23 Best Social History, History Books
Social History, History is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Social History, History audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 23 Social History, History audiobooks below.
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When Brooklyn Was Queer
- By: Hugh Ryan
- Narrator: Hugh Ryan
- Length: 11 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.31(1073 ratings)
4.31(1073 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe never-before-told story of Brooklyn’s vibrant and forgotten queer history, from the mid-1850s up to the present day Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the earlyThe never-before-told story of Brooklyn’s vibrant and forgotten queer history, from the mid-1850s up to the present day
Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the queer women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond. No other book, movie, or exhibition has ever told this sweeping story. Not only has Brooklyn always lived in the shadow of queer Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Harlem, but there has also been a systematic erasure of its queer history–a great forgetting.
Ryan is here to unearth that history for the first time. In intimate, evocative, moving prose he discusses in new light the fundamental questions of what history is, who tells it, and how we can only make sense of ourselves through its retelling; and shows how the formation of the Brooklyn we know today is inextricably linked to the stories of the incredible people who created its diverse neighborhoods and cultures. Through them, When Brooklyn Was Queer brings Brooklyn’s queer past to life, and claims its place as a modern classic.
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The Game
- By: George Howe Colt
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hours 56 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.27(262 ratings)
4.27(262 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USD*A New York Times Notable Book* *A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year* From the bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of The Big House comes “a well-blended narrative packed with top-notch reporting and relevance for our own*A New York Times Notable Book*
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*A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year*
From the bestselling National Book Award finalist and author of The Big House comes “a well-blended narrative packed with top-notch reporting and relevance for our own time” (The Boston Globe) about the young athletes who battled in the legendary Harvard-Yale football game of 1968 amidst the sweeping currents of one of the most transformative years in American history.
On November 23, 1968, there was a turbulent and memorable football game: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. And to many, the reasons had as much to do with one side’s miraculous comeback in the game’s final forty-two seconds as it did with the months that preceded it, months that witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, police brutality at the Democratic National Convention, inner-city riots, campus takeovers, and, looming over everything, the war in Vietnam.
George Howe Colt’s The Game is the story of that iconic American year, as seen through the young men who lived it and were changed by it. One player had recently returned from Vietnam. Two were members of the radical antiwar group SDS. There was one NFL prospect who quit to devote his time to black altruism; another who went on to be Pro-Bowler Calvin Hill. There was a guard named Tommy Lee Jones, and fullback who dated a young Meryl Streep. They played side by side and together forged a moment of startling grace in the midst of the storm.
“Vibrant, energetic, and beautifully structured” (NPR), this magnificent and intimate work of history is the story of ordinary people in an extraordinary time, and of a country facing issues that we continue to wrestle with to this day. “The Game is the rare sports book that lives up to the claim of so many entrants in this genre: It is the portrait of an era” (The Wall Street Journal). -
The American Patriot’s Almanac
- By: William J. Bennett
- Narrator: William J. Bennett
- Length: 25 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: Thomas Nelson
- Publish date: June 21, 2022
- Language: English
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4.27(307 ratings)
4.27(307 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDDiscover 365 reasons to love America as you read the storied history of the United States. The fife and drum of history mark the time of each passing day. And within their cadence, personalities, conflicts, discoveries, ideas, and nations peal andDiscover 365 reasons to love America as you read the storied history of the United States.
The fife and drum of history mark the time of each passing day. And within their cadence, personalities, conflicts, discoveries, ideas, and nations peal and fade. American history is no different. Best-selling author and educator Dr. William J. Bennett is a master of the story that is the United States.
In The American Patriot’s Almanac, Bennett distills the American drama into three hundred sixty-five entries-one for each day of the year, with stories including:
- the starving time of Jamestown during the Winter of 1609
- the bloody argument of the Civil War
- the invention of items such as Teflon
The stories in this book are part of what Abraham Lincoln called the “mystic chords of memory.” They are the symbols that define the essence of the United States, that mark its historic course, and connect its people.
The American Patriot’s Almanac is a daily source of inspiration and information about the history, heroes, and achievements that sum up what this nation is all about.
Images, tables, and reference material are included in the audiobook companion PDF download.
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Get Well Soon
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrator: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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4.25(9306 ratings)
4.25(9306 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA witty, irreverent tour of history’s worst plagues–from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio–and a celebration of the heroes who fought them In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’tA witty, irreverent tour of history’s worst plagues–from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio–and a celebration of the heroes who fought them
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’t stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-nineteenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome–a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary.
Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the diseases history and circumstance have dropped on them. Some of their responses to those outbreaks are almost too strange to believe in hindsight. Get Well Soon delivers the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues we’ve suffered as a species, as well as stories of the heroic figures who selflessly fought to ease the suffering of their fellow man. With her signature mix of in-depth research and storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history’s most gripping and deadly outbreaks, and ultimately looks at the surprising ways they’ve shaped history and humanity for almost as long as anyone can remember.
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Gay New York
- By: George Chauncey
- Narrator: Graham Halstead
- Length: 18 hours 40 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 21, 2019
- Language: English
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4.25(2925 ratings)
4.25(2925 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDThe award-winning, field-defining history of gay life in New York City in the early to mid-20th century Gay New York brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed only in the closet, where gay men were isolated, invisible, andThe award-winning, field-defining history of gay life in New York City in the early to mid-20th century
Gay New York brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed only in the closet, where gay men were isolated, invisible, and self-hating. Drawing on a rich trove of diaries, legal records, and other unpublished documents, George Chauncey constructs a fascinating portrait of a vibrant, cohesive gay world that is not supposed to have existed. Called “monumental” (Washington Post), “unassailable” (Boston Globe), “brilliant” (The Nation), and “a first-rate book of history” (The New York Times), Gay New Yorkforever changed how we think about the history of gay life in New York City, and beyond.
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The Boys in the Bunkhouse
- By: Dan Barry
- Narrator: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: May 17, 2016
- Language: English
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4.14(1274 ratings)
4.14(1274 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDWith this Dickensian tale from America’s heartland, New York Times writer and columnist Dan Barry tells the harrowing yet uplifting story of the exploitation and abuse of a resilient group of men with intellectual disability, and the heroicWith this Dickensian tale from America’s heartland, New York Times writer and columnist Dan Barry tells the harrowing yet uplifting story of the exploitation and abuse of a resilient group of men with intellectual disability, and the heroic efforts of those who helped them to find justice and reclaim their lives.
In the tiny Iowa farm town of Atalissa, dozens of men, all with intellectual disability and all from Texas, lived in an old schoolhouse. Before dawn each morning, they were bussed to a nearby processing plant, where they eviscerated turkeys in return for food, lodging, and $65 a month. They lived in near servitude for more than thirty years, enduring increasing neglect, exploitation, and physical and emotional abuse–until state social workers, local journalists, and one tenacious labor lawyer helped these men achieve freedom.
Drawing on exhaustive interviews, Dan Barry dives deeply into the lives of the men, recording their memories of suffering, loneliness and fleeting joy, as well as the undying hope they maintained despite their traumatic circumstances. Barry explores how a small Iowa town remained oblivious to the plight of these men, analyzes the many causes for such profound and chronic negligence, and lays out the impact of the men’s dramatic court case, which has spurred advocates–including President Obama–to push for just pay and improved working conditions for people living with disabilities.
A luminous work of social justice, told with compassion and compelling detail, The Boys in the Bunkhouse is more than just inspired storytelling. It is a clarion call for a vigilance that ensures inclusion and dignity for all.
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The Lessons of History
- By: Will Durant
- Narrator: Grover Gardner
- Length: 5 hours 35 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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4.09(10208 ratings)
4.09(10208 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Will and Ariel Durant. The authors devoted five decades to the study of world historyA concise survey of the culture and civilization of mankind, The Lessons of History is the result of a lifetime of research from Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Will and Ariel Durant.
The authors devoted five decades to the study of world history and philosophy, culminating in the masterful eleven-volume Story of Civilization. In this compact summation of their work, Will and Ariel Durant share the vital and profound lessons of our collective past. Their perspective, gained after a lifetime of thinking and writing about the history of humankind, is an invaluable resource for us today. The rare archival recordings of the Durants in conversation, made from 1957-1977, illuminate our present condition and offer insightful guidance for the future.
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A Distant Mirror
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrator: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 28 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2005
- Language: English
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4.04(36669 ratings)
4.04(36669 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0038.95 USDA “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in TheA “marvelous history”* of medieval Europe, from the bubonic plague and the Papal Schism to the Hundred Years’ War, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Guns of August *Lawrence Wright, author of The End of October, in The Wall Street Journal
The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering time of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, and the exquisitely decorated Books of Hours; and on the other, a time of ferocity and spiritual agony, a world of chaos and the plague.
Barbara Tuchman reveals both the great rhythms of history and the grain and texture of domestic life as it was lived. Here are the guilty passions, loyalties and treacheries, political assassinations, sea battles and sieges, corruption in high places and a yearning for reform, satire and humor, sorcery and demonology, and lust and sadism on the stage. Here are proud cardinals, beggars, feminists, university scholars, grocers, bankers, mercenaries, mystics, lawyers and tax collectors, and, dominating all, the knight in his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”
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Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters
- By: Jared Knott
- Narrator: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 11 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.01(1314 ratings)
4.01(1314 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDThe small things that had great historical consequences … How often does a single tiny mistake cause an entire civilization to collapse? More often than you think! Listeners of Jared Knott’s book Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters will beThe small things that had great historical consequences …
How often does a single tiny mistake cause an entire civilization to collapse? More often than you think! Listeners of Jared Knott’s book Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters will be amazed at the little things that changed history in a big way. Here are a few examples:
A single document poorly designed by one single clerk in one single county changed the outcome of a presidential election and led directly to a major war.
A soldier accidentally kicked a helmet off of the top of a wall and caused an empire to collapse.
A small mechanical device several inches long failed to function, which changed the outcome of WWII and led to the deaths of millions of people.
A man failed to gather his army in time to defend against an attack because of the temptation of opium and a young slave woman.
And many more!
Hypnotic and addictive, these well-researched, factual stories will keep you listening far past your bedtime. Showing human weakness at its very worst in critical moments, this book is the “butterfly effect” in human history reviewed.
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Rebellion
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrator: Clive Chafer
- Length: 19 hours 0 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.99(1022 ratings)
3.99(1022 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.95 USDPeter Ackroyd has been praised as one of the greatest living chroniclers of Britain and its people. In Rebellion, he continues his dazzling account of the history of England, beginning the progress south of the Scottish king James VI, who on thePeter Ackroyd has been praised as one of the greatest living chroniclers of Britain and its people. In Rebellion, he continues his dazzling account of the history of England, beginning the progress south of the Scottish king James VI, who on the death of Elizabeth I became the first Stuart king of England, and ending with the deposition and flight into exile of his grandson James II.
The Stuart monarchy brought together the two nations of England and Scotland into one realm, albeit a realm still marked by political divisions that echo to this day. More importantly perhaps, the Stuart era was marked by the cruel depredations of civil war and the killing of a king. Shrewd and opinionated, James I was eloquent on matters as diverse as theology, witchcraft, and the abuses of tobacco, but his attitude to the English parliament sowed the seeds of the division that would split the country during the reign of his hapless heir, Charles I. Ackroyd offers a brilliant, warts-and-all portrayal of Charles’s nemesis, Oliver Cromwell, Parliament’s great military leader and England’s only dictator, who began his career as a political liberator but ended it as much of a despot as “that man of blood,” the king he executed.
England’s turbulent seventeenth century is vividly laid out before us, but so too is the cultural and social life of the period, notable for its extraordinarily rich literature, including Shakespeare’s late masterpieces, Jacobean tragedy, the poetry of John Donne and Milton, and Thomas Hobbes’s great philosophical treatise, Leviathan. Rebellion also gives us a very real sense of the lives of ordinary English men and women, lived out against a backdrop of constant disruption and uncertainty.
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Victory City
- By: John Strausbaugh
- Narrator: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 19 hours 27 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: December 04, 2018
- Language: English
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3.94(90 ratings)
3.94(90 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom John Strausbaugh, author of City of Sedition and The Village, comes the definitive history of Gotham during the World War II era. New York City during World War II wasn’t just a place of servicemen, politicians, heroes, G.I. Joes andFrom John Strausbaugh, author of City of Sedition and The Village, comes the definitive history of Gotham during the World War II era.
New York City during World War II wasn’t just a place of servicemen, politicians, heroes, G.I. Joes and Rosie the Riveters, but also of quislings and saboteurs; of Nazi, Fascist, and Communist sympathizers; of war protesters and conscientious objectors; of gangsters and hookers and profiteers; of latchkey kids and bobby-soxers, poets and painters, atomic scientists and atomic spies.
While the war launched and leveled nations, spurred economic growth, and saw the rise and fall of global Fascism, New York City would eventually emerge as the new capital of the world. From the Gilded Age to VJ-Day, an array of fascinating New Yorkers rose to fame, from Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Langston Hughes to Joe Louis, to Robert Moses and Joe DiMaggio.
In Victory City, John Strausbaugh returns to tell the story of New York City’s war years with the same richness, depth, and nuance he brought to his previous books, City of Sedition and The Village, providing readers with a groundbreaking new look into the greatest city on earth during the most transformative — and costliest — war in human history.
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The Orphans of Davenport
- By: Marilyn Brookwood
- Narrator: Susie Berneis
- Length: 12 hours 25 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: July 29, 2021
- Language: English
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3.92(219 ratings)
3.92(219 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USD“Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two toddler girls at the Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls“Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two toddler girls at the Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and sent them to an institution for the “feebleminded” to be cared for by “moron” women. To their astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal. This revolutionary finding, replicated in eleven more “retarded” children, infuriated leading psychologists, all eugenicists unwilling to accept that nature and nurture work together to decide our fates. Recasting Skeels and his team as intrepid heroes, Marilyn Brookwood weaves years of prodigious archival research to show how after decades of backlash, the Iowans finally prevailed. In a dangerous time of revived white supremacy, The Orphans of Davenport is an essential account, confirmed today by neuroscience, of the power of the Iowans’ scientific vision.
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The Red Menace
- By: Ilise S. Carter
- Narrator: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 6 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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3.87(56 ratings)
3.87(56 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDIn America, lipstick is the foundation of empires; it’s a signature of identity; it’s propaganda, self-expression, oppression, freedom, and rebellion. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry and one of our most iconic accessories ofIn America, lipstick is the foundation of empires; it’s a signature of identity; it’s propaganda, self-expression, oppression, freedom, and rebellion. It’s a multibillion-dollar industry and one of our most iconic accessories of gender.
This engaging and entertaining history of lipstick from the colonies to the present day will give listeners a new view of the little tube’s big place in modern America, from defining the middle class to building Fortune 500 businesses to being present at Stonewall and being engineered for space travel.
Lipstick has served as both a witness and a catalyst to history; it went to war with women, it gave women of color previously unheard-of business opportunities, and was part of the development of celebrity and mass media. In the twentieth century alone, lipstick evolved from a beauty secret for a select few to a required essential for well turned-out women but also a mark of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion and a political statement.
How has this mainstay of the makeup kit remained relevant for over a century? Beauty journalist Ilise S. Carter suggests that it’s because the simple lipstick says a lot. From the provocative allure of a classic red lip to the powerful statement of drag, the American love affair with lipstick is linked to every aspect of our experience of gender, from venturing into the working world or running for the presidency.
The Red Menace captures all of those dimensions, with a dishy dose of fabulosity that makes it a must-read for lipstick’s fiercest disciples, its harshest critics, and everyone in between.
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The Age of Acquiescence
- By: Steve Fraser
- Narrator: Pete Larkin
- Length: 16 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: February 17, 2015
- Language: English
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3.82(356 ratings)
3.82(356 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDA groundbreaking investigation of how and why, from the 18th century to the present day, American resistance to our ruling elites has vanished. From the American Revolution through the Civil Rights movement, Americans have long mobilized againstA groundbreaking investigation of how and why, from the 18th century to the present day, American resistance to our ruling elites has vanished.... Read moreFrom the American Revolution through the Civil Rights movement, Americans have long mobilized against political, social, and economic privilege. Hierarchies based on inheritance, wealth, and political preferment were treated as obnoxious and a threat to democracy. Mass movements envisioned a new world supplanting dog-eat-dog capitalism. But over the last half-century that political will and cultural imagination have vanished. Why?
The Age of Acquiescence seeks to solve that mystery. Steve Fraser’s account of national transformation brilliantly examines the rise of American capitalism, the visionary attempts to protect the democratic commonwealth, and the great surrender to today’s delusional fables of freedom and the politics of fear. Effervescent and razorsharp, The Age of Acquiescence is provocative and fascinating.
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Black Detroit
- By: Herb Boyd
- Narrator: James Shippy
- Length: 10 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 06, 2017
- Language: English
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3.77(238 ratings)
3.77(238 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDThe author of Baldwin’s Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit–a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city’s past, present, and futureThe author of Baldwin’s Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit–a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city’s past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation’s fabric.
Herb Boyd moved to Detroit in 1943, as race riots were engulfing the city. Though he did not grasp their full significance at the time, this critical moment would be one of many he witnessed that would mold his political activism and exposed a city restless for change. In Black Detroit, he reflects on his life and this landmark place, in search of understanding why Detroit is a special place for black people.
Boyd reveals how Black Detroiters were prominent in the city’s historic, groundbreaking union movement and–when given an opportunity–were among the tireless workers who made the automobile industry the center of American industry. Well paying jobs on assembly lines allowed working class Black Detroiters to ascend to the middle class and achieve financial stability, an accomplishment not often attainable in other industries.
Boyd makes clear that while many of these middle-class jobs have disappeared, decimating the population and hitting blacks hardest, Detroit survives thanks to the emergence of companies such as Shinola–which represent the strength of the Motor City and and its continued importance to the country. He also brings into focus the major figures who have defined and shaped Detroit, including William Lambert, the great abolitionist, Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, Coleman Young, the city’s first black mayor, diva songstress Aretha Franklin, Malcolm X, and Ralphe Bunche, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
With a stunning eye for detail and passion for Detroit, Boyd celebrates the music, manufacturing, politics, and culture that make it an American original.
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The Craft
- By: John Dickie
- Narrator: Simon Slater
- Length: 16 hours 35 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: August 18, 2020
- Language: English
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3.75(285 ratings)
3.75(285 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDInsiders call it the Craft. Discover the fascinating true story of one of the most influential and misunderstood secret brotherhoods in modern society.Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictiveInsiders call it the Craft. Discover the fascinating true story of one of the most influential and misunderstood secret brotherhoods in modern society.Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry.Yet the Masons were as feared as they were influential. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Freemasonry has always been a den of devil-worshippers. For Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, the Lodges spread the diseases of pacifism, socialism and Jewish influence, so had to be crushed.Freemasonry’s story yokes together Winston Churchill and Walt Disney; Wolfgang Mozart and Shaquille O’Neal; Benjamin Franklin and Buzz Aldrin; Rudyard Kipling and ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody; Duke Ellington and the Duke of Wellington.John Dickie’s The Craft is an enthralling exploration of a the world’s most famous and misunderstood secret brotherhood, a movement that not only helped to forge modern society, but has substantial contemporary influence, with 400,000 members in Britain, over a million in the USA, and around six million across the world.... Read more -
The Georgetown Set
- By: Gregg Herken
- Narrator: Lloyd James
- Length: 17 hours 2 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.73(177 ratings)
3.73(177 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.95 USDThis fascinating, behind-the-scenes history of postwar Washington is a rich and colorful portrait of the close-knit group of journalists, spies, and government officials who waged the Cold War over cocktails and dinner. In the years after World WarThis fascinating, behind-the-scenes history of postwar Washington is a rich and colorful portrait of the close-knit group of journalists, spies, and government officials who waged the Cold War over cocktails and dinner.
In the years after World War II, Georgetown’s leafy streets were home to an unlikely group of cold warriors: a coterie of affluent, well-educated, and well-connected civilians who helped steer American strategy from the Marshall Plan through McCarthyism, Vietnam, and the endgame of Watergate. This Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishers of the Washington Post; Joe and Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the country’s premier political pundits; Frank Wisner, a driven, manic-depressive lawyer in charge of CIA covert operations; and a host of diplomats, spies, and scholars. It was a time when presidents made foreign policy in consultation with reporters and professors–often over martinis and hors d’oeuvres–and columnists like the Alsops promoted those policies in the next day’s newspapers.
Gregg Herken illuminates the drama of these years and brings this remarkable roster of men and women and their world not only out into the open but vividly to life.
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Rebel Cinderella
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrator: LIsa Flanagan
- Length: 9 hours 25 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: March 03, 2020
- Language: English
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3.73(404 ratings)
3.73(404 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDFrom the best-selling author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts¬†comes the astonishing but forgotten story of an immigrant sweatshop worker who married an heir to a great American fortune and became one of the most charismaticFrom the best-selling author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts¬†comes the astonishing but forgotten story of an immigrant sweatshop worker who married an heir to a great American fortune and became one of the most charismatic radical leaders of her time.
