Joseph Chialastri has narrated 5 audiobooks on Listento.it by 1 author, with an average listener rating of 1★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is The Sinking of the Lusitania: The Most Controversial Submarine Attack of World War I.
The Sinking of the Lusitania: The Most Controversial Submarine Attack of World War I
Summary
In 1906 the RMS Lusitania was at the forefront of transatlantic shipping. Briefly the largest ship in the world, the designers and engineers who built the Lusitania aimed for her to represent the height of luxury for passengers while also being the harbinger of a new technological age, replete with revolutionary engines that would allow the gigantic ship to move at speeds that would have been considered impossible just years earlier. Indeed the highly competitive industry would spur the development of bigger and better ocean liners in the coming years, the most famous being the Titanic. The Lusitania and the Titanic would become the two most famous ships of the early 20th century for tragic reasons, but the circumstances could not have been more different. While the Titanic is still notorious for being the world's best ocean liner at the time of its collision with an iceberg in 1912, the Lusitania's role as a popular ocean liner has been almost completely obscured by the nature of its sinking by a German U-boat in 1915. The Germans aimed to disrupt trade by the Allied forces, but they did not have the naval forces capable of seizing merchant ships and detaining them. Furthermore the Germans rightly suspected that the British and Americans were using passenger liners and merchant ships to smuggle weaponry across the Atlantic, but since their sole edge in the Atlantic was their fleet of submarines, the Germans had no way of confirming their suspicions short of sinking a ship and seeing if a detonation onboard suggested the presence of munitions and gunpowder.
©2012- Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors
The Borgias: The Lives and Legacies of Rodrigo, Cesare, and Lucrezia Borgia
Summary
"Alexander never did what he said. Cesare never said what he did." (Italian proverb) The stories and legends attributed to the Borgias have made them one of the most notorious families in history. Five hundred years after their deaths, they have come to be associated more with incest, political intrigue, murder, and state-sponsored violence. While 21st-century TV series have cast the Borgias as the first organized crime family, the rumors spread by the family's political opponents in the late 15th century have taken hold among a fascinated public. Did Cesare really have an incestuous relationship with sister Lucrezia? Did the pope really throw lavish orgies? While Rodrigo may not have been as colorful or criminal as the enduring legends, there is no question he was manipulative, ruthless and ultimately effective. From an administrative standpoint, Rodrigo was a success as Pope Alexander VI, with a big assist from son Cesare. In one of the most famous political treatises in history, Niccolo Machiavelli famously advised those who hold power that it is better to be feared than loved. The world has always had a fascination with femme fatales, and few historical women have ever been portrayed as one quite like Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia is a baseless, immoral villain in Victor Hugo's Lucrezia Borgia, and she continues to be depicted as a schemer and manipulator on par with her famous brother and father in film and critically acclaimed television series. The great irony is that Lucrezia's reputation seems to be wildly at odds with the actual woman herself.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors
The Shipwreck of the Essex
Summary
"I turned around and saw him about 100 rods [500 m or 550 yards] directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed of around 24 knots (44 km/h), and it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head about half out of the water, and in that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship." (Owen Chase, First Mate aboard the Essex) Although Herman Melville was a popular writer during his day, he had become mostly obscure until a literary revival in the early 20th century resurrected his legacy. At the forefront of the revival was the book that is now considered a classic around the globe, and one of the greatest American novels ever written: Moby Dick. The novel is about Captain Ahab hunting a whale named Moby Dick, with a sailor named Ishmael narrating the story. Throughout the novel Ishmael speculates upon concepts such as good and evil, society and religion, and by the time the novel ends, readers come to understand that the novel's plot and characters (including the whale itself) are comprised of metaphors and allegories that Melville leaves for readers to interpret for themselves. However, while Moby Dick remains a staple among students, Melville was actually inspired by a true story: the shipwreck of the whaleship Essex in 1820. While it was always dangerous to work on a whaleship, the Essex was the first known American ship to be badly damaged by a massive sperm whale's attack, and though whales would sink other ships in the ensuing decades, the entire ordeal encountered by the crew made headlines when the survivors were rescued. When the Essex was wrecked, its crew of 21 tried to survive on uninhabited islands and resorted to desperate measures, including cannibalism of those who began to die.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors
The Oracle of Delphi
Summary
"Not often nor regularly, but occasionally and fortuitously, the room in which they seat the god's consultants is filled with a fragrance and breeze, as if the adyton were sending forth the essences of the sweetest and most expensive perfumes from a spring." - Plutarch "[T]he seat of the oracle is a cavern hollowed down in the depths... from which arises pneuma [breath, vapor, gas] that inspires a divine state of possession." - Strabo, Geography 9.3.5 The Oracle of Delphi was one of the greatest religious institutions in Ancient Greece. It played a significant role not only in the formation and collective decisions of Hellenic localities and city-states but also in the personal lives of Greeks known and unknown. The site was dedicated to the god Apollo, and the Greeks believed the god spoke his oracles through his prophetess known as the Pythia. The judgments and decisions rendered by the oracle were so important to the Greeks that they often put them above all other interests, even security threats posed by the likes of the Persians. Delphi was popular even amongst outsiders. The Pythia delivered the god's oracles to such famous persons as Midas and Croesus, and it provided consultations during such important historical moments as the Persian War and the Peloponnesian War. Many authors of antiquity mention the oracle for one reason or another, and there even survive epigraphic collections that preserve the god's words on stone. The ancient Greeks called Delphi the omphalos ("navel") of the Earth. The black rock that symbolized this imagined center stands at the site to this very day. Sitting at the foot of Mt. Parnassos, Delphi overlooks the Gulf of Corinth, so it is no wonder why the setting mesmerized contemporaries.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors
The Battle of the Ironclads
Summary
"We of the Monitor think, and still think, that we had gained a great victory. This the Confederates have denied." (S. Dana Greene) On March 8, 1862, the newest era of naval warfare began. That day the CSS Virginia, an ironclad created out of the hull of the scuttled USS Merrimac by the Confederates, sailed down the Elizabeth River to Hampton Roads, where a Union blockade fleet was anchored. The wooden ships of the North were no match for the ironclad, which quickly rammed and sank the USS Cumberland, and as it trained its sights on the USS Congress, one Union officer noted the former Merrimac fired "shot and shell into her with terrific effect, while the shot from the Congress glanced from her iron-plated sloping sides, without doing any apparent injury." The Merrimac had overwhelmingly demonstrated the superiority of the ironclad over the traditional frigates and gunships of the time, but it met its match the following day. On March 9, the North's ironclad, the USS Monitor, arrived to challenge the Confederate ironclad. Though they were both outfitted with iron, the two ships had important differences. The Merrimac had more guns than the Monitor but was slower and more difficult to maneuver. The Monitor, however, did not have the size and power. Lieutenant S. Dana Greene described the initial shots in the battle of the ironclads: "The turrets and other parts of the ship were heavily struck, but the shots did not penetrate; the tower was intact, and it continued to revolve. A look of confidence passed over the men's faces, and we believed the Merrimac would not repeat the work she had accomplished the day before." The two ironclads would fight to a standstill on that day, but naval warfare would never be the same.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors