The Politics & Government category has 4,793 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 40,708 ratings. The most-rated is A Promised Land.
White House Warriors
Summary
When Congress originally created the National Security Council in 1947, it was intended to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II. Nearly an afterthought, a small administrative staff was established to help keep its papers moving. President Kennedy was, as John Gans documents, the first to make what became known as the NSC staff his own, selectively hiring bright young aides to do his bidding. Despite Kennedy's death and the tragic outcome of some of his decisions, the NSC staff endured. President Richard Nixon handed the staff's reigns solely to Henry Kissinger, who micromanaged its work on Vietnam. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan's NSC was cast into turmoil by overreaching staff members who, led by Oliver North, nearly brought down a presidency in the Iran-Contra scandal. Later, when President George W. Bush's administration was bitterly divided by the Iraq War, his NSC staff stepped forward to write a plan for the Surge in Iraq. Gans demonstrates that knowing the NSC staff's history is the only way to truly understand American foreign policy. As this essential account builds to the swift removals of advisors General Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon in 2017, we see the staff's influence in President Donald Trump's still chaotic administration and come to understand the role it might play in its aftermath.
©2019 John Gans (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Ascent of George Washington
Summary
Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics but a canny infighter---a master of persuasion, manipulation, and deniability. In the War of Independence, Washington used his skills to steer the Continental Army through crises that would have broken less determined men; he squeezed out rival generals and defused dissent from those below him. Ending the war as a national hero, Washington "allowed" himself to be pressed into the presidency, guiding the nation with the same brilliantly maintained pose of selfless public interest. In short, Washington deftly screened a burning ambition behind his image of republican virtue---but that image, maintained not without cost, made him just the leader the overmatched army, and then the shaky young nation, desperately needed. Ferling argues that not only was Washington one of America's most adroit politicians---the proof of his genius is that he is no longer thought of as a politician at all.
©2009 John Ferling (P)2009 Tantor
Storming the Heavens
Summary
The recent Hollywood film Hidden Figures presents a portrait of how African American women shaped the US effort in aerospace during the height of Jim Crow. In Storming the Heavens, Gerald Horne presents the necessary back story to this account and goes further to detail the earlier struggle of African Americans to gain the right to fly. This struggle involved pioneers like Bessie Coleman, who traveled to World War I-era Paris in order to gain piloting skills that she was denied in her US homeland; and John Robinson from Chicago via Mississippi, who traveled to 1930s Ethiopia and became the leading pilot for this beleaguered African nation as it withstood an invasion from fascist Italy, eventually becoming the personal pilot of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie, and a founder of Ethiopian Airways. Additionally, Horne adds nuance to the oft-told tale of the Tuskegee Airmen and goes further to discuss the role of US pilots during the Korean war in the early 1950s. He also tells the story of how and why US airlines were fought when they began to fly into South Africa - and how planes from this land of apartheid were protested when they landed at US airports.
©2017 Gerald Horne (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Cabal!
Summary
In the spring of 1778, General George Washington wrote to his friend Landon Carter about a rumored “disposition in the Northern officers to see me superseded in my command”. This was as candid a statement as the general ever made about the so-called “Conway Cabal” of patriot officers and politicians critical of his leadership. Most early historians of the Revolution took the threat to Washington seriously, but by the mid-20th century, interpretations had reversed, with the plot - if one existed - posing no real danger to the commander-in-chief. Yet, as historian Mark Edward Lender reveals in his compelling Cabal!: The Plot Against General Washington, clues found in original new research provide a more comprehensive understanding of the personalities and political maneuverings of those involved in the cabal and the real nature of the challenge to Washington. The threat to Washington’s command was a gradual administrative attempt by the Board of War and political allies to take over the war effort. Reorganized in late 1777 under the leadership of Mifflin, with Gates assuming the board presidency in January 1778, the Board of War sought authority to determine military policy and strategic goals, training, organizational, personnel, and logistical functions, and even the assignment of theater commanders. Had they succeeded, Washington’s title of commander-in-chief would have been utterly hollow. The cabal tested Washington as few other things did during the war and, perhaps, tempered him into the man we remember today. Washington adroitly navigated the challenges to his leadership, meeting and defeating every attempt to curtail his authority. His response revealed a leadership style that saw him safely through the war and gave him overwhelming support from his countrymen to become their first president. The book is published by Westholme Publishing. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
©2019 Mark Edward Lender (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks
Disposable City
Summary
A deeply reported personal investigation by a Miami journalist examines the present and future effects of climate change in the Magic City - a watery harbinger for coastal cities worldwide. Miami, Florida, is likely to be entirely underwater by the end of this century. Residents are already starting to see the effects of sea level rise today. From sunny day flooding caused by higher tides to a sewer system on the brink of total collapse, the city undeniably lives in a climate changed world. In Disposable City, Miami resident Mario Alejandro Ariza shows us not only what climate change looks like on the ground today, but also what Miami will look like 100 years from now, and how that future has been shaped by the city's racist past and present. As politicians continue to kick the can down the road and Miami becomes increasingly unlivable, real estate vultures and wealthy residents will be able to get out or move to higher ground, but the most vulnerable communities, disproportionately composed of people of color, will face flood damage, rising housing costs, dangerously higher temperatures, and stronger hurricanes that they can't afford to escape. Miami may be on the front lines of climate change, but the battle it's fighting today is coming for the rest of the US - and the rest of the world - far sooner than we could have imagined even a decade ago. Disposable City is a thoughtful portrait of both a vibrant city with a unique culture and the social, economic, and psychic costs of climate change that call us to act before it's too late.
©2020 Mario Alejandro Ariza (P)2020 Hachette Audio
Deterring Cyber Attacks
Summary
For years, the United States has failed to devise a strategy to deter or respond to cyberattacks. In the future, it must communicate what behavior is acceptable and what is not—and what Washington will do about it."Deterring Cyber Attacks" is from the November/December 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs.
©2017 Foreign Affairs (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
John Marshall
Summary
The life of John Marshall, founding father and America's premier chief justice. In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the US. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again. Through three decades of dramatic cases involving businessmen, scoundrels, Native Americans, and slaves, Marshall defended the federal government against unruly states, established the Supreme Court's right to rebuke Congress or the president, and unleashed the power of American commerce. For better and for worse, he made the Supreme Court a pillar of American life. In John Marshall, award-winning biographer Richard Brookhiser vividly chronicles America's greatest judge and the world he made. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 Richard Brookhiser (P)2018 Hachette Audio
Down with Colonialism! (Revolutions Series)
Summary
Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), the founder of the Vietminh and President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was the archetypical Communist and anti-colonial revolutionary of the twentieth century. He played a key role in the formation of the French, Chinese, and Vietnamese Communist movements and fought successfully against Japanese, French and American imperialism, becoming a hate-figure of the American state during the Vietnam War. Anti-globalization activist Walden Bello shows why Ho Chi Minh should still be read by anti-colonialists the world over.
©2007 Verso (editorial matter), Walden Bello (P)2011 Audible Ltd
Operation Chaos
Summary
Operation Chaos is an untold Cold War story: how the CIA tried to infiltrate a radical group of US military deserters, an audiobook that leads from a bizarre political cult to the heart of the Washington establishment Stockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They’re young, they’re radical, and they want to start a revolution. Some of them even want to take the fight to America. The Swedes treat them like pop stars - but the CIA is determined to stop all that. It’s a job for the deep-cover men of Operation Chaos and their allies - agents who know how to infiltrate organizations and destroy them from inside. Within months the GIs have turned their fire on one another. Then the interrogations begin - to discover who among them has been brainwashed, Manchurian Candidate-style, to assassinate their leaders. When Matthew Sweet began investigating this story, he thought the madness was over. He was wrong. Instead, he became the confidant of an eccentric and traumatized group of survivors - each with his own theory about the traitors in their midst. All Sweet has to do is find out the truth. And stay sane. Which may be difficult when one of his interviewees accuses him of being a CIA agent and another suspects that he’s part of a secret plot by the British royal family to start World War III. By that time he’s deep in the labyrinth of truths and half-truths, wondering where reality ends and delusion begins.
