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.
The Shame of the Nation
Summary
Over the past several years, Jonathan Kozol has visited nearly 60 public schools. Virtually everywhere, he finds that conditions have grown worse for inner-city children in the 15 years since federal courts began dismantling the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. First, a state of nearly absolute apartheid now prevails in thousands of our schools. The segregation of Black children has reverted to a level that the nation has not seen since 1968. Few of the students in these schools know White children any longer. Second, a protomilitary form of discipline has now emerged, modeled on stick-and-carrot methods of behavioral control traditionally used in prisons but targeted exclusively at Black and Hispanic children. And third, as high-stakes testing takes on pathological and punitive dimensions, liberal education in our inner-city schools has been increasingly replaced by culturally barren and robotic methods of instruction that would be rejected out of hand by schools that serve the mainstream of society. Filled with the passionate voices of children and their teachers and some of the most revered and trusted leaders in the Black community, The Shame of the Nation is a triumph of firsthand reporting that pays tribute to those undefeated educators who persist against the odds, but directly challenges the chilling practices now being forced upon our urban systems by the Bush administration. In their place, Kozol offers a humane, dramatic challenge to our nation to fulfill at last the promise made some 50 years ago to all our youngest citizens.
©2005 Jonathan Kozol (P)2005 Random House, Inc., Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Welfare for the Rich
Summary
In today's ultra-polarized and highly partisan political environment, Welfare for the Rich is one of the rare books written to appeal to engaged and open-minded citizens from across the political spectrum. Welfare for the Rich is the first book to describe and analyze the many ways that federal and state governments provide handouts - subsidies, grants, tax credits, loan guarantees, price supports, and many other payouts - to millionaires, billionaires, and the companies they own and run. Many journalists, scholars, and activists have focused on one or more of these dysfunctional programs. A few of the most egregious examples have even become famous. But Welfare for the Rich is the first attempt to paint a comprehensive, easily accessible picture of a system largely designed by the richest Americans - through lobbyists, lawyers, political action committees, special interest groups, and other powerful influencers - with the specific goal of making sure the government keeps wealth and power flowing from the many to the few.
©2020 Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers (P)2020 Gildan Media
In the President's Secret Service
Summary
Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes in the president's inner circle. Ronald Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about the presidents, from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. Kessler portrays the dangers that agents face and how they carry out their missions---from how they are trained to how they spot and assess potential threats. With fly-on-the-wall perspective, he captures the drama and tension that characterize agents' lives. In this headline-grabbing book, Kessler discloses assassination attempts that have never before been revealed. He shares inside accounts of past assaults that have put the Secret Service to the test, including a heroic gun battle that took down the would-be assassins of Harry S. Truman, the devastating day that John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, and the swift actions that saved Ronald Reagan after he was shot. While Secret Service agents are brave and dedicated, Kessler exposes how Secret Service management in recent years has betrayed its mission by cutting corners, risking the assassination of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and their families. Given the lax standards, "It's a miracle we have not had a successful assassination," a current agent says. ,p>Since an assassination jeopardizes democracy itself, few agencies are as important as the Secret Service---and few subjects are as tantalizing as the inner sanctum of the White House. Only tight-lipped Secret Service agents know the real story, and Kessler is the only journalist to have won their trust.
©2009 Ronald Kessler (P)2009 Tantor
Pakistan on the Brink
Summary
What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.
The escalation of the war in Afghanistan has deepened a long-standing crisis in its neighbor to the east. Pakistan’s political and military leadership has exhibited neither the courage nor the will to carry out major reforms in the country’s foreign and economic policies. The Pakistani state still fosters many extremist jihadi fighters, even as the Pakistani Taliban directly threaten that very state. Social services are near collapse, law enforcement is abysmal, economic hardship is widespread, natural disasters occur with little government assistance, and the majority of the population has no security. During the first years of the Obama administration, the critical U.S.-Pakistan relationship has been in a state of virtual meltdown. American strategy has reflected contradictory policies, intense political infighting, and uncertainty about U.S. aims in the region.
All parties to the conflict in Afghanistan and to the deterioration in Pakistan have made terrible mistakes, acting with arrogance, hubris, rigidity, and stubbornness. While struggles for democracy are occurring in countries that have hitherto known nothing but dictatorship, South and Central Asia, the birthplace of Al Qaeda, remains beset by extremist groups and nuclear weapons. Yet Afghanistan and Pakistan have a greater impact on global stability than anywhere else, and the decisions made by America and the West in the coming years about Pakistan will affect the security and safety of the world.
For three decades, Ahmed Rashid has reported, written, and spoken about the wars and political events he has witnessed and has been lauded internationally for his levelheaded, informed insights. As an up-to-date briefing from one of the world’s leading experts, and as an exhortation toward peace and understanding, Pakistan on the Brink is Rashid’s most urgent book.
©2012 Ahmed Rashid (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
The Summer of Beer and Whiskey
Summary
Chris Von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life’s savings to found the St. Louis Browns, the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important - and funniest - figures in the game’s history. Von der Ahe picked up the team for one reason - to sell more beer. Then he helped gather a group of ragtag clubs into a maverick new league that would fight the haughty National League. Sneered at as The Beer and Whiskey Circuit,” their American Association ended up revitalizing the sport, bringing Americans of all classes back to the ballpark. Their recipe: Sunday games, booze, 25-cent-tickets, with teams comprised of exciting, renegade, and often drunk, players. Edward Achorn re-creates this wondrous and hilarious world and illuminates a long-forgotten turning point in American baseball history.
©2013 Edward Achorn (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy
Summary
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy is a critically acclaimed narrative that illuminates the globalization debates and reveals the key factors to success in global business. Tracing a T-shirt's life story from a Texas cotton field to a Chinese factory and back to a US storefront before arriving at the used clothing market in Africa, the book uncovers the political and economic forces at work in the global economy. Along the way, this fascinating exploration addresses a wealth of compelling questions about politics, trade, economics, ethics, and the impact of history on today's business landscape. Using a simple, everyday T-shirt as a lens through which to explore the business, economic, moral, and political complexities of globalization in a historical context, Travels encapsulates a number of complex issues into a single identifiable object that will strike a chord with listeners as they: investigate the sources of sustained competitive advantage in different industries; examine the global economic and political forces that explain trade patters between countries; analyze complex moral issues related to globalization and international business; and discover the importance of cultural and human elements in international trade.
©2009, 2015 Pietra Rivoli (P)2019 Gildan Media, LLC
The Tenth Parallel
Summary
The tenth parallel - the line of latitude seven hundred miles north of the equator - is a geographical and ideological front line where Christianity and Islam collide. More than half of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims live along the tenth parallel; so do sixty percent of the world’s 2 billion Christians. Here, in the buzzing megacities and swarming jungles of Africa and Asia, is where the two religions meet; their encounter is shaping the future of each faith, and of whole societies as well.An award-winning investigative journalist and poet, Eliza Griswold has spent the past seven years traveling between the equator and the tenth parallel: in Nigeria, the Sudan, and Somalia, and in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The stories she tells in The Tenth Parallel show us that religious conflicts are also conflicts about land, water, oil, and other natural resources, and that local and tribal issues are often shaped by religious ideas. Above all, she makes clear that, for the people she writes about, one’s sense of God is shaped by one’s place on earth; along the tenth parallel, faith is geographic and demographic.An urgent examination of the relationship between faith and worldly power, The Tenth Parallel is an essential work about the conflicts over religion, nationhood and natural resources that will remake the world in the years to come.
©2010 Eliza Griswold (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Landslide
Summary
The explosive tale of the unraveling of an American president. For six years, Ronald Reagan seemed invincible. But behind the glowing image of success was an administration courting disaster. In this spellbinding book, two top Washington reporters trace the origins of the Iran-Contra affair and the unraveling of the Reagan presidency, taking us deep inside a white house that cared more for stagecraft than statecraft and that mistook a landslide reelection for an unlimited mandate. Here is the startling illumination of power and personality, an explosive tale of a president’s unmaking - and a landmark book about the current state of the American presidency.
©2018 Jane Mayer, Doyle McManus (P)2020 Graymalkin Media LLC
Descent into Chaos
Summary
The #1
New York Times best-selling author provides a shocking analysis of the crisis in Pakistan and the renewed radicalism threatening Afghanistan and the West.
Ahmed Rashid is "Pakistan's best and bravest reporter" (Christopher Hitchens). His unique knowledge of this vast and complex region allows him a panoramic vision and nuance that no Western writer can emulate.
His book Taliban introduced American readers to the brutal regime that hijacked Afghanistan and harbored the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Now, Rashid examines Central Asia, and the corridors of power in Washington and Europe, to see how the promised nation building in the region has progressed.
His conclusions are devastating: an unstable and nuclear-armed Pakistan, a renewed al Qaeda profiting from a booming opium trade, and a Taliban resurgence and reconquest.
While Iraq continues to attract most of the American media and military might, Rashid argues that Pakistan and Afghanistan are where the conflict will finally be played out and that these failing states pose a graver threat to global security than does the Middle East.
Benazir Bhutto's assassination and the crisis on Pakistan are only the beginning. Rashid assesses what her death means for the region and the future. Rashid has unparalleled access to the figures in this global drama and provides up-to- the-minute analysis better than anyone else. Descent into Chaos will do for Central Asia what Thomas Ricks' Fiasco did for Iraq - offer a blistering critique of recent American policy and an impassioned call to correct our failed strategy in the region.
©2008 Ahmed Rashid (P)2008 Brilliance Audio
Colombia and Panama
Summary
Colombia in the 1980s became known for its role in the illegal drug trade, and for political instability and violence caused by this problem. But much of this is a recent development in Colombia's history that began in the 1530s, when Spain conquered local Indian kingdoms. This is the story of how Spain's "new Granada" evolved into Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, and modern Colombia. The World's Political Hot Spots series explains the basis of conflicts in some of the world's most politically sensitive areas. Many of these regions are in today's headlines, and tensions recently have become violent in virtually all of them. Each presentation covers up to 10 centuries of background, revealing how and why today's problems occur.
©1992 Carmichael & Carmichael, Inc. / Knowledge Products (P)1992 Carmichael & Carmichael, Inc. / Knowledge Products
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism
Summary
A brand-new installment in the beloved Politically Incorrect Guides! The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism is an honest look at the Catholic Church, including history and present controversies, from the author of the Bad Catholic's Guides. Back by popular demand, the best-selling Politically Incorrect Guides provide an unvarnished, unapologetic overview of controversial topics every American should understand. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism refutes misrepresentations and misconceptions about the Catholic Church and separates rumor from truth when it comes to Catholic traditions, faith, and controversial leaders.
©2016 John Zmirak (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
To Raise a Boy
Summary
“To Raise a Boy is a clear-eyed and sometimes shocking view of the world that we have created for boys, and a call for change.” (Peg Tyre, author of the New York Times best seller The Trouble with Boys) “A stunning work of investigative journalism that looks at the systems and structures that have failed our boys.” (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) A journalist’s searing investigation into how we teach boys to be men - and how we can do better. How will I raise my son to be different? This question gripped Washington Post investigative reporter Emma Brown, who was at home nursing her six-week-old son when the #MeToo movement erupted. In search of an answer, Brown traveled around the country, through towns urban and rural, affluent and distressed. In the course of her reporting, she interviewed hundreds of people - educators, parents, coaches, researchers, men, and boys - to understand the challenges boys face and how to address them. What Brown uncovered was shocking: 23 percent of boys believe men should use violence to get respect; 22 percent of an incoming college freshman class said they had already committed sexual violence; 58 percent of young adults said they’ve never had a conversation with their parents about respect and care in sexual relationships. Men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide. Nearly four million men experience sexual violence each year. From the reporter who brought Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s story to light, To Raise a Boy combines assiduous reporting, cutting-edge scientific research, and boys’ powerful testimonials to expose the crisis in young men’s emotional and physical health. Emma Brown connects the dots between educators, researchers, policy makers, and mental health professionals in this tour de force that upends everything we thought we knew about boys. Johns Hopkins chair of the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health Robert Blum says, “The story of boys has yet to be told, and I think it’s a really important story.” Urgent and revelatory, To Raise a Boy begins to tell that story.
©2021 Emma Brown. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
The American Revolution
Summary
The American Revolution signalled a great change in the course of world history and progress. From this colonial revolt sprouted ideals of liberty and democracy, and all the aspirations and ambitions of a new people. In this work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood discusses the character and consequences of the revolution, grounding the events and ideas that shaped the American consciousness.
©2003 Gordon S. Wood (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC
The Money Makers
Summary
Shortly after arriving in the White House in early 1933, Franklin Roosevelt took the United States off the gold standard. His opponents thought his decision unwise at best and ruinous at worst. But they could not have been more wrong. With The Money Makers, Eric Rauchway tells the absorbing story of how FDR and his advisors pulled the levers of monetary policy to save the domestic economy and propel the United States to unprecedented prosperity and superpower status. Drawing on the ideas of the brilliant British economist John Maynard Keynes, among others, Roosevelt created the conditions for recovery from the Great Depression, deploying economic policy to fight the biggest threat then facing the nation: deflation. Throughout the 1930s, he also had one eye on the increasingly dire situation in Europe. In order to defeat Hitler, Roosevelt turned again to monetary policy, sending dollars abroad to prop up the faltering economies of Britain and, beginning in 1941, the Soviet Union. FDR's fight against economic depression and his fight against fascism were indistinguishable. As Rauchway writes, "Roosevelt wanted to ensure more than business recovery; he wanted to restore American economic and moral strength so the US could defend civilization itself." The economic and military alliance he created proved unbeatable - and also provided the foundation for decades of postwar prosperity. Indeed, Rauchway argues that Roosevelt's greatest legacy was his monetary policy. Even today, the "Roosevelt dollar" remains both the symbol and the catalyst of America's vast economic power. The Money Makers restores the Roosevelt dollar to its central place in our understanding of FDR, the New Deal, and the economic history of 20th-century America. We forget this history at our own peril. In revealing the roots of our postwar prosperity, Rauchway shows how we can recapture the abundance of that period in our own.
©2015 Eric Rauchway (P)2015 Gildan Media LLC
The Hunting of Hillary
Summary
The Hunting of Hillary traces how an entire industry of hate, lies, and fear was created to persecute Hillary Clinton for decades and profit from it. In The Hunting of Hillary, presidential biographer Michael D’Antonio details the years of lies and insults heaped upon Hillary Clinton as she pursued a life devoted to politics and policy. The worst took the form of sexism and misogyny, much of it barely disguised. A pioneer for women, Clinton was burdened in ways no man ever was. Defined by a right-wing conspiracy, she couldn’t declare what was happening lest she be cast as weak and whiny. Nevertheless, she persisted and wouldn't let them define her. As The Hunting of Hillary makes clear, her achievements have been all the more remarkable for the unique opposition she encountered. The 2016 presidential election can only be understood in the context of the primal and primitive response of those who just couldn’t imagine that a woman might lead. For those who seek to understand the experience of the most accomplished woman in American politics, The Hunting of Hillary offers insight. For those who recognized what happened to her, it offers affirmation. And for those who hope to carry Clinton’s work into the future, it offers inspiration and instruction. A Macmillan Audio production from Thomas Dunne Books
©2020 Michael D'Antonio (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
Curveball
Summary
Curveball answers the crucial question of the Iraq war: How and why was America's intelligence so catastrophically wrong? In this dramatic and explosive audiobook, award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin delivers a narrative that takes us to Europe, the Middle East, and deep inside the CIA to find the truth - the truth about the lies and self-deception that led us into a military and political nightmare. In 1999 a mysterious Iraqi applies for political asylum in Munich. The young chemical engineer offers compelling testimony of Saddam Hussein's secret program to build weapons of mass destruction. He claims that the dictator has constructed germ factories on trucks, creating a deadly hell on wheels. His grateful German hosts pass his account to their CIA counterparts but deny the Americans access to their superstar informant. The Americans nevertheless give the defector his unforgettable code name: Curveball. The case lies dormant until after 9/11, when the Bush administration turns its attention to Iraq. Determined to invade, Bush’s people seize on Curveball’s story about mobile germ labs - even though it has begun to unravel. Ignoring a flood of warnings about the informant’s credibility, the CIA allows President Bush to cite Curveball’s unconfirmed claims in a State of the Union speech. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell highlights the Iraqi’s “eyewitness” account during his historic address to the UN Security Council. Yet the entire case is based on a fraud. America’s vast intelligence apparatus conjured up demons that did not exist. And the proof was clear before the war. Most of the events and conversations presented here have not been reported before. The portrayals - from an obdurate president to a bamboozled secretary of state to a bungling CIA director to case handlers conned by their snitch - are vivid and exciting. Curveball comes across like an investigative spy thriller. Fast-paced and engrossing, it is an inside story of intrigue and incompetence at the highest levels of government. At a time when Americans demand answers, this authoritative audiobook provides them with clarity and conviction. "Just when you thought the WMD debacle couldn’t get worse, here comes veteran Los Angeles Times national-security correspondent Drogin’s look at just who got the stories going in the first place.... Simultaneously sobering and infuriating - essential reading for those who follow the headlines." (Kirkus Reviews) "In this engrossing account, Los Angeles Times correspondent Drogin paints an intimate and revealing portrait of the workings and dysfunctions of the intelligence community." (Publishers Weekly)
©2007 Bob Drogin (P)2007 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Asedio: Trump en el punto de mira / Siege: Trump Under Fire
Summary
The Spanish-language edition of Siege: Trump Under Fire, the immediate sequel to Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (Fuego y furia: Dentro de la Casa Blanca de Trump). [English-language edition: Siege: Trump Under Fire / 9781250253828 (Henry Holt, 6/4/2019)] Michael Wolff, author of the bombshell best seller Fire and Fury (Fuego y Furia), once again takes us inside the Trump presidency to reveal a White House under siege. With Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff defined the first phase of the Trump administration; now, in Asedio, he has written an equally essential and explosive book about a presidency that is under fire from almost every side. A stunningly fresh narrative that begins just as Trump's second year as president is getting underway and ends with the delivery of the Mueller report, Siege reveals an administration that is perpetually beleaguered by investigations and a president who is increasingly volatile, erratic, and exposed. Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2019 Michael Wolff (P)2019 Random House Audio
Can a Catholic Be a Socialist?
Summary
Somehow, this long-discredited economic philosophy is making a comeback, not only on college campuses and political talk shows, but among sincere Catholics. Some think that it could be the answer to greed and globalism. Others even argue that it’s the best way to obey Christ’s command to help the poor. Let’s give socialism a fresh chance, they say. A democratic socialism, this time, friendly to religion and ordered to the common good like the church says the economy should be. In Can a Catholic Be a Socialist?, Trent Horn and Catherine R. Pakaluk refute this tempting but false notion. Drawing on scripture, history, Catholic social teaching, and basic economic reality, they show - beyond a doubt - that Catholicism and socialism are utterly incompatible. Along the way, they debunk many of the common claims used to keep afloat the fantasy of a Christian-socialist hybrid, including: Since the early Christians kept their property in common, so should we. Jesus would be in favor of an economic system that guarantees everyone food, health care, and education. The Church - especially Pope Francis - teaches that Catholics must find a “third way” between the extremes of communism and capitalism. Socialism would work if it were just done right, like in Sweden. Although there is no one “Catholic” economic system, Can a Catholic Be a Socialist? also helps you understand commonsense economic principles that are truly in line with the faith. For, we all should work for an economy that gives life: fostering prosperity and the common good while providing opportunities to practice temperance and charity. Praise for the book: "[A] deep dive into socialism's fatal flaws, using the sharp tools of Catholic social doctrine for the excavation." (George Weigel, distinguished senior fellow and William E. Simon chair in Catholic Studies Ethics and Public Policy Center) “[A] very helpful primer to a dangerous temptation. Concise, with the essentials.” (Kathryn Jean Lopez, senior fellow and editor, National Review)
©2020 Catholic Answers Press (P)2020 Catholic Answers Press
Lincoln's Spies
Summary
This major addition to the history of the Civil War is a “fast-paced, fact-rich account” (The Wall Street Journal) offering a detailed look at President Abraham Lincoln’s use of clandestine services and the secret battles waged by Union spies and agents to save the nation - filled with espionage, sabotage, and intrigue. Veteran CIA correspondent Douglas Waller delivers a riveting account of the heroes and misfits who carried out a shadow war of espionage and covert operations behind the Confederate battlefields. Lincoln’s Spies follows four agents from the North - three men and one woman - who informed Lincoln’s generals on the enemy positions for crucial battles and busted up clandestine Rebel networks. Famed detective Allan Pinkerton mounted a successful covert operation to slip Lincoln through Baltimore before his inauguration after he learns of an assassination attempt from his agents working undercover as Confederate soldiers. But he proved less than competent as General George McClellan’s spymaster, delivering faulty intelligence reports that overestimated Confederate strength. George Sharpe, an erudite New York lawyer, succeeded Pinkerton as spymaster for the Union’s Army of the Potomac. Sharpe deployed secret agents throughout the South, planted misinformation with Robert E. Lee’s army, and outpaced anything the enemy could field. Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia heiress who hated slavery and disapproved of secession, was one of Sharpe’s most successful agents. She ran a Union spy ring in Richmond out of her mansion with dozens of agents feeding her military and political secrets that she funneled to General Ulysses S. Grant as his army closed in on the Confederate capital. Van Lew became one of the unsung heroes of history. Lafayette Baker was a handsome Union officer with a controversial past, whose agents clashed with Pinkerton’s operatives. He assembled a retinue of disreputable spies, thieves, and prostitutes to root out traitors in Washington, DC. But he failed at his most important mission: uncovering the threat to Lincoln from John Wilkes Booth and his gang. Behind these operatives was Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, who was an avid consumer of intelligence and a ruthless aficionado of clandestine warfare, willing to take whatever chances necessary to win the war. Lincoln’s Spies is a “meticulous chronicle of all facets of Lincoln’s war effort” (Kirkus Reviews) and an excellent choice for those wanting “a cracking good tale” (Publishers Weekly) of espionage in the Civil War. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Douglas Waller (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
The Hands of War
Summary
An inspiring account from one of history’s darkest moments. Marione Ingram grew up in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was German. She was Jewish. She was a survivor. This is her story. As a young girl, Marione was aware that people of the Jewish faith were regarded as outsiders, the supposed root of Germany’s many problems. She grew up in an apartment building where neighbors were more than happy to report Jews to the Gestapo. Marione’s mother attempted suicide after receiving a deportation notice - Marione revived her, but then the bombs started to fall, as the Allies leveled the city in eight straight days of bombings. Somehow Marione and her mother and sister survived the devastating firestorms - more than 40,000 perished, and almost the same number were wounded. Marione and her family miraculously escaped and sought shelter with a contact in the countryside, who grudgingly agreed to house them in a shed for more than a year. With the war drawing to a close, they went west, back to Hamburg. There they encountered Allied troops, who reinstalled the local government (made up of ex-Nazis) in order to keep order in the country. Life took on the air of what it used to be. Jews were still second-class citizens. Marione eventually took shelter at a children’s home in a mansion once owned by wealthy Jewish bankers. There she met Uri, a troubled orphan and another one of the "Children of Blankenese". Uri’s story, a bleak tale of life in the concentration camps, explores a different side of the Nazi terror in Germany. In this stirring account of World War II through the eyes of a child, the author's eloquent narrative will elicit compassion from listeners.
©2012 Marione Ingram (P)2013 Audible, Inc.