Listen to Popular Titles Audiobooks in History, 20th Century

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Title: Hitler's Compromises

Subtitle: Coercion and Consensus in Nazi Germany

Author: Nathan Stoltzfus

Narrator: Shaun Grindell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-21-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

History has focused on Hitler's use of charisma and terror, asserting that the dictator made few concessions to maintain power. Nathan Stoltzfus, the award-winning author of Resistance of Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Germany, challenges this notion, assessing the surprisingly frequent tactical compromises Hitler made in order to preempt hostility and win the German people's complete fealty. As part of his strategy to secure a "1,000-year Reich", Hitler sought to convince the German people to believe in Nazism so they would perpetuate it permanently and actively shun those who were out of step with society. When widespread public dissent occurred at home - which most often happened when policies conflicted with popular traditions or encroached on private life - Hitler made careful calculations and acted strategically to maintain his popular image. Extending from the 1920s to the regime's collapse, this revealing history makes a powerful and original argument that will inspire a major rethinking of Hitler's rule.

Critic Reviews:

"An in-depth examination of the tactical compromises Hitler made in order to consolidate power.... A lucid work of historical argumentation that succeeds in establishing compromise as a crucial instrument in Hitler's political arsenal." (Kirkus)

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Title: Soviet Russia's Space Program During the Space Race

Subtitle: The History and Legacy of the Competition That Pushed America to the Moon

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Mark Norman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-15-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Of all the goals the Bolshevik Revolution aimed to bring about, perhaps nowhere were Russian promises delivered on more than in the success of the Soviet Space program of the 1950s and 1960s. As a result of Russian innovation and technology, but also due to incredible drive to modernize and compete with the United States for world power, Russia was finally and triumphantly modernized in the eyes of her own people and the world. Neil deGrasse Tyson recognized the Soviet legacy in space in his Space Chronicles, citing the Soviets' "important measure[s] of space achievement: first spacewalk, longest spacewalk, first woman in space, first docking in space, first space station, longest time logged in space." In fact, the Soviet Union spent much of the 1950s leaving the United States in its dust (and rocket fuel). President Eisenhower and other Americans who could view Soviet rockets in the sky were justifiably worried that Soviet satellites in orbit could soon be spying on them, or, even worse, dropping nuclear bombs on them. Dovetailing off their success developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Soviets were the first to make enormous advances in actual space exploration, and on the night of October 4, 1957, the Soviets prepared to launch "Object D" atop one of its R-7 rockets.

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Title: Stalingrad

Subtitle: The Battle That Shattered Hitler's Dream of World Domination

Author: Rupert Matthews

Narrator: Dugald Bruce Lockhart

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-08-17

Publisher: Arcturus Digital Limited

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The bitter Battle of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front was the turning point of World War II. The relentless and unstoppable German advances that had seen the panzers sweep hundreds of miles into Russia was finally brought to a halt. The elite German Sixth Army was first fought to a standstill, then surrounded and forced to surrender.

Over one and a half million people lost their lives during the six months of fighting, many of them civilians caught up in the campaign. For the first time in the war, the German army had been defeated on the field of battle. Before Stalingrad the Russians never won; after Stalingrad they could not lose.

This book looks at the titanic struggle that ended in the total destruction of the second city of the Soviet Union, the greatest battle the world has ever seen.

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Title: The World Trade Center

Subtitle: The History of the Construction, Destruction, and Rebirth of a New York City Landmark

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-01-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The name "World Trade Center", when spoken by an American, tends to conjure up the best and worst about the nation. The idea for such a financial center was conceived of in the heady days of post-World War II prosperity, when the nation's financial prospects had never looked better and Americans were trading all over the world with both former allies and enemies. At the same time, many in New York City, one of the jewels of the East Coast, had fallen on hard times, and it was hoped that the World Trade Center would revitalize Lower Manhattan and bring the Big Apple a bigger share of the prosperity the world was enjoying. Likewise, the center was designed by men steeped in the modern era, when architects could build skyscrapers as opposed to simple office complexes. For 30 years, the Twin Towers were the most dramatic features of the New York skyline, and for a short while one of the towers could boast of being the tallest building in the world. People came from around the world to visit them for both business and pleasure, and while most days were busy but uneventful, there were exceptions. A stunt seemingly featuring a man dancing in the sky humanized and popularized the buildings, and they began to prosper, just as the nation itself would rise again out of the mire of the 1970s.

