American Politics Audiobooks | Politics

Like No Other Time: The Two Years That Changed America

Tom Daschle, the Majority Leader of the historic 107th Senate, presents a candid insider's account of the workings of the U.S. government during two of the most tumultuous years in the nation's history. The 107th Congress faced a time like no other in the life of the nation. This was the era of the first presidential election to be decided by the United States Supreme Court, the fifty-fifty Senate, the horror of September 11, the anthrax attacks on media and the government (including Daschle's own office), the war on terrorism, corporate scandals that shook the economy, the inexorable move toward war with Iraq, and other dramatic events, all leading up to the historic midterm elections of 2002. Through it all, Senator Tom Daschle had, with the exception of the President, the most privileged view of these unfolding developments, both in front of and behind the closed doors of government. In Like No Other Time, Daschle offers a riveting account of his singular perspective on a time when the nation faced deadly and elusive external enemies and a level of domestic political contention rarely seen in American history. Senator Daschle is un-flinching in his impressions of the key political figures of our time from both parties. The result is an acutely perceptive assessment of how our government met-and sometimes did not meet-the challenges of a remarkable era. As it was during the years of the 107th Congress, the United States is once again at a critical and historic crossroads. Our choices, based on what we have learned from our recent past, will affect our future in profound ways. For Senator Daschle, the first and perhaps most important choice lies with what kind of representation and leadership we want in government. It is a choice between a political party with a core philosophical belief in the power of our collective will to confront these challenges through our government, and one dominated by a group of people who don't like and don't believe in government.

Tom Daschle (Author), Stephen Hoye (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America

From Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, authors of Shrub, Bushwhacked is a hilarious, no-holds-barred look at George W. Bush and his administration, and an essential book for understanding the full, destructive impact of his presidency. For years, bestselling political commentator Molly Ivins has been sounding the alarm about George W. Bush. In Shrub, her 2000 skewering of presidential candidate Bush, the inimitable Ivins, with co-author Lou Dubose, offered a devastating exposé of Dubya's career and abysmal record as governor of Texas. Now, in their second book on our current White House occupant, Ivins and Dubose take the wire brush to the Bush presidency and show how he has applied the same flawed strategies he used in governing Texas to running the largest superpower in the world. Bushwhacked brings to light the horrendous legacy of the Bush tax cut, his increasingly appalling environmental record, his administration's involvement in the Enron scandal, and the real Bush foreign policy-botched nation building in Kabul and Baghdad, alienation of former allies-and, unfortunately, much more. Ivins and Dubose go beyond the too frequently soft media coverage of Bush to show us just how damaging his policies have been to ordinary Americans-"the Doug Jones Average," rather than the Dow Jones Average. Bushwhacked is filled with sharp observation, humor, and compassion for the people often ignored by the federal government and the Washington press corps. With the war on terrorism posing unprecedented challenges to our civil liberties, and with the Bush economic policy in shambles, it is high time for a close look at the state of our Union. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose provide just that in Bushwhacked-an incisive, entertaining, and damning indictment of the Bush presidency. We've been Bushwhacked Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose on: Dubya's involvement in the failure of Harken Energy Corporation: "There are countless subjects on which George W. Bush might have pleaded ignorance in 1990, but a failing oil business was not one of them." Dubya's accomplishments as governor of Texas: "As full-time residents of the state that gave you tort reform, H. Ross Perot, and penis-enlargement options on executive health plans, we're obliged to warn you that if Dubya Bush really had exported 'the Texas Miracle,' the country would be in deep shit." Dubya's environmental record: "Bush has a chemical-dependency problem, but it's not cocaine. It's Monsanto, Dow, and Union Carbide. They wrote the checks that put him in the Texas governor's mansion....Bush had two voluntary emissions-control programs here in Texas. One involved polluting industries. The other was directed at adolescent males, who were encouraged to 'try abstinence.' Only 3 of our 8,645 most obnoxiously polluting refineries actually volunteered to cut back on their toxic emissions. Numbers on teenage boys are not yet in." Why the Republican Party is the party of unregulated meat and poultry: "The Republicans win elections in the 'red states' in the center of the country, where cattle and chickens are produced and slaughtered. Democrats win their elections in the 'blue states' on the coasts. Republicans use the USDA to pay off their contributors in the red states. The result of that crude electoral calculus is laissez-faire food-safety policy whenever a Republican is in the White House. (If you must eat while the Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress, and the judiciary, you might want to consider becoming a vegetarian about now.)"

