29 Best 20th Century, Biography & Autobiography Books
20th Century, Biography & Autobiography is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top 20th Century, Biography & Autobiography audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 29 20th Century, Biography & Autobiography audiobooks below.
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Buses Are a Comin’
- By: Charles Person
- Narrator: Landon Woodson
- Length: 10 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: April 27, 2021
- Language: English
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4.48(584 ratings)
4.48(584 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.99 USD“Narrator Landon Woodson does a masterful job delivering Person’s audiobook–which is both Person’s own coming-of-age story and the story of a nation trying to reckon with racism…This important audiobook is shared“Narrator Landon Woodson does a masterful job delivering Person’s audiobook–which is both Person’s own coming-of-age story and the story of a nation trying to reckon with racism…This important audiobook is shared exquisitely by Woodson.” — AudioFile Magazine
A firsthand exploration of the cost of boarding the bus of change to move America forward—written by one of the Civil Rights Movement’s pioneers.At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who left Washington, D.C. by bus in 1961, headed for New Orleans. This purposeful mix of black and white, male and female activists–including future Congressman John Lewis, Congress of Racial Equality Director James Farmer, Reverend Benjamin Elton Cox, journalist and pacifist James Peck, and CORE field secretary Genevieve Hughes–set out to discover whether America would abide by a Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional in bus depots, waiting areas, restaurants, and restrooms nationwide.
Two buses proceeded through Virginia, North and South Carolina, to Georgia where they were greeted by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and finally to Alabama. There, the Freedom Riders found their answer: No. Southern states would continue to disregard federal law and use violence to enforce racial segregation. One bus was burned to a shell, its riders narrowly escaping; the second, which Charles rode, was set upon by a mob that beat several riders nearly to death.
Buses Are a Comin’ provides a front-row view of the struggle to belong in America, as Charles Person accompanies his colleagues off the bus, into the station, into the mob, and into history to help defeat segregation’s violent grip on African American lives. It is also a challenge from a teenager of a previous era to the young people of today: become agents of transformation. Stand firm. Create a more just and moral country where students have a voice, youth can make a difference, and everyone belongs.A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press
“Shot through with vivid details of beatdowns, arrests, and awe-inspiring bravery, this inspirational account captures the magnitude of what the early civil rights movement was up against.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A vital story, this memoir is also an instructive gift to future generations fighting for change.” — Kirkus, starred review
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Betty Ford
- By: Lisa McCubbin Hill
- Narrator: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 15 hours 3 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.45(619 ratings)
4.45(619 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USDFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Five Presidents and The Kennedy Detail comes an “insightful and beautifully told look into the life of one of the most public and admired first ladies” (Publishers Weekly)–BettyFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Five Presidents and The Kennedy Detail comes an “insightful and beautifully told look into the life of one of the most public and admired first ladies” (Publishers Weekly)–Betty Ford.
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Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer is the inspiring story of an ordinary Midwestern girl thrust onto the world stage and into the White House under extraordinary circumstances. Setting a precedent as First Lady, Betty Ford refused to be silenced by her critics as she publicly championed equal rights for women, and spoke out about issues that had previously been taboo–breast cancer, depression, abortion, and sexuality. Privately, there were signs something was wrong. After a painful intervention by her family, she admitted to an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. Her courageous decision to speak out publicly sparked a national dialogue, and in 1982, she co-founded the Betty Ford Center, which revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and inspired the modern concept of recovery.
Lisa McCubbin also brings to light Gerald and Betty Ford’s sweeping love story: from Michigan to the White House, until their dying days, their relationship was that of a man and woman utterly devoted to one another other–a relationship built on trust, respect, and an unquantifiable chemistry.
Based on intimate interviews with her children, Susan Ford Bales and Steven Ford, as well as family, friends, and colleagues, Betty Ford is “a vivid picture of a singularly influential woman” (Bookpage). -
Five Days in November
- By: Clint Hill
- Narrator: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 3 hours 51 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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4.44(2620 ratings)
4.44(2620 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDDon’t miss the New York Times bestseller Five Days in November, where Secret Service agent Clint Hill tells the stories behind the iconic images of those five infamous, tragic days surrounding JFK’s assassination, published for the 50thDon’t miss the New York Times bestseller Five Days in November, where Secret Service agent Clint Hill tells the stories behind the iconic images of those five infamous, tragic days surrounding JFK’s assassination, published for the 50th anniversary of his death.
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On November 22, 1963, three shots were fired in Dallas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the world stopped for four days. For an entire generation, it was the end of an age of innocence.
That evening, a photo ran on the front pages of newspapers across the world, showing a Secret Service agent jumping on the back of the presidential limousine in a desperate attempt to protect the President and Mrs. Kennedy. That agent was Clint Hill.
Now Secret Service Agent Clint Hill commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the tragedy with this stunning book containing more than 150 photos, each accompanied by Hill’s incomparable insider account of those terrible days. With poignant narration accompanying rarely seen images, we witness three-year-old John Kennedy Jr.’s pleas to come to Texas with his parents and the rapturous crowds of mixed ages and races that greeted the Kennedys at every stop in Texas. We stand beside a shaken Lyndon Johnson as he is hurriedly sworn in as the new president. We experience the first lady’s steely courage when she insists on walking through the streets of Washington, DC, in her husband’s funeral procession.
A story that has taken Clint Hill fifty years to tell, this is a work of personal and historical scope. Besides the unbearable grief of a nation and the monumental consequences of the event, the death of JFK was a personal blow to a man sworn to protect the first family, and who knew, from the moment the shots rang out in Dallas, that nothing would ever be the same. -
Pillar of Fire
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrator: CCH Pounder
- Length: 6 hours 47 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1998
- Language: English
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4.35(2622 ratings)
4.35(2622 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0015.95 USDFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement. In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting theFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement.
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In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage.
Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the reader to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the “March on Washington,” the Civil Rights Act, and voter registration drives. In 1964, King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Branch’s magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King’s leadership, are among the nation’s enduring achievements. In bringing these decades alive, preserving the integrity of those who marched and died, Branch gives us a crucial part of our history and heritage. -
Pillar of Fire
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrator: Janina Edwards
- Length: 29 hours 49 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.35(2622 ratings)
4.35(2622 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0039.99 USDFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement. In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting theFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement.
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In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage.
Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the reader to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the “March on Washington,” the Civil Rights Act, and voter registration drives. In 1964, King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Branch’s magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King’s leadership, are among the nation’s enduring achievements. In bringing these decades alive, preserving the integrity of those who marched and died, Branch gives us a crucial part of our history and heritage. -
A Matter of Honor
- By: Anthony Summers
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: November 15, 2016
- Language: English
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4.33(196 ratings)
4.33(196 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDOn the seventy-fifth anniversary, the authors of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Eleventh Day unravel the mysteries of Pearl Harbor to expose the scapegoating of the admiral who was in command the day 2,000 Americans died, report on the continuingOn the seventy-fifth anniversary, the authors of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Eleventh Day unravel the mysteries of Pearl Harbor to expose the scapegoating of the admiral who was in command the day 2,000 Americans died, report on the continuing struggle to restore his lost honor–and clear President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the charge that he knew the attack was coming.
The Japanese onslaught on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 devastated Americans and precipitated entry into World War II. In the aftermath, Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, was relieved of command, accused of negligence and dereliction of duty–publicly disgraced.
But the Admiral defended his actions through eight investigations and for the rest of his long life. The evidence against him was less than solid. High military and political officials had failed to provide Kimmel and his Army counterpart with vital intelligence. Later, to hide the biggest U.S. intelligence secret of the day, they covered it up.
Following the Admiral’s death, his sons–both Navy veterans–fought on to clear his name. Now that they in turn are dead, Kimmel’s grandsons continue the struggle. For them, 2016 is a pivotal year.
With unprecedented access to documents, diaries and letters, and the family’s cooperation, Summers’ and Swan’s search for the truth has taken them far beyond the Kimmel story–to explore claims of duplicity and betrayal in high places in Washington.
A Matter of Honor is a provocative story of politics and war, of a man willing to sacrifice himself for his country only to be sacrificed himself. Revelatory and definitive, it is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of this pivotal event.
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The Storm on Our Shores
- By: Mark Obmascik
- Narrator: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 9 hours 2 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.32(567 ratings)
4.32(567 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDThis “engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) national bestseller and true “heartbreaking tale of tragedy and redemption” (Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers) reveals how a discovered diary–found during aThis “engrossing” (The Wall Street Journal) national bestseller and true “heartbreaking tale of tragedy and redemption” (Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers) reveals how a discovered diary–found during a brutal World War II battle–changed our war-torn society’s perceptions of Japan.
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May 1943. The Battle of Attu–called “The Forgotten Battle” by World War II veterans–was raging on the Aleutian island with an Arctic cold, impenetrable fog, and rocketing winds that combined to create some of the worst weather on Earth. Both American and Japanese forces tirelessly fought in a yearlong campaign, with both sides suffering thousands of casualties. Included in this number was a Japanese medic whose war diary would lead a Silver Star-winning American soldier to find solace for his own tortured soul.