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Title: The House Un-American Activities Committee

Subtitle: The History and Legacy of Congress' Most Notorious Investigative Committee

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Dan Gallagher

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-08-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

In 1947, at the start of the Cold War, President Truman tried to assure Americans who were worried about Communists in government that he was "not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that." Nonetheless, shortly after World War II, Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began investigating Americans across the country for suspected ties to Communism. The most famous victims of these witch hunts were Hollywood actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, whose "Un-American activity" was being neutral at the beginning of World War II, but at the beginning of the Cold War, many Americans had the Red Scare. In a similar vein, Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy would make waves in 1950 by telling the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia that he had a list of dozens of known Communists working in the State Department.

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Title: The Sinking of the General Slocum

Subtitle: The History of New York City's Deadliest Maritime Disaster

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 4 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-08-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

There is a popular saying that claims timing is everything, and in no other field of study is that truer than in history. For instance, under normal conditions, a ship that sank with more than 1,000 passengers aboard - most of whom died - would be big news, yet today the sinking of the PS General Slocum is often overlooked if not entirely forgotten. While it might have generated the type of publicity and reaction of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 or the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 under normal circumstances, deadliest disaster in New York City's history before 9/11, and the second deadliest maritime disaster in peacetime in American history has become something of a historical footnote.

On June 15, 1904, an annual gala was held on the passenger ship as it steamed up the East River, with about 1,400 people from St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church. Consisting mostly of German immigrants, the boat was packed with women and children, and when a small fire started on the ship shortly after the trip began, faulty equipment was unable to put it out or stop it from spreading. On top of that, the lifeboats were tied up and the crew, which never conducted emergency drills, was unprepared for a potential disaster. When parents put life preservers on their children and then had them enter the water, they soon learned that the life preservers were also faulty and didn't float.

As the disaster unfolded, over 1,000 passengers burned to death or drowned, many swept under the water by the East River's current and weighed down by heavy wool clothing. Few people on board knew how to swim, exacerbating the situation, and eventually the overcrowded decks began to collapse, crushing some unfortunate victims.

In the end, the General Slocum sank in shallow water while hundreds of corpses drifted ashore, and the fallout was immediate. The captain was indicted for criminal negligence and manslaughter, and the ship's owner was also charged. While the captain would receive a 10 year sentence, the company in charge of the General Slocum got off with a light fine. In a somewhat fitting postscript, the ship was salvaged and converted into a barge, only to sink once again during a heavy storm in 1911.

Time heals all wounds, but in the case of the Slocum disaster, the wounds weren't so much healed as overshadowed. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire took over 100 lives in New York City in 1911 and led to calls for serious workplace reforms, and a few years later, World War I began in Europe. With that, much of the sympathy Americans previously felt for the loss of over 1,000 German lives on the Slocum evaporated.

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Title: Black Cloud

Subtitle: The Deadly Hurricane of 1928

Author: Eliot Kleinberg

Narrator: Lee Ann Howlett

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-07-17

Publisher: Eliot Kleinberg

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

The deadly hurricane of 1928 claimed 2500 lives, and the long-forgotten story of the casualties, as told in Black Cloud, continues to stir passion. Among the dead were 700 black Floridian men, women, and children who were buried in an unmarked West Palm Beach ditch during a racist recovery and rebuilding effort that conscripted the labor of blacks much like latter-day slaves. Palm Beach Post reporter Eliot Kleinberg has penned this gripping tale from dozens of interviews with survivors, diary entries, accounts from newspapers, government documents, and reports from the National Weather Service and the Red Cross. Immortalized in Zora Neale Hurston's classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, thousands of poor blacks had nowhere to run when the waters of Lake Okeechobee rose. No one spoke for them, no one stood up for them, and no one could save them. With heroic tales of survival and loss, this book finally gives the dead the dignity they deserve. The new, updated edition of this important book is published by the Florida Historical Society Press.

