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Around the World in 80 Words
- A Journey Through the English Language
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
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Around the World in 80 Words
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Publisher's summary
What makes a place so memorable that it survives forever in a word? In this captivating round-the-world tour, Paul Anthony Jones acts as your guide through the intriguing stories of how 80 places became immortalized in the English language. You'll discover why the origins of turkeys, limericks, Brazil nuts, and Panama hats aren't quite as straightforward as you might presume. If you've never heard of the tiny Czech mining town of Jáchymov - or Joachimsthal, as it was known until the late 1800s - you're not alone, which makes its claim to fame as the origin of the word "dollar" all the more extraordinary. The story of how the Great Dane isn't all that Danish makes the list, as does the Jordanian mountain whose name has become a byword for a tantalizing glimpse. We'll also find out what the Philippines has given to your office inbox, what Alaska has given to your liquor cabinet, and how a speech given by a bumbling North Carolinian gave us a word for impenetrable nonsense.
Surprising, entertaining, and illuminating, this is a must-listen for armchair travelers and word nerds. Our dictionaries are full of hidden histories, tales, and adventures from all over the world - if you know where to look.
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The Travels of Marco Polo
- By: Marco Polo, Rustichello da Pisa
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
The Travels of Marco Polo is the classic account of Marco Polo's journey to China from Venice, and his discoveries as an emissary to the great Kublai Khan. Polo explores everywhere from Baghdad, Armenia and Russia to the Caspian Sea, the Gobi Desert and the small fishing villages of China, describing the geography, architecture and customs of these exotic places.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Laura Harley on 05-22-20
By: Marco Polo, and others
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Ireland - Culture Smart!
- The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture
- By: John Scotney
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The island of Ireland is famous for its timeless beauty, the variety of its landscape, its quiet towns and lively cities, the poetic and literary genius of so many of its citizens, its music and folklore, and its colorful and bloody history. Businesspeople and visitors who don't know Ireland will find this book an invaluable introduction to the people, the country, and the economic opportunities it offers, while if you think you know Ireland and the Irish, you will find plenty here to broaden and deepen that knowledge, and plenty that will surprise you.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good baseline for a trip to Ireland.
- By Vincent Collins on 07-24-17
By: John Scotney
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Made in America
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,494
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,235
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,234
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Bryson Not Reading Makes For a Rare Fail
- By John on 02-28-14
By: Bill Bryson
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A Brief History of Indonesia
- Sultans, Spices, and Tsunamis: The Incredible Story of Southeast Asia's Largest Nation
- By: Tim Hannigan
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 118
Indonesia is by far the largest nation in Southeast Asia and has the fourth-largest population in the world after the United States. Indonesian history and culture are especially relevant today as the island nation is an emerging power in the region with a dynamic new leader. It is a land of incredible diversity and unending paradoxes that has a long and rich history stretching back a thousand years and more.
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4 out of 5 stars
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More Indonesian history please Audible
- By Damien on 08-20-19
By: Tim Hannigan
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The Greeks
- A Global History
- By: Roderick Beaton
- Narrated by: Anna Crowe
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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.
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4 out of 5 stars
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An Ethnography of the Greeks
- By gmurphy92 on 03-27-22
By: Roderick Beaton
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The Discovery of France
- A Historical Geography
- By: Graham Robb
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
A narrative of exploration - full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants - that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great history of the cultural formation of France
- By Scotty on 07-31-21
By: Graham Robb
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The Vikings
- A New History
- By: Neil Oliver
- Narrated by: James A. Gillies
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 424
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 370
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 368
Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Intriguing for a broad audience.
- By Grant on 08-07-18
By: Neil Oliver
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The Year 1000
- When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began
- By: Valerie Hansen
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 571
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 476
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Story4 out of 5 stars 471
People often believe that the years immediately prior to AD 1000 were, with just a few exceptions, lacking in any major cultural developments or geopolitical encounters, that the Europeans hadn’t yet reached North America, and that the farthest feat of sea travel was the Vikings’ invasion of Britain. But how, then, to explain the presence of blond-haired people in Maya temple murals at Chichén Itzá, Mexico? Could it be possible that the Vikings had found their way to the Americas during the height of the Maya empire?
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1 out of 5 stars
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Long on Speculation, Short on Evidence
- By Phyllis on 10-10-20
By: Valerie Hansen
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The Story of English in 100 Words
- By: David Crystal
- Narrated by: David Crystal
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 268
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 231
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 231
In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ("roe", in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ("loaf") to cutting edge ("twittersphere") and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ("and", "what") to the more fanciful ("fopdoodle"), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Random but entertaining
- By Sean on 04-01-13
By: David Crystal
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Making Haste from Babylon
- The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
At the end of 1618, a blazing green star soared across the night sky over the northern hemisphere. From the Philippines to the Arctic, the comet became a sensation and a symbol, a warning of doom or a promise of salvation. Two years later, as the Pilgrims prepared to sail across the Atlantic on board the Mayflower, the atmosphere remained charged with fear and expectation. Men and women readied themselves for war, pestilence, or divine retribution. Against this background, and amid deep economic depression, the Pilgrims conceived their enterprise of exile.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent, detailed and eye-opening
- By David on 09-20-15
By: Nick Bunker
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The Boundless Sea
- A Human History of the Oceans
- By: David Abulafia
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 41 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
From the author of the acclaimed The Great Sea, David Abulafia's new book guides listeners along the world's greatest bodies of water to reveal their primary role in human history. The main protagonists are the three major oceans - the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian - which together comprise the majority of the earth's water and cover over half of its surface. These waterways carried goods, plants, livestock, and, of course, people across vast expanses, transforming and ultimately linking irrevocably the economies and cultures of Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Like Reading a Dictionary.
- By aaron on 01-10-21
By: David Abulafia
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Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies—vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of the European empire.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fun historical analysis of Pirate political systems
- By Ian Turner on 01-30-23
By: David Graeber
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Ask a Historian
- 50 Surprising Answers to Things You Always Wanted to Know
- By: Greg Jenner
- Narrated by: Dan Schreiber, Greg Jenner, Janina Ramirez, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Responding to fifty genuine questions from the public, Greg Jenner takes you on an entertaining tour through history from the Stone Age to the Swinging Sixties, revealing the best and most surprising stories, facts and historical characters from the past. From ancient joke books, African empires and the invention of meringues, to mummies, mirrors and menstrual pads—Ask A Historian is a deliciously amusing and informative smorgasbord of historical curiosities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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best bonus content ever!
- By Matthew K Wendelken on 03-24-22
By: Greg Jenner
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Children of Ash and Elm
- A History of the Vikings
- By: Neil Price
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,339
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,145
The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding
- By Than on 10-06-20
By: Neil Price
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What listeners say about Around the World in 80 Words
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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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tim K.
- 01-12-24
Fascinating!
This was such a fun and interesting story. Makes me want to travel and learn more. Very well put together. Witty.
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