Doug J. Swanson has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 3.5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is Cult of Glory.
Blood Aces
Summary
The astonishing story of Benny Binion - a rip-roaring saga of murder, money, and the making of Las Vegas. Benny Binion was many things: a cowboy, a pioneering casino owner, a gangster, a killer, and founder of the hugely successful World Series of Poker. Blood Aces tells the story of Binion's crucial role in shaping modern Las Vegas. From a Texas backwater, Binion rose to prominence on a combination of vision, determination, and brutal expediency.
©2014 Doug J. Swanson (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Cult of Glory
Summary
“Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” (The New York Times Book Review) A 21st-century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption. The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going - one of the most famous of all law-enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors, and officially sanctioned killers. Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the US Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages - including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians - into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight. Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West - the real and the false - are truly made.
©2020 Doug J. Swanson (P)2020 Penguin Audio