The Military category has 1,612 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 5,283 ratings. The most-rated is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
The Twilight Warriors
Summary
April 1945. The end of World War II finally appears to be nearing. The Nazis are collapsing in Europe, and the Americans are vastly overpowering the Japanese in the Pacific. For a group of pilots in their early 20s who were trained during the twilight of the war, the biggest concern is that they'll never actually see real action and will go home without having a chance to face the enemy. They call themselves Tail-End Charlies. They fly at the tail end of formations, stand at the tail end of chow lines, and now they are prepared for battle at the tail end of the war. Little do they know that they will be key players in the most difficult and bloodiest of naval battles---not only of World War II but in all of American history: the campaign to take the Japanese island of Okinawa to serve as a basis for an eventual invasion of Japan. Derived from interviews with and newly discovered memoirs, journals, and correspondence of Okinawa veterans from both the American and Japanese sides, The Twilight Warriors provides a thrilling you-are-there narrative. Like the HBO series The Pacific, this book combines thrilling action with human stories of courage and sacrifice and triumph. It's Band of Brothers at sea and in the sky.
©2010 Robert Gandt (P)2010 Tantor
Breve historia de la Segunda Guerra Mundial
Summary
La vibrante historia, narrada con ritmo de "thriller", del conflicto armado más sangriento y devastador de la historia de la humanidad. Jesús Hernández nos recuerda que la Segunda Guerra Mundial, como un castigo penitenciario, duró seis años y un día, no hay otro modo de entender el episodio más terrible de la historia de la humanidad. Un conflicto que dejó una cantidad de muertos aún sin determinar pero que oscila entre los cincuenta y los setenta millones, una guerra que se extendió desde las costas del Pacífico hasta el norte de África. Narrado con la velocidad de las mejores batallas, Breve Historia de la Segunda Guerra Mundial revive el horror y los héroes de uno de los episodios más fascinantes de la historia. El libro sigue un criterio que mezcla lo geográfico y lo cronológico con el que consigue una fiel panorámica de la guerra y trasladarnos a la vorágine de los avances nazis y las respuestas de los aliados. Apuesta Jesús Hernández por recrear de un modo vívido los enfrentamientos sin interrumpir la narración con una estática batería de datos. Iwo Jima, Staligrado, Normandía, Kursk, las batallas en el Pacífico, Rommel contra Montgomery, la Guerra Relámpago, la Segunda Guerra Mundial es el hecho más trascendental del S. XX y el conflicto más devastador de la historia. Un audio libro conciso y breve que da una idea completa de este complejo episodio histórico. Please Note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2009 Ediciones Nowtilus S.L. (P)2014 Audible Inc.
NPR American Chronicles: The Military History Collection
Summary
Includes four complete critically acclaimed and award-winning audio documentaries: The Civil War: NPR captures the battlefield action, the personal struggles, and the moral dilemmas of the war that pitted brother against brother (and sometimes sister) and friend against friend. This revealing collection of Civil War stories features gripping history and expert commentary from the likes of Shelby Foote, E. L. Doctorow, James McPherson, and many others. World War I: Famously referred to by US president Woodrow Wilson as "the war to end all wars", the First World War eclipsed all previous wars with its scale of destruction. With over 27 nations involved, the battlefield horrors and political outcomes of the first truly global military conflict had repercussions that are still felt today. NPR presents a vivid portrait of what most experts consider the first modern war, including profiles of America's flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, unlikely savior of war-torn Belgium Herbert Hoover, and the last surviving doughboy, Frank Buckles. World War II: NPR reveals remarkable stories of valor, bravery, and survival from the deadliest conflict in history with this vast panorama of interviews, memories, and first-person accounts from fronts in Europe, in the Pacific, and at home. Harrowing, heartbreaking, and deeply personal, this collection offers an intimate, engaging way to learn more about the war that changed the world. The Vietnam War: NPR reported firsthand on the Vietnam War and for the very first time presents exclusive stories from the origins of the conflict to its major battles, from the fall of Saigon to the repercussions of the war still felt today. Featuring perspectives of ordinary people affected by the conflict as well as high-ranking policy makers and military members who were there.
