Enjoyable way to learn history, but looses its way

Ian Mortimer's 'Time Traveller' series is always an enjoyable and light hearted way to top of historical knowledge and in particular the details which usually get edited out of more 'academic' histories -there are always some intriguing facts that stay with one - and the narration is excellent. This one seemed to forget it was a 'time travellers guide' for about the last 45 minutes though and became increasingly just a 'history of' - which was a shame - but I am not sure how he could have dealt with composers and writers in any other way - the time traveller could hardly have attended endless concerts!

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3 people found this helpful

Enjoyable and informative

I like the style in which Iain Mortimer explains life in past times - it is evocative and helps bring it to life.
My only criticism is that I found it a little too long although that might simply be a reflection of the fact I've had less time recently for listening to audio books.

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2 people found this helpful

Brilliant!

Having listened to the Tome Travellers Guide to Medieval England I expected another high standard journey into the past and I was not disappointed! This book is a thoughtful, insightful and superbly detailed tour de force through the aspects of restoration Britain and the realities of life at the time including economy, daily life, crime and punishment, theatre, literature, poetry, the arts, science, agriculture, society, food and drink, occupations, fortunes and misfortunes, currency, - you name it, it’s in here.

If you even hold a passing interest in history and the ways people lived in the past this book will entertain and enthrall. The narration performance is also excellent - an all round first class offering and one of my top 5 Audible purchases. Get it, it’s brilliant.

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So good I'm listening again

This is an excellent way to immerse us into any period of history. I will probably re-visit this time and again.

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wonderful

This translates really well to an audiobook format. I read a bit of his time travellers guide to medieval England but its difficult to focus due to the sweeping nature of the subject. This is not the case here and is helped by a wonderful narrator.

Very informative, thought provoking and surprisingly funny(I had to stifle many a laugh on my commutes).

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Well read by the narrator and very informative.

Very informative and in the medical chapter, excruciating in places. Not for the squeamish.
Tough times in those days and I guess no place for the modern"snow flake" of current times. Rough justice too. No one was safe from possible unfair and fatal punishment . Even a sitting monarch! But that being said, as long as you didn't need a (witch) doctor, at least you weren't being poisoned by food and environmental toxins like we all are today.

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Back in time....

I’ve enjoyed this whole series. Full of historical facts and well read, I could almost smell the streets, markets and hear the music.

Unlike a lot of other historical works these books are not ‘dry’ and make historical learning fun!

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1 person found this helpful

Holiday without leaving home

A fascinating well written, brilliantly researched and superbly read piece of social history. Obviously skewed in a metro centric manner given the sources but non the less a lively and vibrant account of life in Restoration England. Far better than the Guide to Elizabethan Britain which was less enjoyable due to the turgid narration but certainly on a par with the guide to Medieval Britain.

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Terrific

Fantastic attention to detail. Beautly researched. Some of the Law and Order detail is a bit gory!

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Hardships

It's how it was, incredible
To imagine being there, to suffer the hardships, then to realise what a comfortable live most off us have

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