Christopher Douyard has narrated 5 audiobooks on Listento.it by 5 authors. The most-rated is Enemy of the People.
Rocket Age
Summary
Rocket Age traces the history of spaceflight innovation from Robert Goddard's early experiments with liquid fuel rockets, through World War II and the work of Wernher von Braun and his German engineers, on to the postwar improvements made by Sergei Korolev and his team in the Soviet Union, and culminating with the historic moon walk made by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969. From designers to engineers, and even communication specialists and the builders who assembled these towering rockets, hundreds of thousands of people worked on getting humans to the moon, yet only a few have been recognized for their contributions. George D. Morgan sets the record straight by giving these forgotten figures of space travel their due. The son of rocket scientists who worked directly on NASA projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, Morgan gives behind-the-scenes details on the famous missions, including a rare interview with Dieter Huzel-Wernher von Braun's right-hand man and a chief engineer on every major manned space program. Even the most voracious readers of US space flight history will find new things to discover in this book. Rocket Age shines a light on those that have for too long been left out of the picture of the race to land on the moon.
©2020 George D. Morgan (P)2020 Tantor
Us Versus Them
Summary
Crime and gentrification are hot-button issues that easily polarize racially diverse neighborhoods. How do residents, activists, and politicians navigate the thorny politics of race as they fight crime or resist gentrification? And do conflicts over competing visions of neighborhood change necessarily divide activists into racially homogeneous camps, or can they produce more complex alliances and divisions? In Us Versus Them, Jan Doering answers these questions through an in-depth study of two Chicago neighborhoods. Drawing on three and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork, Doering examines how activists and community leaders clashed and collaborated as they launched new initiatives, built coalitions, appeased critics, and discredited opponents. At the heart of these political maneuvers, he uncovers a ceaseless battle over racial meanings that unfolded as residents strove to make local initiatives and urban change appear racially benign or malignant. A thoughtful and clear-eyed contribution to the field, Us Versus Them reveals the deep impact that competing racial meanings have on the fabric of community and the direction of neighborhood change.
©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2020 Tantor
A Thousand May Fall
Summary
The Civil War ended more than 150 years ago, yet our nation remains fiercely divided over its enduring legacies. In A Thousand May Fall, Pulitzer Prize finalist Brian Matthew Jordan returns us to the war itself. Creating an intimate, absorbing chronicle from the ordinary soldier's perspective, he allows us to see the Civil War anew - and through unexpected eyes. At the heart of Jordan's vital account is the 107th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which was at once representative and exceptional. Its ranks weathered the human ordeal of war in painstakingly routine ways, fighting in two defining battles, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, each time in the thick of the killing. But the men of the 107th were not lauded as heroes. Most of them were ethnic Germans, set apart by language and identity, and their loyalties were regularly questioned by a nativist Northern press. In the course of its service, the 107th Ohio was decimated five times over, and although one of its members earned the Medal of Honor, few others achieved any lasting distinction. Reclaiming these men for posterity, Jordan reveals that even as they endured the horrible extremes of war, the Ohioans contemplated the deeper meanings of the conflict at every turn - from personal questions of citizenship and belonging to the overriding matter of slavery and emancipation.
©2021 Brian Matthew Jordan (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Institution Building in Weak States
Summary
In Institution Building in Weak States, Andrew Radin argues that the international community's approach to building state institutions needs its own reform. This innovative book proposes a new strategy, rooted in a rigorous analysis of recent missions. In contrast to the common strategy of foreign interveners - imposing models drawn from Western countries - Radin shows how pursuing incremental change that accommodates local political interests is more likely to produce effective, accountable, and law-abiding institutions. Drawing on extensive field research and original interviews, Radin examines efforts to reform the central government, military, and police in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Iraq, and Timor-Leste. Based on his own experience in defense reform in Ukraine after 2014, Radin also draws parallels with efforts to improve state institutions outside of post-conflict societies. Institution Building in Weak States introduces a domestic opposition theory that better explains why institution building fails and what is required to make it work. With actionable recommendations for smarter policy, the book offers an important corrective for scholars and practitioners of post-conflict missions, international development, peacebuilding, and security cooperation.
©2020 The University of Georgia Press (P)2020 Tantor
Enemy of the People
Summary
A stirring true story of the journalists who dared to oppose Hitler - and the campaign waged against them. After serving in the First World War, Adolf Hitler encountered a serious obstacle to his plotting for power when the Munich Post, drawing on sources within the Nazi Party, began tracking the corruption and dark dreams of his inner circle. With leaked documents from Hitler's political rivals, who were shocked by his violent rhetoric and fearing the worst, the Post battled Hitler for ownership of the truth. After starting with libel lawsuits and anti-press propaganda and proceeding to assaults on editors at the Post, the Nazis finally resorted to raiding the paper's offices, shutting production down, and rounding up the staff. Enemy of the People brilliantly captures the dangerous times of Germany's Weimar era and the courage of the free press - people driven to speak louder than the enemy himself.
©2019 Terrence Petty (P)2020 Tantor