Peter H. Wilson has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 19 ratings. The most-rated is Heart of Europe.
Heart of Europe
Summary
The Holy Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years, far longer than ancient Rome. Yet this formidable dominion never inspired the awe of its predecessor. Voltaire quipped that it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. Yet as Peter H. Wilson shows, the Holy Roman Empire tells a millennial story of Europe better than the histories of individual nation-states. Heart of Europe traces the empire from its origins within Charlemagne's kingdom in 800 to its demise in 1806. By the mid-tenth century, its core rested in the German kingdom, and ultimately its territory stretched from France and Denmark to Italy and Poland. Yet the empire remained abstract, with no fixed capital and no common language or culture. The source of its continuity and legitimacy was the ideal of a unified Christian civilization, but this did not prevent emperors from clashing with the pope over supremacy. Though the title of Holy Roman Emperor retained prestige, rising states such as Austria and Prussia wielded power in a way the empire could not. While it gradually lost the flexibility to cope with political, economic, and social changes, the empire was far from being in crisis until the onslaught of the French revolutionary wars.
©2016 Peter H. Wilson (P)2017 Tantor
Lutzen
Summary
The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) was Europe's most destructive conflict prior to the two world wars. Two of European history's greatest generals faced each other at Lutzen in November 1632, midway through this terrible war. Neither achieved his objective. Albrecht von Wallenstein withdrew his battered imperial army at nightfall, unaware that his opponent, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, had died a few hours earlier. The indecisive military outcome found an immediate echo in image and print, and became the object of political and historical disputes. Swedish propaganda swiftly fostered the lasting image of the king's sacrifice for the Protestant cause against the specter of Catholic Habsburg "universal monarchy". The standard assumption that the king had "met his death in the hour of victory" became integral to how Gustavus Adolphus' contribution to modern warfare has been remembered, even celebrated, while the study of Lutzen's wider legacy shows how such events are constantly rewritten as elements of propaganda, religious and national identity, and professional military culture. This book is the first to combine analysis of the battle itself with an assessment of its cultural, political, and military legacy, and the first to incorporate recent archaeological research within a reappraisal of the events and their significance.
©2018 Peter H. Wilson (P)2021 Tantor