©2018 Matthew Sweet (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
Superpower Showdown
Summary
This is the inside story of the US-China trade war, how relations between these superpowers unraveled, darkening prospects for global peace and prosperity, as told by two Wall Street Journal reporters, one based in Washington, DC, the other in Beijing, who have had more access to the decision-makers in the White House and in China’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound than anyone else. The trade battle between China and the US didn’t start with Trump and won’t end with him, argue Bob Davis and Lingling Wei. The two countries have a long and fraught political and economic history that has become more contentious over the past three years - an escalation that has negatively impacted both countries' economies and the world at large - and holds the potential for even more uncertainty and disruption. How did this standoff happen? How much are US presidents and officials who haven't effectively confronted or negotiated with China to blame? What role have Chinese leaders, and US business leaders who for decades acted as Beijing’s lobbyists in Washington, played in driving tensions between the two countries? Superpower Showdown is the story of a romance gone bad. Uniquely positioned to tell the story, Davis and Wei have conducted hundreds of interviews with government and business officials in both nations over the seven years they have worked together writing for the Wall Street Journal. Analyzing US-China relations, they explain how we have reached this tipping point and look at where we could be headed. Vivid and provocative, Superpower Showdown will help listeners understand the context of the trade war and prepare them for what may come next.
©2020 Bob Davis and Lingling Wei (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
Up in Arms
Summary
“IT’S TIME! They have my cattle and now they have one of my boys. Range War begins tomorrow at Bundy Ranch.” These words, pounded out on a laptop at Cliven Bundy’s besieged Nevada ranch on April 6, 2014, ignited a new American revolution. Across the country, a certain type of citizen snapped to attention: This was the flashpoint the they’d been waiting for, a chance to help a fellow American stand up to a tyrannical and corrupt federal government. Up in Arms chronicles how an isolated clan of desert-dwelling Mormons became the guiding light - and then the outright leaders - of America’s Patriot movement. The nation was riveted in 2014, when hundreds of armed Bundy supporters forced federal agents to abandon a court-ordered cattle roundup in the largest gathering of government-loathing organizations the FBI had ever witnessed. Then, in 2016, Ammon Bundy, one of Cliven’s 13 children, led a 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Those events and the subsequent shootings, arrests, and trials captured headlines, but they’re just part of a story that has never been fully told. John Temple, award-winning journalist and author of American Pain, gives listeners an unprecedented and objective look at the real people and families at the heart of this highly publicized standoff. Eye-opening and instantly gripping, Up in Arms offers a propulsive and thoroughly researched narrative populated by rifle-toting cowboys, apocalyptic militiamen, undercover infiltrators, and the devout and charismatic Bundys themselves. In its main storyline, the book chronicles Ammon Bundy’s transformation from successful Phoenix businessman to the leader of an armed insurgency. In engrossing and plainspoken prose, Temple uses the Bundy family’s story to illuminate the rise of the Patriot militia movement in America. A seasoned investigative reporter, Temple embedded himself in a corner of the West where many citizens believe they’re treated like colonial subjects, not full-fledged Americans. Neither mainstream nor conservative media outlets have contextualized the religious, political, environmental, and economic factors, decades in the making, that set the stage for these events. Up In Arms presents the Bundys and their supporters as they truly are: neither violent criminals nor folk heroes, but a diverse collection of American rebels who believe government overreach justifies the taking up of arms.
©2019 John Temple (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Published by arrangement with BenBella Books.
March 3, 2021
Summary
The Washington Post
©2017 The Washington Post (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
How Are We Going to Explain This
Summary
There's a new story in the making, one in which the consequences of our actions add up - and every contribution is meaningful. If climate change is the biggest threat humanity has ever faced, then why are we doing so little? Will the corona pandemic make it worse or better? And where do we go from here? Drawing on the latest climate science, Jelmer Mommers helps you find hope in the midst of the climate crisis. He describes how we got here, what possible futures await us and how you can help to truly make a difference.