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Title: The Potsdam Conference

Subtitle: The History of the Negotiations Between the Allies Near the End of World War II

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-25-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Standing in history like a milestone marking the boundary between one era and the next, the Potsdam Conference brought together the leaders of the three major Allied powers - the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom - for the last time at the end of World War II and at the threshold of the Cold War. A follow up to the Yalta Conference just five months earlier, Potsdam attempted to work out the contours of the postwar world. Though it came so shortly after Yalta, the Potsdam Conference also highlighted a turnover of leadership on the world stage. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who gave his nation hope in the darkest days of World War II, had suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the Labor candidate Clement Attlee, who replaced him towards the end of the Conference. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died prior to the meeting, leading to his replacement by the new president Harry S. Truman, a keen-minded pragmatist whose intense focus on America's advantage contrasted with Roosevelt's internationalism. Only General Secretary Josef Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, remained unchanged from the earlier summit.

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Title: The Case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Subtitle: The History of America's Most Controversial Espionage Trial

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-12-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 1 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

In 1947, President Truman had tried to assure Americans, "I am not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that." Nonetheless, shortly after World War II, Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities began investigating Americans across the country for suspected ties to Communism.

The most famous victims of these witch hunts were Hollywood actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, whose "Un-American activity" was being neutral at the beginning of World War II, but at the beginning of the Cold War, America was gripped by the Red Scare. The Red Scare would reach a fever pitch after Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy made waves in 1950 by telling the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia that he had a list of dozens of known Communists working in the State Department. The political theater helped Senator McCarthy become the prominent anti-Communist crusader in the government, and McCarthy continued to claim he held evidence suggesting Communist infiltration throughout the government, but anytime he was pressed to produce his evidence, McCarthy would not name names. Instead, he'd accuse those who questioned his evidence of being Communists themselves.

The case of Alger Hiss and the rise of McCarthyism were undoubtedly instrumental in the way that one of the most notorious cases in American history unfolded in the early 1950s. After years of keeping tabs on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the two Communist sympathizers were indicted on charges of treason and conspiracy to commit espionage for passing off secrets about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.

In the context of the Cold War and the Korean War, there could hardly be more serious charges, but the couple strenuously asserted their innocence, even after they were implicated by Ethel's own brother, David Greenglass. Throughout the trial and its aftermath, many Americans believed the Rosenbergs were innocent and/or were facing an unduly harsh death sentence. Indeed, authorities had hoped to wring confessions out of the two by threatening them with the chair, but they held steadfast all the way up until their executions on June 19, 1953. In the over 60 years since, there has been plenty of debate over whether the two of them were guilty, and, if so, what the extent of their espionage was. While historians have used declassified documents and memoirs of involved individuals to reach the widespread belief that Julius Rosenberg did commit espionage, there is still a lot of doubt regarding Ethel's involvement, and scholars still debate just what Julius may have sent the Soviets. The mystery and intrigue still surrounding the case, trial, and executions continue to fascinate people and generate plenty of ongoing speculation.

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Title: The Miracle of Dunkirk

Subtitle: The History of the World War II Battle and Evacuation That Helped Save Britain from Nazi Germany

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-05-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"Blitzkrieg", or "lightning war", describes the Third Reich's invasion strategy during its 1940 conquest of France not only due to the speed of the Wehrmacht advance but also its devastating effect on its ill-prepared adversaries. Mired in the paralyzing muck of plodding staff college military doctrine and demoralized as a nation by their appalling losses during World War I, the French succumbed in a few weeks to German skill and vigor. Moreover, after being lured into Belgium by a large-scale German feint, the British Expeditionary Force and over a million French soldiers found themselves cut off by the main Wehrmacht thrust. Heinz Guderian and Irwin Rommel, among others, led their panzers on an 11-day dash from the Ardennes Forest to the coast, trapping vast numbers of Allied soldiers in Belgium and northeastern France. The surrender of more than 1,200,000 isolated troops followed, yet in the midst of this disaster, the Allies contrived one coup that took even the victorious Wehrmacht aback: the evacuation of over 300,000 soldiers from the port of Dunkirk.

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