Erich

A narrated Wikipedia article

Revisado: 07-15-23

This is a good book if you want a quick 2.5 hour audiobook on just one of the included countries: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, or Iceland.

The book is structured into silos, so rather than seamlessly telling about the history of Scandinavia, it tells the stories of each country in full, but sequentially. That means you get to hear the same information about the Protestant reformation five separate times.

Much of the book reads like the CIA world fact book. “Iceland has the third largest alcohol consumption per capita.” The post World War Two portions of the book are very slim, except for Sweden’s modern section which was about twice as long as the rest.

Many parts of the book had a voice closer to a college essay than a history book. I’m especially resentful of one line near the end that went something like “recently potatoes have become a popular crop in Iceland because they are the one vegetable that can grow under ground. Are you sure about that?

As an audiobook critique, I found some of the name pronunciations to be odd choices. Gothenburg for example was pronounced “Goat-enburg” which is neither the English or Swedish pronunciations.

I want to give it an overall two stars but I think that’s a bit unfair even if I spite-read the last 15% of the book so I could leave this critical reveal.

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Hoover

Revisado: 02-06-18

Creates a good argument that the heat of past partisan politics has almost indelibly warped the historical narrative. This biography is the best criticism I’ve read of the New Deal as, if not a failure, at least very wanting as a response to the Great Depression. I’ve come to expect that all biographers, to some extent, become their subject’s champion and apologist. This biography is no exception and while the extolling of Hoover’s virtues is in plain sight, the apologies for his failings aren’t made directly. They are delivered through omissions and elisions, which I find either a dangerous attempt to obscure hard truths or a sad ignorance of historical perspective.

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Smooth the rough edges

Revisado: 10-16-17

Every biographer seems to fall in love with their subject. Any of their blemishes are smooth off their failings explained away. This book is no exception but it still seems a worthwhile chronicle of Eisenhower's life and presidential years.

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Accents

Revisado: 01-09-15

Just a performance note. If the audiobook is not dramatized by different narrators, no accents for the different characters please. Even if they're good they still distract too much.

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Are there this many ellipses in the book?

Revisado: 03-24-14

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Richard Burnip?

It's no wonder.... that this audiobook... runs 32 hours.... It might seem, surprising... "Sure" you say... It's an 800 page book. Of course it runs a bit... long. Perhaps though... We should compare another tome... of equal length. Empire of Liberty... also an 800 page book... (I've rounded up a few pages.... here... and there... ) has an audiobook recording at 31 hours. So perhaps... that's about an hour of silence. The Third Reich in Power has an equal audio book running time... at 32 hours. And yet... the hardback book is 960 pages long. Certainly there are differences to be accounted for... typeset.... margins.... illustrations.... the comparison cannot be... exact... and yet, the main point is... this narration is not just... to put the point bluntly... dull... but it's also infuriatingly unlistenable.

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