Rose Pastor arrived in New York City in 1903, a Jewish refugee from Russia who had worked in cigar factories since the age of eleven. Two years later, she captured headlines across the globe when she married James Graham Phelps Stokes, scion of one of the legendary 400 families of New York high society. Together, this unusual couple joined the burgeoning Socialist Party and, over the next dozen years, moved among the liveliest group of activists and dreamers this country has ever seen. Their friends and houseguests included Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, John Reed, Margaret Sanger, Jack London, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Rose stirred audiences to tears and led strikes of restaurant waiters and garment workers. She campaigned alongside the country’s earliest feminists to publicly defy laws against distributing information about birth control, earning her notoriety as “one of the dangerous influences of the country” from President Woodrow Wilson. But in a way no one foresaw, her too-short life would end in the same abject poverty with which it began.
By a master of narrative nonfiction, Rebel Cinderella unearths the rich, overlooked life of a social justice campaigner who was truly ahead of her time.
Lisa Flanagan is an award-winning narrator, voice actor, stage director, improviser, opera librettist and classical singer. Her VO work includes animation, video games, and commercials. Lisa has received multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, Voice Arts Awards, and the 2019 Audie Award winner for Fantasy (Spinning Silver). She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her cats.
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The King’s Bed
- By: Don Jordan
- Narrator: Steve West
- Length: 12 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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3.68(208 ratings)
3.68(208 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDFrom two veteran historians comes an intelligent and spirited history of Charles II’s dissolute life and surprising legacy. To refer to the private life of Charles II is to abuse the adjective. His personal life was anything but private. HisFrom two veteran historians comes an intelligent and spirited history of Charles II’s dissolute life and surprising legacy.
To refer to the private life of Charles II is to abuse the adjective. His personal life was anything but private. His amorous liaisons were largely conducted in royal palaces surrounded by friends, courtiers, and literally hundreds of servants and soldiers. Gossip radiated throughout the kingdom.
Charles spent most of his wealth and his intellect on gaining and keeping the company of women, from the lowest of society such as the actress Nell Gwyn to the aristocratic Louise de Kerouaille. Some of Charles’ women played their part in the affairs of state, coloring the way the nation was run.
The authors take us inside Charles’ palace, where we will meet court favorites, amusing confidants, advisors jockeying for political power, mistresses past and present, as well as key figures in Charles’ inner circle, including his “pimpmasters” and his personal pox doctor.
The astonishing personal life of Charles II reveals much about the man he was and why he lived and ruled as he did. The King’s Bed tells the compelling story of a king ruled by his passion.
... Read more -
No Stopping Us Now
- By: Gail Collins
- Narrator: Gail Collins
- Length: 13 hours 27 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 15, 2019
- Language: English
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3.67(450 ratings)
3.67(450 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDThe beloved New York Times columnist “inspires women to embrace aging and look at it with a new sense of hope” in this lively, fascinating, eye-opening look at women and aging in America (Parade Magazine). “You’re not gettingThe beloved New York Times columnist “inspires women to embrace aging and look at it with a new sense of hope” in this lively, fascinating, eye-opening look at women and aging in America (Parade Magazine).... Read more
“You’re not getting older, you’re getting better,” or so promised the famous 1970’s ad — for women’s hair dye. Americans have always had a complicated relationship with aging: embrace it, deny it, defer it — and women have been on the front lines of the battle, willingly or not.
In her lively social history of American women and aging, acclaimed New York Times columnist Gail Collins illustrates the ways in which age is an arbitrary concept that has swung back and forth over the centuries. From Plymouth Rock (when a woman was considered marriageable if “civil and under fifty years of age”), to a few generations later, when they were quietly retired to elderdom once they had passed the optimum age for reproduction, to recent decades when freedom from striving in the workplace and caretaking at home is often celebrated, to the first female nominee for president, American attitudes towards age have been a moving target. Gail Collins gives women reason to expect the best of their golden years. -
Reprehensible
- By: Mikey Robins
- Narrator: Mikey Robins
- Length: 8 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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3.2(80 ratings)
3.2(80 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDRollicking and informative, Reprehensible: Polite Histories of Bad Behaviour is your guide through some of the most shameful behaviour indulged in by humanity’s most celebrated figures, as told by Mikey Robins, one of Australia’s mostRollicking and informative, Reprehensible: Polite Histories of Bad Behaviour is your guide through some of the most shameful behaviour indulged in by humanity’s most celebrated figures, as told by Mikey Robins, one of Australia’s most loved comedians.
