Thomas Childers has narrated 3 audiobooks on Listento.it by 2 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 98 ratings. The most-rated is World War II: A Military and Social History.
World War II: A Military and Social History
Summary
Between 1937 and 1945, approximately 55 million people perished in the series of interrelated conflicts known as the Second World War. No continent was left untouched, no ocean unaffected. The war led to the eclipse of Europe and the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union as global superpowers; ushered in the atomic age; produced, in the Holocaust, the most horrific crime ever committed in the history of Western civilization, and led to the end of Europe's colonial empires around the world. But though World War II defined an entire epoch in human history, pressing questions remain - about whether Hitler could have been stopped earlier, about Pearl Harbor, about saving more people from the Holocaust, about using the atomic bomb, and even about how close the Allies came to actually losing. This engaging series of 30 lectures is rich in detail and near-cinematic portraits of leaders and events. It explores not only the origins of the war, including the impact of the Treaty of Versailles, but also how it unfolded on both battlefront and the American home front, with focused looks at key subjects like Nazism and the Holocaust and the philosophy of strategic bombing and its impact on the future nature of warfare. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©1998 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1998 The Great Courses
A History of Hitler's Empire, 2nd Edition
Summary
Know thy enemy. That's what the wisdom of history teaches us. And Adolf Hitler was surely the greatest enemy ever faced by modern civilization. Over half a century later, the horror, fascination, and questions still linger: How could a man like Hitler and a movement like Nazism come to power in 20th-century Germany – an industrially developed country with a highly educated population? How were the Nazis able to establish the foundations of a totalitarian regime in such a short time and hurl all of Europe - and the world - into a devastating war that would consume so many millions of lives? Professor Childers has designed this gripping 12-lecture course to shed light on these and other questions that have plagued generations. You'll start by looking at the catastrophic impact World War I had on Germany, and how the war and the humiliating Treaty of Versailles crippled the Weimar Republic. From there, you'll turn to the Third Reich – Nazism in power – with an investigation of how Hitler and his henchmen systematically and ruthlessly broke resistance, taking over the major institutions of state power and creating a totalitarian system of terror, propaganda, and pervasive regimentation. You'll also examine Hitler's foreign policy between 1933 and 1939, and discover how and why he puzzled the world by entering into an accommodation with his deadly enemy, Stalin, on the eve of World War II. In the final lectures, you'll focus on Hitler's war against the Jews from Mein Kampf to Auschwitz, dissecting the horrifying racial ideas of the Nazis and the policies adopted to transform those ideas into reality. Finally, you'll learn how Hitler's evil empire was destroyed by Allied might. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2001 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2001 The Great Courses
Europe and Western Civilization in the Modern Age
Summary
Only three lifetimes ago, Europe was a farming society ruled by families of monarchs. But with two seismic tremors-capitalism and democracy-Europe's economic and royal foundations were shattered forever and modern European history began. In this series of 48 fascinating lectures, Professor Childers makes the history of Europe from the 1750s to the present-events both horrible and magnificent-as immediate as today's headlines, employing the historian's craft and a storyteller's skill to find the causes of what otherwise could seem to be the march of folly. The result is an intellectually exhilarating journey through a period of three lifetimes such as the world had never experienced. You'll see how in the span of just one life, England became an industrial, urban culture; tens of thousands were guillotined in France; Napoleon's Empire - the greatest since Rome-rose and fell; and revolution swept the capitals of Europe; how in the span of just one more, the Russian serfs were freed; Italy and Germany were created from a loose collection of city-states; European powers divided and conquered Africa; Darwin, Marx, Freud, and Einstein published world-shaking ideas; and millions died in a Great War; and how in that third lifetime, the world was plunged into economic depression, global war, and genocide; Europe abandoned its African colonies; the Soviet Union rose and fell; Fascism and Communism failed as democracy became the dominant form of government; and the same European powers that had bled each other for hundreds of years created a Common Market and unified currency. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©1998 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1998 The Great Courses