Listen to Best Sellers Audiobooks in History, 21st Century

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Title: Consuming Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America's Decade of Disaster

Author: Timothy Recuber

Narrator: E. R. Edwin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-04-17

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

Horrified, saddened, and angered: That was the American people's reaction to the 9/11 attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shootings, and the 2008 financial crisis. In Consuming Catastrophe, Timothy Recuber presents a unique and provocative look at how these four very different disasters took a similar path through public consciousness. He explores the myriad ways we engage with and negotiate our feelings about disasters and tragedies - from omnipresent media broadcasts to relief fund efforts and promises to "Never Forget."

Recuber explains how a specific and "real" kind of emotional connection to the victims becomes a crucial element in the creation, use, and consumption of mass mediation of disasters. He links this to the concept of "empathetic hedonism," or the desire to understand or feel the suffering of others.

The ineffability of disasters makes them a spectacular and emotional force in contemporary American culture. Consuming Catastrophe provides a lively analysis of the themes and meanings of tragedy and the emotions it engenders in the representation, mediation, and consumption of disasters.

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Title: The Convenient Terrorist

Subtitle: Two Whistleblowers' Stories of Torture, Terror, Secret Wars, and CIA Lies

Author: Joseph Hickman, John Kiriakou

Narrator: Eric Martin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-30-17

Publisher: Novel Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

A startling spotlight on the darkest corners of America's "War on Terror," where nothing is quite what it seems.

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first "high-value target" captured by the CIA after 9/11. But was Abu Zubaydah, who is still being indefinitely held by the United States under shadowy circumstances, the blue-ribbon capture that the Bush White House claimed he was? Authors John Kiriakou, who led the capture of Zubaydah, and Joseph Hickman, who took custody of him at Guantanamo, draw a far more complex and intriguing portrait of the al-Qaeda "mastermind" who became a symbol of torture and the "dark side" of US security. From a one-time American collaborator to a poster boy for waterboarding, Abu Zubaydah became a "convenient terrorist"a way for US authorities to sell their "War on Terror" to the American people.

Members Reviews:

political agenda piece

the authors make it clear they have a self serving political agenda with their story. they consistently tell half truths and come to conclusions with sometimes minimal information and present it as fact.. I did enjoy the background info on Zubidah, but even that fails to mention the extent of all of his crimes. even if he wasn't a terrorist against US interests as the author suggests, he definitely committed heinous crimes against others and should be locked up.

Incredible

This is such a riveting tale of recent history, one that I have some personal experience with. Anyone interested in the insight into the GWOT should read this.

This is pretty messed up

What made the experience of listening to The Convenient Terrorist the most enjoyable?

Good narration. I think that if I had read this rather than listened to it, it would've taken me a bit longer to read through everything. Eric Martin was good!

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer who was the lead in arresting Abu Zubaydah and later went to jail for revealing information like this. Joseph Hickman is a former Guantanamo guard. Both of them coming forward in defense of this guy is pretty eye-opening and it's scary that nothing (as of yet) has been done to fix this. It's scary that it most likely continues to happen.

eye opening

great book . thank you. every statist should read it and realized what politicians can do to us

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Title: The Prisoner in His Palace

Subtitle: Saddam Hussein and the Twelve Americans Who Guarded Him

Author: Will Bardenwerper

Narrator: Danny Campbell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-06-17

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 56 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

A book that, in the haunting tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song, lifts away the top layer of evil and finds complexity beneath, this is the bizarre tale of 12 young American soldiers who are deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2006. Rather than fight the enemy in combat, the men are unexpectedly assigned to guard the country's notorious leader - Saddam Hussein - in the months leading to his execution.

Living alongside and caring for their "high-value detainee" in a former palace dubbed The Rock and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions.

Thoroughly researched and provocative, The Prisoner in His Palace contrasts two very different Saddams: the defiant younger man who uses torture and murder as tools and the older man who proves affectionate, charming, and unexpectedly courageous in the face of looming death. In this artfully constructed narrative, Saddam, the "man without a conscience", manages to get everyone around him to examine theirs. Many of those who bid good-bye to Saddam will be forever changed by the experience, and we wonder if we ourselves will.