Lou Dubose, Molly Ivins (Author), Anna Fields, Anna Fields (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice

In The Majesty of the Law, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor explores the law, her life as a Justice, and how the Court has evolved and continues to function, grow, and change as an American institution. Tracing some of the origins of American law through history, people, and ideas, O'Connor sheds new light on the basics, and through personal observation she explores the development of institutions and ideas we have come to regard as fundamental. O'Connor discusses notable cases that have shaped American democracy and the Court as we know it today, and she traces the turbulent battle women have fought for a place in our nation's legal system since America's inception. Straight-talking, clear-eyed, inspiring, The Majesty of the Law is more than a reflection on O'Connor's own experiences as the first female Justice of the Supreme Court; it also contains a discussion of how the suffrage movement changed the lives of women-in voting booths, jury boxes, and homes across the country. In The Majesty of the Law, Sandra Day O'Connor reveals some of what she has learned and believes about American law and life, insights gleaned over her years as one of the most powerful and inspiring women in American history.

Sandra Day O'Connor (Author), Sandra Day O'Connor (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice

In this remarkable book, a national bestseller in hardcover, Sandra Day O’Connor explores the law, her life as a Supreme Court Justice, and how the Court has evolved and continues to function, grow, and change as an American institution. Tracing some of the origins of American law through history, people, ideas, and landmark cases, O’Connor sheds new light on the basics, exploring through personal observation the evolution of the Court and American democratic traditions. Straight-talking, clear-eyed, inspiring, The Majesty of the Law is more than a reflection on O’Connor’s own experiences as the first female Justice of the Supreme Court; it also reveals some of the things she has learned and believes about American law and life—reflections gleaned over her years as one of the most powerful and inspiring women in American history.

Sandra Day O'Connor (Author), Bernadette Dunne (Narrator)

Audiobook

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Ellsberg provides a vivid eyewitness account of the two years he spent behind the lines in Vietnam as a State Department observer, an experience that convinced him of the hopelessness of Johnson's policies and profoundly altered his own political thinking. As Ellsberg recounts with drama and insight, the release of the Pentagon Papers, first The New York Times and The Washington Post, set in motion a train of events that ultimately toppled a president and helped to end an unjust war.

Daniel Ellsberg (Author), Dan Cashman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson – Volume 3

Book Three of Robert A. Caro’s monumental work, The Years of Lyndon Johnson—the most admired and riveting political biography of our era—which began with the best-selling and prizewinning The Path to Power and Means of Ascent. Master of the Senate carries Lyndon Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. It was during these years that all Johnson’s experience—from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine—came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change. Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became Majority Leader after only a single term—the youngest and greatest Senate Leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate’s hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the “unchangeable” Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control. Caro demonstrates how Johnson’s political genius enabled him to reconcile the unreconcilable: to retain the support of the southerners who controlled the Senate while earning the trust—or at least the cooperation—of the liberals, led by Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, without whom he could not achieve his goal of winning the presidency. He shows the dark side of Johnson’s ambition: how he proved his loyalty to the great oil barons who had financed his rise to power by ruthlessly destroying the career of the New Dealer who was in charge of regulating them, Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds. And we watch him achieve the impossible: convincing southerners that although he was firmly in their camp as the anointed successor to their leader, Richard Russell, it was essential that they allow him to make some progress toward civil rights. In a breathtaking tour de force, Caro details Johnson’s amazing triumph in maneuvering to passage the first civil rights legislation since 1875. Master of the Senate is told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro’s peerless research—years immersed in the worlds of Johnson and the United States Senate, examining thousands of documents and talking to hundreds of people, from pages and cloakroom clerks to senators and administrative aides. The result is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself—the titan of Capitol Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing—and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings of personal and legislative power. It is a work that displays all the acuteness of understanding and narrative brilliance that led the New York Times to call Caro’s The Path to Power “a monumental political saga . . . powerful and stirring.”

