text: I bought this audio CD set at the Borders store, without the opportunity to preview the narration. Had I been able to do so, I probably never would have purchased it, let alone paid full bookstore price for it. But I needed an audiobook for my long drive the next day, so I relented. 
  
  Lesson learned.
  
  The audio quality is very insonsistent, at at times very poor, having been transcribed from the original audiotape recording. 
  
  While the author is obviously greatly informed on the historical and geopolitical details of the Middle East, it does read very much like a history text. With the amount of detail presented, and the wide scope of coverage from one end of Europe reaching into the former Soviet states and beyond, one immediately feels the need for visual aids (maps, timelines, etc.) as guidance. 
  
  The reader's narration is monotononous, with a very constant cadence which dulls the senses. Each sentence sounds the same as the last. This has the unfortunate effect of rendering each piece of information presented as no more significant than any other, and so all of the events seem to be lost to obscurity. After a while, the narration becomes little more than background noise. No information is retained by the listener
  