Richard Brown has narrated 6 audiobooks on Listento.it by 3 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 19 ratings. The most-rated is The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume II: Alone, 1932-1940: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume II: Alone, 1932-1940.
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume II: Alone, 1932-1940: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume II: Alone, 1932-1940
Summary
This second volume in William Manchester's three-volume biography of Winston Churchill challenges the assumption that Churchill's finest hour was as a wartime leader. During the years 1932-1940, he was tested as few men are. Pursued by creditors (at one point he had to put up his home for sale), he remained solvent only by writing an extraordinary number of books and magazine articles. He was disowned by his own party, and dismissed by the BBC, Fleet Street, and the social and political establishments as a warmonger, and twice nearly lost his seat in Parliament. Churchill stood almost alone against Nazi aggression and the pusillanimous British and French policy of appeasement. Manchester tracks with new insights this complex, fascinating history, without ever losing sight of Churchill the man - a man whose vision was global and whose courage was boundless.
©1988 William Manchester (P)1990 Blackstone Audio Inc.
A History of the Middle East
Summary
In this masterly work of synthesis, Peter Mansfield, drawing on his experience as a journalist and a historian, explores two centuries of history in the Middle East. He forms a picture of the historical, political, and social history of the meeting point of Occident and Orient, from Bonaparte's marauding invasion of Egypt to the start of the Gulf War. For more than four thousand years, the Middle East has provided a setting for titanic struggles between great civilizations and religions. In this century it became the focus of rivalry between the European powers as the last major Islamic empire of the Ottoman Turks crumbled and collapsed. The discovery of the world's greatest oil reserves gave the region global economic importance as well as a unique strategic value. The foundation of a national state by immigrant Zionist Jews created one of the most insoluble political problems of our era, which is compounded by the reassertion of Islamic consciousness among the great majority of the region's inhabitants. In two penetrating final chapters, Peter Mansfield discusses Saddam Hussein and the prospects for the future.
©1991 by Peter Mansfield (P)1991 by Blackstone Audiobooks
The Jewel in the Crown
Summary
The first volume in Paul Scott's historical tour-de-force opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for self-rule. In the Mayapore gardens, Daphne Manners, daughter of the provincial governor, leaves her Indian lover, who will soon be arrested for her alleged rape.
©2010 Paul Scott (P)2010 Random House
A Division of the Spoils
Summary
After exploiting India's divisions for years, the British depart in such haste that no one is prepared for the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1947.Against the backdrop of the violent partition of India and Pakistan, this volume sketches one last bittersweet romance, revealing the divided loyalties of the British as they flee, retreat from, or cling to India.
©2010 Paul Scott; 2010 Random House
The Towers of Silence
Summary
India, 1943. In a regimental hill station, the ladies of Pankot struggle to preserve the genteel facade of British society amid the debris of a vanishing empire and World War II. This volume follows the fates of the Laytons and a retired missionary teacher, all of whom can foresee the end of the Raj - and both welcome and lament its passing.
©1984 Paul Scott (P)2010 Random House
The Day of the Scorpion
Summary
The second novel in The Raj Quartet: the arrest by British police of Mohammed Ali Kasim, who is known to sympathise with the Quit India movement, signifies a further deterioration in Anglo-India relations.For families such as the Laytons, who have lived and served in India for generations, the immediate social and political realities are both disturbing and tragic. With growing confusion and bewilderment, the British are forced to confront the violent and often brutal years that lie ahead.
©2010 Paul Scott (P)2010 Random House