Robert A. Caro (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume III (Part 2 of a 3-Part Recording)

Master of the Senate, Book Three of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, carries Johnson's story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. It was during these years that all Johnson's experience-from his Texas Hill Country boyhood to his passionate representation in Congress of his hardscrabble constituents to his tireless construction of a political machine-came to fruition. Caro introduces the story with a dramatic account of the Senate itself: how Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun had made it the center of governmental energy, the forum in which the great issues of the country were thrashed out. And how, by the time Johnson arrived, it had dwindled into a body that merely responded to executive initiatives, all but impervious to the forces of change. Caro anatomizes the genius for political strategy and tactics by which, in an institution that had made the seniority system all-powerful for a century and more, Johnson became Majority Leader after only a single term-the youngest and greatest Senate Leader in our history; how he manipulated the Senate's hallowed rules and customs and the weaknesses and strengths of his colleagues to change the "unchangeable" Senate from a loose confederation of sovereign senators to a whirring legislative machine under his own iron-fisted control. Caro demonstrates how Johnson's political genius enabled him to reconcile the unreconcilable: to retain the support of the southerners who controlled the Senate while earning the trust-or at least the cooperation-of the liberals, led by Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey, without whom he could not achieve his goal of winning the presidency. He shows the dark side of Johnson's ambition: how he proved his loyalty to the great oil barons who had financed his rise to power by ruthlessly destroying the career of the New Dealer who was in charge of regulating them, Federal Power Commission Chairman Leland Olds. And we watch him achieve the impossible: convincing southerners that although he was firmly in their camp as the anointed successor to their leader, Richard Russell, it was essential that they allow him to make some progress toward civil rights. In a breathtaking tour de force, Caro details Johnson's amazing triumph in maneuvering to passage the first civil rights legislation since 1875. Master of the Senate, told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro's peerless research, is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself-the titan of Capital Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing-and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings and personal and legislative power.

Robert A. Caro (Author), Grover Gardner (Narrator)

Audiobook

When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan

From the bestselling author of What I Saw at the Revolution comes an elegiac tribute to one of America’s most beloved leaders. It is twenty years—a full generation—since Ronald Reagan first walked into the White House and ignited a revolution. From the beginning, he enjoyed the American people’s affection but now, as he approaches the end of his life, he has received what he deserved even more: their deep respect. What was the wellspring of his greatness? Peggy Noonan, bestselling author of the classic Reagan-era memoir What I Saw at the Revolution, former speechwriter, and now a columnist and contributing editor for The Wall Street Journal, argues that the secret of Reagan’s success was no secret at all. It was his character—his courage, his kindness, his persistence, his honesty, and his almost heroic patience in the face of setbacks—that was the most important element of his success. The one thing a man must bring into the White House with him if he is to succeed, Noonan contends, is a character that people come to recognize as high, sturdy, and reliable. Noonan, renowned for her special insight into Ronald Reagan’s history and personality, brings her own reflections to Reagan to bear in When Character Was King and discloses never-before-told stories from the former president’s family, friends, and White House colleagues to reveal the true nature of a man even his opponents now view as a maker of big history. Marked by incisive wit and elegant prose, When Character Was King will enlighten and move readers.

Peggy Noonan (Author), Peggy Noonan (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Trial by Jury

Jury duty happens to everyone. When the call came to Graham Burnett, a young historian, he had a shock in store. A Trial by Jury is his startling account of how performing this familiar civic duty challenged him in ways he never thought possible and turned into one of the most consuming experiences of his life. Burnett begins with the story of the trial: a body with multiple stab wounds found in a New York apartment, intimations of cross-dressing, male prostitution, mistaken identity. And then, the unexpected drama: Burnett finds himself appointed the foreman, with the responsibility of leading the increasingly frenetic deliberations within the black box of the jury room. Soon he is sequestered—which is to say marooned—with eleven others, a group of people who view their task, and often one another, with palpable distaste. Among his colleagues: a vacuum-cleaner repairman cum urban missionary, a young actress, and a man apparently floundering in a borderland between real life and daytime television. As Burnett steers the contentious politics of their temporary no-exit society toward the verdict, he undergoes an unexpected awakening. Having been plucked from his cozy nest in the world of books and ideas and then plunged into the netherworld of lurid crime, he learns the limits of what intellect alone can accomplish in the real world. Above all, Burnett discovers firsthand the terrifying ultimate power of the state and the agonies of being asked to do justice within the rigid dictates of the law. Part true crime, part political treatise, part contemplation of right, wrong, and the power of words, A Trial by Jury is a mesmerizing narrative of one man’s encounter with crime and punishment, American style. It profoundly affects one’s sense of the privileges—and the perils—of citizenship.

