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A Call to Arms
- Mobilizing America for World War II
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 35 hrs and 18 mins
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Publisher's summary
The colossal scale of World War II required a mobilization effort greater than anything attempted in all of the world's history. The United States had to fight a war across two oceans and three continents - and to do so it had to build and equip a military that was all but nonexistent before the war began. Never in the nation's history did it have to create, outfit, transport, and supply huge armies, navies, and air forces on so many distant and disparate fronts.The Axis powers might have fielded better trained soldiers, better weapons, better tanks and aircraft. But they could not match American productivity. America buried its enemies in aircraft, ships, tanks, and guns; in this sense, American industry, and American workers, won World War II. The scale of effort was titanic, and the result historic. Not only did it determine the outcome of the war, but it transformed the American economy and society. Maury Klein's A Call to Arms is the first narrative history of this epic struggle, told by a master historian, and renders the transformation of America with a depth and detail never available before.
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Nothing to Fear
- FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America
- By: Adam Cohen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history - the tense, feverish first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government.
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Important contribution
- By R.S. on 03-05-09
By: Adam Cohen
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The Oil Kings
- How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East
- By: Andrew Scott Cooper
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Struggling with a recession... European nations at risk of defaulting on their loans... A possible global financial crisis. It happened before, in the 1970s. The Oil Kings is the story of how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs. Brilliantly reported and filled with astonishing details about some of the key figures of the time, this is the history of an era that we thought we knew, an era whose momentous reverberations still influence events at home and abroad today.
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Great story, but ignores the economic side
- By Walter on 04-15-12
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Racing for the Bomb
- The True Story of General Leslie R. Groves, the Man Behind the Birth of the Atomic Age
- By: Robert S. Norris
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 23 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Revealed for the first time in Racing for the Bomb, Groves played a crucial and decisive role in the planning, timing, and targeting of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions. Norris offers new insights into the complex and controversial questions surrounding the decision to drop the bomb in Japan and Groves' actions during World War II, which had a lasting imprint on the nuclear age and the Cold War that followed.
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 04-22-15
By: Robert S. Norris
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Divided Highways
- Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life
- By: Tom Lewis
- Narrated by: Jim D. Johnston
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape.
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Lots of interesting facts. Poor narration
- By Richard on 06-01-21
By: Tom Lewis
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Chasing Gold
- The Incredible Story of How the Nazis Stole Europe's Bullion
- By: George M. Taber
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In the highly anticipated new book from the best-selling author of Judgment of Paris,George M. Taber reveals the integral role gold played in World War II, from its influence on the Nazi war machine to the ultimate triumph by the Allies and the fall of Berlin.
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Riveting
- By duane barker on 02-16-15
By: George M. Taber
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The Forgotten Man
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she turns to the neglected and moving stories of individual Americans, and shows how they helped establish the steadfast character we developed as a nation.
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a story of forgotten times
- By Debb Robinson on 10-11-07
By: Amity Shlaes
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The World Remade
- America in World War I
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 24 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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After years of bitter debate, the United States declared war on Imperial Germany on April 6, 1917, plunging the country into the savage European conflict that would redraw the map of the continent - and the globe. The World Remade is an engrossing chronicle of America's pivotal, still controversial intervention into World War I, encompassing the tumultuous politics and towering historical figures that defined the era and forged the future.
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"100% America" - a disturbing place to be
- By DPM on 04-01-17
By: G. J. Meyer
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Herbert Hoover
- A Life
- By: Glen Jeansonne
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Prize-winning historian Glen Jeansonne delves into the life of our most misunderstood president, offering up a surprising new portrait of Herbert Hoover - dismissing previous assumptions and revealing a political Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and the most resourceful American since Benjamin Franklin.
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Thought provoking
- By Jean on 10-26-16
By: Glen Jeansonne
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The Tycoons
- How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy
- By: Charles R. Morris
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 14 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The modern American economy was the creation of four men: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan. They were the giants of the Gilded Age, a moment of riotous growth that established America as the richest, most inventive, and most productive country on the planet. Acclaimed author Charles R. Morris vividly brings these men and their times to life. The Tycoons tells the incredible story of how these four determined men wrenched the economy into the modern age, inventing a nation of full economic participation that could not have been imagined earlier.
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Good book wrong title
- By Hectoris on 10-06-16
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Meet You in Hell
- Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is history that reads like fiction: the riveting story of two founding fathers of American industry, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers' strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Author Les Standiford begins at the bitter end, when the dying Carnegie proposes a final meeting after two decades of separation. Frick's reply: "Tell him that I'll meet him in hell."
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an extended journalistic tour
- By D. Littman on 06-08-05
By: Les Standiford
What listeners say about A Call to Arms
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matthew Taylor
- 04-15-19
Great story but oh jeez.......WHY this NARRATOR?
I am a long, long time listener to many audiobooks, especially of this period in American history, but how could the director of this performance choose that narrator?!?!?! In general, the voice is all wrong for the subject matter- too young. I could not get over it from the beginning. It lacks gravitas for the subject material. Also, his pronunciation of many words is infuriating. I mean, who can't properly pronounce BORNEO???? Or MALAYA?
I love the book so much that I'm plowing through but consider the narrator choice a crucial mistake. He would probably be quite good for a different genre, but here is miscast- not to his fault.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Corey P. Thompson
- 08-05-17
Very scholarly work.
If you're interested in the details of what went on in America during the war years, this is the book for you. the narrator doesn't know how to pronounce several names and places and that can be distracting. He also seems very disinterested in the topic at times, as if he is just reading a technical manual. Otherwise very good.
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- T.J. Dowling
- 10-24-21
America Goes to War -- At Home
A stunning and almost incredible account of the political, social and especially industrial awakening of America from isolationist neutrality to become the arsenal of democracy. With a broad and deep analysis and narrative Klein recounts the varied aspects -- technological, labor and especially political -- that turned America's cars and refrigerators into guns, while trying to keep the front and the home front supplied with food and other necessities. A magisterial work that leaves one in awe of the transformation and the men and women who managed it and changed America forever in every way.
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1 person found this helpful
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- David
- 06-17-20
Great history bad narration
I am sticking this one out because it is an important and excellent history. The narrator need to learn his craft. The mispronunciations are terrible. My favorite is “bio-Vac” instead of bivouac. Many are as bad.
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- Mark Holtz
- 02-22-16
A lengthy book about logistics
What did you like best about A Call to Arms? What did you like least?
This book covers the other side of World War II: being able to supply the materials to prepare for and participate in that war. The US was ill-prepared for that war, and had to mobilize quickly and with little time to spare. The problem I have with the book is that it is extremely detailed about those war efforts, and sometimes gets bogged down in those details. As a tech person, I enjoyed those details, but others may get bored.
Could you see A Call to Arms being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
I can possibly see this as a documentary series, but I don't think it will ever be done.
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- Rockwood Blue
- 03-31-21
Critical material, terrible narrator.
An absolute must have. However, you have to deal with the performer. He speaks too quickly, and mispronounces EVERYTHING. The book is still worth it.
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- LowbrowLitLover
- 02-01-22
Too much yet too little
This could have been an amazing book if Maury Klein knew less about this topic and more about how to tell a story. But he can’t not put it all in. As others have noted, there is an enormous amount of material about bureaucratic infighting and there’s also too much backstory about WW2–nobody who would tackle a book like this needs that much help.. And the price is that the really fascinating story—how stuff got made and how the job got done—is buried alive. If anything this needed to be way less about people and a lot more about physical objects and their manufacture. (Klein has an unerring ear for the boring quote.)
I don’t recommend this as an audiobook for the above reasons (it’s a skimmable book, not a deep read) and also because the narrator is pretty bad. I guess Grover Gardner can’t read everything, but this book needed someone who doesn’t sound like Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter for the Daily Planet. A book already lacking in narrative intensity is worsened by narrator this lacking in gravitas.
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- Ace
- 07-01-14
At times interesting, but quite a long haul.
Would you try another book from Maury Klein and/or Ben Bartolone?
If it were shorter
What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
would have been interested in hearing more about the aftermath - demobilization.
What aspect of Ben Bartolone’s performance would you have changed?
his cadence was half a beat to fast. It was as if he was rushing at times. The performance still clocks in over 34 hours. Narrator had at times some eye brow raising pronunciations and left me with the impression he had little familiarity with the subject matter or at least the time frame in which it was set. (I imagine that is not why he was hired) His voice is pleasant enough and I got use to the performance.
Do you think A Call to Arms needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
a focus on demobilization would interest me.
Any additional comments?
The material is at times very dry. You have to be pretty wonky to want to listen to it. I did learn much from it and overall enjoyed it. However, at times it felt like work.
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5 people found this helpful
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- alexyakkavoo
- 07-13-16
The Detail is Numbing
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
Cut half the material and get a different narrator.When I reached the part where the author talks about a town that "claimed to serve the Home of the Sweetest Strawberries..." or when he talks about "41,449 pounds of aluminum" or "25,605 pounds of aluminum scrap", it was just too much detail. It is like a football game being reported every 30 seconds and each every attendee being quoted on what they think is happening in the game.
Has A Call to Arms turned you off from other books in this genre?
Probably not.
Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Ben Bartolone?
Can't think of anyone in particular, but he puts too much emotion in the reading so that a discussion of who is fighting who in the bureaucracy comes across as something leading to a climax when there isn't one or won't be one for a long time to come.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from A Call to Arms?
Much of the interplay between bureaucratic groups and quote after quote of people with only slight involvement in the story. For example, "The company's president responded by saying, "I believe the Government is all wet."" So... what does that add to the story?
Any additional comments?
Please refund credit for book.
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- mark bender
- 11-01-19
great subject. poor execution.
I have thought about writing a book about the amazing amounts of production during WW2 and this ain't it. Too many anachronims and if this isn't the first book the reader has ever voiced it would surprise me. I've never heard more words and names mispronounced. From Aye kron Ohio ...... just needs some proofreading and work. thanks
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