The Alps: A Human History from Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond - Stephen O’Shea Audiobook

Written by Stephen O’Shea
Read by Robert Fass
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HighBridge
Release date: February 21, 2017
Duration: 10:12:06

For centuries the Alps have seen the march of armies, the flow of pilgrims and Crusaders, the feats of mountaineers and the dreams of engineers-and some 14 million people live among their peaks today.

In The Alps, Stephen O’Shea takes readers up and down these majestic mountains, journeying through their 500-mile arc across France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia. Along the way, he explores the reality behind Hannibal and his elephants’ famous crossing in 218 BCE; he reveals how the Alps have profoundly influenced culture from Frankenstein to Heidi to The Sound of Music; and he visits the spot where Arthur Conan Doyle staged Sherlock Holmes’s death scene, the bloody site of the Italians’ retreat in World War I, and Hitler’s notorious vacation house, the Eagle’s Nest.

Throughout, O’Shea records his adventures with the watch makers, salt miners, cable-car operators, and yodelers who define the Alps today.

“O’Shea is at his best when describing the architectural marvels of the places he visits, its literary trivia .. and such folkways as yodeling. Unfortunately, O’Shea’s approach to elucidating regional history can be rather too cursory, and his prose style aspires to the scale and grandeur of the Alps without reaching such heights. O’Shea comes across as a charming, ever-curious, and knowledgeable raconteur, but the book never seems sure of its purpose and suffers as a result.”—PW