Explore the Latest Full Audiobooks in History, The Americas

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/703254 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections

Author: David Daley

Narrator: Kevin Stillwell

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 17 hours 45 minutes

Release date: August 6, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

“Chilling and convincing, Antidemocratic is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand American politics in 2024.” —Heather Cox Richardson, author of Democracy Awakening A riveting yet disturbing history of the fifty-year Republican plot to hijack voting rights in America, its profound implications for the 2024 presidential election, and the crucial role that Chief Justice John Roberts has played in determining how we vote. In 1981, a young lawyer, fresh out of Harvard law school, joined the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice, taking up a cause that had been fomenting in Republican circles for over a decade by that point. From his perch inside the Reagan DOJ, this lawyer would attempt to bring down one of the defining pieces of 20th century legislation—the Voting Rights Act. His name was John Roberts. Over thirty years later in 2013, these efforts by John Roberts and the conservative legal establishment culminated when Roberts, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote Shelby County vs. Holder, one of the most consequential decisions of modern jurisprudence. A dramatic move that gutted the Voting Rights Act, Roberts’s decision—dangerously premised on the flawed notion that racism was a thing of the past—emboldened right-wing, antidemocratic voting laws around the country immediately. No modern court decision has done more to hand elections to Republicans than Shelby. Now lauded investigative reporter David Daley reveals the urgent story of this fifty-year Republican plot to end the Voting Rights Act and encourage minority rule in their party’s favor. From the bowels of Reagan’s DOJ to the walls of the conservative Federalist Society to the moneyed Republican resources bankrolling restrictive voting laws today, Daley reveals a hidden history as sweeping as it is troubling. Through careful research and exhaustive reporting, he connects Shelby to a well-funded, highly-coordinated right-wing effort to erode the power of minority voters and Democrats at the ballot box—an effort that has grown stronger with each election cycle. In the process Roberts and his conservative allies have enabled fringe conservative theories about our elections with the potential to shape the 2024 election and topple the foundations of our democracy. Timely and alarming, Daley offers a powerful message that, while Shelby was the misguided end of the Voting Rights Act, it was also the beginning of something far darker.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/705857 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Fifteen Cents on the Dollar: How Americans Made the Black-White Wealth Gap

Author: Louise Story, Ebony Reed

Narrator: Tovah Ott

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 14 hours 45 minutes

Release date: June 18, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

A sweeping, narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America’s financial system.  The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic demonstrations in the streets, discussions in the workplace, and conversations at home about the financial gaps that remain between white and Black Americans. This deeply investigated book shows the scores of setbacks that have held the Black-white wealth gap in place—from enslavement to redlining to banking discrimination—and, ultimately, the reversals that occurred in the mid-2020s as the push for racial equity became a polarized political debate. Fifteen Cents on the Dollar follows the lives of four Black Millennial professionals and a banking company founded with the stated mission of closing the Black-white wealth gap. That company, known as Greenwood, a reference to the historic Black Wall Street district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, generated immense excitement and hope among people looking for new ways of business that might lead to greater equity. But the twists and turns of Greenwood’s journey also raise tough questions about what equality really means. Seasoned journalist-academics Louise Story and Ebony Reed present a nuanced portrait of Greenwood’s founders—the entertainment executive Ryan Glover; the Grammy-winning rapper Michael Render, better known as Killer Mike; and the Civil Rights leader and two-term Atlanta mayor, Andrew Young—along with new revelations about their lives, careers, and families going back to the Civil War. Equally engaging are the stories of the lesser-known individuals—a female tech employee from rural North Carolina trying to make it in a big city; a rising leader at the NAACP whose father is in prison; an owner of a BBQ stand in Atlanta fighting to keep his home; and a Black man in a biracial marriage grappling with his roots when his father is shot by the police. In chronicling these staggering injustices, Fifteen Cents on the Dollar shows why so little progress has been made on the wealth gap and provides insights Americans should consider if they want lasting change. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/707156 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: I Have a Dream - 60th Anniversary Edition

Series: Part of The Essential Speeches of Martin Luther King

Author: Martin Luther King Jr.

Narrator: Bernice A. King, Martin Luther King Jr., Blair Underwood

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 1 hour 0 minutes

Release date: June 4, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

With new forewords and an afterword by Martin Luther King III, Dr. Bernice A. King, and Dexter Scott King Celebrating the 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s legendary speech at the March on Washington, part of Dr. King’s archives published exclusively by HarperCollins On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood before thousands of Americans who had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. in the name of civil rights. Including the immortal words, “I have a dream,” Dr. King’s keynote speech would energize a movement and change the course of history. With references to the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, Shakespeare, and the Bible, Dr. King’s March on Washington address has long been hailed as one of the greatest pieces of writing and oration in history. Profound and deeply moving, it is as relevant today as it was sixty years earlier. This edition presents Dr. King’s speech in its entirety, paying tribute to this extraordinary leader and his immeasurable contribution, and inspiring a new generation of activists dedicated to carrying on the fight for justice and equality.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/704938 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Wînipêk: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre

Author: Niigaan Sinclair

Narrator: Niigaan Sinclair

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

Release date: June 4, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Winner of the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction • Named a Best Book of 2024 by Audible, Spotify, and Winnipeg Free Press • One of CBC's Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2024 From ground zero of this country's most important project: reconciliation. Niigaan Sinclair has been called provocative, revolutionary, and one of this country's most influential thinkers on the issues impacting Indigenous cultures, communities, and reconciliation in Canada. In his debut collection of stories, observations, and thoughts about Winnipeg, the place he calls 'ground zero' of Canada's future, read about the complex history and contributions of this place alongside the radical solutions to injustice and violence found here, presenting solutions for a country that has forgotten principles of treaty and inclusivity. It is here, in the place where Canada began—where the land, water, people, and animals meet— that a path 'from the centre' is happening for all to see. At a crucial and fragile moment in Canada's long history with Indigenous peoples, one of our most essential writers begins at the centre, capturing a web spanning centuries of community, art, and resistance.  Based on years' worth of columns, Niigaan Sinclair delivers a defining essay collection on the resilience of Indigenous peoples. Here, we meet the creators, leaders, and everyday people preserving the beauty of their heritage one day at a time. But we also meet the ugliest side of colonialism, the Indian Act, and the communities who suffer most from its atrocities.  Sinclair uses the story of Winnipeg to illuminate the reality of Indigenous life all over what is called Canada. This is a book that demands change and celebrates those fighting for it, that reminds us of what must be reconciled and holds accountable those who must do the work. It's a book that reminds us of the power that comes from loving a place, even as that place is violently taken away from you, and the magic of fighting your way back to it.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/703235 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions

Author: Amanda Bellows

Narrator: Leon Nixon, Kirsten Potter

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 41 minutes

Release date: June 4, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

A fascinating new history of America, told through the stories of a diverse cast of ten extraordinary—and often overlooked—adventurers, from Sacagawea to Matthew Henson to Sally Ride, who pushed the boundaries of discovery and determined our national destiny. ''Brilliantly imaginative, beautifully written.'' —David Blight, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom ''A considerable undertaking. … [Bellows's] keen sense of story and her appreciation of her individual subjects tell us much that is new, and vividly.'' —Wall Street Journal The archetype of the American explorer, a rugged white man, has dominated our popular culture since the late eighteenth century, when Daniel Boone’s autobiography captivated readers with tales of treacherous journeys. But our commonly held ideas about American exploration do not tell the whole story—far from it. The Explorers rediscovers a diverse group of Americans who went to the western frontier and beyond, traversing the farthest reaches of the globe and even penetrating outer space in their endeavor to find the unknown. Many escaped from lives circumscribed by racism, sexism, poverty, and discrimination as they took on great risk in unfamiliar territory. Born into slavery, James Beckwourth found freedom as a mountain man and became one of the great entrepreneurs of Gold Rush California. Matthew Henson, the son of African American sharecroppers, left rural Maryland behind to seek the North Pole. Women like Harriet Chalmers Adams ascended Peruvian mountains to gain geographic knowledge while Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride shattered glass ceilings by pushing the limits of flight. In The Explorers, readers will travel across the vast Great Plains and into the heights of the Sierra Nevada mountains; they will traverse the frozen Arctic Ocean and descend into the jungles of South America; they will journey by canoe and horseback, train and dogsled, airplane and space shuttle. Readers will experience the exhilarating history of American exploration alongside the men and women who shared a deep drive to discover the unknown. Across two centuries and many thousands of miles of terrain, Amanda Bellows offers an ode to our country’s most intrepid adventurers—and reveals the history of America in the process.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/707115 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Patton's Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II

Author: Alex Kershaw

Narrator: Rob Shapiro

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 49 minutes

Release date: May 21, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

From Alex Kershaw, author of the New York Times bestseller Against All Odds, comes an epic story of courage, resilience, and faith during the Second World War General George Patton needed a miracle. In December 1944, the Allies found themselves stuck. Rain had plagued the troops daily since September, turning roads into rivers of muck, slowing trucks and tanks to a crawl. A thick ceiling of clouds had grounded American warplanes, allowing the Germans to reinforce. The sprint to Berlin had become a muddy, bloody stalemate, costing thousands of American lives. Patton seethed, desperate for some change, any change, in the weather. A devout Christian, he telephoned his head chaplain. “Do you have a good prayer for the weather?” he asked. The resulting prayer was soon printed and distributed to the 250,000 men under Patton’s command. “Pray when driving,” the men were told. “Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for the cessation of immoderate rains, for good weather for Battle. . . . Pray for victory. . . . Pray for Peace.” Then came the Battle of the Bulge. Amid frigid temperatures and heavy snow, 200,000 German troops overwhelmed the meager American lines in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest, massacring thousands of soldiers as the attack converged on a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. There, the 101st Airborne was dug in, but the enemy were lurking, hidden in the thick blanket of fog that seemed to never dissipate. A hundred miles of frozen roads to the south, Patton needed an answer to his prayer, fast, before it was too late.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/703168 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

Author: Erik Larson

Narrator: Will Patton, Erik Larson

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 17 hours 18 minutes

Release date: April 30, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.31 of Total 52

Ratings of Narrator: 4.75 of Total 16

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times). “A feast of historical insight and narrative verve . . . This is Erik Larson at his best, enlivening even a thrice-told tale into an irresistible thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal A PARADE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.” At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/702385 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History

Author: Karen Valby

Narrator: Lydia Abarca Mitchell, Sheila Rohan, Khadija Tariyan Mckinney G., Marcia Lynn Sells, Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, January LaVoy

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 12 minutes

Release date: April 30, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK • The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now. “This is the kind of history I wish I learned as a child dreaming of the stage!” —Misty Copeland, author of Black Ballerinas: My Journey to Our Legacy “Utterly absorbing, flawlessly-researched…Vibrant, propulsive, and inspiring, The Swans of Harlem is a richly drawn portrait of five courageous women whose contributions have been silenced for too long!” —Tia Williams, author of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lydia Abarca was a Black prima ballerina with a major international dance company—the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a troupe of women and men who became each other’s chosen family. She was the first Black company ballerina on the cover of Dance magazine, an Essence cover star; she was cast in The Wiz and in a Bob Fosse production on Broadway. She performed in some of ballet’s most iconic works with other trailblazing ballerinas, including the young women who became her closest friends—founding Dance Theatre of Harlem members Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Sheila Rohan, as well as first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton and Marcia Sells. These Swans of Harlem performed for the Queen of England, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder, on the same bill as Josephine Baker, at the White House, and beyond. But decades later there was almost no record of their groundbreaking history to be found. Out of a sisterhood that had grown even deeper with the years, these Swans joined forces again—to share their story with the world. Captivating, rich in vivid detail and character, and steeped in the glamour and grit of professional ballet, The Swans of Harlem is a riveting account of five extraordinarily accomplished women, a celebration of both their historic careers and the sustaining, grounding power of female friendship, and a window into the robust history of Black ballet, hidden for too long.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/702383 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Shooter at Midnight: Murder, Corruption, and a Farming Town Divided

Author: Sean Patrick Cooper

Narrator: Sean Patrick Cooper

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 38 minutes

Release date: April 30, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

“Gripping . . . A potent account of the crime and its aftermath, placing its story of heartbreaking violence and injustice in a larger portrait of a rural American town.”—The Wall Street Journal The harrowing true story of a cold-blooded murder and the campaign to bring justice to a suffering Midwestern town On a November night in 1990, Cathy Robertson is murdered in her home outside Chillicothe, Missouri. After law enforcement conduct a haphazard investigation, the sheriff’s office puts the case in the hands of a Kansas City private eye with his own agenda. In a close-knit town still reeling from the aftereffects of the farming crisis, friends and neighbors abruptly fracture into opposing camps. Mark Woodworth, a Robertson family neighbor, eventually receives four life sentences for a crime that a growing group of local supporters believe he didn’t commit. In a surprising, dramatic narrative that spans decades, Mark’s family turns to Robert Ramsey, an attorney willing to take on a corrupt political machine suppressing the truth. But the community’s way of life is irrevocably damaged by the parallel tragedies of the farming crisis and Cathy’s unsolved murder, in a gripping story about the fault-lines of a fracturing America that continue to cut across the farm belt today.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/703295 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami

Author: Vince Houghton, Eric Driggs

Narrator: Eric Driggs, Vince Houghton

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 10 minutes

Release date: April 23, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

Secret operations, corruption, crime, and a city teeming with spies: why Miami was as crucial to winning the Cold War as Washington DC or Moscow. The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the most dramatic and dangerous period of the Cold War. What's less well known is that the city of Miami, mere miles away, was a pivotal, though less well known, part of Cold War history. With its population of Communist exiles from Cuba, its strategic value for military operations, and its lax business laws, Miami was an ideal environment for espionage. Covert City tells the history of how the entire city of Miami was constructed in the image of the US-Cuba rivalry. From the Bay of Pigs invasion to the death of Fidel Castro, the book shows how Miami is a hub for money and cocaine but also secrets and ideologies. Cuban exiles built criminal and political organizations in the city, leading Washington to set up a CIA station there, codenamed JMWAVE. It monitored gang activities, plotted secret operations against Castro, and became a base for surveilling Latin American neighbors. The money and infrastructure built for the CIA was integral to the development of Miami. Covert City is a sweeping and entertaining history, full of stunning experimental operations and colorful characters--a story of a place like no other.