©2020 Jelmer Mommers (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK
Vanguard
Summary
The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power - and how it transformed America. In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly White women's movement did not win the vote for most Black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own. In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of Black women - Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more - who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Martha S. Jones (P)2020 Basic Books
Those Angry Days
Summary
At the center of the debate over American intervention in World War II stood the two most famous men in America: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who championed the interventionist cause, and aviator Charles Lindbergh, who as unofficial leader and spokesman for America's isolationists emerged as the president's most formidable adversary. Their contest of wills personified the divisions within the country at large, and Lynne Olson makes masterly use of their dramatic personal stories to create a poignant and riveting narrative. While FDR, buffeted by political pressures on all sides, struggled to marshal public support for aid to Winston Churchill's Britain, Lindbergh saw his heroic reputation besmirched-and his marriage thrown into turmoil-by allegations that he was a Nazi sympathizer. Spanning the years 1939 to 1941, Those Angry Days vividly re-creates the rancorous internal squabbles that gripped the United States in the period leading up to Pearl Harbor. After Germany vanquished most of Europe, America found itself torn between its traditional isolationism and the urgent need to come to the aid of Britain, the only country still battling Hitler. The conflict over intervention was, as FDR noted, "a dirty fight," rife with chicanery and intrigue, and Those Angry Days recounts every bruising detail. In Washington, a group of high-ranking military officers, including the Air Force chief of staff, worked to sabotage FDR's pro-British policies. Roosevelt, meanwhile, authorized FBI wiretaps of Lindbergh and other opponents of intervention. At the same time, a covert British operation, approved by the president, spied on antiwar groups, dug up dirt on congressional isolationists, and planted propaganda in U.S. newspapers. The stakes could not have been higher. The combatants were larger than life. With the immediacy of a great novel, Those Angry Days brilliantly recalls a time fraught with danger when the future of democracy and America's role in the world hung in the balance.
©2013 Lynne Olson (P)2013 Tantor
We Gather Together
Summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Last Castle and The Girls of Atomic City comes a new way to look at American history through the story of giving thanks. From Ancient Rome through 21st-century America, best-selling author Denise Kiernan brings us a biography of an idea: gratitude, as a compelling human instinct and a global concept, more than just a mere holiday. Spanning centuries, We Gather Together is anchored amid the strife of the Civil War, and driven by the fascinating story of Sarah Josepha Hale, a widowed mother with no formal schooling who became one of the 19th century’s most influential tastemakers and who campaigned for decades to make real an annual day of thanks. Populated by an enthralling supporting cast of characters including Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Sojourner Truth, Walt Whitman, Norman Rockwell, and others, We Gather Together is ultimately a story of tenacity and dedication, an inspiring tale of how imperfect people in challenging times can create powerful legacies. Working at the helm of one of the most widely read magazines in the nation, Hale published Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and others, while introducing American readers to such newfangled concepts as “domestic science”, white wedding gowns, and the Christmas tree. A prolific writer, Hale penned novels, recipe books, essays and more, including the ubiquitous children’s poem, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. And Hale herself never stopped pushing the leaders of her time, in pursuit of her goal. The man who finally granted her wish about a national “thanksgiving” was Lincoln, the president of the war-torn nation in which Hale would never have the right to vote. Illuminating, wildly discussable, part myth-busting, part call to action, We Gather Together is full of unexpected delights and uneasy truths. The stories of indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, women’s rights activists, abolitionists, and more, will inspire listeners to rethink and reclaim what it means to give thanks in this day and age. The book’s message of gratitude - especially when embraced during the hardest of times - makes it one to listen to and share, over and over, at any time of year.
©2020 Denise Kiernan (P)2020 Penguin Audio
The Book of Rosy
Summary
“Offers hope in the face of desperate odds.” (Elle Magazine, Elle's Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020) "[D]isturbing and unforgettable memoir.... This wrenching story brings to vivid life the plight of the many families separated at the US-Mexico border." (Publishers Weekly, starred review) "[The] haunting and eloquent...narrative of a Guatemalan woman's desperate search for a better life." (Kirkus, starred review) Compelling and urgently important, The Book of Rosy is the unforgettable story of one brave mother and her fight to save her family. When Rosayra “Rosy” Pablo Cruz made the agonizing decision to seek asylum in the United States with two of her children, she knew the journey would be arduous, dangerous, and quite possibly deadly. But she had no choice: violence - from gangs, from crime, from spiraling chaos - was making daily life hell. Rosy knew her family’s one chance at survival was to flee Guatemala and go north. After a brutal journey that left them dehydrated, exhausted, and nearly starved, Rosy and her two little boys arrived at the Arizona border. Almost immediately, they were seized and forcibly separated by government officials under the Department of Homeland Security’s new “zero tolerance” policy. To her horror, Rosy discovered that her flight to safety had only just begun. In The Book of Rosy, with an unprecedented level of sharp detail and soulful intimacy, Rosy tells her story, aided by Julie Schwietert Collazo, founder of Immigrant Families Together, the grassroots organization that reunites mothers and children. She reveals the cruelty of the detention facilities, the excruciating pain of feeling her children ripped from her arms, the abiding faith that staved off despair - and the enduring friendship with Julie, which helped her navigate the darkness and the bottomless Orwellian bureaucracy. A gripping account of the human cost of inhumane policies, The Book of Rosy is also a paean to the unbreakable will of people united by true love, a sense of justice, and hope for a better future. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schwietert Collazo (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Serve Your Country
Summary
The former VA secretary describes his fight to save health care from politics and money - and how it was ultimately derailed by a small group of unelected officials with influence in the Trump White House. Known in health care circles for his ability to fix ailing hospitals, Dr. David Shulkin was originally brought into government by President Obama, in an attempt to save the broken Department of Veterans Affairs. When President Trump made him VA secretary, Dr. Shulkin was as shocked as anyone. Yet this surprise was trivial compared to what Shulkin encountered as the VA secretary: a team of political appointees devoted to stopping anyone - including the secretary himself - who stood in the way of privatizing the organization and implementing their agenda. In this uninhibited memoir, Shulkin opens up about why the government has long struggled to get good medical care to military veterans and the plan he had for how to address these problems. This is a book about the commitment we make to the people who risk their lives for our country, how and why we've failed to honor it, and why the new administration may be taking us in the wrong direction.
©2019 David Shulkin (P)2019 PublicAffairs
The Return of Great Power Rivalry
Summary
The United States of America has been the most powerful country in the world for more than 70 years, but recently the US National Security Strategy declared that the return of great power competition with Russia and China is the greatest threat to US national security. Further, many analysts predict that America's autocratic rivals will have at least some success in disrupting - and, in the longer term, possibly even displacing - US global leadership. Brilliant and engagingly written, The Return of Great Power Rivalry argues that this conventional wisdom is wrong. Drawing on an extraordinary range of historical evidence and the works of figures like Herodotus, Machiavelli, and Montesquieu and combining it with cutting-edge social science research, Matthew Kroenig advances the riveting argument that democracies tend to excel in great power rivalries. He contends that democracies actually have unique economic, diplomatic, and military advantages in long-run geopolitical competitions. He considers autocratic advantages as well but shows that these are more than outweighed by their vulnerabilities. By advancing a "hard-power" argument for democracy, Kroenig demonstrates that despite its many problems, the US is better positioned to maintain a global leadership role than either Russia or China.
©2020 Matthew Kroenig (P)2020 Tantor
The Silence of Our Friends
Summary
Over the summer of 2013 Egypt witnessed its worst anti-Christian violence in centuries, with dozens of churches burned down by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Syria Islamist gunmen occupy the faith’s holiest site, while the Civil War has given Sunni extremists the chance to empty Christian villages through ‘religious cleansing’. And 10 years after the fall of Saddam, Iraq’s pre-war Christian population has fallen from a million to 200,000 and now barely clings on. Yet this greatest and most tragic of historical events of the 21st century has been met with near apathy in the West. In The Silence of Our Friends: The Extinction of Christianity in the Middle East, Spectator blogger and Catholic Herald deputy editor Ed West looks at the tragedy that has befallen Christian communities in the region where the faith first took hold, and asks whether there is anything the west can do, or if it will soon be the last Christmas in the land of St Paul.
©2014 Ed West (P)2014 Audible Studios