Jim Rasenberger has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is The Brilliant Disaster.
The Brilliant Disaster
Summary
A remarkably gripping account of America's Bay of Pigs crisis, drawing on long-hidden CIA documents and delivering, as never before, the vivid truth - and consequences - of five pivotal days in April 1961. The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event reverberating even today. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself. The Cuban-born invaders were trained by CIA officers, supplied with American matériel, and shadowed by the U.S. Navy. Landing by sea with fighter-plane support, they hoped to establish a military beachhead and spark a counterrevolution against Fidel Castro’s regime. The gambit was a stupendous failure, resulting in the death or imprisonment of more than a thousand men. Now, journalist Jim Rasenberger takes a closer look at this darkly fascinating incident in American history. At the heart of the crisis stood President Kennedy, and Rasenberger traces what Kennedy knew, thought, and said as events unfolded. He examines whether Kennedy was manipulated by the CIA into approving a plan that would ultimately involve the American military. He also draws compelling portraits of the other figures who played key roles in the drama, including Fidel Castro. Written with elegant clarity and narrative verve, The Brilliant Disaster is the most complete account of this event to date, providing not only a fast-paced chronicle of the disaster but an analysis of how it occurred—a question as relevant today as then—and how it profoundly altered the course of modern American history.
©2011 Jim Rasenberger (P)2011 Simon & Schuster
America, 1908
Summary
The dawn of flight, the race to the pole, the invention of the Model T.... Renowned historian Jim Rasenberger turns his keen eye on America at the dawn of the 20th century - a time when innovation seemed to know no bounds.
©2007 Jim Rasenberger (P)2008 Recorded Books
Revolver
Summary
A sweeping, definitive biography of Samuel Colt - the inventor of the legendary Colt revolver (aka six-shooter), which changed the US forever, triggering the industrial revolution and the settlement of the American West. Patented in 1836, the Colt pistol with its revolving cylinder was the first practical firearm that could shoot more than one bullet without reloading. For many reasons, Colt’s gun had a profound effect on American history. Its most immediate impact was on the expansionism of the American West, where white emigrants and US soldiers came to depend on it and where Native Americans came to dread it. The six-shooter became the iconic weapon of gunslingers, outlaws, and cowboys - some willing to pay $500 out West for a gun that sold for $25 back East. In making the revolver, Colt also changed American manufacturing - his factory revolutionized industry in the United States. Ultimately, Colt and his gunmaking brought together the two most significant forces of change before the Civil War - the industrial revolution in the East, Manifest Destiny in the West. Brilliantly told, Revolver brings the brazenly ambitious and profoundly innovative industrialist and leader Samuel Colt to vivid life. In the space of his 47 years, he seemingly lived five lives: He traveled, womanized, drank prodigiously, smuggled guns to Russia, bribed politicians, and supplied the Union Army with the guns they needed to win the Civil War. Colt lived during an age of promise and progress, but also of slavery, corruption, and unbridled greed, and he not only helped to create this America, he completely embodied it. By the time he died in 1862 in Hartford, Connecticut, he was one of the most famous men in the nation and one of the richest. While Revolver is a riveting and revealing biography of Colt, a man who made significant contributions to our country during the 19th century, it’s also a lively and informative historical portrait of America during a time of extraordinary transformation.
©2020 Jim Rasenberger (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio