Oliver Stone has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 27 ratings. The most-rated is The Untold History of the United States.
The Untold History of the United States
Summary
"At last the world knows America as the savior of the world!"
--Woodrow Wilson
The notion of American exceptionalism, dating back to John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon aboard the Arabella, still warps Americans’ understanding of their nation’s role in the world. Most are loathe to admit that the United States has any imperial pretensions. But history tells a different story as filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick reveal in this riveting account of the rise and decline of the American empire. They trace the American empire through the bloody U.S. suppression of the Filipino struggle for independence; the establishment of U.S. financial hegemony via World War I; the repeated U.S. interventions, covert operations, and wars in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East; the transformation of America into a prying national security state; the accumulation of vast fortunes by the wealthiest Americans; and troubling assaults on U.S. constitutional liberties.
Aided by the latest archival findings and recently declassified documents and building on the research of the world’s best scholars, Stone and Kuznick construct an often shocking but meticulously documented "people's history" of the American empire that offers startling context to the Bush-Cheney policies that put us at war in two Muslim countries and show us why the Obama administration had such a difficult time cleaving a new path.
Stone and Kuznick will introduce listeners to a pantheon of heroes and villains as they show not only how far the United States has drifted from its democratic traditions but the powerful forces that have struggled to get us back on track. The authors reveal that:
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were militarily unnecessary and morally indefensible.
The United States, not the Soviet Union, bore the lion’s share of responsibility for perpetuating the Cold War.
The U.S. love affair with right-wing dictators has gone as far as overthrowing elected leaders, arming and training murderous military officers, and forcing millions of people into poverty.
U.S.-funded Islamist fundamentalists, who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, have blown back to threaten the interests of the United States and its allies.
U.S. presidents, especially in wartime, have frequently trampled on the Constitution and international law.
The United States has brandished nuclear threats repeatedly and come terrifyingly close to nuclear war.
American leaders often believe they are unbound by history, yet Stone and Kuznick argue that we must face our troubling history honestly and forthrightly in order to set a new course for the 21st century. Their conclusions will astonish even experts, but there is one question only listeners can answer: Is it too late for America to change?
©2013 Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Putin Interviews
Summary
WITH SUBSTANTIAL MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED IN THE DOCUMENTARY Academy Award winner Oliver Stone was able to secure what journalists, news organizations, and even other world leaders have long coveted: extended, unprecedented access to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Putin Interviews are culled from more than a dozen interviews with Putin over a two-year span—never before has the Russian leader spoken in such depth or at such length with a Western interviewer. No topics are off limits in the interviews, which first occurred during Stone’s trips to meet with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow and most recently after the election of President Donald Trump. Prodded by Stone, Putin discusses relations between the United States and Russia, allegations of interference in the US election, and Russia’s involvement with conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere across the globe. Putin speaks about his rise to power and details his relationships with Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump. The exchanges are personal, provocative, and at times surreal. At one point, Stone asks, “Why did Russia hack the election?”; at another, Stone introduces him to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove, which the two watch together. Stone has interviewed controversial world leaders before, including Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Benjamin Netanyahu. But The Putin Interviews, in its unmediated access to one of the most enigmatic and powerful men in the world, can only be compared to the series of conversations between David Frost and Richard Nixon we now refer to as “The Nixon Interviews” of 1977. The book will also contain references and sources that give readers a deeper understanding of the topics covered in the interviews and make for a more robust reading experience.
©2017 Oliver Stone (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Chasing the Light
Summary
An intimate memoir by the controversial and outspoken, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter about his complicated New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface. Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with in-the-moment details of the high and low moments: We see meetings with Al Pacino over Stone’s scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino; the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express. Chasing the Light is a true insider’s look at Hollywood’s years of upheaval in the 1970s and ’80s. Narrated by the author.
©2020 Oliver Stone (P)2020 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company