Download Popular Titles Audiobooks in History, American

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Adams vs. Jefferson

Subtitle: The Tumultuous Election of 1800

Author: John Ferling

Narrator: Jack Garrett

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-06-04

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 236 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Once close friends, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became bitter rivals as they fought for control of the young government. In a no-holds-barred brawl, both camps used any and all methods to sway voters. There was mudslinging, name-calling, and backstabbing. After a stalemate in the Electoral College, balloting went on for days and nights. Friendships were crushed, promises were broken, civil war was threatened. In the end, a shady deal gave Jefferson the presidency, and America would never be the same.

Considering the turmoil of the modern era, Adams vs. Jefferson is a timely book through which we can better understand the antagonistic atmosphere of contemporary politics.

The Pivotal Moments in American History series seeks to unite the old and the new history, combining the insights and techniques of recent historiography with the power of traditional narrative. Each title has a strong narrative arc with drama, irony, suspense, and most importantly great characters who embody the human dimension of historical events. The general editors of Pivotal Moments are not just historians; they are popular writers themselves, and, in two cases, Pulitzer Prize winners: David Hackett Fischer, James M. McPherson, and David Greenberg. We hope you like your American History served up with verve, wit, and an eye for the telling detail!

Critic Reviews:

"Ferling richly presents the twists and turns of the election, as well as a vivid portrait of a struggling new nation and the bruising political battles of our now revered founding fathers." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Outstanding work of interpretive history

This work, purportedly about the election of 1800, actually spends less than 1/4 of its length on the election & the various machinations associated with same. That is a good thing. Rather, it reviews, superficially yet very powerfully, the forces that in the years after 1776 brought forth the Federalists, anti-Federalists & Jeffersonian Republicans, as well as the sideward glance at the first glimmerings of a "political machine" in the hands of Aaron Burr. It is this interpretation of the 2 decades running up to the election that makes the election crystal-clear. This book also has outstanding narration. Someone who speaks with emphasis & doesn't have to be suffered through. The only weakness of the book, frankly, is the short section that follows the events of the elections, which treads on very well worn ground (Burr's post 1800 shenanigans, Hamilton, Jefferson/Adams correspondence) & does not add anything substantial to the record here. A very small complaint. It still deserves 5 stars in by book.

A little too Jeffersonian

Interesting and informative, but passed over Jefferson's faults too easily. Ferling concludes that the election of 1800 was about liberty (Jefferson and the Republicans) vs. oligarchy (Adams, Hamilton and the Federalists). This is a little simplistic in my view--there was certainly a more moderate strain of Federalism, represented by Adams, which was not the usurper of 1776 liberty represented by Jefferson. I think Ferling comes to a lazy black and white conclusion. But I enjoyed the book.

Jefferson's Point of View

I was disappointed by this book's uneven treatment of the Federalist and the Republicans.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Sleeping with the Devil

Subtitle: How Washington Sold Its Soul for Saudi Crude

Author: Robert Baer

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-04-04

Publisher: Books on Tape

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 267 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Former CIA operative Robert Baer examines the dangers behind America's collaboration with Saudi Arabia. Nominally based on a "harmony of interests", the Saudis sold their oil to the American government very inexpensively; what we offered in exchange has damaged our position in the Middle East and left our country vulnerable to economic and terrorist threats. Baer goes behind the scenes to show how the U.S. willingly overlooked the corruption of the Saudi royal family, its financing of violent Islamic fundamentalist groups that spread hatred of the West throughout Saudi society, and its bribery of American officials. From a close-up with a corrupt Arab family to the inside scoop on how we helped fund the Taliban, Baer shows what's at stake in our pursuit of oil.

©2003 Robert Baer (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc.

Members Reviews:

The story behind the true US-Saudi relationship

Robert Baer's story about the inner workings of how the US and Saudi Governments do business is great listening. One of the most detailed books of how much influence the House of Saud has in this country from the author with decades of intelligence experience in the region. He describes how Saudi diplomats have unfettered access in this country to the highest levels of government. Baer describes how Saudi money buys whatever influence they want in the US. Full of insights of how the Saudi government rules and details about how the main saudi oil fields are in the Shite populated areas, but ruled by the Sunni Royal family. This book gives great insights into the Saudi-US relationship-how it started and where its going, and the politics inside the Saudi Royal family. A very well told story and a very informative book.

We are all Ignorant

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Spread the word and sit back and listen to a Master Spy give you the information that CNN refuses to report.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Robert Baer

Have you listened to any of Robertson Deans other performances before? How does this one compare?

All his books

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YEs

Any additional comments?

Great book I can't stop talking about it.

A weak book

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

This was less the journalism or expose that you may hope for and more of an opportunity for the author to promote himself. The book can basically be summarized as: "Saudi Arabia, the Arab world and America have a complicated relationship. I am smarter than everyone and knew everything all along. Trust me, I was in the CIA" From there, the book is filled with self promotion, speculation presented as fact, and blanket statements clouded by historical hindsight. If you are well read or familiar with history the books treatment of history may be annoying. If you are in the intel community, Robert Baer's self serving narrative about the ignorance of others will get to you.

If you want to learn about Saudi Arabia, get the excellent "Inside the Kingdom" by Robert Lacey which is much more authoritative and revealing. If you are interested in the roots of Islamic extremism and 9/11, read "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright.

What didnt you like about Robertson Deans performance?

Lots of bad pronunciation.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: America's Women

Subtitle: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (Unabridged Selections)

Author: Gail Collins

Narrator: Jane Alexander

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-23-04

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 100 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Told chronologically through the compelling stories of individual lives that, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman's experience, America's Women is both a great read and a landmark work of history.

Critic Reviews:

"Collins...not only expertly chronicles what women have done since arriving in the New World, but how they did it and why. Creating a compelling social history...Collins's work is a fully accessible, and thoroughly enjoyable, primer of how American women have not only survived but thrived." (Publishers Weekly)

"In a vibrant history...as vast and varied as the nation itself, Collins elegantly and eruditely celebrates...a captivating array of influential women." (Booklist)

"Jane Alexander reads this all-encompassing history of American women with just the right amount of humor, indignation, wonder, and disbelief....Alexander is a good match for Collins's style, lending an even pace, great warmth, and a slightly scholarly voice to the history." (AudioFile)

Members Reviews:

Not all there

Any additional comments?

I bought this book to go along with the print version that I have for a Womens History class that I was taking but it is only about half the book. All most every chapter is missing at least half the content compared to the print version. I would not recommend this just buy the printed one you miss to many stories.

Slow going but interesting

The subject matter is interesting to me, but I found it slow to hook the reader. I am learning a tremendous amount and enjoy it each time I listen, but I am not longing for the opportunity to keep my headphones in an extra 10 minutes as I am with some of my other choices. So much of this early history of women in America is relevant and I wish more of it would have made it into the history books I read as a teenager. I am sticking with this book because I think it is worth it.

Gives me perspective

Any additional comments?

I've been listening to a lot of books on relationships and marriage. But I had apparently been looking for something, (without knowing that I was) and wasn't finding it the relationship books. But I found it in the feminist books. And that is perspective. Why our relationships have so many dysfunctions. Why are women so often co-dependent. Why are there so many unrealistic expectations placed on women in relationships. None of these questions were answered by marriage and relationship books, within a broader historical context, even though many of those books were useful in their own ways and filled with good info and good advice, regarding how to simply make it work, despite the difference. But I need a lot more than that. I need to know why is it like that. Then there are questions of women in society. Why do women not value their work as much as men do. Why do we put up with so much abuse and discrimination, still. And why do we get paid less for the same work then men. Only feminist books, so far, have answered these questions with a level of clarity and intelligence that I need to satisfy my genuine need to know the truth.This book paints a retrospect of many pictures and short stories about women's lives in the US, since the first European woman arrived on the mayflower.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Hegemony or Survival

Subtitle: America's Quest for Global Dominance

Author: Noam Chomsky

Narrator: Brian Jones, Noam Chomsky

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-21-03

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 646 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Lucid, rigorous and thoroughly documented, Hegemony or Survival is Chomsky's most urgent and sweeping work in years. Certain to spark widespread debate, it is a definitive statement from one of the world's most influential political thinkers.

Critic Reviews:

"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty, and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive." (The New York Times)

"In this highly readable...critique of American foreign policy from the late 1950s to the present...Chomsky brings together many themes he has mined in the past, making this cogent and provocative book an important addition to an ongoing public discussion about U.S. policy." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Great book, lousy reader

This is a dense analytical examination of US foreign policy, very much in the usual Chomsky tradition. The reader reads it entirely too fast, so it's often hard to follow the arguments. It sounds like he's rushing through it. It would have been great if Chomsky read it himself.

Interesting viewpoint - terrible reader

I found the ideas and concepts fascinating (if scary) but I had to force myself to continue listening because the reader was so bad. Would have been better if the author had read the whole thing instead of just an introduction. The person reading the book apparently got paid a bonus for reading as fast as possible, with extra points for butchered inflections. As a result, it was very tough to follow the reasoning of the author sometimes.

Today's events in perpective

This books "explains" today's policies by comparing it to America's actions throughout the last century. I guess it could be considered to be a left leaning book, but I found it very balanced and well reasoned. It is always helpful to compare current events with the past. I was also surprised to hear the author express optimism during a recent televised forum; he thinks the American public is better informed about the Iraq war today than it was during the beginning of the Vietnam war - it took many years before there was any awareness about Vietnam. This is not a rant! I think even conservatives should read this and could find value in it.

Unclouded vision

Noam gets to the point, and stays on point. That point is that America has steadily been growing in power and influence to become a great and total global hegemony under the control of Corporate and military interests. It may take a few listens to let the gravity of this work sink in. This is not "lite" reading by any means. The reading is quick and the content deep, so don't try multi-tasking to this one.

A hard pill to swallow for most Americans, but ...

I have read a fair amount of modern history, and was only vaguely aware (like most Americans) of the many of Chomsky's facts and assertions. Some were so startling that I felt I needed to verify. After researching four and finding them unassailable, I stopped trying to fault the facts. The indictment of US foreign policy that Chomsky devolves from these facts is at such variance with our view of ourselves that one is inclined to look for an explanation. If the facts are not false, then perhaps the interpretation is the problem, so I examined the logic by re-reading the book with careful attention to the relationship between facts and conclusion.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: They Marched Into Sunlight

Subtitle: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967

Author: David Maraniss

Narrator: David Maraniss

Format: Abridged

Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-17-03

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 47 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In the long Nguyen Secret Zone of Vietnam, a renowned battalion of the First Infantry Division is marching into a devastating ambush that will leave sixty-one soldiers dead and an equal number wounded. On the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, students are staging an obstructive protest at the Commerce Building against recruiters for Dow Chemical Company, makers of napalm and Agent Orange, that ends in a bloody confrontation with club-wielding Madison police. And in Washington, President Lyndon Johnson is dealing with pressures closing in on him from all sides and lamenting to his war council, "How are we ever going to win this war?"

Based on thousands of primary documents and 180 on-the-record interviews, the story unfolds day by day, hour by hour, and at times minute by minute with a rich cast of characters as they move toward battles that forever shaped their lives and evoked cultural and political conflicts that reverberate still.

Critic Reviews:

"Maraniss...is a writer with a masterly sense of narrative pace...The tale unfolds with a magisterial sweep that recaptures the war and its era." (The New York Times Book Review)

"A moving remembrance for those who lived through it and an illuminating lesson for a new generation trying to understand what it was all about." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Overwhelming

Factual, balanced, even-handed and overwhelming. This audio book is indeed thought-provoking at the least and full of sadness and a sense of waste. It should be required reading....

Visit Thru History

Action-packed and authentic, Maraniss takes you to a time-warp of history where you re-live the same moments in a bloody Viet Nam massacre and inside the halls of a university protest in Madison Wisconsin where police batons slam into student skulls. If you lived these years, the confusion, innocence and outrage are still there in your soul. Great reading experience, as usual, with David Maraniss at the keyboard.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Of Paradise and Power

Subtitle: America and Europe in the New World Order

Author: Robert Kagan

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-10-03

Publisher: Books on Tape

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 71 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

When historians want to find out about the ideas that motivated American foreign policy in the early years of the twenty-first century, they would do well to read this book. Robert Kagan has formally set out a case for unilateralism on the part of the United States, as opposed to the multilateralism now characteristic of Europe. The U.S. is now quicker to use military force, less patient with diplomacy, and more willing to coerce or bribe other nations to achieve a desired result. By contrast, European nations are trying to work together, preserving the ties of diplomacy, cooperation, long-term problem solving, and international law, all of which are signs of weakness. Kagan believes that the United States can disregard a weak Europe, and have a free hand in pursuing its global interests.

©2003 Robert Kagan; (P)Books on Tape, Inc.; Published in Arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing Group, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic Reviews:

"The most controversial big-think essay of the season." (U.S. News and World Report)

"This book deserves to be read by all conscientious citizens." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Quick and pithy listen

This is an excellent synopsis of the high-level differences between modern European and American foreign policy. Kagan deftly weaves his premise that America and Europe are diverging in their interests, and not necessarily to their mutual detriment. While written from an American (and conservative) perspective, I found it to be fairly well unbiased and non-partisan for all ideologues to enjoy. Kagan also does an excellent job of making his case in a short space, where lesser authors would take much longer.

Very Well Done

As I listened, throuroghly enjoying Kagan's insights, thoughts and at times, wit, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop -- the political statement that would show a bias or would ruin an otherwise very good analysis of current trans-atlantic politics. It never came. It is a fully enjoyable evaluation of the past and potential future. I highly recommend it.

Of Paridise and Power

Fantastic book well worth your time

Theme and variations

Kaplans theme was repeated with multiple variations. There is a fair amount of material to consider and the theme deserves repeating in order to take hold. At first it might be dismissed or rejected, but upon deeper consideration bears significant merit. It changed my thinking about many aspects related to Europe. It also provides an answer to many questions that are puzzling about Europe and the US.

Thought-Provoking

Much has been made of Kagan's neo-con credentials and some of that comes through in this book. But "Paradise and Power" is a thought-provoking read for Americans and Europeans of all political stripes. It helps to put some notions --chiefly about the divergence between US and European strategic visions-- into place. In the final pages, Kagan does offer some apologetics for right-wing American policies that might grate on more progressive sensibilities, but overall the book is unique and important and well worth a read.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Treason

Subtitle: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

Author: Ann Coulter

Narrator: Ann Coulter

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-19-03

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 689 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Reexamining the 60-year history of the Cold War and beyond - including the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Whittaker Chambers-Alger Hiss affair, Ronald Reagan's challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall", the Gulf War, and our present war on terrorism - Coulter reveals how liberals have been horribly wrong in all their political analyses and policy prescriptions. She also examines how history, especially in the latter half of the twentieth century, has been written by liberals and, therefore, distorted by their perspective. Far from being irrelevant today, her clearheaded and piercing view of what we've been through informs us perfectly for challenges today and in the future.

With

, Ann Coulter became the most recognized and talked-about conservative intellectual of the year. Treason, in many ways an even more controversial and prescient book, will ignite impassioned political debate at one of the most crucial moments in our history.

Members Reviews:

A bizarre phenomenon

Ann Coulter's work is one of those strange marketing stories of the new century. Virtually all her claims are consistently and throughly debunked, yet people continue buying her books! "Treason" is no exception. What you have here is vitriol without truth. Hate-speech without substance. Or, as it has been better said, "The sound and the fury, signifying nothing."

Poison for political discourse

I am writing this review as an unashamed liberal (card-carrying member of the ACLU) and someone who, despite Coulter's assertions, does really love my country. As a history teacher, I have also spent a fair amount of time thinking about the political traditions of this country. The changing arguments between liberals and conservatives has been basic to this tradition and when either of these mainstreams has become too dominant or has stopped listening to their opponents, the results have been damaging. By dismissing liberals as a group (as if THEY all think the same way any more than conservatives do), portraying them as anti-American and even as, well, TRAITORS, she is poisoning the political well of this discussion by encouraging her conservative readers to question the motives of anyone who disagrees with them.

I believe that if we can't have a healthy discourse within which people can disagree about difficult, complex issues like the proper response to terrorism, without resorting to tactics of the kind that this book is filled with, we are in deep trouble as a nation.

About time.

This book is being slammed by people who have not read it. Do not pay attention to them. It is a well written, thoughtful, intelligent history of the left's activities in opposition to the interests of our country. Is it treason? Without question. Read it!

Conservative Intellectual????

I am astounded after reading this book that any one woud consider this author an "intellectual." Her deductions are wrong, her facts seem to be plucked from someone's inagination, and her totally unscholarly approach to this topic is offensive to the thinking reader.

This book is most certainly defined bast a "a waste of time, money and intellectual effort." My only consolation is that I got the book from a friend and was able to return it without paying the author.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Fatal Deception

Subtitle: The Untold Story of Asbestos - Why It Is Still Legal and Still Killing Us

Author: Michael Bowker

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-03-03

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 36 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Something's wrong in Libby, Montana. Residents are dying at a rate 60 times higher than the national average from a battery of insidious diseases, and they will continue to suffer for decades to come. The cause: a so-called miracle mineral that generations of families felt thankful for, until they discovered that the "miracle" was too good to be true - and that the town's disturbing mortality rate was hardly an accident.

The scope of the treachery goes far beyond Libby. Even before the dust had settled following the September 11 terrorist attacks, those who live and work in lower Manhattan were voicing well-founded concerns about air quality around Ground Zero. Tests conducted at the site yielded conflicting results - and possibly evidence of a continuing corporate and governmental cover-up that mirrors a pattern of deception threatening not only the physical health of millions of Americans but the financial stability of our economy.

In 1989, the EPA banned the manufacture, importation, processing, and distribution of commercial asbestos - but the ban didn't hold. Asbestos is big business, rivaling tobacco in its profitability. By 1991, powerful corporate lobbyists succeeded in having the ban overturned. Today, asbestos remains an ingredient in more than 3,000 products on sale in the United States and many more that are exported to developing nations around the globe.

Members Reviews:

a stilted reading of a preachy book

The author remarks at one point that this issue needs a book like Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action. Maybe so; this isn't the book.

The Erin Brockovich movie and the Harr book work well mainly because of their character development and the people they portray. To be fair, this reading of Fatal Deception is an abridgement (which I didn't realize until it was too late), but Michael Bowker's characters are one-dimensional, and he doesn't appear to care about any of them very much. Bowker spends too much time pontificating and editorializing, and too little explaining the scientific or human aspects of his story.

Parenthetically, I thought it was interesting that the same company, W.R. Grace, figures in both this book and A Civil Action, and even though Bowker refers to the other case, he doesn't mention the connection. I wonder if this was abridged out or if he had other reasons for omitting it.

Finally, the reading couldn't be worse. Not only is it stiff and wooden, but John Slattery's grasp of the scientific and medical terminology is amateurish, including a quirky pronunciation of the word "asbestosis," which occurs dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

I'd suggest buying a different book.

Wake Up America!

I am an asbestos victim. Lung cancer in 1987 (sucessful surgery) and now suffering from Asbestosis (scarring of lungs). I must depend on the use of oxygen 24 hours per day in order to breathe.

And I am one of the lucky ones.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: The Age of Gold

Subtitle: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream

Author: H.W. Brands

Narrator: Brian Mancinelli

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-27-02

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 43 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

H.W. Brands explores the far-reaching implications of this pivotal point in U.S. history, weaving the politics of the times with gripping stories of both the ordinary and the famous in a colorful, intricate tapestry displaying both the best and the worst of the American character. He recounts the great fortunes won - and lost. And most of all, he reveals the profound effect the Gold Rush had on the way Americans on both coasts viewed their destinies, as the notion of getting rich quickly transformed the traditional Puritan ethic of hard work and the gradual accumulation of wealth. In the aftermath of the Gold Rush, a new American dream was born - the enduring conviction that sudden wealth was within everyone's grasp.

A stunning re-creation of one of the most exciting periods of America's past, The Age of Gold is narrative history on a grand scale.

Critic Reviews:

"A fine, robust telling of one of the greatest adventure stories in history." (David McCullough, author of John Adams)

"Fascinating stories that transcend the mundane and take us to new levels of the human experience." (Stephen E. Ambrose, author of Band of Brothers)

"Magnificent in its sweep, and not to be missed by fans of American history." (Amazon.com)

Members Reviews:

Informative. Alarmingly Captivating

This is a focused and sweeping history of California that essentially begins with the Gold Rush of 1848. The author uses an abundance of primary sources to present this thesis - that the Gold Rush profoundly changed American and World History. This is a compelling history. The intersection of the lives of so many people, institutions and events is nothing short of astonishing.

Sutter, Marshall, Fremont, Stanford, Sherman, Hearst and Hoover - all known in American history - are the foundational characters for this book. What is more interesting is how they influenced and shaped events and how those events would also shape them.

This era of reckless and headlong rush would be boom and bane for individuals and the country as a whole.

This book fills in many gaps that history has short

All in all, this is a great book and great story. It is a little slow in the middle as the author uses first hand diary accounts to vividly paint a word picture of the mind set and essence of the time. But this is necessary and I encourage the reader to stay with it.

Must read for California / Western history buffs

I've been devouring books in California's Wild West period and this one stands out among the best. It's scope ranges from the Mexican American war until around the rail road connection.

Brands gives us both the big picture view of the time period As well as zooms in on specific historical people, both prominent and layman, that gives a well rounded picture of this time in history. Making the book both information heavy but also easily digestible even for people not familiar with this topic. Not only that but he ties it all together with his thesis on how California's Gold Rush changed American society as a whole.

Highly recommend for anyone interested in California history or history of the American Wild West.

This book is worth it's wieght in Gold.

Excellent piece of American history. I enjoyed it thoroughly and learned so much.

Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Master of the Senate

Subtitle: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Author: Robert A. Caro

Narrator: Stephen Lang

Format: Abridged

Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-19-02

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 199 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

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. And we hear 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.

Robert A. Caro has won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, as well as two National Book Critics Circle Awards and other honors. Master of the Senate is told with an abundance of rich detail that could only have come from Caro's peerless research.

Critic Reviews:

"There is something uniquely mesmerizing about the wily, combative Lyndon Johnson as portrayed by Caro. (Publishers Weekly)

A model of social, psychological, and political insight, it is not just masterful; it is a masterpiece." (Amazon.com)

Members Reviews:

Abridgement bad

Robert Caro's Master of the Senate is a strikingly detailed look at the most pivotal years of Lyndon Johnson's pre-presidential career. I knew that much would be missing from this abridged recording, but I was shocked to find that entire chapters, as well as crucial incidents in LBJ's life, such as his heart attack, the presidential election of 1956 and many others, were ommitted. After all, it was from Caro, in one of his earlier LBJ volumes, that I learned how fearful LBJ was of a heart attack that would kill him at an early age. And after reading in such great detail about the hard-fought and crookedly won election of 1948, I was stunned to find no mention of LBJ's 1954 re-election campaign, or even the smallest discussion of Texas politics in the 50s, and how LBJ was affected by it. In short, this is the most unfortunate and poorest abridgement of a book I've ever read.

Good, but abridged version off

I first read two long excerpts from this book in the New Yorker that captured the essence of LBJ, and in particular, the way he played Humbert Humphrey to serve his ends. This was missing in the audio version. Also, most critical, was the passage where LBJ, who arguably did more to advance civil rights than anyone else including Martin Luther King, asks his long-time black chauffeur if he minds being called by a nickname instead of his real name. When the chauffeur answers "yes" LBJ unleashes a stinging racist tirade on the man. That one scene captured the contradiction that was LBJ, yet is omitted from the audio book. But there were passages included that were mostly nits about vote counts etc. So an A for the book, a C for the abridged version.

A truly great book...too bad its abridged

The three books which constitute this history of Johnson are truly outstanding. Caro has an unmatched ability to vividly capture his subject's character and portray the world in which they operate -- without pulling any punches. Best of all, by the time Caro is done, you understand not just how Johnson successfully climbed to the leadership of the Senate, but why. The series is not just great biography, but a highly entertaining look at the American political system.