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Empires of the Steppes
- The Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilisation
- Narrated by: John Moraitis
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
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Empires of the Steppes
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Summary
Bloomsbury presents Empires of the Steppes by Kenneth W. Harl, read by John Moraitis.
An epic history of how the so-called 'barbarians of the steppes' shaped the modern world.
‘A rollercoaster of historical narration’ History Today
'This is a history of epic scope that brings together the empires of the steppe land with the caravan cities of the Silk Road and imperial China' Martyn Rady, author of The Middle Kingdoms
'A sweeping account of forty-five centuries of nomadic tribes' Gillian Tett, Financial Times
'Flips the script to present the booted, felt-capped, leather-trousered and kaftan-wearing nomads as the bearers of civilisation...Harl's exhaustively researched book will ensure they rejoin the narrative of world history' Marc David Baer, Guardian
The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These tribes produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. And their deeds still resonate today.
Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples – the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths – all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world.
In this enthralling new history, Professor Kenneth W. Harl draws on a lifetime of scholarship to vividly recreate the lives of these peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age. Their brutal struggle to survive on the steppes bred a resilient, pragmatic people ever-ready to learn from their neighbours. In warfare, they dominated the battlefield for over fifteen hundred years. Under charismatic rulers, they could topple empires and win their own.
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What listeners say about Empires of the Steppes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael Connolly
- 13-12-23
Excellent history of the steppe people
A lot of odd and obvious cuts but the content is fascinating, great book
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 21-12-23
Terrific book ruined by the narrator
I get that Chinese names are hard. But the variation here is all over the place. However, worse than that is the sense that every third word comes as a total surprise to the narrator. It’s like being dragged behind a chariot on a bumpy Silk Road; you never know when a sentence will end, or suddenly lurch back into life. Such a fascinating book but utterly ruined by this bargain basement reading.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- T. Chapman
- 18-04-24
Excellent book, worst ever narration
This is a very good and comprehensively researched work. However the focus is almost entirely on military history there is very little social or cultural content.
I would recommend reading the book but I would not under any consideration recommend the audio version; a very basic text to audio program could have read the book ten times better. The very worst of it was the dreadful intonation which made it very difficult to remain engaged. Truly awful!!
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Mark
- 03-12-23
Too much detail destroys the narrative
Do I really need to know how many vowels the language has compared to Turkish? or who married who five generations before? The historian may know his facts but cannot weave a narrative. It becomes seriously annoying and what should be a fascinating piece of history, blends into boring factoid after boring factoid. He made Genghis Khan boring! Now that is an achievement. Avoid. Ps the narrator is equally bland it’s like a machine reading. Sorry everyone but I HATED THIS.
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1 person found this helpful