Eric Burns has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators. The most-rated is Virtue, Valor, and Vanity.
1920
Summary
One of the most dynamic eras in American history, the 1920s began with a watershed year that would set the tone for the century to follow. The Roaring Twenties is the only decade in American history with a widely applied nickname, and our collective fascination with this era continues. But how did this surge of innovation and cultural milestones emerge out of the ashes of World War I? Acclaimed author Eric Burns investigates the year 1920, which was not only a crucial 12-month period of its own but one that foretold the future. The year 1920 foreshadowed the rest of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, whether it was Sacco and Vanzetti or the stock market crash that brought this era to a close. Burns sets the record straight about this most misunderstood and iconic of periods. Despite being the first full year of armistice, 1920 was not a peaceful period - it contained the greatest act of terrorism in American history to that time. And while 1920 is thought of as the beginning of a prosperous era, for most people life had never been more unaffordable. Meanwhile, African Americans were putting their stamp on culture. And though people today imagine the frivolous image of the flapper dancing the night away, the truth was that a new kind of power had been bestowed on women, and it had nothing to do with the dance floor. From prohibition to immigration, the birth of jazz, the rise of expatriate literature, and the original Ponzi scheme, 1920 was truly a year like no other.
©2015 Eric Burns (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
1957
Summary
In 1957, America turned its back on its earlier self and jumped headlong into the nation it has become today. From Sputnik and the beginning of the space race to Little Richard and the underappreciated influence of rock n' roll in bringing Blacks and Whites closer together, to President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway Act, which forever changed the landscape, 1957 represents the year when all of the energy and anxiety that had followed the end of World War II exploded. In compelling stories from politics, pop culture, business, and the media, Eric Burns captures the excitement of a headspinning year and the lingering fallout that continues to resonate seven decades later. For baby boomers seeking to relive their formative years or listeners seeking a window into midcentury America, 1957 provides a must-listen tour through one of the most fascinating years in American history.
©2020 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. (P)2020 Tantor
The Golden Lad
Summary
Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most fascinating and written-about presidents in American history - yet the most poignant tale about this larger-than-life man has never been told. More than a century has passed since Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House, but he still continues to fascinate. Never has a more exuberant man been our nation's leader. He became a war hero, reformed the NYPD, busted the largest railroad and oil trusts, passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, created national parks and forests, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and built the Panama Canal - to name just a few. Yet it was the cause he championed the hardest - America's entry into WWI - that would ultimately divide and destroy him. His youngest son, Quentin, his favorite, would die in an air fight. How does looking at Theodore's relationship with his son and understanding him as a father tell us something new about this larger-than-life man? Does it reveal a more human side? A more hypocritical side? Or simply, if tragically, a nature so surprisingly sensitive, despite the bluster, that he would die of a broken heart? Roosevelt's own history of boyhood illnesses made him so aware of what it was like to be a child in pain that he could not bear the thought of his own children suffering. The Roosevelts were a family of pillow fights, pranks, and "scary bear". And it was the baby, Quentin - the frailest - who worried his father the most. Yet in the end, it was he who would display, in his brief life, the most intellect and courage of all.
©2016 Eric Burns (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Virtue, Valor, and Vanity
Summary
Their ambitions, intrigues, and jealousies shaped the birth of our nation, but they overcame their foibles and imperfections to throw off the chains of tyranny and form a more perfect union. We think of them now as faces on money or statues on pedestals, and, as Burns shows here in luminous prose, thats exactly what they wanted to be. They all possessed astonishing brilliance, expansive egos, and more than just a little vanity. In this fresh perspective, Burns brings the Founding Fathers down off their pedestals to reveal the flesh-and-blood men - vain and modest, sensitive and stubborn, brilliant and ambitious - who overcame their faults and squabbles to establish a new nation that would shine as a paragon of governance. For the armchair historian, here is an exciting new look at our countrys origins.
©2007 Eric Burns (P)2012 Audible, Inc.