Members Reviews:

The Human Side of a Brutal Dictator

I like this book which showed the imprisonment, trial and execution of Saddam Hassan from the perspective of the 12 U.S soldiers assigned to guard him during this time period with the back drop of the Iraq invasion.

It was an amazing book to me because you see the human side of Saddam a narcissist psychopath but who developed a bilateral friendship with these guards. A man who could kill his own people but save the crusts from his breakfast to feed the birds at the palace which became his prison. I know it sounds crazy but You kind of end up being inspired by Saddam Hassan in a way because of his life style and the relationship with these guards during this time period. The author takes you right up to, the point of and the time after his execution almost as if you are walking the steps of the gallows with him. It was interesting to me as to the way he died and the way he lived as well as his outlook on life during this time period.

I would highly recommend the book. It's an original.

I don't know what to say

Behind every prisoner, murderer ,monster, dictator, a hidden human and you just need find it

Saddam As An Avuncular Old Man? Hmmm...

Did Saddam Hussein have a childhood filled with abuse? Yes. Was he a brutal dictator who tortured individuals and was responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of groups and people? Most definitely. Was he a grandstanding showboater at his trial, one who spoke of the torture his captors inflicted on him even while grinningly apologizing to them because they actually treated him so well. Sure.

Was he a kind and sympathetic old grandpa type to the young men who watched him during his days before execution? Yes, he was that too. One who made the young men like and respect him? Yes, but I think that has more to do with the basic humanity of the young men, the Super Twelve as they dubbed themselves.

"The Prisoner in His Palace" is an account of some of Saddam's early life, some of his actions as heinous dictator, some of his bombast during his trial, some of his interactions with the Super Twelve.

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Title: The Wages of Whiteness

Subtitle: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Haymarket Series)

Author: David R. Roediger, Kathleen Cleaver

Narrator: Bahni Turpin, Patrick Lawlor

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-31-17

Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis, and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks.

In a new preface, Roediger reflects on the reception, influence, and critical response to The Wages of Whiteness, while Kathleen Cleaver's insightful introduction hails the importance of a work that has become a classic.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

Essential work for whiteness studies.

Five Stars

excellent

Five Stars

Excellent

An Interesting Study on Race and the American Working Class

This book looks at the very interesting question of why the American labor movement did not embrace the cause of Black emancipation and civil right. On the surface it would seem that the two wold have enough in common to share a common cause. Not so argues Roedinger. In fact he argues that the emerging industrial worker of the mid to late 19th century who was low skilled and often times a recent immigrant from Ireland or Germany had an even more powerful interest in distancing themselves from the degradation that was associated with Blacks and the jobs that they performed. While this wold seem counter intuitive, Roediger argues that many unskilled white workers gained a type of social legitimacy from separating themselves from non-white labor and gaining for themselves the status of being seen as White American workers. While the beginning of the book is a little dense as the author tries to tease out the changing meaning of different terms for labor and racial categories in the pre and post Civil War period, this only sets the stage for more concrete example in the second half when he examines the experiences of Irish immigrant laborers in the later chapters. This is and interesting book in that it examines race from the perspective of what it means to be White and the social implications of that. It reminds the reader that the social categorization of race is dependent on opposition and that this opposition is in no way a natural or concrete boundary but rather a a dynamic social construct that all Americans should be aware of.

A Working Definition of Race

David Roediger examines the growth and social construction of racism as it was related to the working classes of the ninteenth century. His scholarship earned him the Organization of American Historians Merle Curti Prize for US Social History in 1991.

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Title: Salafism: The History and Legacy of the Conservative Salafi Branch Within Sunni Islam

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-17-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

"It's very simple. We want sharia. Sharia in economy, in politics, in judiciary, in our borders and our foreign relations." Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, the son of Omar Abdel-Rahman, Time. October 8, 2012.

Beginning in 2010, much of the Middle East, including Egypt, was swept up by a series of revolutions later referred to as the Arab Spring. The wave of riots and demonstrations some violent, some not, but all impactful and sizeable began in Tunisia before spreading like wildfire to neighboring countries in Northern Africa and eventually into the Arabian Peninsula, including Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. Though it eventually petered out by mid-2012, the Arab Spring led to the toppling of long-reigning monarchs and regimes, free elections, and attempts to build republics based on democratic principles.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests of 2010 and 2011, the world witnessed the rise of political groups in the Middle East who associated themselves with a movement called Salafism, such as the Nour ("Light") Party in Egypt. Prior to these popular uprisings, the Salafis were rather marginalized groups within the spectrum of Islam and, in many cases, did not share a cohesive and agreed upon set of beliefs that clearly differed from what many call "mainstream Islam." Prior to the Arab Spring, different Muslim religious scholars and leaders had emerged and led what they believed to be Salafi movements to return Muslims back to the origins of the religion. The Arab Spring protests did fuel the overthrow of some long-term dictators, start civil war in other nations, and impress upon the world the power of digital communications. Another important outcome of these events was the opening of a space for religiously motivated.

Members Reviews:

Great Content, Poor Narrator

Content is good, but narration is poor. Speaker has a lisp or needs to floss. This Audible reader needs a voice coach or audio director before producing more works for Amazon.

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Title: Afghanistan War

Author: IntroBooks

Narrator: Andrea Giordani

Format: Unabridged

Length: 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-04-17

Publisher: IntroBooks

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

Unlike the war in Iraq which had entered its last stage, the war in Afghanistan appears to have several open ends. The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated greatly and no comprehensive political outcome has yet arrived. By early 2009, several members of Congress, the officials of the administration, and the outside experts had concluded that the efforts known as America's "other war" required great national attention. In the inaugural address speech, the US president Barrack Obama had stated that the United States would forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.

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Title: Iraq War 2003

Author: IntroBooks

Narrator: Andrea Giordani

Format: Unabridged

Length: 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-03-17

Publisher: IntroBooks

Genres: History, 21st Century

Publisher's Summary:

The Iraq War is the Third Gulf War that was initiated by the military invasion of Iraq by the US Troops in March 2003. The invasion was also the result of the seizure of Iraq and its major cities by the allies of the United States to bring an conclusion to the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein who was a well-known leader of the Baath party and the fifth president of Iraq. The chief cause of the Iraq War could be related to the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) which was declared by the United States President George W. Bush in response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

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Title: A Vast Conspiracy

Subtitle: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President

Author: Jeffrey Toobin

Narrator: Kevin Stillwell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-28-17

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 133 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In A Vast Conspiracy, the best-selling author of The Run of His Life casts an insightful, unbiased eye over the most extraordinary public saga of our time - the Clinton sex scandals. A superlative journalist known for the skillfulness of his investigating and the power of his writing, Jeffrey Toobin tells the unlikely story of the events that began over doughnuts in a Little Rock hotel and ended on the floor of the United States Senate, with only the second vote on presidential removal in American history. This is an entirely fresh look at the scandal that very nearly brought down a president.

Packed with news-making disclosures and secret documents published here for the first time, Toobin unravels the three strands of a national scandal - those leading from Paula Jones, Kenneth Starr, and Monica Lewinsky - that created a legal, personal, and political disaster for Bill Clinton. A Vast Conspiracy is written with the narrative drive of a sensational (if improbable) legal thriller, and Toobin brilliantly explores the high principle and low comedy that were the hallmarks of the story. From Tripp to Goldberg, Isikoff to Hyde, the complex and tangled motivations behind the scandal are laid bare.

While misguided, outlandish behavior was played out at the very highest level, Toobin analyzes the facts and the key figures with a level of dignity and insight that this story has not yet received. The Clinton scandals will shape forever how we think about the signature issues of our day - sex and sexual harassment, privacy and perjury, civil rights, and, yes, cigars. Toobin's book will shape forever how we think about the Clinton scandals.

Editorial Reviews:

Editors Select, March 2017 - I was a little too young to fully grasp what was happening back in 1998 when my parents' television seemed like an endless string of talking heads, legal hearings, and sound bites about sexual relations, false allegations, and the evasive definition of the word is. But now - especially now - as an adult, it's impossible not to look at 'Lewinskygate' as anything but a seismic shift - politically and culturally - in our country, with echoes of the scandal still resounding in the bizarre and often confounding headlines of today - something that becomes abundantly clear in Kevin Stillwell's steadfast and honest reading. Toobin's previous book, The Run of His Life, became the basis for the FX show The People v. O.J. Simpson. And with the same no-holds-barred investigative journalism and juicy, legal thriller-like storytelling at work, it's no surprise that A Vast Conspiracy has already been chosen as the source material for American Crime Story's fourth season.

Members Reviews:

Bias Shows in this book

I, like so many others, watched these events unfold as they happened. I was hopeful that this book would shed new light on an important event in the American presidency. Instead, I believe that the well-respected Jeffrey Toobin had a version he wanted to tell and that is what he did. Although not fawning over the former president, the author made it clear that Clinton was owed the benefit of the doubt in most instances.

In my opinion the bottom line, no matter what the subject matter, the president committed perjury. That point was lost in the late 90's and was basically glossed over in this book.

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Title: Sex and the Constitution

Subtitle: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century

Author: Geoffrey R. Stone

Narrator: William Dufris

Format: Unabridged

Length: 20 hrs and 41 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-21-17

Publisher: HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 38 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Renowned constitutional scholar Geoffrey R. Stone traces the evolution of legal and moral codes that have attempted to legislate sexual behavior from the ancient world to America's earliest days to today's fractious political climate. Stone crafts a remarkable, even thrilling narrative in which he shows how agitators, moralists, legislators, and especially the justices of the Supreme Court have historically navigated issues as explosive and divisive as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and contraception. Overturning a raft of contemporary shibboleths, Stone reveals that at the time the Constitution was adopted there were no laws against obscenity and no laws against abortion before the midpoint of pregnancy. A pageant of historical characters - including Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, Anthony Comstock, Margaret Sanger, J. Edgar Hoover, Phyllis Schlafly, and Justice Anthony Kennedy - enlivens this landmark work, which dramatically reveals how our laws about sex, religion, and morality reflect the paradoxes and cultural schisms that have cleaved our nation from its founding.

Contact me for any questions: [email protected]

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Title: The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution

Subtitle: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic

Author: Ganesh Sitaraman

Narrator: MacLeod Andrews

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-14-17

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 41 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In this original, provocative contribution to the debate over economic inequality, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that a strong and sizable middle class is a prerequisite for America's constitutional system.

For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic. Over the next two centuries, generations of Americans fought to sustain the economic preconditions for our constitutional system. But today, with economic and political inequality on the rise, Sitaraman says Americans face a choice: Will we accept rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy, or will we rebuild the middle class and reclaim our republic?

The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution is a tour de force of history, philosophy, law, and politics. It makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our constitutional system.

Critic Reviews:

"Ganesh Sitaraman is a bold and visionary thinker whose new book,

The Crisis of the Middle Class Constitution, shows that the disappearing American dream is more than a policy problem - it is a constitutional crisis. In our age of growing inequality, the stakes couldn't be higher. Every American needs to read this book." (Senator Elizabeth Warren)

"What Piketty was to economics, this book is to our constitutional tradition. Sitaraman uncovers the lost essence to our constitutional past, and renders it as important today as it ever was. His beautifully written and powerfully argued book will change the discourse of constitutionalism - for the better." (Lawrence Lessig, author of

Republic, Lost, and Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School)

"A pathbreaking effort to rethink the past, present, and future of American constitutional development." (Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University)

Members Reviews:

Very well done

For an Adam Smith, free-market conservative, this book challenged some deeply held views. It helped to reinforce some ideas and reshape others. Rarely do you find a book that is so well researched and comprehensive. I sensed a bit of a political agenda, but the research outweighed the politics.

Accessible and important. Everyone should read it.

Clearly and cogently lays out the evidence for and history behind our failing democracy. It shows how prophetic the thinkers of the past were, how avoidable the current crisis was, and how insidious the problem has become.