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.
Reluctant Hero
Summary
After nearly 10 years of conflicted silence, a celebrated 9/11 survivor describes what it was like for him living with memories of 9/11 for the past decade. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Michael Benfante went to work, just like he had day after day, at his office on 81st floor in the World Trade Center North Tower. Moments after the first plane struck, just 12 floors above him, Benfante organized his terrified employees, getting them out of the office and moving down the stairwells. On his way down, he and another co-worker encountered a woman in a wheelchair on the 68th floor. Benfante, the woman, and Benfante's co-worker then embarked on a 96-minute odyssey of escape - the two men carrying the woman down 68 flights of stairs, out of the North Tower, and into an ambulance that rushed her to safety just minutes before the tower imploded. A CBS video camera caught Benfante just as he got out of the building, and almost immediately, the national media came calling. Benfante sat on the couch with Oprah Winfrey, where she hailed him as a hero. Almost one year to the day after 9/11, Benfante got married, and the woman in the wheelchair sat in the front row. That's the storybook ending. But in the aftermath of 9/11, Benfante began a journey fraught with wrenching personal challenges of critical, emotional, and psychological depth which he captures here in Reluctant Hero. Benfante shares the trappings of his public heroism, the loneliness of his private anguish, and the hope he finds for himself and for us. Because all of us - whether we were in the towers in New York City or someplace else - are 9/11 survivors.
©2011 Michael Benfante and David Hollander (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Broken Contract
Summary
A democracy should reflect the views of its citizens and offer a direct connection between government and those it serves. So why, more than ever, does it seem as if our government exists in its own bubble, detached from us? In reality, our democracy is not performing as it should, which has left us fed up with a system we no longer trust. Moreover, we lack a mechanism to fix what’s broken, because there is no incentive for politicians and civil servants to make government more accountable, efficient, and representative. Saqib Iqbal Qureshi is calling on his fellow citizens to assert their voice in the dialogue of democracy. In The Broken Contract, he puts forth solutions - many involving easy-to-implement technologies. It’s up to us to turn the ship around. If you’re looking for the best way to start a conversation with your elected and unelected officials, this is the book you need.
©2020 Saqib Iqbal Qureshi (P)2020 Lioncrest Publishing - Saqib Iqbal Qureshi
La peine de mort
Summary
Aujourd'hui l'abolition de la peine de mort sonne comme une évidence en France, quand il suffit pourtant de traverser l'Atlantique pour constater qu'aux Etats-Unis, la plus grande démocratie du monde, le droit de condamner à mort reste considéré comme une prérogative légitime des états. Nous découvrons ici tout le cheminement qu'il a été nécessaire d'accomplir en France afin de parvenir à notre "évidence" actuelle. Septembre 1981, la Gauche pour la première fois au pouvoir depuis l'avènement de la Vème République, souhaite s'atteler immédiatement au projet de loi emblématique de la campagne présidentielle : l'abolition de la peine de mort. Les passions se rencontrent ici dans l'Hémicycle, où une page d'Histoire se tourne. L'éloquence et la conviction des grands orateurs du siècle prennent toute leur ampleur dans ce débat idéologique et humaniste de premier ordre. Les leaders indéfectibles du courant Abolitionniste tels que Robert Badinter offrent à l'auditeur le plaidoyer final et décisif qui donne enfin à la France un système judiciaire non meurtrier.
(p) 1981 Assemblée Nationale - 2010 Groupe Frémeaux Colombini SAS© 2010 Assemblée Nationale - Frémeaux & Associés
Stalin
Summary
This audiobook narrated by Robbie Stevens tells the spellbinding story of Stalin in his formative years This is the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin from his birth to the October Revolution of 1917, a panoramic and often chilling account of how an impoverished, idealistic youth from the provinces of tsarist Russia was transformed into a cunning and fearsome outlaw who would one day become one of the 20th century's most ruthless dictators. In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of new archival evidence from Stalin's early years in the Caucasus to chart the psychological metamorphosis of the young Stalin, taking listeners from his boyhood as a Georgian nationalist and romantic poet, through his harsh years of schooling, to his commitment to violent engagement in the underground movement to topple the tsarist autocracy. Stalin emerges as an ambitious climber within the Bolshevik ranks, a resourceful leader of a small terrorist band, and a writer and thinker who was deeply engaged with some of the most incendiary debates of his time. A landmark achievement, Stalin paints an unforgettable portrait of a driven young man who abandoned his religious faith to become a skilled political operative and a single-minded and ruthless rebel. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Ronald Grigor Suny (P)2020 Princeton University Press
The Trump White House
Summary
The unvarnished and unbiased inside story of President Donald Trump and his White House by New York Times best-selling author Ronald Kessler Based on exclusive interviews with the president and his staff, The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game tells the real story of what Donald Trump is like, who influences him, how he makes decisions, what he says about the people around him, and how he operates when the television lights go off, while portraying the inside story of the successes that have already brought solid results as well as the stumbles that have turned off even longtime supporters and undercut his agenda. Never before has an American president had so much impact on the country and the world in so short a time as Donald Trump. Yet no president has stirred so much controversy, dominating media coverage and conversation both pro and con. Months after Trump took office, consumer confidence hit a 17-year high, unemployment plummeted to the lowest level in 17 years, and the stock market zoomed to repeated record highs. At the same time, ISIS was nearly defeated, Arab countries banded together to stop financing terrorists and promoting radical Islamic ideology, and Trump's decision to send missiles into Syria and his strident warnings to North Koerean leader Kim Jong-un made it clear to adversaries that they take on the United States at their peril. Yet for all the media coverage, Trump remains a cipher. Ronald Kessler has known Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for two decades and understands him better than any other journalist. Crammed with media-grabbing revelations, The Trump White House is the unvarnished and unbiased inside story that answers the question: Who is Donald Trump?
©2018 Ronald Kessler (P)2018 Random House Audio
White House Usher
Summary
From January 1986 until March 1994, Chris Emery was part of one of the most unique services in the U.S. government - an usher in the White House. For more than 200 years, a small office has operated on the state floor of the White House executive residence. Known as the Usher's Office, whose mission is to accommodate the personal needs of the first family, and to make the White House feel like a home. The Usher's Office is the managing office of the executive residence and its staff of 90-plus. The staff consists of butlers, carpenters, grounds personnel, electricians, painters, plumbers, florists, maids, housemen, cooks, chefs, storekeepers, curators, calligraphers, doormen, and administrative support. Ushers work closely with the first family, senior staff, social office, press office, secret service agency, and military leaders to carry out White House functions: luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions, meetings, conferences, and more. Chris Emery was only the 18th White House usher since 1891, and had the honor and privilege to serve presidential families for three years during the Reagan administration, four years for President H. W. Bush, and 14 months under President Clinton. His vignettes recreate intimate White House happenings from an insider’s viewpoint. Chris Emery was the only White House usher to be terminated in the 20th century. Tune in to find out which first lady fired him.... “With his book, White House Usher: Stories from the Inside, former usher Chris Emery gives his readers a peek inside what happens upstairs at the White House. Chris’ anecdotes tell a rich story of how America’s house really is the first families’ home. I loved my trip down memory lane.” (former first lady Barbara Bush, October 2017)
©2018 Christopher B. Emery (P)2020 Christopher B. Emery
Unlimited Access
Summary
As one of two FBI agents posted at the White House to perform background checks on appointees, FBI Special Agent Gary Aldrich intended to close his eventful career in peace and dignity. But what he witnessed during the Clinton administration left him deeply troubled, then alarmed, and finally, so outraged that he felt compelled to leave. Unlimited Access is Aldrich's electrifying expose of a presidential administration with a great deal to hide and willing to put America at risk to keep it hidden. Aldrich describes how a comprehensive security system that had been perfected through six presidencies was systematically dismantled by the Clintons so they could bring friends into the White House who otherwise would have been barred by legal problems, some prosecutable. A New York Times best seller.
©1996 Gary Aldrich (P)1997 Blackstone Audio Inc.
An Improbable Friendship
Summary
An Improbable Friendship is the dual biography of Israeli Ruth Dayan, now 98, who was Moshe Dayan's wife for 37 years, and Palestinian journalist Raymonda Tawil, Yasser Arafat's mother-in-law, now 74. It reveals for the first time the two women's surprising and secret 40-year friendship and delivers the story of their extraordinary and turbulent lives growing up in a war-torn country. Based on personal interviews, diaries, and journals drawn from both women - Ruth lives today in Tel Aviv, Raymonda in Malta - author Anthony David delivers a fast-paced, fascinating narrative that is a beautiful story of reconciliation and hope in a climate of endless conflict. By experiencing their stories and following their budding relationship, which began after the Six-Day War in 1967, we learn the behind-the-scenes, undisclosed history of the Middle East's most influential leaders from two prominent women on either side of the ongoing conflict. An award-winning biographer and historian, Anthony David brings us the story of unexpected friendship while he discovers the true pasts of two outstanding women. Their story gives voice to Israelis and Palestinians caught in the Middle East conflict and holds a persistent faith in a future of peace.
©2015 Anthony David (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Guilty as Sin
Summary
An exciting new book from #1 New York Times bestselling author Edward Klein!
When FBI Director James Comey announced in July that Hillary Clinton would not be indicted for mishandling classified information, America was stunned.
Had the scandal-happy Clintons escaped justice once again? Not so fast, says investigative reporter and bestselling author Ed Klein. There is far more behind Comey's shocking press conference than meets the eye - and a minefield of email evidence between Hillary and the White House.
In his astonishing new book, Klein uncovers the real story behind Hillary's email scandals and the dirty political games that have kept her one step ahead of the law - for now. Klein reveals what the FBI's team of 150+ investigators really found on Clinton's server. How Comey originally threatened to resign over White House attempts to intervene in the investigation, and his secret plan to go around the Justice Department if needed. How an unprecedented Congressional investigation during an election year is uncovering new shocking evidence of corruption on a level some would call treason. And what Bill and Hillary still have left in their bag of tricks in their desperate quest to get back into the Oval Office.
©2016 Edward Klein. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
68
Summary
El movimiento estudiantil del 68, nadie lo duda, cambió para siempre a México. Ahora en audiolibro... Paco Ignacio Taibo II ha rescatado sus notas de entonces y las reflexiones que han venido después, para evitar que el tiempo desgaste el detalle de lo ocurrido y mantener viva la memoria de una generación con la voluntad de cambiar este país a través de la movilización social. En 68 Taibo II busca dar respuesta a algunas preguntas que, a más de cuatro décadas, rondan en la cabeza de quienes vivieron los sucesos, y de las generaciones posteriores que no quieren ignorar de dónde venimos. "¿Cómo se cocinó la magia? ¿De dónde salieron los 300,000 estudiantes que llegaron al Zócalo el día de la manifestación del silencio? ¿Quiénes estaban detrás de la puerta de la prepa uno el día del bazukazo? ¿Cómo regresan envueltos en rumores los nombres de los desertores y de los suicidas? ¿Dónde arrojaron a nuestros muertos?..." Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish
©2012 Paco Ignacio Taibo II (P)2019 Editorial Planeta México
They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else
Summary
Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events. In this definitive narrative history, Ronald Suny cuts through nationalist myths, propaganda, and denial to provide an unmatched account of when, how, and why the atrocities of 1915-1916 were committed. As it lost territory during the war, the Ottoman Empire was becoming a more homogenous Turkic-Muslim state, but it still contained large non-Muslim communities, including the Christian Armenians. The Young Turk leaders of the empire believed that the Armenians were internal enemies secretly allied to Russia and plotting to win an independent state. Suny shows that the great majority of Armenians were in truth loyal subjects who wanted to remain in the empire. But the Young Turks, steeped in imperial anxiety and anti-Armenian bias, became convinced that the survival of the state depended on the elimination of the Armenians. Suny is the first to explore the psychological factors as well as the international and domestic events that helped lead to genocide. Drawing on archival documents and eyewitness accounts, this is an unforgettable chronicle of a cataclysm that set a tragic pattern for a century of genocide and crimes against humanity.
©2015 Princeton University Press (P)2015 Audible, Inc.
Except for Palestine
Summary
In this major work of daring criticism and analysis, scholar and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill and Israel-Palestine expert Mitchell Plitnick spotlight how holding fast to one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies reflects the truth-bending grip of authoritarianism on both Israel and the United States. Except for Palestine deftly argues that progressives and liberals who oppose regressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, and other issues must extend these core principles to the oppression of Palestinians. In doing so, the authors take seriously the political concerns and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians, demonstrating the extent to which US policy has made peace harder to attain. Hill and Plitnick provide a timely and essential intervention by examining multiple dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conversation, including Israel's growing disdain for democracy, the effects of occupation on Palestine, the siege of Gaza, diminishing American funding for Palestinian relief, and the campaign to stigmatize any critique of Israeli occupation. Except for Palestine is a searing polemic and a cri de coeur for elected officials, activists, and everyday citizens alike to align their beliefs and politics with their values.
