals that evil can propagate even law enforcement at civilian levels. The level at which people blindly follow others is scary. It clearly shows people getting involved or acting as if everything is fine, while the stench of dead bodies burn in the background. Would our youths of today have the fortitude of the Greatest Generation of the 30’s and 40’s to defend the innocent of impeding doom? Their questioning their own gender, use pronouns as self description. I hardly think so.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David E. Haupt
- 12-22-20
Horrifying Documentation of Evil in Humanity
This is a most unpleasant book. It is important for recognizing the potential evil existing in humanity (ourselves - that means YOU and ME). I confess I only read the book because Jordan Peterson recommended it.
It documents how ordinary men, most of whom under normal conditions, would never dream of performing horrific acts of murder of helpless old men and women, children, men, women and even pregnant women! Under conditions of war and receiving orders, they nevertheless performed them!
The first few chapters just plainly describes with historical proof the mass killing of Jews by mostly middle aged policemen recruited to avoid depleting the ranks of more fit younger men to fight in WW2. There was a great aversion to doing this by most, and a few refused, but not out of morality per se, but out of disgust. Others performed them only out of fear of being called a coward or weak or betraying your country. Actually forcing these men to kill was almost never the case, which greatly surprised me. They were directed and ordered to do it, and most did. Those who refused were often shunned by the others, but rarely punished.
Later the book goes into more detail about anti-Semitism in Germany and the NAZI dehumanizing of the Jews. Rationalization by these "ordinary men" was that Jews are the enemy and this is a job someone has to do, and after all they are or would be bombing German civilians if and when they do.
Like reading the Gulag Archipelago, I would not listen to it all at once, but maybe a chapter once a week or a month, so you don't get too depressed! Oh, the reader is very good and unemotionally reads, making it all the more shocking and poignant!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan Stockton
- 10-09-22
ordinary men review
This gives an inside look at the men that carried out these atrocities. The mass killings of these innocent people is definitely hard to listen to. This book I had to listen to in small bits because of it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful