Americas Audiobooks | History

Hamilton's Choice: A Gripping Novel of America's Foremost Founding Father

Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the founding era of a new nation, Hamilton's Choice chronicles the life and times of one of America's 'first men' and architect of a new country, Alexander Hamilton. A poor, bastard orphan from the Caribbean, Hamilton rose to be one of the foremost leaders of a fledgling democratic republic. As one of the 'first men' of a new nation, Hamilton had many friends - and many more enemies, none more virulent than Vice President Aaron Burr. The death of Hamilton's eldest son, Phillip, at the hands of Burr's political allies, sets Hamilton on an inescapable and tragic course, one that will shock the nation. This is a tale of treachery, political intrigue, and heart-wrenching drama as an American hero is torn between love for his family and his commitment to his country.

Jack Casey (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

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A Rare Recording of Lord Haw-Haw

Lord Haw-Haw was a nickname given to the American-born Brit, William Joyce, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain from Germany during the Second World War. Lord Haw-Haw was a Nazi broadcaster during World War II. Joyce emigrated to Germany and broadcast Nazi messages for several years. The Reich Ministry of Propaganda used these broadcasts to discourage and demoralize Allied forces and the British population by exaggerating their war losses. Up to 60% of the British population actually tuned in to Lord Haw-Haw's broadcasts. They lasted from 1939-1945. Eventually Joyce was captured by Allied forces and brought back to England for trial. He was convicted of treason and hanged on January 3, 1946. This recording from April 9, 1940 is about the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway.

Lord Haw-Haw (Author), Lord Haw-Haw (Narrator)

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A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction 2003 A shattering history of the last hundred years of genocidal war that itemises in authoritative, persuasive manner exactly what the West knew and when, and what it chose to do, and what not to do, with that knowledge. Winner of the US National Book Critics Circle Award 'The United States has never in its history intervened to stop genocide and has in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred.' In this convincing and definitive interrogation of the last century of American history and foreign policy, Samantha Power draws upon declassified documents, private papers, unprecedented interviews and her own reporting from the modern killing fields to tell the story of American indifference and American courage in the face of man's inhumanity to man. Tackling the argument that successive US leaders were unaware of genocidal horrors as they were occurring - against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Kurds, Rwandans, Bosnians - Samantha Power seeks to establish precisely how much was known and when, and claims that much human misery and tragedy could readily have been averted. It is clear that the failure to intervene was usually caused not by ignorance or impotence, but by considered political inaction. Several heroic figures did work to oppose and expose ethnic cleansing as it took place, but the majority of American politicians chose always to do nothing, as did the American public: Power notes that 'no US president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on.' This riveting book makes a powerful case for why America, as both sole superpower and global citizen, must make such indifference a thing of the past.

Samantha Power (Author), Laurel Lefkow (Narrator)

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Dallas '63: The First Deep State Revolt Against the White House

'Our most provocative scholar of American power' reveals the forces behind the assassination of JFK—and their continuing influence over our world (David Talbot, Salon). On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Shortly after, Oswald himself was killed. These events led many to believe there was a far greater plan at work, with a secret cabal of powerful men manipulating the public and shaping US policies both at home and abroad for their own interests. But no one could imagine how right they were. Beneath the orderly façade of the American government, there lies a complex network, only partly structural, linking Wall Street influence, corrupt bureaucracy, and the military-industrial complex. Here lies the true power of the American empire. This behind-the-scenes web is unelected, unaccountable, and immune to popular resistance. Peter Dale Scott calls this entity the deep state, and he has made it his life's work to write the history of those who manipulate our government from the shadows. Since the aftermath of World War II, the deep state's power has grown unchecked, and nowhere has it been more apparent than that day at Dealey Plaza. In this landmark volume, Scott traces how culpable elements in the CIA and FBI helped prepare for the assassination, and how the deep state continues to influence our politics today. As timely and important as ever in the current chaotic political climate, Dallas '63 is a reality-shattering, frightening exposé not of those who govern us—but of those who govern those who govern us.