©2021 Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
The Rise of Andrew Jackson
Summary
The story of Andrew Jackson's improbable ascent to the White House, centered on the handlers and propagandists who made it possible. Andrew Jackson was volatile and prone to violence, and well into his 40s, his sole claim on the public's affections derived from his victory in a 30-minute battle at New Orleans in early 1815. Yet those in his immediate circle believed he was a great man who should be president of the United States. Jackson's election in 1828 is usually viewed as a result of the expansion of democracy. Historians David and Jeanne Heidler argue that he actually owed his victory to his closest supporters, who wrote hagiographies of him, founded newspapers to savage his enemies, and built a political network that was always on message. In transforming a difficult man into a paragon of republican virtue, the Jacksonites exploded the old order and created a mode of electioneering that has been mimicked ever since. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler (P)2018 Hachette Audio
Time Out
Summary
The riveting true story of the crime, punishment, and transformation of a Seattle boy who came of age inside the adult prison system and who, once on the outside, rebuilt a new life as a man. After twenty years of incarceration, little was familiar to newly released Willard Jimerson. His once-gritty city was a technology hub. An African American was president. And with a six-inch screen, he could access a vastly changed world. From Claudia Rowe, author of The Spider and the Fly, comes the story of the life Willard took and the life taken from Willard, the story of everything he had to regain and was yet to discover. Claudia Rowe’s Time Out is part of Missing, a collection of six true stories about finding, restoring, or accepting the losses that define our lives - from the mysterious to the inspiring. Each story can be listened to in a single sitting.
©2018 Claudia Rowe (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved
The Strenuous Life
Summary
The Strenuous Life is a collection of essays and speeches by American President Theodore Roosevelt including the title speech "The Strenuous Life" in which he argues that strenuous effort and overcoming hardship were ideals to be embraced by Americans for the betterment of the nation. Also included are the following essays and speeches: "Expansion and Peace", "Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers", "Fellow-Feeling as a Political Factor", "Civic Helpfulness", "Character and Success", "The Eighth and Ninth Commandments in Politics", "The Best and the Good", "Promise and Performance", "The American Boy", "Military Preparedness and Unprepared-Ness", "Admiral Dewey", "Grant", "The Two Americas", "Manhood and Statehood", "Brotherhood and the Heroic Virtues", "National Duties", "The Labor Question", and "Christian Citizenship".
Public Domain (P)2019 HN Publishing
The Washington War
Summary
A Team of Rivals for World War II - the inside story of how FDR and the towering personalities around him waged war in the corridors of Washington, DC, to secure ultimate victory on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. The Washington War is the story of how the Second World War was fought and won in the capital’s halls of power - and how the United States, which in December 1941 had a nominal army and a decimated naval fleet, was able in only 30 months to fling huge forces onto the European continent and shortly thereafter shatter Imperial Japan’s Pacific strongholds. Three quarters of a century after the overwhelming defeat of the totalitarian Axis forces, the terrifying, razor-thin calculus on which so many critical decisions turned has been forgotten - but had any of these debates gone the other way, the outcome of the war could have been far different: The army in August 1941, about to be disbanded, saved by a single vote. Production plans that would have delayed adequate war matériel for years after Pearl Harbor, circumvented by one uncompromising man’s courage and drive. The delicate ballet that precluded a separate peace between Stalin and Hitler. The almost-adopted strategy to stage D-Day at a fatally different time and place. It was all a breathtakingly close-run thing, again and again. Renowned historian James Lacey takes listeners behind the scenes in the cabinet rooms, the Pentagon, the Oval Office, and Hyde Park, and at the pivotal conferences - Campobello Island, Casablanca, Tehran - as these disputes raged. Here are colorful portraits of the great figures - and forgotten geniuses - of the day: New Dealers versus industrialists, political power brokers versus the generals, Churchill and the British high command versus the US chiefs of staff, innovators versus entrenched bureaucrats...with the master manipulator, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the center, setting his brawling patriots one against the other and promoting and capitalizing on the furious turf wars. Based on years of research and extensive, previously untapped archival resources, The Washington War is the first integrated, comprehensive chronicle of how all these elements - and towering personalities - clashed and ultimately coalesced at each vital turning point, the definitive account of Washington at real war and the titanic political and bureaucratic infighting that miraculously led to final victory. Includes a bonus PDF of a who's who of the Washington Warriors. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 James Lacey (P)2019 Random House Audio
Small Arms
Summary
