David Pietrusza has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 5 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is 1960.
1960
Summary
"1960 aims to take us deeper into the campaign than Theodore White's famous The Making of the President, 1960. And it does." -Chicago Sun-Times Award-winning historian David Pietrusza's hard-edged account of the 1960 Presidential Campaign - the bare-knuckle politics of the primaries, the party conventions' backroom dealings, the unprecedented television debates, along with hot-button issues of race, religion, and foreign policy. And, at the center of it all, three future presidents - LBJ, JFK, and Nixon. "Terrific!" -Robert A. Caro, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and the National Book Award It was the election that would ultimately give America "Camelot" and its tragic aftermath. 1960 is a stunning recreation of the bare-knuckle politics of the primaries, the party conventions' backroom dealings, the unprecedented television debates, along with hot-button issues of race, religion, and foreign policy. And, at the center of it all, three future presidents - Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon. In this essential work of history, David Pietrusza chronicles 1960's struggle for power by bringing to life its towering events and personalities, unlocking its secrets, and turning expert scholarship into rich, human storytelling. "A stirring, hard-edged political saga… An outstanding reexamination." -Booklist "1960 provides new insights into that year's hard-fought, pivotal election, but, more than that, 1960 is great storytelling - a fascinating, can't-put-it-down account of how American politics really works." -Former United States Attorney General Richard Thornburgh "Pietrusza's 1960 is essential for understanding the political forces that in many ways shaped the world we live in today." -David Mark, journalist, political analyst, and author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning
©2008 David Pietrusza (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Rothstein
Summary
The model for The Great Gatsby's Meyer Wolfsheim and Nathan Detroit from Guys and Dolls, Arnold Rothstein was an underworld genius, racketeer, rumrunner, and mastermind who, as F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, played "with the faith of 15 million people with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe." Jazz Age Broadway, with its thugs, speakeasies, showgirls, political movers and shakers, and sports heroes comes to life in this vibrant biography of the man who reigned supreme when the fast buck ruled and violence stalked the streets of Gotham.
©2003 David Pietrusza (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks
1920
Summary
The presidential election of 1920 was among history's most dramatic. Six once-and-future presidents--Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt--jockeyed for the White House. With voters choosing between Wilson's League of Nations and Harding's front-porch isolationism, the 1920 election shaped modern America. Women won the vote. Republicans outspent Democrats by 4 to 1, as voters witnessed the first extensive newsreel coverage, modern campaign advertising, and results broadcast on radio. America had become an urban nation: Automobiles, mass production, chain stores, and easy credit transformed the economy. 1920 paints a vivid portrait of America, beset by the Red Scare, jailed dissidents, Prohibition, smoke-filled rooms, bomb-throwing terrorists, and the Klan, gingerly crossing modernity's threshold.
©2008 David Pietrusza (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
TR's Last War
Summary
A riveting new account of Theodore Roosevelt's impassioned crusade for military preparedness as America fitfully stumbles into World War I, spectacularly punctuated by his unique tongue-lashings of the vacillating Woodrow Wilson, his rousing advocacy of a masculine, pro-Allied "Americanism", a death-defying compulsion for personal front-line combat, a gingerly rapprochement with GOP power brokers - and, yes, perhaps, even another presidential campaign. Roosevelt is a towering Greek god of war. But Greek gods begat Greek tragedies. His own entreaties to don the uniform are rebuffed, and he remains stateside. But his four sons fight "over there" with heartbreaking consequences: two are wounded; his youngest and most loved child dies in aerial combat. Yet, though grieving and weary, TR may yet surmount everything with one monumentally odds-defying last triumph. Poised at the very brink of a final return to the White House, death stills his indomitable spirit. In his lively, witty, blow-by-blow style, David Pietrusza captures, through the lens of the Bull Moose, the 1916 presidential campaign, America's entry into the Great War in 1917, Woodrow Wilson's presidency, and the last years of one of American history's greatest men.
©2018 David Pietrusza (P)2018 Tantor
1948
Summary
The wild, combative inside story of the most stunning upset in the history of presidential elections: Harry Truman's 1948 victory over Tom Dewey. "Outstanding....by far the best yet about the fateful [1948] election." -Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Coherent, compelling.... A skillful, authoritative investigation." -Kirkus Reviews Award-winning historian David Pietrusza unpacks the most ingloriously iconic headline in the history of presidential elections - DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN - to reveal the 1948 campaign's backstage events and recount the down-to-the-wire brawl fought against the background of an erupting Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the birth of Israel, and a post-war America facing exploding storms over civil rights and domestic communism. "A terrific book.... a must-read." -Ron Faucheux, former editor-in-chief, Campaigns & Elections magazine "David Pietrusza brilliantly portrays President Harry Truman's successful efforts to stave off the challenge of New York Gov. Tom Dewey, who was making a repeat bid as the Republican nominee." -David Mark, journalist, political analyst, and author of Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning "Sweeping... compelling." -Library Journal
©2011 David Pietrusza. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
1932
Summary
Two Depression-battered nations confronted destiny in 1932, going to the polls in their own way to anoint new leaders, to rescue their people from starvation and hopelessness. America would elect a Congress and a president - ebullient aristocrat Franklin Roosevelt or tarnished "Wonder Boy" Herbert Hoover. Decadent, divided Weimar Germany faced two rounds of bloody Reichstag elections and two presidential contests - doddering reactionary Paul von Hindenburg against rising radical hate-monger Adolf Hitler. The outcome seemed foreordained - unstoppable forces advancing upon crumbled, disoriented societies. A merciless Great Depression brought greater - perhaps hopeful, perhaps deadly - transformation: FDR's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. But neither outcome was inevitable.
©2016 David Pietrusza (P)2019 Tantor