... Read more
It is often said that we live in an era of constant outrage, but we are definitely not the inventors of outrageousness. Let’s be honest, human beings have always been appalling. Not everyone and not all the time, but our history is littered with those whose work and deeds
have rendered them . . . reprehensible.
Sometimes it’s our most esteemed luminaries who behave the worst.
What are we to make of Catherine the Great’s extensive collection of pornographic furniture, Hans Christian Andersen’s too-much-information diary and Karl Marx’s epic pub crawls? Or hall-of-fame huckster William McCloundy, who in 1901 actually ‘sold’ the Brooklyn Bridge to an unsuspecting tourist, and the pharaoh who covered his slaves in honey to keep flies off his meal? Did you know about the royal ticklers of the House of Romanov, and the bizarre coronation rituals of early Irish kings? (Let’s just say that eating a white horse wasn’t the weirdest part of the ceremony.)
So sit back and rest your conscience: there will be a host of scoundrels, bounders and reprobates, tales of lust and power aplenty, as we indulge in that sweet spot where history meets outrage, with just a bit of old-school TMZ thrown in for good measure.
Praise for Reprehensible:
‘Finally, Mikey Robins has put his vulgar mind to good use, telling history’s lesser known grubby yarns. I love it!’ Tom Gleeson -
Voices of a People’s History of the United States, 10th Anniversary Edition
- By: Howard Zinn
- Narrator: Robert Fass
- Length: 31 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDSelected testimonies to living history–speeches, letters, poems, songs–offered by the people who make history happen, but are often left out of history books: women, workers, nonwhites. Featuring introductions to the original texts bySelected testimonies to living history–speeches, letters, poems, songs–offered by the people who make history happen, but are often left out of history books: women, workers, nonwhites. Featuring introductions to the original texts by Howard Zinn.
New voices featured in this 10th Anniversary Edition include Chelsea Manning, speaking after her thirty-five-year prison sentence; Naomi Klein, speaking from the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Liberty Square; a member of Dream Defenders, a youth organization that confronts systemic racial inequality; members of the Undocumented Youth movement, who occupied, marched, and demonstrated in support of the DREAM Act; a member of the Day Laborers movement; Chicago Teachers Union strikers; and several critics of the Obama administration, including Glenn Greenwald, on governmental secrecy.
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A Torch Kept Lit
- By: William F. Buckley
- Narrator: Tony Pasqualini
- Length: 9 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA unique collection of eulogies of the twentieth century’s greatest figures, written by conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. and compiled by National Review and Fox News White House correspondent James Rosen. In a half century on theA unique collection of eulogies of the twentieth century’s greatest figures, written by conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. and compiled by National Review and Fox News White House correspondent James Rosen.
In a half century on the national stage, William F. Buckley Jr. achieved unique stature as a polemicist and the undisputed godfather of modern American conservatism. He knew everybody, hosted everybody at his East 73rd Street maisonette, skewered everybody who needed skewering, and in general lived life on a scale, and in a swashbuckling manner, that captivated and inspired countless young conservatives across that half-century.
Among all of his distinctions, which include founding the conservative magazine National Review and serving as host on the long running talk show Firing Line, Buckley was a master of that most elusive of art forms: the eulogy. Buckley drew on his unrivaled gifts in what he liked to call “the controversial arts” to mourn, celebrate, or seek eternal mercy for the men and women who touched his life and the nation; to conjure their personalities, recall memorable moments, herald their greatness; or to remind readers of why a given individual, even with the grace that death can uniquely confer, should be remembered as evil.
At all points, these remembrances reflect Buckley’s singular voice, with its elegant touch and mordant humor, and lend to the lives departed a final tribute consistent with their own careers, lives, and accomplishments. Of the more than one hundred eulogies located in Buckley’s vast archive of published works, A Torch Kept Lit will collect the very best, those remembering the most consequential lives (Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan), the most famous to today’s listeners (Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Princess Diana), those who loomed largest in the conservative movement (Barry Goldwater, Milton Friedman), the most accomplished in the literary world (William Shawn, Norman Mailer), the most mysterious (Soviet spy Alger Hiss, CIA spymaster Richard Helms), and those most dear to Buckley (his mother and father).
... 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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