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Vienna

How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World

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Vienna

By: Richard Cockett
Narrated by: Gareth Richards
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How can one European capital be responsible for most of the West's intellectual and cultural achievements in the twentieth century?

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens—every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna.

The city of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt was the melting pot at the heart of a vast metropolitan empire. But with the Second World War and the rise of fascism, the dazzling coteries of thinkers who squabbled, debated, and called Vienna home dispersed across the world, where their ideas continued to have profound impact.

Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of this extraordinary story. Tracing Vienna's rich intellectual history from psychoanalysis to Reaganomics, Cockett encompasses everything from the communist rebels of Red Vienna to the neoliberal economists of the Austrian School. This is the panoramic account of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

©2023 Richard Cockett (P)2023 Tantor Austria & Hungary Economics Europe Modern Sociology Urban
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It’s a great book, but I don’t understand why it is so difficult to find a speaker who has at least a minimum command of German or gives at least minimum effort to get the pronounciation of Austrian names right, which are used in every 2nd sentence. It is embarrassing, barely comprehensible and very distracting to listen to.

Great book, ridiculous pronunciation

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The narrator doesn’t speak German and mutilates the pronunciation of all German words and names (of which there are many) in this book, rendering them unrecognizable to people like me who are already familiar with the subject. It is unfortunate. The book itself provides a comprehensive, if somewhat dry, summary of the topic - I enjoyed it, but preferred Carl Schorske’s monumental book, which covered similar material.

Decent book, flawed verbal performance

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I enjoyed the book itself, but the narrator’s performance was disappointing. Their delivery was monotonous, and their inability to pronounce German words correctly was frustrating, especially since German names and places feature prominently in the book. For a German speaker, this significantly diminishes the listening experience, as it often becomes difficult to recognize the names being mentioned. I strongly recommend that Audible consider re-recording this audiobook with a more engaging narrator who has a proper understanding of German pronunciation. It would greatly enhance the overall enjoyment of the story.

Great Book - very poor narrator

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I enjoyed the authors development of the hypothesis on the impact of Vienna‘s intellectuals on so many aspects of global, specifically western culture.
The reader clearly hasn’t studied German or pronounciation of German words or names. He slaughters a good significant amount of the German contained in the text, sometimes to the point of unrecognizability. As native German speaker it hurts to listen to some of the handling of the language.

Interesting view on the impact of Vienna awfully read

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The book itself is very interesting and well written. It is performed, however, by someone who clearly didn’t even make the minimal effort to learn to pronounce German. No, I am not talking about a foreign accent here, I am talking about literally unpreparedly butchering over a book about a German-speaking city, which, as one expects, is full of German personal names and place names. These are pronounced in a way that one can barely recognise them.

Interesting book performed horribly

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