Michael Barone has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is Our First Revolution.
Our Country
Summary
In this rare, sweeping history, Michael Barone draws from deep within the political and social record of modern America, from election returns, political polls, news reports, census extracts, and statistical abstracts, to tell the story of how the country of our parents and of our grandparents became our country. Barone's account of the rise of the prosperous and powerful nation which we know today points out that the single most significant issue to dominate American politics in this century is that of who really is an American. Gone are the vaunted battles over the distribution of wealth and income. In their place are the powerfully rooted political battles fought between America's cultural poles: its racial and ethnic groups, its urban liberals and small town conservatives, its state's rightists and centrists, and ultimately also between advocates of culturally diverse positions and lifestyles. Besides his extensive knowledge of the historical record, his portrayal of individual participants, from FDR and Ronald Reagan through labor leader John L. Sullivan and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, adds color and dimension to the narrative as it moves into contemporary times.
©1990 Michael Barone (P)1992 Blackstone Audiobooks
Our First Revolution
Summary
The ideals of freedom and individual rights that inspired America's Founding Fathers did not spring from a vacuum. Along with many other defining principles of our national character, they can be traced directly back to one of the most pivotal events in British history: the late-17th-century uprising known as the Glorious Revolution. In a work of popular history that stands with recent favorites such as David McCullough's 1776 and Joseph J. Ellis' Founding Brothers, Michael Barone brings the story of this unlikely and largely bloodless revolt to American readers and reveals that, without the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution may never have happened. Unfolding in 1688-89, Britain's Glorious Revolution resulted in the hallmarks of representative government, guaranteed liberties, the foundations of global capitalism, and a foreign policy of opposing aggressive foreign powers. But as Barone shows, there was nothing inevitable about the Glorious Revolution. It sprang from the character of the English people and depended on the talents, audacity, and good luck of two men: William of Orange (later William III of England), who launched history's last successful cross-channel invasion, and John Churchill, an ancestor of Winston, who commanded the forces of the deposed James II but crossed over to support William one fateful November night. The story of the Glorious Revolution is a rich and riveting saga of palace intrigue, loyalty, and shocking betrayal, and bold political and military strategizing. With narrative drive, a sure command of historical events, and unforgettable portraits of kings, queens, soldiers, parliamentarians, and a large cast of full-blooded characters, Barone takes an episode that has fallen into unjustified obscurity and restores it to the prominence it deserves.
©2007 Michael Barone (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.