The doctor’s name was Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, a Hiroshima native who had graduated from college and medical school in California. He loved America, but was called to enlist in the Imperial Army of his native Japan. Heartsick, wary of war, yet devoted to Japan, Tatsuguchi performed his duties and kept a diary of events as they unfolded–never knowing that it would be found by an American soldier named Dick Laird.
Laird, a hardy, resilient underground coal miner, enlisted in the US Army to escape the crushing poverty of his native Appalachia. In a devastating mountainside attack in Alaska, Laird was forced to make a fateful decision, one that saved him and his comrades, but haunted him for years.
Tatsuguchi’s diary was later translated and distributed among US soldiers. It showed the common humanity on both sides of the battle. But it also ignited fierce controversy that is still debated today. After forty years, Laird was determined to return it to the family and find peace with Tatsuguchi’s daughter, Laura Tatsuguchi Davis.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik “writes with tremendous grace about a forgotten part of our history, telling the same story from two opposing points of view–perhaps the only way warfare can truly be understood” (Helen Thorpe, author of Soldier Girls). -
The Devil’s Chessboard
- By: David Talbot
- Narrator: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 25 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 13, 2015
- Language: English
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4.32(2747 ratings)
4.32(2747 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0048.99 USDAn explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful–and secretive–colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestsellerAn explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful–and secretive–colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers.
America’s greatest untold story: the United States’ rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials–including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials–Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.
Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA–which he used to further his public and private agendas–were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients–colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
An expose of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state–and the battle for America’s soul.
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Silent Spring Revolution
- By: Douglas Brinkley
- Narrator: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 29 hours 24 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: November 15, 2022
- Language: English
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4.32(64 ratings)
4.32(64 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0051.99 USDNew York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural worldNew York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960-1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
With the detonation of the Trinity explosion in the New Mexico desert in 1945, the United States took control of Earth’s destiny for the first time. After the Truman administration dropped atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, a grim new epoch had arrived. During the early Cold War years, the federal government routinely detonated nuclear devices in the Nevada desert and the Marshall Islands. Not only was nuclear fallout a public health menace, but entire ecosystems were contaminated with radioactive materials. During the 1950s, an unprecedented postwar economic boom took hold, with America becoming the world’s leading hyperindustrial and military giant. But with this historic prosperity came a heavy cost: oceans began to die, wilderness vanished, the insecticide DDT poisoned ecosystems, wildlife perished, and chronic smog blighted major cities.
In Silent Spring Revolution, Douglas Brinkley pays tribute to those who combated the mauling of the natural world in the Long Sixties: Rachel Carson (a marine biologist and author), David Brower (director of the Sierra Club), Barry Commoner (an environmental justice advocate), Coretta Scott King (an antinuclear activist), Stewart Udall (the secretary of the interior), William O. Douglas (Supreme Court justice), Cesar Chavez (a labor organizer), and other crusaders are profiled with verve and insight.
Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, depicted how detrimental DDT was to living creatures. The expose launched an ecological revolution that inspired such landmark legislation as the Wilderness Act (1964), the Clean Air Acts (1963 and 1970), and the Endangered Species Acts (1966, 1969, and 1973). In intimate detail, Brinkley extrapolates on such epic events as the Donora (Pennsylvania) smog incident, JFK’s Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Great Lakes preservation, the Santa Barbara oil spill, and the first Earth Day.
With the United States grappling with climate change and resource exhaustion, Douglas Brinkley’s meticulously researched and deftly written Silent Spring Revolution reminds us that a new generation of twenty-first-century environmentalists can save the planet from ruin.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Reaganland
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrator: Samantha Desz
- Length: 45 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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4.31(1239 ratings)
4.31(1239 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0039.99 USDA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published threeA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020
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From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.
Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga’s final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement.
In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford’s defeat, too old to make another run. His comeback was fueled by an extraordinary confluence: fundamentalist preachers and former segregationists reinventing themselves as militant crusaders against gay rights and feminism; business executives uniting against regulation in an era of economic decline; a cadre of secretive “New Right” organizers deploying state-of-the-art technology, bending political norms to the breaking point–and Reagan’s own unbending optimism, his ability to convey unshakable confidence in America as the world’s “shining city on a hill.”
Meanwhile, a civil war broke out in the Democratic party. When President Jimmy Carter called Americans to a new ethic of austerity, Senator Ted Kennedy reacted with horror, challenging him for reelection. Carter’s Oval Office tenure was further imperiled by the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, near-catastrophe at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant, aviation accidents, serial killers on the loose, and endless gas lines.
Backed by a reenergized conservative Republican base, Reagan ran on the campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”–and prevailed. Reaganland is the story of how that happened, tracing conservatives’ cutthroat strategies to gain power and explaining why they endure four decades later. -
Five Presidents
- By: Clint Hill
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 14 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.26(6795 ratings)
4.26(6795 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USDThe #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November reflects on his seventeen years on the Secret Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.The assassination of one president, theThe #1 New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November reflects on his seventeen years on the Secret Service for presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford.
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The assassination of one president, the resignation of another, and the swearing-in of the two who followed those traumatic events. Clint Hill was there, on duty, through Five Presidents.
After an extraordinary career as a Special Agent on the White House Detail, Clint Hill retired in 1975. His career spanned the administrations of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford. A witness to some of the most pivotal moments in the twentieth century, Hill lets you walk in his shoes alongside the most powerful men in the world during tumultuous times in America’s history–the Cold War; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy; the Vietnam War; Watergate; and the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Nixon.
It was indeed a turbulent time–and through it all, Clint Hill had a unique insider perspective. His fascinating stories will shed new light on the character and personality of each of these five presidents, as Hill witnesses their human sides in the face of grave decisions. -
The General and the Genius
- By: James Kunetka
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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4.22(262 ratings)
4.22(262 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDTwo ambitious men. One historic mission. With a blinding flash in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 1945, the world was changed forever. The bomb that ushered in the atomic age was the product of one of history’s most improbableTwo ambitious men. One historic mission.
With a blinding flash in the New Mexico desert in the summer of 1945, the world was changed forever. The bomb that ushered in the atomic age was the product of one of history’s most improbable partnerships. The General and the Genius reveals how two extraordinary men pulled off the greatest scientific feat of the twentieth century.
Leslie Richard Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers, who had made his name by building the Pentagon in record time and under budget, was made overlord of the impossibly vast scientific enterprise known as the Manhattan Project. His mission: to beat the Nazis to the atomic bomb. So he turned to the nation’s preeminent theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer–the chain-smoking, martini-quaffing son of wealthy Jewish immigrants, whose background was riddled with communist associations–Groves’ opposite in nearly every respect. In their three-year collaboration, the iron-willed general and the visionary scientist led a brilliant team in a secret mountaintop lab and built the fearsome weapons that ended the war but introduced the human race to unimaginable new terrors. And at the heart of this most momentous work of World War II is the story of two extraordinary men–the general and the genius.
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The Kennedys
- By: SpeechWorks
- Length: 7 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.2(5 ratings)
4.2(5 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDFrom the White House, Senate chambers, campaign stops, and press conferences, The Kennedys features over seven hours of original speeches from members of the nation’s most famous political family. Listen as President John F. Kennedy deliversFrom the White House, Senate chambers, campaign stops, and press conferences, The Kennedys features over seven hours of original speeches from members of the nation’s most famous political family.
Listen as President John F. Kennedy delivers his famous inauguration speech in 1961 as well as speeches on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Berlin crisis, space exploration, civil rights, “Ich Bin Ein Berliner,” and more. Also featured are twelve speeches from Senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, including his address to the DNC following his brother’s assassination, remarks on Vietnam, campaign speeches, the death of Martin Luther King Jr., and his “Victory Speech” in Los Angeles moments before his assassination. Among other speeches are Senator Edward Kennedy’s eulogy for his brother Robert, his famous address to the DNC in 1980, heated debate on the Senate floor, and his final public speech in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention.
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No Ordinary Time
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrator: Nelson Runger
- Length: 39 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2011
- Language: English
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4.19(41972 ratings)
4.19(41972 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0079.95 USDDoris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World War II.WithDoris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World War II.
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With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines–Eleanor and Franklin’s marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin effectively melds these details and stories into an unforgettable and intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born. -
No Ordinary Time
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrator: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 6 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 1995
- Language: English
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4.19(41972 ratings)
4.19(41972 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0015.95 USDDoris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World WarDoris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic about the relationship between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how it shaped the nation while steering it through the Great Depression and the outset of World War II.
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With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines—Eleanor and Franklin’s marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war. Goodwin effectively melds these details and stories into an unforgettable and intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born. -
The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
- By: Bill McKibben
- Narrator: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 6 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: May 31, 2022
- Language: English
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4.17(499 ratings)
4.17(499 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USD“Narrator Eric Jason Martin adds gusto to this mini-memoir, which spans much of author Bill McKibben’s lifetime.”-AudioFile on The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon Bill McKibben–award-winning author, activist,“Narrator Eric Jason Martin adds gusto to this mini-memoir, which spans much of author Bill McKibben’s lifetime.”-AudioFile on The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon
Bill McKibben–award-winning author, activist, educator–is fiercely curious.
“I’m curious about what went so suddenly sour with American patriotism, American faith, and American prosperity.”
Like so many of us, McKibben grew up believing–knowing–that the United States was the greatest country on earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Massachusetts. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth.
But fifty years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril.
And he is curious: What the hell happened?
In this revelatory cri de coeur, McKibben digs deep into our history (and his own well-meaning but not all-seeing past) and into the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis to explain how we got to this point. He finds that he is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth–The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon–could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Co.
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After Camelot
- By: J. Randy Taraborrelli
- Narrator: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 21 hours 59 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: April 24, 2012
- Language: English
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4.17(892 ratings)
4.17(892 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.98 USDFor more than half a century, Americans have been captivated by the Kennedys – their joy and heartbreak, tragedy and triumph, the dark side and the remarkable achievements. In this ambitious and sweeping account, Taraborelli continues theFor more than half a century, Americans have been captivated by the Kennedys – their joy and heartbreak, tragedy and triumph, the dark side and the remarkable achievements. In this ambitious and sweeping account, Taraborelli continues the family chronicle begun with his bestselling Jackie, Ethel, Joan and provides a behind-the-scenes look at the years “after Camelot.” He describes the challenges Bobby’s children faced as they grew into adulthood; Eunice and Sargent Shriver’s remarkable philanthropic work; the emotional turmoil Jackie faced after JFK’s murder and the complexities of her eventual marriage to Aristotle Onassis; the the sudden death of JFK JR; and the stoicism and grace of his sister Caroline.
He also brings into clear focus the complex and intriguing story of Edward “Teddy” and shows how he influenced the sensibilities of the next generation and challenged them to uphold the Kennedy name. Based on extensive research, including hundreds of exclusive interviews, After Camelot captures the wealth, glamour, and fortitude for which the Kennedys are so well known. With this book, J. Randy Taraborrelli takes readers on an epic journey as he unfolds the ongoing saga of the nation’s most famous-and controversial-family.
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The Road to Jonestown
- By: Jeff Guinn
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 17 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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4.16(7171 ratings)
4.16(7171 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USD2018 Edgar Award Finalist–Best Fact Crime“A thoroughly readable, thoroughly chilling account of a brilliant con man and his all-too vulnerable prey” (The Boston Globe)–the definitive story of preacher Jim Jones, who was2018 Edgar Award Finalist–Best Fact Crime
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“A thoroughly readable, thoroughly chilling account of a brilliant con man and his all-too vulnerable prey” (The Boston Globe)–the definitive story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre, the largest murder-suicide in American history, by the New York Times bestselling author of Manson.
In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially mixed, and he was a leader in the early civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California, where he got involved in electoral politics and became a prominent Bay Area leader. But underneath the surface lurked a terrible darkness.
In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his early days as an idealistic minister to a secret life of extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing, before the fateful decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died–including almost three hundred infants and children–after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.
Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestown is “the most complete picture to date of this tragic saga, and of the man who engineered it…The result is a disturbing portrait of evil–and a compassionate memorial to those taken in by Jones’s malign charisma” (San Francisco Chronicle). -
The Presidents Club
- By: Nancy Gibbs
- Narrator: Bob Walter
- Length: 22 hours 0 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2012
- Language: English
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4.15(8264 ratings)
4.15(8264 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDThe New York Times bestselling history of the private relationships among the last thirteen presidents–the partnerships, private deals, rescue missions, and rivalries of those select men who served as commander in chief.The Presidents Club,The New York Times bestselling history of the private relationships among the last thirteen presidents–the partnerships, private deals, rescue missions, and rivalries of those select men who served as commander in chief.
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The Presidents Club, established at Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, is a complicated place: its members are bound forever by the experience of the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history’s favor. Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama.
Time magazine editors and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy offer a new and revealing lens on the American presidency, exploring the club as a hidden instrument of power that has changed the course of history. -
The Final Days
- By: Bob Woodward
- Narrator: Holter Graham
- Length: 19 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.15(5112 ratings)
4.15(5112 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USD“An extraordinary work of reportage on the epic political story of our time” (Newsweek)–from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthors of All the President’s Men.The Final Days is the #1 New York Times“An extraordinary work of reportage on the epic political story of our time” (Newsweek)–from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning coauthors of All the President’s Men.