D. Graham Burnett (Author), D. Graham Burnett (Narrator)

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Fuzzy Math: The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan

Sam Freed is an American actor who has performed on Broadway, television and in movies. His first major regular role on television was as Bob Barsky in the last three seasons of Kate & Allie. In the short-lived series Ferris Bueller, he played Bill Bueller, the father of the title character. He also portrayed James C. Whiting III, the executive editor of The Baltimore Sun, in the fifth and final season of The Wire.

Paul Krugman (Author), Sam Freed (Narrator)

Audiobook

Prince of Tennesee: Rise of Al Gore

In The Prince of Tennessee, David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima explore in rich detail the forces that have shaped Al Gore's life, and the ways that his past offers clues to what kind of president he would be. Now including exclusive original commentary on the unprecedented post-election period and Gore's concession. Gore's path to power, at first glance, seems straight and narrow. While Bill Clinton's rise is a story of obstacles overcome, Gore's ascendance seems the opposite: the son of political aristocracy reared by loving and demanding parents who groomed him as a princeling to reach the top. But his life was shaped by as much duality as Clinton's. As a child Gore was shuffled back and forth from political Washington to rural Tennessee, his ancestral homeland. The contrast reflects a larger tension between what others expected of Gore and what he wanted to do. Here was the quintessential good son whom his classmates teased as the wooden Apollo. He would occasionally try to rebel but inevitably be yanked back by the burden of expectations and his own insecurity. His first ambition was to be a novelist, but his friends at Harvard saw him as a royal figure for whom a political career was unavoidable. He opposed the war in Vietnam, yet enlisted in the army anyway, out of an obligation to shield his father, the antiwar senator. When he eventually turned to politics Gore brought with him competing impulses: the cautious political moderate with an occasional tendency toward uncommon boldness, the awkward public figure who in private can be a raucous storyteller, the loyal son and vice president who wants to be considered on his own terms, and the reluctant politician who burned with a desire to fulfill his parents' dream and become president.

David Maraniss (Author), David Maraniss (Narrator)

Audiobook

Do I Stand Alone?: Going to the Mat Against Political Pawns and Media Jackals

MUD-SLINGING POLITICIANS, IDEOLOGICAL FANATICS, AND APATHETIC NONVOTERS BEWARE: GOVERNOR JESSE VENTURA'S GOT A FEW CHOICE WORDS FOR YOU.... In his first controversial New York Times bestseller, I Ain't Got Time to Bleed, ex-Navy SEAL and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura told the remarkable story of his climb up the Reform Party ladder to the governorship of Minnesota. Now, with jackhammer force and candor, Governor Ventura issues an urgent wake-up call to America -- a resounding indictment of our creeping national cynicism, and how our political system rewards mediocrity while turning a blind eye to accountability. In Do I Stand Alone? Ventura sternly warns against the danger of expecting too little from our elected officials. He decries the ease with which most Americans surrender their freedoms and apathetically accept a system of governance driven more by pork and patronage than by the best interests of the constituency. He also denounces an irresponsible media, taking them to task for too often confusing fame with notoriety, and for driving the news instead of simply reporting it. And he unabashedly speaks out on today's hot-button issues, including welfare, racism, youth violence, immigration, abortion, campaign finance reform, and gay rights. Giving us fascinating insights into the future of independent parties, Governor Ventura ushers us deep into the polished corridors of power, exposing the best -- and worst -- of our current crop of political personalities. He offers straightforward, uncompromising profiles of the current presidential candidates, and lays out a workable strategy for bringing our political system -- and its politicians -- back to greatness. In a forthright, razor-sharp, and entertaining critique, Governor Jesse Ventura has once again thrown down the gauntlet -- challenging today's politicians as well as a disenchanted public to transcend the tired rhetoric and defiantly reclaim the freedom and opportunity that is our American birthright.

Jesse Ventura (Author), Jesse Ventura (Narrator)

Audiobook

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