Peter Dale Scott (Author), George Spelvin (Narrator)

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Black Faces in White Places: 10 Game-Changing Strategies to Achieve Success and Find Greatness

If the name Randal Pinkett sounds familiar, it may be because Pinkett was the first African-American winner on The Apprentice. When he won, this black man also became the only contestant to be asked to share his victory-with a white woman. The request (and Pinkett's subsequent refusal) set off a firestorm of controversy that inevitably focused on the issue of race in the American workplace and in society. For generations, African-Americans have been told that to succeed, they need to work twice as hard as everyone else. But as millions of black Americans were reminded by Pinkett's experience, sometimes hard work is not enough. Black Faces in White Places is about 'the game'-that is, the competitive world in which we all live and work. The book offers 10 revolutionary strategies for playing, mastering, and changing the game for the current generation, while undertaking a wholesale redefinition of the rules for those who will follow. It is not only about shattering the old 'glass ceiling,' but also about examining the four dimensions of the contemporary black experience: identity, society, meritocracy, and opportunity. Ultimately, it is about changing the very concept of success itself. Based on the authors' considerable experiences in business, in the public eye, and in the minority, the book shows how African-American professionals can (and must) think and act both Entrepreneurially and 'Intrapreneurially,' combine their collective strengths with the wisdom of others, and plant the seeds of a positive and lasting legacy.

Jeffrey A. Robinson, Philana Patterson, Randal D. Pinkett, Randal D. Pinkett (Author), Arnell Powel, Ron Butler (Narrator)

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The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. Locke also received a cosmopolitan, aesthetic education through his travels in continental Europe, where he came to appreciate the beauty of art and experienced a freedom unknown to him in the United States. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of black culture in Jazz Age America and his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism. In the process he looked to Africa to find the proud and beautiful roots of the race. Shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts, he helped establish the idea that black urban communities could be crucibles of creativity. Stewart explores both Locke's professional and private life, including his relationships with his mother, his friends, and his white patrons, as well as his lifelong search for love as a gay man.

Jeffrey C. Stewart (Author), Bill Andrew Quinn, William Andrew Quinn (Narrator)

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A History of America in Ten Strikes

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018 Named one of the “5 Books About Famous Strikes That Demonstrated the Historical Importance of Civil Disobedience” by Bustle “Loomis refuses to romanticize this period or the labor movement it produced. . . . What Loomis’s book perhaps does best is remind us that the promise of the labor movement, despite its many failures and compromises, has always been to make everyday life more democratic.” —The New Republic A thrilling and timely account of ten moments in history when labor challenged the very nature of power in America, by the author called “a brilliant historian” by The Progressive magazine Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labor, unions, and American workers. In this brilliant book, labor historian Erik Loomis recounts ten critical workers’ strikes in American labor history that everyone needs to know about (and then provides an annotated list of the 150 most important moments in American labor history in the appendix). From the Lowell Mill Girls strike in the 1830s to Justice for Janitors in 1990, these labor uprisings do not just reflect the times in which they occurred, but speak directly to the present moment. For example, we often think that Lincoln ended slavery by proclaiming the slaves emancipated, but Loomis shows that they freed themselves during the Civil War by simply withdrawing their labor. He shows how the hopes and aspirations of a generation were made into demands at a GM plant in Lordstown in 1972. And he takes us to the forests of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineteenth century where the radical organizers known as the Wobblies made their biggest inroads against the power of bosses. But there were also moments when the movement was crushed by corporations and the government; Loomis helps us understand the present perilous condition of American workers and draws lessons from both the victories and defeats of the past. In crystalline narratives, labor historian Erik Loomis lifts the curtain on workers’ struggles, giving us a fresh perspective on American history from the boots up. Strikes include: Lowell Mill Girls Strike (Massachusetts, 1830–40) Slaves on Strike (The Confederacy, 1861–65) The Eight-Hour Day Strikes (Chicago, 1886) The Anthracite Strike (Pennsylvania, 1902) The Bread and Roses Strike (Massachusetts, 1912) The Flint Sit-Down Strike (Michigan, 1937) The Oakland General Strike (California, 1946) Lordstown (Ohio, 1972) Air Traffic Controllers (1981) Justice for Janitors (Los Angeles, 1990)

