Showing results by narrator "Charlton Griffin" in All Categories

Francis Marion was probably the most romantic figure to emerge from the American Revolutionary War. Of Huguenot ancestry, Marion was descended from a French family fleeing the religious persecutions of Louis XIV. Listen to this great history as you learn how Marion used guerrilla tactics to defeat one British force after another. It is a thrilling tale of patriotism, determination, and sacrifice.

Volume Two opens in late 1754. Having resigned his commission in the Virginia militia, Washington pondered his future as a soldier. But by the spring of 1755, he had been made aide de camp to British general Edward Braddock. It was to prove a fateful event. Washington accompanied Braddock on his disastrous expedition to capture Fort DuQuesne (Pittsburgh), but the small army was ambushed and Braddock killed. Young Washington distinguished himself in the hopeless battle and subsequent retreat.

Dio Cassius was a Roman statesman and historian of Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the subsequent founding of Rome (753 BC), the formation of the republic (509 BC), and the creation of the empire (31 BC). The history continues until AD 229.

The incredible saga of Hannibal and his invasion of Italy in 218 B.C. is the subject of this third volume of Livy's magnificent history. As only Livy can describe it, we are swept into the era of the Second Punic War and given a ringside view of the leadership of both sides. The stirring account of Hannibal crossing the Alps, the brutal description of Cannae, and the relentless Roman siege of Syracuse are some of the highlights of this remarkable story.

Herodotus was a Greek historian born in Halicarnassus, subject at the time of the great Persian Empire. He lived in the fifth century BC (c. 484 - c. 425 BC), a contemporary of Socrates. He is often referred to as "The Father of History", a title originally conferred by Cicero. Herodotus was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition in order to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation, specifically by collecting his materials in a critical, systematic fashion and then arranging them into a chronological narrative.

Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever undertaken. It is an epic of courage, faith and democratic principle.

Polybius wrote his Histories "to find out by what means and by what political system the entire world was brought under the domination of Rome." Within the short space of about 50 years Rome went from being a provincial leader of an Italian confederacy to become the Mistress of the Mediterranean. Polybius was one of the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination of tradition and a keen scrutiny of the facts.

The Persian Wars is part history, part geography, part anthropology...and completely entertaining. It possesses a charm that is legendary. However, over and above this, Herodotus has succeeded for all time in brilliantly expressing the conflict between the ideal of the free man defending his liberty within a state based on the rule of law, and that of the despot who bases his rule on brute force and whose subjects are considered slaves.

Livy's purpose in writing his famous history was to show how Rome had started out as a city state full of brave, idealistic and virtuous citizens, but had then descended into the voracious, debauched, and immoral empire it had become by his own time in the late 1st century B.C. And the evidence was compelling.

Goethe was probably the greatest universal genius who ever lived. Although known primarily as a poet, playright, and novelist, he was also known for his work in anatomy, botany, color, art criticism, and jurisprudence. Many people are deterred from attempting to read anything by Goethe because of his extremely penetrating intelligence and dense prose. But his travel diary, Italian Journey, is by far easier to digest than anything else by him.

George Washington, a Biography by Douglas Southall Freeman was the second great historical masterpiece by him to win the Pulitzer Prize, awarded posthumously in 1958. Freeman completed six volumes of this magnificent biography, but died before finishing the seventh and final volume, concluded for him by his research associates in 1957. In Volume One, Young Washington, we follow the development of George from childhood to young manhood. It is an extraordinary tale of youthful vigor and determination.

Although theologians are apt to explain away these teachings in various ways, the Vedantists believe Christ meant what he said. Listen to this remarkable recording and discover how Vedanta goes to the very heart of Christ's teaching.Vedanta came to the West in the late 19th century, not to supplant any religion, but to bring a more tangible spirituality to those who seek it. Its goal has never been to proselytize, but to help man realize the divinity within him.

As the 18th century approached its midpoint, commercial and military competition between the European states became fierce. And whoever obtained accurate information about distant lands would hold an advantage. Were there continental landmasses in the Pacific? Was there a Northwest Passage to Japan and China? What lay in the interior of Africa? Was it possible to cross the Sahara? Where did the rivers Nile and Congo originate?

Volume Two of Dio Cassius brings to a close his sweeping historical work, Roman History. This volume begins with book 50 and the struggle between Octavian and Mark Antony. Octavian's victory is the beginning of the Principate and a new direction in Roman history. Dio takes a prolonged look at the reign of Augustus.

This fascinating historical novel brings to life the ancient Roman Empire with all its decadence, vice, virtue, courage, splendor, and magnificence. Told from the first-person point of view, and closely following actual historical events and personalities, this is the story of Minutus Manilianus, a Roman knight who comes to manhood during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Skillfully recapturing the essence of the period in its vast tapestry of color, drama, beauty, and menace, Waltari weaves a masterful plot beginning in the eastern Mediterranean port city of Antioch.

Volume three opens in May 1863 as Lee assessed his situation after the great Confederate victory at Chancellorsville and the loss of General Jackson. Lee quickly reorganized his army and headed north, hoping to inflict a war-ending defeat on the Union. But absent Jackson, his army was not the same.

The story begins in Minoan Crete, but quickly shifts to a dimly understood mainland culture. We follow the heroic deeds of the Mycenians and the Trojan War, the glorious artistic and intellectual triumphs of the Ionians, the turmoil of the Doric invasion and resultant dark age, the slow recovery culminating in the epic Persian wars and the renewed splendor of Periclean Athens.

In 1938 Maugham wrote, "Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other." Maugham also wrote that most of his short stories were inspired by accounts he heard firsthand during his travels to the lonely outposts of the British Empire. In volume three of this series, we present all of the remaining short stories which Maugham published after World War I and which he subsequently caused to be republished in various collections.

The Annals, Part 2 picks up in the year A.D. 32 with the increasingly menacing and tyrannical behavior of Tiberius. With hundreds murdered or driven to suicide and many more in exile, Tiberius descends steadily into growing lust and debauchery on his private estate on the isle of Capri. Overseas, Rome is victorious in her struggle with Parthia, and as Tiberius is being smothered to death in A.D. 37 by Macro, peace at last comes to the eastern frontier.

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.