©2011 National Public Radio, Inc. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Bay of Pigs Invasion: President Kennedy's Failed Attempt to Overthrow Fidel Castro
Summary
"Openly and unabashedly they are organizing training camps; openly and unabashedly they are building air bases and air strips. Everyone knows who is building the strips and buying planes, that mercenaries are recruiting troops. They even have the cynicism to publish photographs." (Fidel Castro, March 1961) Within just a month of becoming president, the issue of Communist Cuba became central to John F. Kennedy and his administration. On February 3, 1961, President Kennedy called for a plan to support Cuban refugees in the US. A month later he created the Peace Corps, a program that trained young American volunteers to help with economic and community development in poor countries. Both programs were integral pieces of the Cold War and were attempts to align disadvantaged groups abroad with the United State and the West against the Soviet Union and its Communist satellites. Meanwhile covert operations were laying the groundwork for overthrowing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and he knew it. Castro railed against CIA involvement among Cubans trying to overthrow him and his still young revolution. Matters came to a head that April, when the Kennedy administration moved beyond soft measures to direct action. From April 17 to 20, 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles landed on the beaches of Western Cuba in an attempt to overthrow Castro. This plan, known as the Bay of Pigs, had been originally drafted by the Eisenhower administration. The exiles landed in Cuba and were expected to be greeted by anti-Castro forces within the country, after which the US would provide air reinforcement to the rebels, and the Castro regime would slowly be overthrown. From the onset almost every phase of the operation went wrong.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors
Rorke's Drift
Summary
The story of the bravest battle ever fought. On 22nd January 1879 a force of 20,000 Zulus overwhelmed and destroyed the British invading force at Isandlwana, killing and ritually disemboweling more than 1,200 troops. That afternoon, the same Zulu force turned their attention on a small outpost at Rorke's Drift. The battle that ensued, one of the British Army's great epics, has since entered into legend. Throughout the night 85 men held off six full-scale Zulu attacks at the cost of only 27 casualties, forcing the Zulu army to withdraw. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded for bravery shown on that night, the largest number for any one engagement in history. But as Adrian Greaves' new research shows, there are several things about the myth of Rorke's Drift that don't add up. While it was the scene of undoubted bravery, it was also the scene of some astonishing cases of cowardice, and there is increasing evidence to suggest that the legend of Rorke's Drift was created to divert attention from the appalling British mistakes which caused the earlier defeat at Isandlwana. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Adrian Greaves (P)2020 Orion Publishing Group
Pull You Through
Summary
Life is a series of events, one leading you to another. The hell I lived through with my drug-addicted parents led me to the Marine Corps. Committing my life to my country was easy. My brothers were my family - all I had and all I needed. I wasn’t looking for her, but I should have known life had other plans. It led me to her. From the moment we met, I knew he was different - I just didn’t realize he'd change my life. He was a guy on leave, an acquaintance. Until he was something more, something unforgettable. I never imagined he'd leave 10 days later, taking a piece of me with him. Then again, maybe I did know. I just didn't care. He was worth it.
©2018 Kaylee Ryan (P)2019 Audible, Inc.
Pretty Little Player
Summary
Bedroom games are fine...but I need a woman who won’t play with my heart. After years in the military, I’ve faced down a lot of things, and there’s not much I shy away from. Except relationships. Because when you catch your wife in bed with another man, that tends to sour even the most hardened man against women. When I was hired to keep surveillance on a woman with a checkered past, I went into the job anticipating the worst. But what I found was a woman who turned my head. Who made my blood heat and my body burn. A woman who made me feel alive again. A woman who was nothing like what I expected, but everything I wanted. A woman who, it turned out, needed my protection. And wanted my touch. And as the world fell out from under us, and everything I thought I knew shifted, there was only one reality I could hold onto - that the more I got to know her, the more I wanted her. But if I’m going to make her mine, I’ll have to not only keep her safe, I’ll have to prove to her that I’ve conquered my own fears and doubts. That I’m done looking into the past, and that all I want is a future - with her. Each Blackwell-Lyon book is a stand-alone romance with its own HEA! Books in the series: Lovely Little Liar Pretty Little Player Sexy Little Sinner
©2018 Julie Kenner (P)2019 Julie Kenner
Daring Young Men
Summary
The Second World War had been over for three years when pilots, navigators, and air-traffic controllers all over America were recalled to active duty to rescue Berlin. They were there within days and weeks, flying tired planes filled with food, coal, medicine, and mail. Many had bombed the place to rubble in 1944 and 1945. Now they and the British airmen were bringing it survival. Drawing on hundreds of interviews in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, best-selling author Richard Reeves tells the stories of these civilian airmen, the successors to Stephen Ambrose's Civilian Soldiers, ordinary boys called to extraordinary tasks.Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had ordered Berlin blockaded, betting that the Americans, the British, and the French would abandon the city. Many of President Truman's advisers wanted to retreat; others wanted to risk war with the USSR. Truman ordered the Berlin Airlift, neither retreat nor confrontation. It ended only when West Germany was established by the three powers and NATO was born. The Soviets did the backing down. Led by Generals Lucius Clay and Curtis LeMay, the first battle in the Cold War was won. The young men came home again, some of them trying to remember where they had left their cars.