Erik Loomis (Author), Brian Troxell (Narrator)

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The Gunny: A Vietnam Story

Regardless of his background or who might be helping him along, no man becomes a Marine until he has successfully completed Marine Corps Recruit Training. Then, if he makes it, life doesn't get easier-he gets tougher. He may get to do the toughest job around: combat infantry. And in 1966, he will almost certainly end up in Vietnam. Frank Evans is a Navy sailor willing to do whatever is necessary to become a Marine. He's tough enough-and he has a General interested in his success. But success is measured in many ways. Frank finds out combat and the Marine Corps' definition of success change a man. Some of the changes are a matter of pride. Others-well, you learn to live with them.

Raymond Hunter Pyle (Author), Eric Jason Martin, Eric Martin (Narrator)

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The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels of our nature" have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women's rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear-a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always-or even often-been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before"-as, time and again, Lincoln's better angels have found a way to prevail. Praise for The Soul of America "Meacham has become one of America's most earnest and thoughtful biographers and historians. . . . Meacham gives readers a long-term perspective on American history and a reason to believe the soul of America is ultimately one of kindness and caring, not rancor and paranoia. Finally, Meacham provides advice to find our better angels-enter the arena, resist tribalism, respect facts and deploy reason, find a critical balance and keep history in mind. He's provided a great way to do it."-USA Today "This is a brilliant, fascinating, timely, and above all profoundly important book."-Walter Isaacson

Jon Meacham (Author), Fred Sanders, Jon Meacham (Narrator)

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The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

The Inconvenient Indian is at once a 'history' and the complete subversion of a history-in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be 'Indian' in North America. Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands. This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope -- a sometimes inconvenient, but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.

Thomas King (Author), Lorne Cardinal (Narrator)

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A Hurting Man: Baby I Need You

Black men growth and successes are still marked by problems of black on black crime, hopelessness, stagnation and poor parenting. Still, many rises above the odds society predestine for them and try become better men than their past or current conditions. Black men want to become better fathers to their children, but joblessness, court system and poor guidance impede their progress. Black men hurt everytime they try to do good, police brutality murders them. When they want to better men to their women and wives, unfaithfulness or poor spirituality leads to separation. They want to be providers and leaders in their communities, but crime or being victimized by crime destroys their positive efforts. The world does not see that black men are hurting to do good because maybe they close their eyes to their efforts or hoping that black men continue to hurt so they can destroy themselves. This book is a message to the world, that black men are hurting to do good, and now it is the world's turn to help them or be hurt by them.

Raymond Sturgis (Author), Books with Voices (Narrator)

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When Allah Made Malcolm X Smile: The Man, The Minister, The Shining Black Prince

It is a great honor for me to present a book on one of the world's greatest champions of humanity. Malcolm X had principles that enabled him to see the true worth of people, especially the oppressed or downtrodden because he could express their pain and frustrations more effectively. Malcolm X experienced the same atrocities and vices that bechance many black men today. From drugs, alcoholism, gambling, crime, and prostitution, Malcolm X understood the problems of the black community and later dedicated his life helping black America to change them. Malcolm X may not have gotten the same notoriety as Martin Luther King Jr. when he was alive, however, the Black Panthers and Black Nationalist Movement was overwhelmingly inspired by his teachings, and later on, quietly, so was Dr. King. In addition, Malcolm X, challenges everyone from the grave, to positively change his or her families and communities from self-destruction. Today, the black family and communities are in disarray, and as I write this, black children are kidnapped from loved ones, murdered, while black men are killing one another senselessly. We must celebrate the life of Malcolm X with the conviction of enriching the economic power in black communities, instead of empowering the hopelessness and criminals in the black communities and families with silence and fear.

Raymond Sturgis (Author), Rafael Osaba (Narrator)

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Americas Audiobooks in History