Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/442969 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women's Rights

Author: Dorothy Wickenden

Narrator: Gabra Zackman, Heather Alicia Simms, Anne Twomey

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 8 minutes

Release date: March 30, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.63 of Total 8

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

An LA Times Best Book of the Year, Christopher Award Winner, and Chautauqua Prize Finalist! “Engrossing... examines the major events of the mid 19th century through the lives of three key figures in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements.” —Smithsonian From the executive editor of The New Yorker, a riveting, provocative, and revelatory history told through the story of three women—Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright—in the years before, during and after the Civil War. In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a spectacular river raid in which she helped to liberate 750 slaves from several rice plantations. Wright, a “dangerous woman” in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize women’s rights and anti-slavery conventions across New York State, braving hecklers and mobs when she spoke. Frances Seward, the most conventional of the three friends, hid her radicalism in public, while privately acting as a political adviser to her husband, pressing him to persuade President Lincoln to move immediately on emancipation. The Agitators opens in the 1820s, when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young homemakers bound by law and tradition, and ends after the war. Many of the most prominent figures of the era—Lincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison—are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and women, about the enlistment of Black troops, and about opposing interpretations of the Constitution. Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/437708 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Children Under Fire: An American Crisis

Author: John Woodrow Cox

Narrator: Graham Halstead

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 16 minutes

Release date: March 30, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

One of The New York Times’ 16 New Books to Watch for in March One of Publishers Weekly’s Most Anticipated Books of the Year One of Newsweek’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of The Year One of Buzzfeed’s Most Anticipated Books the Year Based on the acclaimed series—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—an intimate account of the devastating effects of gun violence on our nation’s children, and a call to action for a new way forward In 2017, seven-year-old Ava in South Carolina wrote a letter to Tyshaun, an eight-year-old boy from Washington, DC. She asked him to be her pen pal; Ava thought they could help each other. The kids had a tragic connection—both were traumatized by gun violence. Ava’s best friend had been killed in a campus shooting at her elementary school, and Tyshaun’s father had been shot to death outside of the boy’s elementary school. Ava’s and Tyshaun’s stories are extraordinary, but not unique. In the past decade, 15,000 children have been killed from gunfire, though that number does not account for the kids who weren’t shot and aren’t considered victims but have nevertheless been irreparably harmed by gun violence. In Children Under Fire, John Woodrow Cox investigates the effectiveness of gun safety reforms as well as efforts to manage children’s trauma in the wake of neighborhood shootings and campus massacres, from Columbine to Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Through deep reporting, Cox addresses how we can effect change now, and help children like Ava and Tyshaun. He explores their stories and more, including a couple in South Carolina whose eleven-year-old son shot himself, a Republican politician fighting for gun safety laws, and the charlatans infiltrating the school safety business. In a moment when the country is desperate to better understand and address gun violence, Children Under Fire offers a way to do just that, weaving wrenching personal stories into a critical call for the United States to embrace practical reforms that would save thousands of young lives.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/443088 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico

Author: Juan Villoro

Narrator: Gabriel Porras

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 16 hours 30 minutes

Release date: March 23, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.5 of Total 2

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.   Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city ’s cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today—one of the world’s leading cultural and financial centers.   In this deeply iconoclastic book, Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: “Living in the City,” “City Characters,” “Shocks,” “Crossings,” and “Ceremonies.” What he achieves, miraculously, is a stunning, intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico City’s genius loci, its spirit of place.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/441991 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today

Author: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Narrator: Nan Mcnamara

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 40 minutes

Release date: March 23, 2021

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

“Leaps at the throat of television history and takes down the patriarchy with its fervent, inspired prose. When Women Invented Television offers proof that what we watch is a reflection of who we are as a people.” —Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia Jennifer Keishin Armstrong tells the little-known story of four trailblazing women in the early days of television who laid the foundation of the industry we know today. It was the Golden Age of Radio and powerful men were making millions in advertising dollars reaching thousands of listeners every day. When television arrived, few radio moguls were interested in the upstart industry and its tiny production budgets, and expensive television sets were out of reach for most families. But four women—each an independent visionary— saw an opportunity and carved their own paths, and in so doing invented the way we watch tv today. Irna Phillips turned real-life tragedy into daytime serials featuring female dominated casts. Gertrude Berg turned her radio show into a Jewish family comedy that spawned a play, a musical, an advice column, a line of house dresses, and other products. Hazel Scott, already a renowned musician, was the first African American to host a national evening variety program. Betty White became a daytime talk show fan favorite and one of the first women to produce, write, and star in her own show. Together, their stories chronicle a forgotten chapter in the history of television and popular culture. But as the medium became more popular—and lucrative—in the wake of World War II, the House Un-American Activities Committee arose to threaten entertainers, blacklisting many as communist sympathizers. As politics, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and money collided, the women who invented television found themselves fighting from the margins, as men took control. But these women were true survivors who never gave up—and thus their legacies remain with us in our television-dominated era. It's time we reclaimed their forgotten histories and the work they did to pioneer the medium that now rules our lives. This amazing and heartbreaking history tells it all for the first time.  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/441987 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Rock Me on the Water: 1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television and Politics

Author: Ronald Brownstein

Narrator: Will Damron

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 16 hours 14 minutes

Release date: March 23, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.77 of Total 13

Ratings of Narrator: 4.33 of Total 3

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein—“one of America's best political journalists (The Economist)—tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles’ creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become.  Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture. Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/444603 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917

Author: Philip Zelikow

Narrator: Philip Zelikow

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 14 minutes

Release date: March 16, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.67 of Total 3

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

This revealing historical examination looks at the pivotal few months in the middle of the First World War, when all sides—Germany, Britain, and America—believed the war could have been concluded and changed the course of history.​   Two years into the most terrible conflict the world had ever known, the warring powers faced a crisis. There were no good military options. Money, men, and supplies were running short on all sides. The German chancellor secretly sought President Woodrow Wilson's mediation to end the war, just as British ministers and France's president also concluded that the time was right. The Road Less Traveled describes how tantalizingly close these far-sighted statesmen came to ending the war, saving millions of lives, and avoiding the total war that dimmed hopes for a better world.   Theirs was a secret battle that is only now becoming fully understood, a story of civic courage, awful responsibility, and how some leaders rose to the occasion while others shrank from it or chased other ambitions. "Peace is on the floor waiting to be picked up!" pleaded the German ambassador to the United States. This book explains both the strategies and fumbles of people facing a great crossroads of history.   The Road Less Traveled reveals one of the last great mysteries of the Great War: that it simply never should have lasted so long or cost so much.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/441970 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Terror to the Wicked: America's First Trial by Jury That Ended a War and Helped to Form a Nation

Author: Tobey Pearl

Narrator: Barrett Leddy

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 2 minutes

Release date: March 16, 2021

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

A little-known moment in colonial history that changed the course of America’s future. A riveting account of a brutal killing, an all-out manhunt, and the first murder trial in America, set against the backdrop of the Pequot War (between the Pequot tribe and the colonists of Massachusetts Bay) that ended this two-year war and brought about a peace that allowed the colonies to become a nation. The year: 1638. The setting: Providence, near Plymouth Colony. A young Nipmuc tribesman returning home from trading beaver pelts is fatally stabbed in a robbery in the woods near Plymouth Colony by a vicious white runaway indentured servant. The tribesman, fighting for his life, is able with his final breaths to reveal the details of the attack to Providence’s governor, Roger Williams. A frantic manhunt by the fledgling government ensues to capture the killer and his gang, now the most hunted men in the New World. With their capture, the two-year-old Plymouth Colony faces overnight its first trial—a murder trial—with Plymouth’s governor presiding as judge and prosecutor,interviewing witnesses and defendants alike, and Myles Standish, Plymouth Colony authority, as overseer of the courtroom, his sidearm at the ready. The jury—Plymouth colonists, New England farmers (“a rude and ignorant sorte,” as described by former governor William Bradford)—white, male, picked from a total population of five hundred and fifty, knows from past persecutions the horrors of a society without a jury system. Would they be tempted to protect their own—including a cold-blooded murderer who was also a Pequot War veteran—over the life of a tribesman who had fought in a war allied against them?  Tobey Pearl brings to vivid life those caught up in the drama: Roger Williams, founder of Plymouth Colony, a self-taught expert in indigenous cultures and the first investigator of the murder; Myles Standish; Edward Winslow, a former governor of Plymouth Colony and the master of the indentured servant and accused murderer; John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony; the men on trial for the murder; and the lone tribesman, from the last of the Woodland American Indians, whose life was brutally taken from him. Pearl writes of the witnesses who testified before the court and of the twelve colonists on the jury who went about their duties with grave purpose, influenced by a complex mixture of Puritan religious dictates, lingering medieval mores, new ideals of humanism, and an England still influenced by the last gasp of the English Renaissance. And she shows how, in the end, the twelve came to render a groundbreaking judicial decision that forever set the standard for American justice. An extraordinary work of historical piecing-together; a moment that set the precedence of our basic, fundamental right to trial by jury, ensuring civil liberties and establishing it as a safeguard against injustice.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/437319 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight

Author: Julia Sweig

Narrator: Kirsten Potter

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 18 hours 1 minute

Release date: March 16, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2 of Total 1

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A revelation . . . a book in the Caro mold, using Lady Bird, along with tapes and transcripts of her entire White House diary, to tell the history of America during the Johnson years.”—The New York Times The inspiration for the documentary film The Lady Bird Diaries, premiering November 13 on Hulu Perhaps the most underestimated First Lady of the twentieth century, Lady Bird Johnson was also one of the most powerful. In Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight, Julia Sweig reveals how indispensable the First Lady was to Lyndon Johnson’s administration—which Lady Bird called “our” presidency. In addition to advising him through critical moments, she took on her own policy initiatives, including the most ambitious national environmental effort since Theodore Roosevelt and a virtually unknown initiative to desegregate access to public recreation and national parks in Washington, D.C.   Where no presidential biographer has understood Lady Bird’s full impact, Julia Sweig is the first to draw substantially on her White House diaries and to place her center stage. In doing so, Sweig reveals a woman ahead of her time—and an accomplished strategist and politician in her own right. This program includes an actual recording of Lady Bird’s audio diary, dated October 12, 1965.   Winner of the Texas Book Award • Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bogard Weld Award

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/444609 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Dirty Gold: The Rise and Fall of an International Smuggling Ring

Author: Kyra Gurney, Jim Wyss, Jay Weaver, Nicholas Nehamas

Narrator: Gustavo Rex

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 21 minutes

Release date: March 2, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

The explosive story of the illegal gold trade from South America, and the three Miami businessmen who got rich on it In March of 2017, a team of FBI agents arrested Juan Granda, Samer Barrage, and Renato Rodriguez, or as they called themselves, 'the three amigos.' The trio--first identified publicly by the authors of this book-- had built a $3.6 billion dollar business in metals trading, mostly illegal Peruvian gold. Their arrests and subsequent prosecution laid bare more than a corrupt finance firm, though. Instead, Dirty Gold lifts the veil on an illegal international business that is five times as lucrative as trafficking cocaine, and arguably more dangerous. As the award-winning team of Miami Herald reporters show, illegal gold mines have become a haven for Latin American drug money. The gold is then sold to metals traders, and ultimately to Americans who want it in their jewelry, smartphones, and investment portfolios. By following the trail of these three traders, Dirty Gold leads us into a criminal underworld that has never before been in full view.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/442905 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free

Author: Paulina Bren

Narrator: Andi Arndt

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 0 minutes

Release date: March 2, 2021

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 3.67 of Total 6

Ratings of Narrator: 3.67 of Total 3

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

A “captivating portrait” (The Wall Street Journal), both “poignant and intriguing” (The New Republic): from award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the remarkable history of New York’s most famous residential hotel and the women who stayed there, including Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion. Welcome to New York’s legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon. Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. But even as women’s residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out; it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations, and included soaring art studios and soundproofed practice rooms. More importantly still, with no men allowed beyond the lobby, the Barbizon signaled respectability, a place where a young woman of a certain class could feel at home. But as the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in, the clientele changed, though women’s ambitions did not; the Barbizon Hotel became the go-to destination for any young American woman with a dream to be something more. While Sylvia Plath most famously fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar, the Barbizon was also where Titanic survivor Molly Brown sang her last aria; where Grace Kelly danced topless in the hallways; where Joan Didion got her first taste of Manhattan; and where both Ali MacGraw and Jaclyn Smith found their calling as actresses. Students of the prestigious Katharine Gibbs Secretarial School had three floors to themselves, Eileen Ford used the hotel as a guest house for her youngest models, and Mademoiselle magazine boarded its summer interns there, including a young designer named Betsey Johnson. The first ever history of this extraordinary hotel, and of the women who arrived in New York City alone from “elsewhere” with a suitcase and a dream, The Barbizon offers readers a multilayered history of New York City in the 20th century, and of the generations of American women torn between their desire for independence and their looming social expiration date. By providing women a room of their own, the Barbizon was the hotel that set them free.