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The Final Days is the #1 New York Times bestselling, classic, behind-the-scenes account of Richard Nixon’s dramatic last months as president. Moment by moment, Bernstein and Woodward portray the taut, post-Watergate White House as Nixon, his family, his staff, and many members of Congress strained desperately to prevent his inevitable resignation. This brilliant book reveals the ordeal of Nixon’s fall from office–one of the gravest crises in presidential history. -
Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?
- By: Tina Cassidy
- Narrator: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 10 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.15(343 ratings)
4.15(343 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDIn this “heroic narrative” (The Wall Street Journal), discover the inspiring and timely account of the complex relationship between leading suffragist Alice Paul and President Woodrow Wilson in her fight for women’s equality.In this “heroic narrative” (The Wall Street Journal), discover the inspiring and timely account of the complex relationship between leading suffragist Alice Paul and President Woodrow Wilson in her fight for women’s equality.
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Woodrow Wilson lands in Washington, DC, in March of 1913, a day before he is set to take the presidential oath of office. He is surprised by the modest turnout. The crowds and reporters are blocks away from Union Station, watching a parade of eight thousand suffragists on Pennsylvania Avenue in a first-of-its-kind protest organized by a twenty-five-year-old activist named Alice Paul. The next day, The New York Times calls the procession “one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.”
Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? weaves together two storylines: the trajectories of Alice Paul and Woodrow Wilson, two apparent opposites. Paul’s procession of suffragists resulted in her being granted a face-to-face meeting with President Wilson, one that would lead to many meetings and much discussion, but little progress for women. With no equality in sight and patience wearing thin, Paul organized the first group to ever picket in front of the White House lawn–night and day, through sweltering summer mornings and frigid fall nights.
From solitary confinement, hunger strikes, and the psychiatric ward to ever more determined activism, Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait? reveals the courageous, near-death journey it took, spearheaded in no small part by Alice Paul’s leadership, to grant women the right to vote in America. “A remarkable tale” (Kirkus Reviews) and a rousing portrait of a little-known feminist heroine, this is an eye-opening exploration of a crucial moment in American history one century before the Women’s March. -
When Lions Roar
- By: Thomas Maier
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 21 hours 51 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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4.12(282 ratings)
4.12(282 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDThe first comprehensive history of the deeply entwined personal and public lives of the Churchills and the Kennedys and what their special relationship meant for Great Britain and the United States When Lions Roar begins in the mid-1930s atThe first comprehensive history of the deeply entwined personal and public lives of the Churchills and the Kennedys and what their special relationship meant for Great Britain and the United States
When Lions Roar begins in the mid-1930s at Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s country estate, with new revelations surrounding a secret business deal orchestrated by Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of future American president John F. Kennedy. From London to America, these two powerful families shared an ever-widening circle of friends, lovers, and political associates–soon shattered by World War II, spying, sexual infidelity, and the tragic deaths of JFK’s sister Kathleen and his older brother Joe Jr. By the 1960s and JFK’s presidency, the Churchills and the Kennedys had overcome their bitter differences and helped to define the greatness in each other.
Acclaimed biographer Thomas Maier tells this dynastic saga through fathers and their sons–and the remarkable women in their lives–providing keen insight into the Churchill and Kennedy families and the profound forces of duty, loyalty, courage, and ambition that shaped them. He explores the seismic impact of Winston Churchill on JFK and American policy, wrestling anew with the legacy of two titans of the twentieth century. Maier also delves deeply into the conflicted bond between Winston and his son Randolph and the contrasting example of patriarch Joe Kennedy, a failed politician who successfully channeled his personal ambitions to his children. By approaching these iconic figures from a new perspective, Maier not only illuminates the intricacies of this all-important cross-Atlantic allegiance but also enriches our understanding of the tumultuous time in which they lived and the world events they so greatly influenced.
With deeply human portraits of these flawed but larger-than-life figures, When Lions Roar explores the special relationship between the Churchills and Kennedys, between Great Britain and the United States, highlighting all of its emotional complexity and historic significance.
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The Bully Pulpit
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrator: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 36 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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4.12(19014 ratings)
4.12(19014 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0039.95 USDWinner of the 2015 Audie Award for History/Biography and Finalist for Audiobook of the YearPulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s dynamic history of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the firstWinner of the 2015 Audie Award for History/Biography and Finalist for Audiobook of the Year
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s dynamic history of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air.