©2010 Reeves-O'Neill, Inc. (P)2010 Tantor
Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II
Summary
The Best History Book Award Winner (Air Power) Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Allied joint project to invade Burma by air. Beginning with its inception at the Quebec Conference of 1943 and continuing through Operation Thursday until the death of the brilliant British General Orde Wingate in March 1944, less than a month after the successful invasion of Burma, Project 9 details all aspects of this covert mission, including the selection of the American airmen, the procurement of the aircraft, the joint training with British troops, and the dangerous night-time assault behind Japanese lines by glider. Tasked by the general of the Army Air Forces H.H. “Hap” Arnold to provide air support for British troops under the eccentric Major General Wingate as they operated behind Japanese lines in Burma, the air commandos were breaking entirely new ground in operational theory, tactics, and inter-Allied cooperation. Okerstrom’s in-depth research and analysis in Project 9 shed light on the operations of America’s first foray into special military operations, when these heroes led the way for the formation of modern special operations teams such as Delta Force and Seal Team Six. The book is published by University of Missouri Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks. “This a splendid book about a little-reported-on corner of World War II.” (Air Power History)
©2014 The Curators of the University of Missouri (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks
Winston Churchill: His Finest Hour - The Winning of World War II
Summary
Do you want to learn more about the Winston Churchill, but don’t have time to listen to huge, long biographies. Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his tenure in World War 2. After five years of steering the nation through the stormy waters of World War II, Winston Churchill was weary and anxious about the future but ready to continue the fight for Britain. What was he thinking? The old warrior was definitely concerned that the British Empire, exhausted and financially drained by such lengthy fighting, would be sidelined as the endgame came into view by its more powerful American and Russian allies. Winston Churchill had undeniably given his all for King and country and an allied victory promised to be his finest hour; but he was wise to be cautious, and quite incredibly his own future as the nation’s Prime Minister was far from assured. You will learn about: Churchill’s concerns about the status posed by Stalin and Russia Post war. The importance of the Okinawa battle to the result of the war in Europe. World is notified of multiple concentration camp horrors. Funeral of FDR and Harry S. Truman steps onto the International stage. The fight and conquest of Berlin. VE day - Winston receives the accolades for his selfless endeavor on behalf of a grateful nation. The History Journals We create enlightening history books for people looking to learn about topics in a quick study guide format. Our audiobooks won’t take you days to read (or listen to) - but can be enjoyed over a cup of coffee and an hour or so of your time. They are the perfect starter to see if you’d like to delve deeper into any specific subject.
©2020 The History Journals | Liam Dale (P)2020 The History Journals | Liam Dale
Back Over There
Summary
In The Last of the Doughboys, Richard Rubin introduced listeners to a forgotten generation of Americans: the men and women who fought and won the First World War. Interviewing the war's last survivors face-to-face, he knew well the importance of being present if you want to get the real story. But he soon came to realize that to get the whole story, he had to go Over There, too. So he did, and discovered that while most Americans regard that war as dead and gone, to the French, who still live among its ruins and memories, it remains very much alive. Years later, with the centennial of the war only magnifying this paradox, Rubin decided to go back Over There to see if he could, at last, resolve it. For months he followed the trail of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front, finding trenches, tunnels, bunkers, century-old graffiti and ubiquitous artifacts. But he also found an abiding fondness for America and Americans, and a colorful corps of local after-hours historians and archeologists who tirelessly explore these sites and preserve the memories they embody while patiently waiting for Americans to return and reclaim their own history and heritage. None of whom seemed to mind that his French needed work. Based on his wildly popular New York Times series, Back Over There is a timely journey, in turns reverent and iconoclastic but always fascinating, through a place where the past and present are never really separated.
©2017 Richard Rubin (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
Emperor Hirohito
Summary
“It was not clear to me that our course was unjustified. Even now I am not sure how historians will allocate the responsibility for the war.” (Emperor Hirohito) The man known to most of the world as Emperor Hirohito ruled during some of the most tumultuous years in Japanese history. When he came to the throne in 1926, he inherited control of a country which had only recently emerged as a major industrial and world power. Through the aggressive expansion and wars of the 1930s, Hirohito was at the head of one of the world’s foremost powers. Throughout the maelstrom of World War II, he remained in power, a distant and, to most outsiders, inscrutable factor in the rise of the Japanese Empire. Before and during the war, many people in America and elsewhere believed that Emperor Hirohito was at least partly responsible for both the confrontational Japanese approach to foreign affairs and for the often brutal conduct of the Japanese armed forces during the wars which followed. As such, when the war ended, there were plenty of calls for the emperor to be indicted for war crimes along with other senior figures in Japan. However, a new feeling emerged at that time, suggesting that, in reality, Hirohito had been little more than a figurehead taken along by a tide of militarism, helpless to intervene or influence the course of events. Modern scholarship suggests that neither of these views of Hirohito is entirely true. At the time he came to the throne, the emperor was revered as a semi-divine figure, and his influence on every level of Japanese political and military life was undeniable and considerable. Although the emperor generally did not express his will through the issuance of direct orders, the displeasure of the emperor was something which every senior member of the military and political sphere sought strenuously to avoid. In this context, to imagine Hirohito as a helpless puppet, a purely constitutional monarch manipulated by ruthless politicians and generals, is an error. Indeed, he was always an active participant in the most important events before and during Japan’s war against the Allies. In hindsight, it’s clear that the image of Hirohito as a powerless figurehead emerged as part of a legend deliberately created by America and its allies, following the war to help maintain a peaceful occupation of Japan. With the dawn of the Cold War, Japan was needed as an ally, allowing it to serve as a potential bulwark against Soviet expansion in Southeast Asia. Rebuilding Japan into a strong and stable power became a priority, and for this, Hirohito was needed to provide continuity and a form of rule to which the Japanese people were accustomed. Thus, Hirohito went on to rule throughout the astonishing Japanese economic recovery in the 1950s and 1960s, all the way until his death in 1989. The new constitution imposed by America after the war was framed around the monarchy, and to justify keeping Hirohito in power, it was necessary to demonstrate that he had not been personally culpable for Japanese aggression or military brutality. This was so successful that for many years, few historians disputed this version of history. It was only relatively recently that new works have concluded that the personality and influence of the Japanese emperor were far greater than this post-war invention suggested. Today, most modern historians agree that Hirohito was neither a helpless dupe nor an aggressive hawk who drove Japan into war - his role was more complex, and his personality played a far more significant role than either of these simplified views would suggest. This book looks at the role of the enigmatic leader in the rise, fall and rebirth of modern Japan.
©2020 Charles River Editors (P)2020 Charles River Editors
In the Cauldron
Summary
This is not just another book about Pearl Harbor. It is the story of Joseph Grew, America’s ambassador to Japan, and his frantic effort in the months before the Pearl Harbor attack to orchestrate an agreement between Japan and the United States to avoid the war he saw coming. It is a story filled with hope and heartache, with complex and fascinating characters, and with a drama befitting the momentous decisions at stake. And more than that, it is a story that has never been told. In those months before the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan and the United States were locked in a battle of wills. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s economic sanctions were crippling Japan. America’s noose was tightening around Japan’s neck - but the country’s leaders refused to yield to American demands. In this cauldron of boiling tensions, Joseph Grew offered many recommendations to break the deadlock. Having resided and worked in Tokyo for almost 10 years, Grew understood what Roosevelt and his administration back home did not: that the Japanese would rather face annihilation than endure the humiliation of surrendering to American pressure. The President and his administration saw little need to accept their ambassador’s recommendations. The administration’s policies, they believed, were sure to succeed. And so, with increasing urgency, Grew tried to explain to the President and his administration that Japan’s mindset could not be gauged by Western standards of logic and that the administration’s policies could lead Japan to embark on a suicidal war with the United States “with dangerous and dramatic suddenness.” Relying on Grew’s diaries, letters and memos, interviews with members of the families of Grew and his staff, and an abundance of other primary source materials, Lew Paper presents the gripping story of Grew’s effort to halt the downward spiral of Japan’s relations with the United States. Grew had to wrestle with an American government that would not listen to him - and simultaneously confront an increasingly hostile environment in Japan, where pervasive surveillance, arbitrary arrest, and even unspeakable torture by Japan’s secret police were constant threats. In the Cauldron reads like a novel, but it is based on fact. And it is sure to raise questions whether the Pearl Harbor attack could have been avoided.
©2019 Lew Paper (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
![Cover art for Stalingrado [Stalingrad]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iWM0y00WL._SL500_.jpg)
Stalingrado [Stalingrad]
Summary
I combattimenti più duri, le battaglie più spietate, l’assedio più lungo: il fronte orientale fu il concentrato di tutte le violenze della Seconda guerra mondiale. Agli uomini che combatterono e vissero nell’Europa orientale non fu risparmiata nessuna delle barbarie del conflitto, che anzi vissero nel modo più travolgente e cruento: deportazioni, esecuzioni di massa, rappresaglie. Milioni di persone soffrirono la fame, la sete, il freddo e la stanchezza, in una Russia sconvolta dalle gigantesche battaglie di carri, aerei e fanteria. Le armate tedesche, i soldati vittoriosi dell’Europa occidentale, si ridussero a una moltitudine stremata e affamata, in marcia nella steppa – rovente d’estate, gelida d’inverno, sempre ugualmente inospitale – alla ricerca di una vittoria impossibile, o per sfuggire alle controffensive russe. Esaurite le munizioni, esauriti i viveri, bloccati i carri e i camion, continuarono a battersi fino al limite estremo della spossatezza; solo i più fortunati fecero ritorno a casa, dopo traversie infinite. Per molti, invece, la campagna ordinata dal Führer finì con la morte, o con una prigionia destinata a durare più di dieci anni.I soldati sovietici, sottoposti al più duro regime marziale che si possa immaginare, furono dapprima travolti dall’offensiva tedesca, opposero una tenace, spesso disperata resistenza, e infine conobbero l’ebbrezza della riscossa e della vittoria. [The hardest fighting, battles the most ruthless, the longest siege: the eastern front was the focus of all the violence of the Second World War. To the men who fought and lived in Eastern Europe was not spared none of the barbarity of the conflict, which indeed lived in the most overwhelming and bloody: deportations, mass executions, reprisal. Millions of people suffered hunger, thirst, cold and fatigue, upset by Russia in a gigantic battles of tanks, aircraft and infantry. The German armies, the victorious soldiers in Western Europe, were reduced to a multitude exhausted and hungry, marching in the desert - hot in summer, cold in winter, always equally inhospitable - looking for a victory impossible, or to escape the Russian counter-offensive. Run out of ammo, exhausted supplies, blocked the wagons and trucks continued to fight to the extreme limit of exhaustion, only the lucky ones they returned home, after endless hardships. For many, however, the campaign ordered by the Führer ended with death, or with imprisonment meant to last more than ten years. Soviet soldiers, subjected to the toughest martial regime imaginable, were at first overwhelmed by the offensive German, offered strong, often desperate resistance, and finally knew the thrill of revenge and victory.] Please note: This audiobook is in Italian.
