Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/741401 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World

Author: Nathan J. Robinson, Noam Chomsky

Narrator: Sean Patrick Hopkins

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 11 minutes

Release date: October 10, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. From one of the world’s most prominent thinkers comes an urgent warning of the threat that US power poses to humanity’s future The land of the free. The home of the brave. But what has America achieved in the aim of ‘spreading democracy’ — except wreak havoc across the globe and establish a reckless foreign policy that serves the interest of few and has endangered all too many? In this timely book, Noam Chomsky writing with Nathan J. Robinson, vividly traces America’s pursuit of global domination, offering an incisive critique of the self-serving myths that dominant elites in the United States continue to push. Offering penetrating accounts of Washington’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they examine how interventions such as these have been justified with noble stories about humanitarian missions and benevolent intentions but are now driving us closer to wars with Russia and China. At once thorough and devastating, urgent and provocative, The Myth of American Idealism offers a highly readable entry to the conclusions Noam Chomsky has come to after a lifetime of thought and activism. 'One of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time. When the sun sets on the American empire, as it will, as it must, Noam Chomsky's work will survive' Arundhati Roy 'The west's most prominent critic of US imperialism . . . the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar' Guardian © Nathan J. Robinson and Noam Chomsky 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/742145 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Ghosts of Crook County: An Oil Fortune, a Phantom Child, and the Fight for Indigenous Land

Author: Russell Cobb

Narrator: Chris Baetens

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 22 minutes

Release date: October 8, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

The true—and unsolved—story of unabashedly greedy men, their exploitation of Muscogee land, and the hunt for the ghost of a boy who may never have existed For readers of David Grann’s award-winning Killers of the Flower Moon In the early 1900s, at the dawn of the “American Century,” few knew the intoxicating power of greed better than white men on the forefront of the black gold rush. When oil was discovered in Oklahoma, these counterfeit tycoons impersonated, defrauded, and murdered Native property owners to snatch up hundreds of acres of oil-rich land. Writer and fourth-generation Oklahoman Russell Cobb sets the stage for one such oilman’s chicanery: Tulsa entrepreneur Charles Page’s campaign for a young Muscogee boy’s land in Creek County. Problem was, “Tommy Atkins,” the boy in question, had died years prior—if he ever lived at all. Ghosts of Crook County traces Tommy’s mythologized life through Page’s relentless pursuit of his land. We meet Minnie Atkins and the two other women who claimed to be Tommy’s “real” mother. Minnie would testify a story of her son’s life and death that fulfilled the legal requirements for his land to be transferred to Page. And we meet Tommy himself—or the men who proclaimed themselves to be him, alive and well in court. Through evocative storytelling, Cobb chronicles with unflinching precision the lasting effects of land-grabbing white men on Indigenous peoples. What emerges are the interconnected stories of unabashedly greedy men, the exploitation of Indigenous land, and the legacy of a boy who may never have existed.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/742144 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: What Can We Learn from the Great Depression?: Stories of Ordinary People & Collective Action in Hard Times

Author: Dana Frank

Narrator: Jenna Rose Stein

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 48 minutes

Release date: October 8, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

4 stories of resilience, mutual aid, and radical rebellion that will transform how we understand the Great Depression Drawing on little-known stories of working people, What Can We Learn from the Great Depression? amplifies voices that have been long omitted from standard histories of the Depression era. In four tales, Professor Dana Frank explores how ordinary working people in the US turned to collective action to meet the crisis of the Great Depression and what we can learn from them today. Readers are introduced to - the 7 daring Black women who worked as wet nurses and staged a sit-down strike to demand better pay and an end to racial discrimination - the groups who used mutual aid, cooperatives, eviction protests, and demands for government relief to meet their basic needs - the million Mexican and Mexican American repatriados who were erased from mainstream historical memory, while (often fictitious) white “Dust Bowl migrants” became enshrined - the Black Legion, a white supremacist fascist organization that saw racism, antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, and fascism as the cure to the Depression While capitalism crashed during the Great Depression, racism did not and was, in fact, wielded by some to blame and oppress their neighbors. Patriarchy persisted, too, undermining the power of social movements and justifying women’s marginalization within them. For other ordinary people, collective action gave them the means to survive and fight against such hostilities. What resulted were powerful new forms of horizontal reciprocity and solidarity that allowed people to provide each other with the bread, beans, and comradeship of daily life. The New Deal, when it arrived, provided vital resources to many, but others were cut off from its full benefits, especially if they were women or people of color. What Can We Learn from the Great Depression? shows us how we might look to the past to think about how we can shape the future of our own failed economy. These lessons can also help us imagine and build movements to challenge such an economy—and to transform the state as a whole—in service to the common good without replicating racism and patriarchy.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/719666 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Lost in Austin: The Evolution of an American City

Author: Alex Hannaford

Narrator: James Meunier

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 6 minutes

Release date: October 1, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

A long-time Austinite and journalist’s exploration of the profound movements that have shaped Austin, Texas—charting the shifts within its vibrant music scene, the impact of rapid urbanization, and the challenges of gentrification—ultimately questioning what this city’s transformation signals for American urban identity. Austin isn’t what it used to be. This is a common sentiment amongst locals, offered with the same confused—and often disappointed—tone familiar to residents of Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, where rapid growth and expansion have led to an urban identity crisis. Like those cities, Austin is known for its unique qualities: a thriving live music scene and housing affordability that historically made it a compelling home for creatives and self-described weirdos to roost. But now, as Big Tech infiltrates and climate change looms, Austin has become less familiar—and far less affordable. An exploration of the beloved city’s evolution, Lost in Austin also serves as a critical exploration of the transformation that has befallen one of America’s most beloved cities—and serves as a warning for what the homogenization of cities means for American urban identity. With a journalist’s perspective and the heart of an Austinite, Alex Hannaford delves into the consequences of the city’s rapid growth in chapters that chronicle the major movements permanently altering the city: a vanishing music scene, soaring property values, and the encroachment of major industry. Through keen reportage and extensive interviews, Lost in Austin unveils the toll of unchecked growth and the city’s shift from its rebellious spirit to commercialization. Through those stories—vibrant, colorful, and clearly full of love for this city—Hannaford raises a crucial question: How do American cities, once celebrated for their unique values, became casualties of their own rapid growth and success? And can they ever return to what they once were?

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/752249 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War

Author: H. W. Brands

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 14 hours 33 minutes

Release date: September 24, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

Bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands narrates the fierce debate over America's role in the world in the runup to World War II through its two most important figures: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who advocated intervention, and his isolationist nemesis, aviator and popular hero Charles Lindbergh. Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 launched a momentous period of decision-making for the United States. With fascism rampant abroad, should America take responsibility for its defeat? For popular hero Charles Lindbergh, saying no to another world war only twenty years after the first was the obvious answer. Lindbergh had become famous and adored around the world after his historic first flight over the Atlantic in 1927. In the years since, he had emerged as a vocal critic of American involvement overseas, rallying Americans against foreign war as the leading spokesman the America First Committee.  While Hitler advanced across Europe and threatened the British Isles, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt struggled to turn the tide of public opinion. With great effort, political shrewdness and outright deception—aided by secret British disinformation efforts in America—FDR readied the country for war. He pushed the US onto the world stage where it has stayed ever since. In this gripping narrative, H.W. Brands sheds light on a crucial tipping point in American history and depicts the making of a legendary president.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/739082 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi

Author: Wright Thompson

Narrator: Wright Thompson

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 38 minutes

Release date: September 24, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 4

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

The instant New York Times bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, and Kirkus “It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible.” —Shonda Rhimes 'The Barn is serious history and skillful journalism, but with the nuance and wallop of a finely wrought novel… The Barn describes not just the poison of silence and lies, but also the dignity of courage and truth.” — The Washington Post “The most brutal, layered, and absolutely beautiful book about Mississippi, and really how the world conspired with the best and worst parts of Mississippi, I will ever read…Reporting and reckoning can get no better, or more important, than this.” —Kiese Laymon “An incredible history of a crime that changed America.” —John Grisham 'With integrity, and soul, Thompson unearths the terrible how and why, carrying us back and forth through time, deep in Mississippi—baring, sweat, soil, and heart all the way through.” —Imani Perry A shocking and revelatory account of the murder of Emmett Till that lays bare how forces from around the world converged on the Mississippi Delta in the long lead-up to the crime, and how the truth was erased for so long Wright Thompson’s family farm in Mississippi is 23 miles from the site of one of the most notorious and consequential killings in American history, yet he had to leave the state for college before he learned the first thing about it. To this day, fundamental truths about the crime are widely unknown, including where it took place and how many people were involved. This is no accident: the cover-up began at once, and it is ongoing. In August 1955, two men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were charged with the torture and murder of the 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. After their inevitable acquittal in a mockery of justice, they gave a false confession to a journalist, which was misleading about where the long night of hell took place and who was involved. In fact, Wright Thompson reveals, at least eight people can be placed at the scene, which was inside the barn of one of the killers, on a plot of land within the six-square-mile grid whose official name is Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, fabled in the Delta of myth as the birthplace of the blues on nearby Dockery Plantation. Even in the context of the racist caste regime of the time, the four-hour torture and murder of a Black boy barely in his teens for whistling at a young white woman was acutely depraved; Till’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley’s decision to keep the casket open seared the crime indelibly into American consciousness. Wright Thompson has a deep understanding of this story—the world of the families of both Emmett Till and his killers, and all the forces that aligned to place them together on that spot on the map. As he shows, the full horror of the crime was its inevitability, and how much about it we still need to understand. Ultimately this is a story about property, and money, and power, and white supremacy. It implicates all of us. In The Barn, Thompson brings to life the small group of dedicated people who have been engaged in the hard, fearful business of bringing the truth to light. Putting the killing floor of the barn on the map of Township 22 North, Range 4 West, Section 2, West Half, and the Delta, and America, is a way of mapping the road this country must travel if we are to heal our oldest, deepest wound.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/737721 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

Author: Elyse Graham

Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Release date: September 24, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4 of Total 1

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the war At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts. In Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham draws on personal histories, letters, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war. Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis—a tale that reveals the indelible power of the humanities to change the world.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/754913 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: A Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War

Author: David S. Brown

Narrator: Jacques Roy

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 44 minutes

Release date: September 17, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2 of Total 1

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

From popular historian and author of the “marvelous” (The New York Times Book Review) The Last American Aristocrat comes the fascinating story of how in 1854, a new law—the Kansas-Nebraska Act—unexpectedly became the greatest miscalculation in American history, dividing North and South, creating the Republican party, and paving the way for the Civil War. The history of the United States includes a series of sectional compromises—the Constitutional Convention, the Missouri Compromise in 1820, and the Compromise of 1850. While these accords created an imperfect republic, or “a house divided,” as Lincoln put it, the country remained united. But then in 1854, this three-generations system suddenly blew up with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and here, David Brown explores in riveting detail how the Act led to the sudden division of North and South. The Act declared that planters, if permitted by territorial laws, could bring their enslaved peoples to the land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains—the core of Jefferson’s old Louisiana Purchase which had been reserved for free labor. Northerners were shocked that free soil might now be turned over to slavery and responded with unprecedented backlash. In the bill’s wake the conservative Whig Party (winners of multiple presidential elections) collapsed, and the radical Republican Party was born—in six years it would take control of the central government, provoking Southern secession. In A Hell of a Storm, Brown brings history to life in a way that resonates with the events of present. Through chapters on Lincoln, Emerson, Stowe, Thoreau, and Tubman, along with a cast of presidents, poets, abolitionists, and black emigrationists, Brown weaves a political, cultural, and literary history that chronicles the Republican party’s creation and rise, the collapse of antebellum compromises, and the coming of the Civil War, all topics that mirror current discussions about polarization in our nation today. By illuminating the personalities and the platforms, the writings and ideas that upended an older America and made space for its successor, A Hell of a Storm reminds us that American history is always being made, and it can be both dynamic and dangerous, both then and now.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/752246 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue

Author: Sonia Purnell

Narrator: Louise Brealey

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 16 hours 58 minutes

Release date: September 17, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.17 of Total 6

Ratings of Narrator: 3.67 of Total 3

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, an electrifying re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes – on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon” during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy’s ‘uncrowned king’ on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman’s rightful place at the heart of history. * This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of Pamela Harriman's life through images.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/752242 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Stench: The Making of the Thomas Court and the Unmaking of America

Author: David Brock

Narrator: Sean Patrick Hopkins, David Brock

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 48 minutes

Release date: September 17, 2024

Genres: The Americas

Publisher's Summary:

A blistering exposé of Clarence Thomas and the conservative regime of corruption that has usurped the Supreme Court—by a Democratic activist and former Republican political operative Public confidence in the Supreme Court has plummeted to new lows in the last few years—and for good reason. In the past three decades, six conservative justices have gained a supermajority through questionable means: a dubious intervention in a presidential election, perjury during Senate testimony, and a GOP Senate Leader’s unethical blockade of a Supreme Court nomination. Behind this strategic dismantling of our Supreme Court is a vast, well-funded political machine—backed by the extreme right-wing Federalist Society, the notoriously secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei, and GOP megadonors operating from behind closed doors. Armed with an insider’s perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the Court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican Party itself. Stench investigates the ethics scandals that surround Clarence Thomas and his wife, the right-wing activist Ginni Thomas, culling new material from Thomas’s accusers, along with original reporting and Brock’s firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of the GOP. Stench is a staggering exposé, one that only Brock could write—exhaustive in its research and revelatory in its access to the world of what has effectively become the Thomas Court.