Winner of the Carnegie Medal.
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit is a dynamic history of the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air.
The story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft–a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party, causing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected, and changing the country’s history.
The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine–Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White–teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S.S. McClure.
Goodwin’s narrative is founded upon a wealth of primary materials. The correspondence of more than four hundred letters between Roosevelt and Taft begins in their early thirties and ends only months before Roosevelt’s death. Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft kept diaries. The muckrakers wrote hundreds of letters to one another, kept journals, and wrote their memoirs. The letters of Captain Archie Butt, who served as a personal aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, provide an intimate view of both men.
The Bully Pulpit, like Goodwin’s brilliant chronicles of the Civil War and World War II, exquisitely demonstrates her distinctive ability to combine scholarly rigor with accessibility. It is a major work of history–an examination of leadership in a rare moment of activism and reform that brought the country closer to its founding ideals. -
The Bully Pulpit
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrator: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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4.12(19014 ratings)
4.12(19014 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.95 USDWinner of the 2015 Audie Award for History/Biography and Finalist for Audiobook of the YearPulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s dynamic history of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the firstWinner of the 2015 Audie Award for History/Biography and Finalist for Audiobook of the Year
... Read more
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s dynamic history of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air.
Winner of the Carnegie Medal.
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit is a dynamic history of the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air.
The story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft–a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party, causing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected, and changing the country’s history.
The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine–Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White–teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S.S. McClure.
Goodwin’s narrative is founded upon a wealth of primary materials. The correspondence of more than four hundred letters between Roosevelt and Taft begins in their early thirties and ends only months before Roosevelt’s death. Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft kept diaries. The muckrakers wrote hundreds of letters to one another, kept journals, and wrote their memoirs. The letters of Captain Archie Butt, who served as a personal aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, provide an intimate view of both men.
The Bully Pulpit, like Goodwin’s brilliant chronicles of the Civil War and World War II, exquisitely demonstrates her distinctive ability to combine scholarly rigor with accessibility. It is a major work of history–an examination of leadership in a rare moment of activism and reform that brought the country closer to its founding ideals. -
The Fall of Heaven
- By: Andrew Scott Cooper
- Narrator: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 22 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.11(483 ratings)
4.11(483 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDAn immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran’s glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late shah’s widow, Empress Farah In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century’s mostAn immersive, gripping account of the rise and fall of Iran’s glamorous Pahlavi dynasty, written with the cooperation of the late shah’s widow, Empress Farah
In this remarkably human portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world’s top five powers. Listeners get the story of the shah’s political career alongside the story of his courtship and marriage to Farah Diba, who became a power in her own right; the beloved family they created; and an exclusive look at life inside the palace during the Iranian Revolution.
Cooper’s investigative account ultimately delivers the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty through the eyes of those who were there: leading Iranian revolutionaries, President Jimmy Carter and White House officials, US Ambassador William Sullivan and his staff in the American embassy in Tehran, American families caught up in the drama, and even Empress Farah herself, along with the rest of the Iranian Imperial family.
At once intimate and sweeping, The Fall of Heaven recreates in stunning detail the dramatic and final days of one of the world’s most legendary ruling families, the unseating of which helped set the stage for the current state of the Middle East.
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The Oswalds
- By: Paul R. Gregory
- Narrator: Traber Burns
- Length: 8 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.09(31 ratings)
4.09(31 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe closest friend of Lee Harvey Oswald and his Soviet wife Marina upon the couple’s arrival in Texas breaks a sixty-year silence with a riveting story of his time with JFK’s assassin and his candid assessment of the murder that marked aThe closest friend of Lee Harvey Oswald and his Soviet wife Marina upon the couple’s arrival in Texas breaks a sixty-year silence with a riveting story of his time with JFK’s assassin and his candid assessment of the murder that marked a turning point in our country’s history.
Merely two hours after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, television cameras captured police escorting a suspect into Dallas police headquarters. Meanwhile at the University of Oklahoma, watching the coverage in the student center, Paul Gregory scanned the figure in dark trousers and a white, V-neck tee shirt and saw the bruised and battered face of Lee Harvey Oswald. Shocked, Gregory said, “I know that man.” In fact, he knew Oswald and his wife Marina better than almost anyone in America.
After sixty years, Paul Gregory finally tells everything he knows about the Oswalds and how he watched the soul of a killer take shape.