©2013 Area51 Publishing (P)2013 Area51 Publishing
![Cover art for Breve Storia della Prima Guerra Mondiale, Vol. 7 [Short History of WWI, Vol. 7]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51VC3tcAjiL._SL500_.jpg)
Breve Storia della Prima Guerra Mondiale, Vol. 7 [Short History of WWI, Vol. 7]
Summary
Mentre il fronte occidentale era scosso dalle grandi e fiaccanti battaglie di logo-ramento, sul fronte meridionale Italia e Austria erano alla disperata ricerca di una vittoria che potesse risultare decisiva. Le battaglie dell'Isonzo furono per certi versi molto simili a quelle combattute sul fronte occidentale, in pratica una guerra di trincea. I combattimenti sul fronte italiano furono logoranti e caratterizzate da grosse perdite. Quella di Caporetto fu una sconfitta disastrosa, tanto da essere entrata anche nel linguaggio comune come sinonimo di disfatta, con quarantamila soldati italiani morti o feriti e altri 275 mila finiti prigionieri del nemico. [While the western front was shaken by large battles of attrition, Southern Italy and Austria were desperate for a victory that could be decisive. The battles of the Isonzo were in some ways very similar to those fought on the western front, in practice trench warfare. The fighting on the Italian front was exhausting and characterized by large losses. There was a disastrous defeat at Caporetto, entered into common parlance as a synonym of defeat, with 40,000 Italian soldiers killed or wounded, and 275,000 others finished as prisoners of the enemy.] Please note: This audiobook is in Italian.
©2015 Area51 Publishing (P)2015 Area51 Publishing
The Pueblo Revolt
Summary
The dramatic and tragic story of the only successful Native American uprising against the Spanish, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. With the conquest of New Mexico in 1598, Spanish governors, soldiers, and missionaries began their brutal subjugation of the Pueblo Indians in what is today the Southwestern United States. This oppression continued for decades, until, in the summer of 1680, led by a visionary shaman named Pope, the Puebloans revolted. In total secrecy they coordinated an attack, killing 401 settlers and soldiers and routing the rulers in Santa Fe. Every Spaniard was driven from the Pueblo homeland, the only time in North American history that conquering Europeans were thoroughly expelled from Indian territory. Yet today, more than three centuries later, crucial questions about the Pueblo Revolt remain unanswered. How did Pope succeed in his brilliant plot? And what happened in the Pueblo world between 1680 and 1692, when a new Spanish force reconquered the Pueblo peoples with relative ease? David Roberts set out to try to answer these questions and to bring this remarkable historical episode to life. He visited Pueblo villages, talked with Native American and Anglo historians, combed through archives, discovered backcountry ruins, sought out the vivid rock art panels carved and painted by Puebloans contemporary with the events, and pondered the existence of centuries-old Spanish documents never seen by Anglos.
©2004 David Roberts. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Hellfire Boys
Summary
An explosive look into the dawn of chemical warfare during World War I "A terrifying piece of history that almost no one knows." (Hampton Sides, New York Times best-selling author of In the Kingdom of Iceand Blood and Thunder) In 1915, when German forces executed the first successful gas attack of World War I, the world watched in horror as the boundaries of warfare were forever changed. Cries of barbarianism rang throughout Europe, yet Allied nations immediately jumped into the fray, kickstarting an arms race that would redefine a war already steeped in unimaginable horror. Largely forgotten in the confines of history, the development of the US Chemical Warfare Service in 1917 left an indelible imprint on World War I. This small yet powerful division, along with the burgeoning Bureau of Mines, assembled research and military unites devoted solely to chemical weaponry, outfitting regiments with hastily made gas-resistant uniforms and recruiting scientists and engineers from around the world into the fight. As the threat of new gases and more destructive chemicals grew stronger, the chemists' secret work in the laboratories transformed into an explosive fusion of steel, science, and gas on the battlefield. Drawing from years of research, Theo Emery brilliantly shows how World War I quickly spiraled into a chemists' war, one led by the companies of young American engineers-turned-soldiers who would soon become known as the "Hellfire Boys". As gas attacks began to mark the heaviest and most devastating battles, these brave and brilliant men were on the front lines, racing against the clock - and the Germans - to protect, develop, and unleash the latest weapons of mass destruction.
©2017 Theo Emery (P)2017 Hachette Audio
The Great War in America
Summary
A chronicle of the American experience during World War I and the unexpected changes that rocked the country in its immediate aftermath - the Red Scare, race riots, women's suffrage, and Prohibition. Though overshadowed by the tens of millions of deaths and catastrophic destruction of World War II, the Great War was the most important war of the 20th century. It was the first continent-wide conflagration in a century, and it drew much of the world into its fire. By the end of it, four empires and their royal houses had fallen, communism was unleashed, the map of the Middle East was redrawn, and the United States emerged as a global power - only to withdraw from the world's stage. The Great War is often overlooked, especially compared to World War II, which is considered the "last good war." The United States was disillusioned with what it achieved in the earlier war and withdrew into itself. Americans have tried to forget about it ever since. The Great War in America presents an opportunity to reexamine the country's role on the global stage and the tremendous political and social changes that overtook the nation because of the war.
©2018 Garrett Peck (P)2019 Tantor
![Cover art for Italiani in guerra [Italians at War]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51WhXCZ0MzL._SL500_.jpg)
Italiani in guerra [Italians at War]
Summary
Il 10 giugno 1940 l'Italia entra nella Seconda guerra mondiale. Questo è il racconto della politica di Benito Mussolini dalla Guerra in Etiopia all'alleanza con il Reich di Hitler fino al fatidico 10 giugno 1940. June 10, 1940. Italy entered the Second World War. This is the story of the politics of Benito Mussolini from the war in Ethiopia to the alliance with Hitler's Reich until the fateful June 10, 1940. Please note: This audiobook is in Italian.
©2012 Area51 Publishing (P)2012 Area51 Publishing
Jim Bridger
Summary
Exploration of the early American West, beginning with Lewis and Clark's transcontinental trek at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson, was not accomplished by standing armies, the era's new steam train technology, or by way of land grabs. These came later, but not until pathways known only to a few of the land's indigenous people were discovered, carved out, and charted in an area stretching from the eastern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and the present-day borders of Mexico and Canada. Even the great survey parties, such as Colonel William Powell's exploration of the Colorado River, came decades later. The first views of Western America's enormity by white Americans were seen by individuals of an entirely different personality, in an era that could only exist apart from its home civilization. The American mountain man, with his practical skills, could endure isolation in a way most could not. He lived in constant peril from the extremes of nature and from the hostilities of cultures unlike his own. In an emergency, assistance was rarely available, and he rarely stayed in one place long enough to build even a simple shelter. Travel in the American West relied upon a specific calendar, and to ignore it could be fatal, as many discovered, to their misfortune. Winter in the mountainous regions of the Rocky Mountains and Cascades was lethally cold to explorer and settler alike, but desert areas and grass plains presented difficulties as well. The network of rivers flowing west of the Mississippi on both sides of the continental divide served as early highways to the Wyoming and Montana regions, the Oregon Territory, Utah and Colorado, and the California southwest. Some were placidly tranquil, while others raged through the extreme elevations, all but defying navigation. Contact with indigenous tribes was problematic enough with linguistic and cultural barriers, but to survive required a sensitivity to tribal food sources and sacred areas when traveling. The profession of trapping was, in itself, a trespass on Native American resources, and yet the mountain man's existence was fueled, in part, by the tangible rewards of the fur trapping trade. Beaver hats were all the rage in Europe, and the market had to be satisfied by a group of courageous individualists. Apart from fashion, the beaver pelt provided a "warmth [and] luxurious texture" not found in other land animals. As American beaver pelts flooded European markets, North American companies - such as Hudson's Bay, the American Fur Company, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and Manuel Lisa's Missouri Fur Company competed for Western resources thought to be limitless. The effort to acquire pelts was laborious and dangerous, but as long as the price per pound remained high, wealth awaited individuals committed to the rigors of the trade. Apart from such realities, the mountain man's poetically obsessive kinship with undiscovered lands and unspoiled nature, free from society's trappings, was secondary. The aesthetic aspect was a luxury to be enjoyed once work had been done and safety assured. Distant observers who heard or read of the journey were fascinated with the peripheral glamour, but not enamored of the work's grisly nature. A small group of individuals have come down to us as famous figures from the fur trapping era of the 19th century, but explorer and guide Jim Bridger is the most distinguished of the lot. This is because he remained in a dangerous and vast Western wilderness long after the fur trade's demise in addition to his powers of observation which enabled him to create accurate maps decades after passing through any terrain.
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