Albert Kesselring holds a strange place in the history of World War II. A commander in the Luftwaffe, he is remembered as much for the skill with which he oversaw the German armies as for his mastery of the air fleets. Called "Uncle Albert" by many of his men and "Smiling Albert" by the Allies, he was widely respected by men on both sides of the war and loved by many of his troops, yet he was responsible for massacres in occupied Italy for which he was condemned to death during the post-war trials.

In 323 BCE, Alexander the Great was on top of the world. Never a man to sit on his hands or rest upon his laurels, Alexander began planning his future campaigns, which may have included attempts to subdue the Arabian Peninsula or make another incursion into India. But fate had other plans for the young Macedonian king. One night, while feasting with his admiral Nearchus, he drank too much and took to bed with a fever.

This is the full, uninterrupted audiobook of the story of I & II Maccabees - read with the passion this masterpiece deserves by number-one best-selling voice talent Steve Cook. Hanukkah or Chanukah is an annual Jewish celebration in the late fall/early winter that dates back to circa 164 BC. It was also referred to as "Festival of Lights" or "Feast of the Dedication" or "Feast of the Maccabees".

From classics such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid to fifth-century Christian apocrypha, narratives that described guided tours of the afterlife played a major role in shaping ancient notions of morality and ethics. In this new account, acclaimed author Bart Ehrman contextualizes early Christian narratives of heaven and hell within the broader intellectual and cultural worlds from which they emerged.

Take a journey through the ancient history of the Jewish people, a proud and stubborn people who desired to retain their freedom and uniqueness. They fought for this ideal for centuries with various success, but then came the mighty Roman Empire. At first, the Romans were their allies, but they eventually conquered the Jewish state into their vast realm.

This deeply researched and insightful book examines the causes, course, and historical significance of the Jews' failed revolt against Rome from 66 to 74 CE, including the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Based on a comprehensive study of all the evidence and new statistical data, Guy Rogers argues that the Jewish rebels fought for their religious and political freedom and lost owing to military mistakes.

This guide deals with the dealings of the Romans 2,000 years ago. You'll learn more about their habits, their wars, the success of their empire, the first emperor, Augustus, Pompeii and its purpose, the eruption there, the Vestal Virgins and their tasks in society. In short, this is the perfect guide to get acquainted with how Romans lives. Start listening now.

Jerusalem, 180 BCE. For 800 years the Zadokite priesthood has led the Jewish people. But the world is changing. Without, Rome is rising, crushing the other powers of the ancient world beneath it. Within, a power struggle inside the House of Zadok is a golden opportunity for interlopers, who seek to unseat them from the throne. On the background of these tumultuous times, Judah, scion of a minor priestly lineage, comes of age in Judea. While experiencing love, friendship, and conflict, he slowly transforms into the warrior and leader his people are waiting for.

With an original music score by composer Stefano Mainetti (Abba Pater), feature-film quality sound effects, and compelling narration by Michael York and the work of over 500 actors, the The Word of Promise Audio Bible will immerse listeners in the dramatic reality of the scriptures as never before. Each beloved book of the Bible comes to life with outstanding performances by Jim Caviezel as Jesus, Richard Dreyfuss as Moses, Gary Sinise as David, Jason Alexander as Joseph, Marisa Tomei as Mary Magdalene, Stacy Keach as Paul, Louis Gossett, Jr. as John...

The Jewish people are one of the oldest living people groups on the planet. The Jews lived alongside the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Sumerians - all of whom have since disappeared from the pages of history. Yet the Jews still remain. Despite all of the odds, Jewish culture, language, laws, and religion have remained intact over the course of thousands of years.

The Roman Empire has been in the spotlight for ages. It has been studied, research, and taught in schools across the world. Inventions, words, vocabulary, and philosophy have been derived from those important transition in human history. The Romans were ruthless in some ways yet civilized in others. They were a peculiar people who did things differently than those they called barbarians. Their warfare, their habits, their vision of the future...these all made their empire what it became. What is that makes us so obsessed with this particular time period?

This audiobook offers the perfect explanation of how the Roman empire began, how it was run, what some of the emperors did, and much more. You’ll also find out why and how it ended, how the wars influenced their expansion and shrinkage, and other facts.

If you want to discover the captivating history of Iran, then listen to these five captivating manuscripts in one audiobook: Achaemenid Empire, Parthian Empire, Sasanian Empire, The Safavid Empire, and The Afsharid and Qajar Dynasty, will help you learn more about the history of Iran.

While the words and actions of the 12 apostles can be found scattered throughout the New Testament, putting together the pieces can be confusing, taxing, and just plain hard. Names are often repeated or changed. Previous jobs and possible destinations are mentioned, but even a map of the ancient world can be difficult to piece together.

In this Captivating History audiobook, you will discover how important the Sasanian Empire was to history and how their legacy became an integral part of what we today think of as Islamic culture.

If you want to discover the captivating history of Iran, then listen to these five captivating manuscripts in one audiobook: Achaemenid Empire, Parthian Empire, Sasanian Empire, The Safavid Empire, and The Afsharid and Qajar Dynasty, will help you learn more about the history of Iran.

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520).

If you want to discover the captivating history of ancient Anatolia, then pay attention.... What sparks curiosity about ancient Anatolia, which makes up most of modern-day Turkey, in the minds of history lovers is the diversity of its peoples throughout its territories and time. This audiobook seeks to present the most current view on the events that unfolded through the centuries of the Bronze and Iron Ages of Anatolia. The listener can follow the rise of some of the most famous empires in the world, as well as learn about the circumstances that led to their fall.

In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.

Previous accounts of the fall of the Inca empire have played up the importance of the events of one violent day in November 1532 at the highland Andean town of Cajamarca. To some, the "Cajamarca miracle" - in which Francisco Pizarro and a small contingent of Spaniards captured an Inca who led an army numbering in the tens of thousands - demonstrated the intervention of divine providence. To others, the outcome was simply the result of European technological and immunological superiority.

Islam has been one of the most powerful religious, social, and political forces in history. Over the last 1,400 years, from origins in Arabia, a succession of Muslim polities, and later empires expanded to control territories and peoples that ultimately stretched from southern France to East Africa and South East Asia. Yet many of the contributions of Muslim thinkers, scientists, and theologians, not to mention rulers, statesmen, and soldiers, have been occluded. This book rescues from oblivion and neglect some of these personalities and institutions.

When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes listeners on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West.

Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.

This thorough guide explores those civilizations that have faded from the pages of our textbooks but played a significant role in the development of modern society. Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World covers the Hyksos to the Hephthalites and everyone in between, providing a unique overview of humanity's history from approximately 3000 BCE-550 CE. Each entry exposes a diverse culture, highlighting their important contributions.

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic Asian antithesis of the Christian European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage.

In this landmark work, one of the world's most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption into the Roman Empire - 3,000 years of wild drama, bold spectacle, and unforgettable characters. Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavish pomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohs but for the first time reveals the constant propaganda and repression that were its foundations.

More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek city-states, led by Athens and Sparta, laid the foundation for much of modern science, the arts, politics, and law. But the influence of the Greeks did not end with the rise and fall of this classical civilization. As historian Roderick Beaton illustrates, over three millennia Greek speakers produced a series of civilizations that were rooted in southeastern Europe but again and again ranged widely across the globe.

To untangle the modern Middle East conflict and the 2,000 years behind it, this book is divided into 25 concise chapters. Each one is devoted to a major theme in Middle East history, such as the beginning of Islam, the Crusades, Genghis Khan, and the beginning of Israel in 1948. They can be read in a few minutes, giving you a fast overview of the issues and help you to understand Middle East current events.

In The Race for Paradise, Paul M. Cobb offers a new history of the confrontations between Muslims and Franks we now call the "Crusades", one that emphasizes the diversity of Muslim experiences of the European holy war. There is more to the story than Jerusalem, the Templars, Saladin, and the Assassins. Cobb considers the Arab perspective on all shores of the Muslim Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria.

To an extraordinary extent we continue to live in the shadow of the classical world. At every level, from languages to calendars to political systems, we are the descendants of a “classical Europe,” using frames of reference created by ancient Mediterranean cultures. As this consistently fresh and surprising new audio book makes clear, however, this was no less true for the inhabitants of those classical civilizations themselves, whose myths, history, and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past - one filled with great leaders and writers....