Why do terrorist organizations use children to support their cause and carry out their activities? Small Arms uncovers the brutal truth behind the mobilization of children by terrorist groups. Mia Bloom and John Horgan show us the grim underbelly of society that allows and even encourages the use of children to conduct terrorist activities. They provide listeners with the who, what, when, why, and how of this increasingly concerning situation, illuminating a phenomenon that to most of us seems abhorrent. And yet, they argue, for terrorist groups the use of children carries many benefits. Children possess skills that adults lack. They often bring innovation and creativity. Children are, in fact, a superb demographic from which to recruit if you are a terrorist. Small Arms answers questions about recruitment strategies and tactics, determines what makes a child terrorist and what makes him or her different from an adult one, and charts the ways in which organizations use them. The unconventional focus on child and youth militants allows the authors to, in essence, give us a biography of the child terrorist and the organizations that use them. We are taken inside the mind of the adult and the child to witness that which perhaps most scares us. The book is published by Cornell University Press. "A timely book on a critical and long-neglected subject…sheds new light on this odious and, sadly, increasingly prevalent phenomenon." (Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown University) "Highly recommended for anyone interested in how terrorism and terrorists evolve." (Jessica Stern, Boston University)
©2019 Cornell University (P)2019 Redwood Audiobooks
Building the Great Society
Summary
The author of Lincoln's Boys takes us inside Lyndon Johnson's White House to show how the legendary Great Society programs were actually put into practice: Team of Rivals for LBJ. The personalities behind every burst of 1960s liberal reform - from civil rights and immigration reform, to Medicare and Head Start - and what we'll lose if those programs are dismantled. LBJ's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are the stuff of legend: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and environmental reform. But what happened after the bills passed? One man could not and did not go it alone. Joshua Zeitz reanimates the creative and contentious atmosphere inside Johnson's White House as a talented and energetic group of advisers made LBJ's vision a reality. They desegregated public and private institutions throughout one third of the United States; built Medicare and Medicaid from the ground up in one year; launched federal funding for public education; provided food support for millions of poor children and adults; and launched public television and radio, all in the space of five years, even as Vietnam strained the administration's credibility and budget. Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti, Joe Califano, Harry McPherson and the other staff members who comprised LBJ's inner circle were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, equally skilled in the art of accumulating power or throwing a sharp elbow. Building the Great Society is the story of how one of the most competent White House staffs in American history - serving one of the most complicated presidents ever to occupy the Oval Office - fundamentally changed everyday life for millions of citizens and forged a legacy of compassionate and interventionist government.
©2018 Joshua Zeitz (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Hollywood Double Agent
Summary
The Cold War and the Golden Age of Hollywood meet in this story of the remarkable career of Boris Morros, film producer and Russian double agent. Boris Morros was a major figure in the 1930s and 1940s. The head of music at Paramount, nominated for Academy Awards, he then went on to produce his own films with Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, and others. But as J. Edgar Hoover would discover, these successes were a cover for one of the most incredible espionage tales in the history of the Cold War-Boris Morros also worked for Russian intelligence. Morros's assignments took him to the White House, the Vatican, and deep behind the Iron Curtain. The high-level intelligence he provided the KGB included military secrets and compromising information on prominent Americans: His friends. But in 1947, Morros flipped. At the height of the McCarthy era, he played a leading role in a deadly tale. Jonathan Gill's Hollywood Double Agent is an extraordinary story about Russian spies at the heart of American culture and politics, and one man caught in the middle of the Cold War.
©2020 Jonathan Gill. Published in 2020 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS, New York. All rights reserved (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Promises to Keep
Summary
New York Times Best Seller Joe Biden, the author of Promise Me, Dad, tells the story of his extraordinary life and career prior to his emergence as Barack Obama’s beloved, influential vice president. “Nearly 40 years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe that my chosen profession is a noble calling.” - Joe Biden For more than 45 years, Vice President Joe Biden has both witnessed and participated in a momentous epoch of American history. In Promises to Keep, Joe Biden reveals what these experiences taught him about himself, his colleagues, and the institutions of government. With his customary candor and wit, Biden movingly recounts growing up in a staunchly Catholic multigenerational household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware; overcoming personal tragedy, life-threatening illness, and career setbacks; his relationships with presidents, with world leaders, and with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; and his leadership of powerful Senate committees. Through these and other recollections, Biden describes how the guiding principles he learned early in life - to work to make people’s lives better; to honor family and faith; to value persistence, candor, and honesty - are the foundation on which he has based his life’s work as husband, father, and public servant. Promises to Keep is an intimate series of reflections from a public servant who surmounted numerous challenges to become one of our most effective leaders and who refuses to be cynical about politics. It is also a stirring testament to the promise of the United States. Praise for Promises to Keep “A ripping good read...Biden is a master storyteller and has stories worth telling.” (The Christian Science Monitor) “A compelling personal story.” (The New York Times) “Moving...[Biden’s] response to tragedy and near death [is] both admirable and likable.” (Salon)
©2008 Random House Audio (P)2008 Joe Biden