Identified by the FBI as a “known associate of LHO,” Gregory soon faced interrogations by the Secret Service. Later he would testify before the Warren Commission. Here, in The Oswalds, he offers the intimate details of his time spent with Lee and wife Marina in their run-down duplex on Mercedes Street in Fort Worth, Texas, and his admission into the inner world of a young marriage before candidly assessing the murder that marked a turning point in our country’s history. His riveting recollection includes memories both casual and deadly serious, such as the dinner at his parents’ house introducing Marina to the “Dallas Russians,” a front-yard incident of spousal abuse, and a further rift in the marriage when he exposed to Marina that Oswald was not the dashing, radical intellectual whose Historic Diary would be a publishing sensation. And Gregory also gives a fascinating account of his father’s role as an eyewitness to history, serving as Marina’s translator and confidante in the first four days after the assassination.
As a scholar and skilled researcher, Gregory debunks the vast array of assassination conspiracy theories by demonstrating that Lee Harvey Oswald did it and did it alone–that the Oswald he once called a friend had the motive, the intelligence, and the means to commit one of the most shocking crimes in American history.
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Barack Obama
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrator: David Maraniss
- Length: 24 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2012
- Language: English
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4.08(1007 ratings)
4.08(1007 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDThe groundbreaking multigenerational biography, a richly textured account of President Obama and the forces that shaped him and sustain him, from Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, political commentator, and acclaimed biographer David Maraniss. InThe groundbreaking multigenerational biography, a richly textured account of President Obama and the forces that shaped him and sustain him, from Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, political commentator, and acclaimed biographer David Maraniss.
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In Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss has written a deeply reported generational biography teeming with fresh insights and revealing information, a masterly narrative drawn from hundreds of interviews, including with President Obama in the Oval Office, and a trove of letters, journals, diaries, and other documents.
The book unfolds in the small towns of Kansas and the remote villages of western Kenya, following the personal struggles of Obama’s white and black ancestors through the swirl of the twentieth century. It is a roots story on a global scale, a saga of constant movement, frustration and accomplishment, strong women and weak men, hopes lost and deferred, people leaving and being left. Disparate family threads converge in the climactic chapters as Obama reaches adulthood and travels from Honolulu to Los Angeles to New York to Chicago, trying to make sense of his past, establish his own identity, and prepare for his political future.
Barack Obama: The Story chronicles as never before the forces that shaped the first black president of the United States and explains why he thinks and acts as he does. Much like the author’s classic study of Bill Clinton, First in His Class, this promises to become a seminal book that will redefine a president. -
1944
- By: Jay Winik
- Narrator: Arthur Morey
- Length: 21 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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4.07(1125 ratings)
4.07(1125 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USD**New York Times Bestseller** Jay Winik brings to life in “gripping” detail (The New York Times Book Review) the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined**New York Times Bestseller**
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Jay Winik brings to life in “gripping” detail (The New York Times Book Review) the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt.
1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler’s waning power. Instead, it saved those democracies–but with a fateful cost. Now, in a “complex history rendered with great color and sympathy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Jay Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history “with cinematic force” (Time).
1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But millions of lives were at stake as President Roosevelt learned about Hitler’s Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an infirm Roosevelt, who faced a momentous decision. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world’s reach, one challenge–saving Europe’s Jews–seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt’s grasp.
“Compelling….This dramatic account highlights what too often has been glossed over–that as nobly as the Greatest Generation fought under FDR’s command, America could well have done more to thwart Nazi aggression” (The Boston Globe). Destined to take its place as one of the great works of World War II, 1944 is the first book to retell these events with moral clarity and a moving appreciation of the extraordinary actions of many extraordinary leaders. -
Jackie, Ethel, Joan
- By: J. Randy Taraborrelli
- Narrator: Beth Fowler
- Length: 5 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 01, 2005
- Language: English
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4.06(2094 ratings)
4.06(2094 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.98 USDJacqueline Bouvier. Ethel Skakel. Joan Bennett. Three women who married into America’s royal family and became forever linked in legend. Set against the panorama of explosive American history, this unique story offers a rarely-seen look at theJacqueline Bouvier. Ethel Skakel. Joan Bennett. Three women who married into America’s royal family and became forever linked in legend.Set against the panorama of explosive American history, this unique story offers a rarely-seen look at the relationship shared among the three women — during the Camelot years and beyond. Whether dealing with their husbands’ blatant infidelities, stumping for their many political campaigns, touring the world to promote their family’s legacy, raising their children, or confronting death, the Kennedy wives did it all with grace, style and dignity.... Read more
Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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