Discover the Best Sellers Audiobooks in History, 20th Century

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Title: The Lost Tribe of Coney Island

Subtitle: Headhunters, Luna Park, and the Man Who Pulled Off the Spectacle of the Century

Author: Claire Prentice

Narrator: Coleen Marlo

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-22-17

Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Coney Island, summer 1905: a new attraction opened at Luna Park. Within weeks it would be the talk of the nation.

For the first time, The Lost Tribe of Coney Island unearths the incredible true story of the Igorrotes, a group of "headhunting, dog eating" tribespeople brought to America from the Philippines by the opportunistic showman Truman K. Hunt. At Luna Park, the g-string-clad Filipinos performed native dances and rituals before a wide-eyed public in a mocked-up tribal village. Millions of Americans flocked to see the tribespeople slaughter live dogs for their daily canine feasts and to hear thrilling tales of headhunting. The Igorrotes became a national sensation - they were written up in newspaper headlines, portrayed in cartoons, and even featured in advertising jingles, all fueled by Truman's brilliant publicity stunts.

By the end of the summer season, the Igorrote show had made Truman a rich man. But his genius had a dark side and soon he would be on the run across America with the tribe in tow, pursued by ex-wives, creditors, Pinkerton detectives, and the tireless agents of American justice.

Award-winning journalist Claire Prentice brings this forgotten chapter in American history to life with vivid prose and rich historical detail. The book boasts a colorful cast of characters, including the mercurial Truman Hunt; his ambitious, young Filipino interpreter, Julio Balinag; Fomoaley Ponci, the tribe's loquacious, self-important leader; Luna Park impresarios Fred Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy; and Frederick Barker, the government man dead set on bringing Truman to justice.

At its heart, The Lost Tribe of Coney Island is a tale of what happens when two cultures collide in the pursuit of money, adventure, and the American Dream. It is a story that makes us question who is civilized and who is savage.

Members Reviews:

A neat piece of history

A fast paced and compelling history read. Fans of historical writers like Dash and Larson will enjoy this book. AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

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Title: The Last Days of the Romanovs

Subtitle: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg

Author: Helen Rappaport

Narrator: Anne Flosnik

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-14-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Helen Rappaport, an expert in the field of Russian history, brings you the riveting day-by-day account of the last 14 days of the Russian Imperial family, in this first of two books about the Romanovs.

The brutal murder of the Russian Imperial family on the night of July 16 to 17, 1918, has long been a defining moment in world history. The Last Days of the Romanovs reveals in exceptional detail how the conspiracy to kill them unfolded. In the vivid style of a TV documentary, Helen Rappaport reveals both the atmosphere inside the family's claustrophobic prison and the political maneuverings of those who wished to save - or destroy - them. With the watching world and European monarchies proving incapable of saving the Romanovs, the narrative brings this tragic story to life in a compellingly new and dramatic way, culminating in a bloody night of horror in a cramped basement room.

Critic Reviews:

"An absorbing, lucid and authoritative work." (

Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

GREAT

I really enjoyed the story. I wish the author would have given us some more background on each of the family members, instead of just a few. Also, i noticed that some pronunciations were different than in other books i have heard on the same topic.

Anyone interested in this topic should give this book a chance. Very informational!

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Title: Young Men and Fire

Author: Norman Maclean

Narrator: Corey M. Snow

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-23-17

Publisher: HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

On August 5, 1949, a crew of 15 of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for 40 years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.

Contact me for any questions: [email protected]

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Title: Voodoo and Power

Subtitle: The Politics of Religion in New Orleans 1881-1940

Author: Kodi A. Roberts

Narrator: Thomas Stone

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-06-17

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The racialized and exoticized cult of Voodoo occupies a central place in the popular image of the Crescent City. But as Kodi A. Roberts argues in Voodoo and Power, the religion was not a monolithic tradition handed down from African ancestors to their American-born descendants. Instead, a much more complicated patchwork of influences created New Orleans Voodoo, allowing it to move across boundaries of race, class, and gender. By employing late 19th and early 20th-century first-hand accounts of Voodoo practitioners and their rituals, Roberts provides a nuanced understanding of who practiced Voodoo and why.

Voodoo in New Orleans, a mélange of religion, entrepreneurship, and business networks, stretched across the color line in intriguing ways.

Voodoo rituals and institutions also drew inspiration from the surrounding milieu, including the privations of the Great Depression, the city s complex racial history, and the free-market economy. Money, employment, and business became central concerns for the religion s practitioners: to validate their work, some began operating from recently organized Spiritual Churches, entities that were tax exempt and thus legitimate in the eyes of the state of Louisiana. Practitioners even leveraged local figures like the mythohistoric Marie Laveau for spiritual purposes and entrepreneurial gain. All the while, they contributed to the cultural legacy that fueled New Orleans s tourist industry and drew visitors and their money to the Crescent City.

The book is published by Louisiana State University Press.

Critic Reviews:

"

Voodoo and Power provides intellectual and academic credibility to a subject that has been fraught with dubious scholarship...A much-needed perspective on a marginalized tradition that is shown to be nothing less than a true American religion.'' (

Journal of Southern Religion)

Members Reviews:

Brilliant, original analysis of power

Brilliant, original analysis of power, religion, and politics in New Orleans. I have long used Kodi Roberts' work in my classes. So, I am grateful to see it developed even further with grace and theoretical acumen. A must-read for scholars of the African diaspora, religion, and US history.

Five Stars

Exceeded expectations.

Roberts has done a great job in systematically explaining the times as they were

This book explains the dynamics of religion and power in NOLA. I did not understand how or why Blacks would choose to teach Whites about the very system that would protect them against harm from Whites. Now I understand that the society in NOLA was unique between Creoles and White in NOLA. I do not believe a relationship of this kind existed between the races anywhere else in the United States at this time in history. Prof. Roberts has done a great job in systematically explaining the times as they were. A great book for any student of history!

A fascinating look at the development of Voodoo in New ...

A fascinating look at the development of Voodoo in New Orleans and the societal implications that go along with the development of the religion in this unique society. Very intriguing and informative.

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Title: Masters of Death

Subtitle: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust

Author: Richard Rhodes

Narrator: Neil Hellegers

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-21-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 40 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen's role in the Holocaust. These "special task forces", organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into Eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than one and a half million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar. These massive crimes have been generally overlooked or underestimated by Holocaust historians, who have focused on the gas chambers.

In this painstaking account, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes profiles the eastern campaign's architects as well as its "ordinary" soldiers and policemen and helps us understand how such men were conditioned to carry out mass murder. Marshaling a vast array of documents and the testimony of perpetrators and survivors, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and World War II.

Critic Reviews:

"Rhodes, a Pulitzer winner for The Making of the Atomic Bomb, has pulled together a mountain of research on the mass murders of Jews perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen...Rhodes holds the mirror up." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Difficult To Endure But Necessary Reading

This was my second read-through, as I owned the hard-back years ago. Given the re-rise of white supremacy in America, I felt it was necessary to take another trip back in time as a reminder of what can happen if we do not stop it dead in it's tracks.

Richard Rhodes IS the master historian and the master story-teller. And it must have taken great intestinal fortitude to research and write about the most vile period in human history. But not as much intestinal fortitude as the people who were subjected to the final solution.

Perhaps if society valued works such as these more than they valued The Apprentice and Duck Dynasty we wouldn't be forced to confront this evil once again.

The plus side to reading Masters Of Death is that reader will come away with a deeper understanding of HOW it happens. The downside, as in a case such as myself, is that the reader may also come away with deep resentment. Hatred isn't healthy no matter how it manifests itself. When it comes to The Third Reich, however, it's a hatred I can live with.

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."-Samuel Johnson

People at their worst!

A time in our past to horrific to be fiction and not enough was done to stop it!

I know more now

Very interesting book ,I thought I new everything about ww2.I now know a little More.

Never forgetting

Terrible and painful experience to re-listen to this WWII nazi onslaught on unarmed men women and children, but this is also what states do, what many of us can do, how we do what we are told by our society.

Holocausts still take place today and states let it happen. We are still a heartbeat away from medieval societies...

brutal story

my one critique is that the narrator isn't very good. he is for the most part monotone and almost sounds like a computer.

the book its self ranks up there with the rise and fall of the third Reich

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Title: Everything Under the Heavens

Subtitle: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power

Author: Howard W. French

Narrator: Nicholas Hormann

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-14-17

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 41 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy.

For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China's present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become - and to interact wisely with a future peer.

Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best.

Critic Reviews:

"Nuanced...The detail of [French's] scholarship and reporting is matched by the suppleness of his prose...This will be a useful, and necessary, starting point for informed discussion." (Publishers Weekly)

"Howard French has tackled what is perhaps the most important issue of our time, and of many years to come, with the vivid prose of a first-rate reporter, the scholarship of an excellent historian, and great human sympathy." (Ian Buruma, author of Year Zero: A History of 1945)

"Everything Under the Heavens is the most persuasive account I've ever read of how China's history shapes its foreign policy and that of its neighbors today. A subtle and beautifully written book that offers surprising lessons for how Americans and Asians should respond to China's rise. Strongly recommended for policy makers and citizens alike." (Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center, University of California-San Diego)

Members Reviews:

Eye Opening

The author has opened my eyes to ideas and concepts I had not considered. Very enlightening. The long historical view of Chinese self image helps me see why we must be careful in our diplomacy.

China - a clear and present danger for the future.

Where does Everything Under the Heavens rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

Very high in the ranking. Well researched and narrated - gives extensive Chinese and Chinese-Japanese History and provides the appropriate historical context.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Recent Chinese Leaders who made changes to made a great positive difference for their country.

Have you listened to any of Nicholas Hormanns other performances before? How does this one compare?

No basis for an evaluation

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No extreme reaction.

This is a very serious book.

This is a very serious subject.

People interested in U.S.

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Title: The Imagineers of War

Subtitle: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World

Author: Sharon Weinberger

Narrator: Hillary Huber

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-14-17

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 56 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly 60 years.

Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency's original mission was to create "the unimagined weapons of the future". Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology. Sharon Weinberger gives us a riveting account of DARPA's successes and failures, its remarkable innovations, and its wild-eyed schemes. We see how the threat of nuclear Armageddon sparked investment in computer networking, leading to the Internet as well as to a proposal to power a missile-destroying particle beam by draining the Great Lakes. We learn how DARPA was responsible during the Vietnam War for both Agent Orange and the development of the world's first armed drones, and how, after 9/11, the agency sparked a national controversy over surveillance with its data-mining research. And we see how DARPA's success with self-driving cars was followed by disappointing contributions to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Weinberger has interviewed more than 100 former Pentagon officials and scientists involved in DARPA's projects - many of whom have never spoken publicly about their work with the agency - and pored over countless declassified records from archives around the country, documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and exclusive materials provided by sources. The Imagineers of War is a compelling and groundbreaking history in which science, technology, and politics collide.

Critic Reviews:

"Her account is critical but not mocking...a well-researched contribution to the history of U.S. military technology." (Lawrence D. Freedman,

Foreign Affairs)

Members Reviews:

Blandly written story about DARPA politics

What disappointed you about The Imagineers of War?

I thought the book would be more about the imagineers themselves - their ideas and the way that they advanced technology. Sadly, the book is just about William Godel and the politics that he played to get his work done.

Has The Imagineers of War turned you off from other books in this genre?

I would hope not.

What three words best describe Hillary Hubers performance?

Monotonous in many parts, dialogues had passion, There is only so much she could do

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment

The reader was a little robotic

The book was good but the reader was a little robotic. I thought it was an AI reading the book a few times. If you can get passed the readers cadence the history is pretty intresting.

Woeful reading of a flat story

This sounded like it was read by a text to speech program. The story was uninteresting.

Not bad but not the best

If you like darpa and the us war machine. It give a great insight. But there are point that drag a bit.

Very plain way of telling a good story.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No, the performance is infuriating. It sounds like siri is reading to you.

How could the performance have been better?

It would have been better if it would have been read by a human.

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Title: The World Remade

Subtitle: America in World War I

Author: G. J. Meyer

Narrator: Rob Shapiro

Format: Unabridged

Length: 24 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-07-17

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 140 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

A bracing, indispensable account of America's epoch-defining involvement in the Great War, rich with fresh insights into the key issues, events, and personalities of the period

After years of bitter debate, the United States declared war on Imperial Germany on April 6, 1917, plunging the country into the savage European conflict that would redraw the map of the continent - and the globe. The World Remade is an engrossing chronicle of America's pivotal, still controversial intervention into World War I, encompassing the tumultuous politics and towering historical figures that defined the era and forged the future.

When it declared war, the United States was the youngest of the major powers and militarily the weakest by far. On November 11, 1918, when the fighting stopped, it was not only the richest country on earth but the mightiest. With the mercurial, autocratic President Woodrow Wilson as a primary focus, G. J. Meyer takes listeners from the heated deliberations over US involvement, through the provocations and manipulations that drew us into the fight, to the battlefield itself and the shattering aftermath of the struggle. America's entry into the Great War helped make possible the defeat of Germany that had eluded Britain, France, Russia, and Italy in three and a half years of horrendous carnage. Victory, in turn, led to a peace treaty so ill conceived, so vindictive, that the world was put on the road to an even bloodier confrontation a mere 20 years later.

On the home front, Meyer recounts the breakup of traditional class structures, the rise of the progressive and labor movements, the wave of anti-German hysteria, and the explosive expansion of both the economy and federal power, including shocking suspensions of constitutional protections that planted the seeds of today's national security state. Here also are revealing portraits of Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Robert La Follette, Eugene Debs, and John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, among others, as well as European leaders such as "Welsh Wizard" David Lloyd George of Britain, "Tiger" Georges Clemenceau of France, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

Meyer interweaves the many strands of his story into a gripping narrative that casts new light on one of the darkest, most forgotten corners of US history. In the grand tradition of his earlier work A World Undone - which centered on the European perspective - The World Remade adds a new, uniquely American dimension to our understanding of the seminal conflict of the 20th century.

Critic Reviews:

"Accomplished with brio...[Meyer] blends 'foreground, background, and sidelights' to highlight the complex interactions of apparently unconnected events behind the four-year catastrophic war that destroyed a world and defined a century." (Publishers Weekly)

"With a historian's eye for clearheaded analysis and a storyteller's talent for detail and narrative, G. J. Meyer presents a compelling account of the blunders that produced the world's first 'great war' and set the stage for many of the tragic events that followed." (Steve Gillon, resident historian, The History Channel)

"Especially suited for the interested American reader....

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Title: When Paris Sizzled

Subtitle: The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends

Author: Mary McAuliffe

Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-28-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 19 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior. The epicenter of all this creativity, as well as of the era's good times, was Montparnasse, where impoverished artists and writers found colleagues and cafes, and tourists discovered the Paris of their dreams. Major figures on the Paris scene - such as Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau, Picasso, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and Proust - continued to hold sway, while others now came to prominence - including Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, Cole Porter, and Josephine Baker, as well as Andre Citroën, Le Corbusier, Man Ray, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, and the irrepressible Kiki of Montparnasse.

Critic Reviews:

"

When Paris Sizzled delivers an expansive and wonderfully engaging account of the spirited characters who made the Left Bank of Paris the center of the creative world." (

The Huffington Post)

Members Reviews:

Informative, but no sizzle

It is a pity that such an informative book about such an interesting time and place is so dry and soulless. I got no sense of why it was such a fun, inspirational time. No charm.

Loved it

I loved it, especially the personal stories of the different artists, writers, musician, and their friends.

When Paris Sizzles 1920's

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I don't think so. I have read more informational books about this era that I think I would recommend first.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY

THE BATTLE OF THE CAR MAKERS, IT JUST WENT ON AND ON AND ON...

Which character as performed by Saskia Maarleveld was your favorite?

JOSEPHINE BAKER

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

IF IT WAS EDITED IN SEVERAL PLACES!

Any additional comments?

I'M SORRY TO SAY THIS, I KNOW I'M NOT A WRITER, HOWEVER, I EXPECTED MORE FROM A WOMAN WITH HER CREDENTIALS.

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Title: Hitler's Religion

Subtitle: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich

Author: Richard Weikart

Narrator: Ian Fisher

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-23-17

Publisher: Regnery History

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

For a man whom history can never forget, Adolf Hitler remains a persistent mystery on one front - his religious faith. Atheists tend to insist Hitler was a devout Christian. Christians counter that he was an atheist. And still others suggest that he was a practicing member of the occult.

None of these theories are true, says historian Richard Weikart. Delving more deeply into the question of Hitler's religious faith than any researcher to date, Weikart reveals the startling and fascinating truth about the most hated man of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler was a pantheist who believed nature was God. In Hitler's Religion, Weikart explains how the laws of nature became Hitler's only moral guide - how he became convinced he would serve God by annihilating supposedly "inferior" human beings and promoting the welfare and reproduction of the allegedly superior Aryans in accordance with racist forms of Darwinism prevalent at the time.

Members Reviews:

Insightful content, let down by an awful narrator

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator, Ian Fisher, has idiosyncratic (i.e. wrong) and frequently inconsistent pronunciation, even of quite common English words. Thus, for example, irreconcilable becomes ehreconcilable. He even mispronounces words crucial to the subject matter, which is very distracting. For example, he generally pronounces Aryan as are-EYE-un, and the German word volk as if it began with an English v sound, rather than an f sound.

Thus, every minute or two, just as one is beginning to concentrate again on the content, Fisher will say a word in such a bizarre way that ones attention is immediately torn away from the content of the book, and instead consumed by thoughts along the lines of, Did he really just say that?

Fishers phrasing and pacing is also often not as helpful as it could be in conveying the sense of the text.