Bubble in the Sun
The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $22.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Fred Sanders
About this listen
Christopher Knowlton, author of Cattle Kingdom and former Fortune writer, takes an in-depth look at the spectacular Florida land boom of the 1920s and shows how it led directly to the Great Depression.
The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. It was the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West. It spawned the suburbs as we know them and the first large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Thousands flocked to the grand hotels and new cities rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. Nowhere was the glitz and excess of the Roaring Twenties more blatant than in Florida. It was Vegas before there was Vegas; gambling was legal and so was drinking (prohibition was not enforced). Tycoons and celebrities flocked to this new frontier. Yet, the import and deep impact of this historical moment has never been explored thoroughly until now.
In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton shows us the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Mar-a-Lago, Miami Beach, and other storied sites. It was a time when the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else in America; workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom endured grievous abuses; and the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination. Knowlton also breathes dynamic life into the four forces that made and/or broke Florida in the time: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century storm whose aftermath included the stock market crash. This essential account is a revelatory - and relevant - history of a specific time that is still affecting our country today.
©2020 Christopher Knowlton (P)2020 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Gladesmen: Gator Hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffers
- Florida History and Culture
- By: Glen Simmons, Laura Ogden
- Narrated by: James R. Marshall
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few people today can claim a living memory of Florida's frontier Everglades. Glen Simmons, who has hunted alligators, camped on hammock-covered islands, and poled his skiff through the mangrove swamps of the glades since the 1920s, is one who can. Together with Laura Ogden, he tells the story of backcountry life in the southern Everglades from his youth until the establishment of the Everglades National Park in 1947.
-
-
Younger Generation Gladesman
- By Jeff D. on 02-22-20
By: Glen Simmons, and others
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Last Train to Paradise
- Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Del Roy
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The paths of the great American robber barons were paved with riches, and though ordinary citizens paid for them, they also profited. Les Standiford, author of the John Deal thrillers, tells how the man who turned Florida's swamps into the playgrounds of the rich performed the almost superhuman feat of building a railroad from the mainland to Key West at the turn of the century.
-
-
A Pleasant Surprise
- By Roy on 04-05-09
By: Les Standiford
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Cattle Kingdom
- The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
- By: Christopher Knowlton
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Open Range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades. Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today.
-
-
Disappointing - Author has an Agenda
- By McMullen on 09-19-21
-
Astor
- The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.
-
-
A family first made, then destroyed by wealth.
- By Barbara W. on 09-23-23
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
-
Gladesmen: Gator Hunters, Moonshiners, and Skiffers
- Florida History and Culture
- By: Glen Simmons, Laura Ogden
- Narrated by: James R. Marshall
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few people today can claim a living memory of Florida's frontier Everglades. Glen Simmons, who has hunted alligators, camped on hammock-covered islands, and poled his skiff through the mangrove swamps of the glades since the 1920s, is one who can. Together with Laura Ogden, he tells the story of backcountry life in the southern Everglades from his youth until the establishment of the Everglades National Park in 1947.
-
-
Younger Generation Gladesman
- By Jeff D. on 02-22-20
By: Glen Simmons, and others
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Last Train to Paradise
- Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Del Roy
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The paths of the great American robber barons were paved with riches, and though ordinary citizens paid for them, they also profited. Les Standiford, author of the John Deal thrillers, tells how the man who turned Florida's swamps into the playgrounds of the rich performed the almost superhuman feat of building a railroad from the mainland to Key West at the turn of the century.
-
-
A Pleasant Surprise
- By Roy on 04-05-09
By: Les Standiford
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Cattle Kingdom
- The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
- By: Christopher Knowlton
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Open Range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades. Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today.
-
-
Disappointing - Author has an Agenda
- By McMullen on 09-19-21
-
Astor
- The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.
-
-
A family first made, then destroyed by wealth.
- By Barbara W. on 09-23-23
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
-
The Swamp
- The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise
- By: Michael Grunwald
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. In this book Michael Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and "reclaim" it and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations.
-
-
This is not Jiminy Cricket's river
- By Robert R. on 09-02-18
By: Michael Grunwald
-
The Swamp Peddlers
- How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream
- By: Jason Vuic
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florida has long beckoned retirees seeking to spend their golden years in the sun, but, for many, the American dream of owning a home there was financially impossible. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called "installment land sales industry" appeared out of nowhere to hawk billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded homesite that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build.
-
-
Florida Deserves Better
- By Amazon Customer on 07-18-21
By: Jason Vuic
-
A Land Remembered
- By: Patrick D. Smith
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this best-selling novel, Patrick D. Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias MacIvey arrives in the Florida wilderness to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that the land has been exploited far beyond human need.
-
-
Excellent historical tale
- By Boysmom on 04-10-15
By: Patrick D. Smith
-
The Year of Dangerous Days
- Riots, Refugees, and Cocaine in Miami 1980
- By: Nicholas Griffin
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of The Wire, the “utterly absorbing” (The New York Times) story of the cinematic transformation of Miami, one of America’s bustling cities - rife with a drug epidemic, a burgeoning refugee crisis, and police brutality - from journalist and award-winning author Nicholas Griffin.
-
-
Forty Years Ago or Yesterday?
- By Anka on 07-20-20
By: Nicholas Griffin
-
The Plaza
- The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel
- By: Julie Satow
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Plaza is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century.
-
-
Don't need your politics, Julie
- By Debra Noe on 03-29-20
By: Julie Satow
-
Death in the Everglades
- The Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism (Florida History and Culture)
- By: Stuart B. McIver
- Narrated by: Charles Huddleston
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Death in the Everglades chronicles the demise of one of 20th-century Florida's most enduring folk heroes. The murder of Guy Bradley represents a milestone not only in the saga of the Everglades, but also in the broader history of American environmentalism. This fascinating biography of his abbreviated but eventful life is emblematic of the struggle to tame the Florida frontier without destroying it.
-
-
Recommend!
- By Josie on 09-23-24
By: Stuart B. McIver
-
Unscripted
- The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
- By: James B. Stewart, Rachel Abrams
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2016, the fate of Paramount Global’s entertainment empire hung precariously in the balance. Its founder and head, ninety-three-year-old Sumner M. Redstone, was facing a very public lawsuit brought by a former romantic companion, Manuela Herzer, which placed Sumner’s deteriorating health and questionable judgment under a harsh light.
-
-
I could t wait for it to end
- By Abbie L. Smith on 03-01-23
By: James B. Stewart, and others
-
The Last Kings of Shanghai
- The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China
- By: Jonathan Kaufman
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how two rival families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil at their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.
-
-
Great story with careless flaws
- By pjdusa on 10-20-20
By: Jonathan Kaufman
-
Powers and Thrones
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes listeners on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West.
-
-
Hard to take a break from it!
- By Mariano's Music on 12-09-21
By: Dan Jones
-
Miami Babylon
- Crime, Wealth, and Power - A Dispatch from the Beach
- By: Gerald Posner
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From its beginnings in the 1890s, Miami Beach has been a place made by visionaries and hustlers. During Prohibition, Al Capone had to muscle into its bootlegging and gambling businesses. After December 1941, when the Beach was the training ground for half a million army recruits, even the war couldn't stop the party. After a short postwar boom, the city's luck gave out. But in 1981, 125,000 Cubans arrived by the boatload.
-
-
Good Miami Beach History
- By Drew Roberts on 11-02-23
By: Gerald Posner
-
The Price of Time
- The Real Story of Interest
- By: Edward Chancellor
- Narrated by: Luis Soto
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the beginning was the loan, and the loan carried interest. For at least five millennia people have been borrowing and lending at interest. Yet as capitalism became established from the late Middle Ages onwards, denunciations of interest were tempered because interest was a necessary reward for lenders to part with their capital. And interest performs many other vital functions: it encourages people to save; enables them to place a value on precious assets, such as houses and all manner of financial securities; and allows us to price risk.
-
-
Big landscape in time and subjects; Austrian view
- By Philo on 08-29-22
-
Red Land, Black Land
- Daily Life in Ancient Egypt
- By: Barbara Mertz
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Esteemed Egyptologist Barbara Mertz updates her widely praised social history of the people of ancient Egypt, which was originally published in 1968. Combining impeccable scholarship with a delightfully personal style, the author reconstructs the life of the Egyptians from birth to death, and beyond death, too.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Elizabeth on 04-03-10
By: Barbara Mertz
Related to this topic
-
The Plaza
- The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel
- By: Julie Satow
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Plaza is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century.
-
-
Don't need your politics, Julie
- By Debra Noe on 03-29-20
By: Julie Satow
-
City of the Century
- The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900. Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects.
-
-
A STORY THAT TRIES TOO HARD....AND FAILS
- By The Louligan on 02-01-15
By: Donald L. Miller
-
Sun, Sin, Suburbia
- The History of Modern Las Vegas Revised and Expanded
- By: Geoff Schumacher
- Narrated by: Douglas R. Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Las Vegas is gambling's mecca - Sin City the Entertainment Capital of the World with 40 million visitors a year. But that's just part of the story. This carefully documented history tracks the rise of Las Vegas from its vital role in World War II, of the Rat Pack era of the 50s, the explosive growth of the 90s, and it's colossal collapse in the post 2008 real-estate crash. It offers a history of the iconic Strip, but also profiles the neighborhoods where over 2 million people live.
-
-
Good History of Vegas - old, modern and mundane
- By Amazon Customer on 06-13-14
By: Geoff Schumacher
-
Appetite for America
- Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West - One Meal at a Time
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey - told in depth for the first time ever. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name. With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding.
-
-
I loved listening to this fabulous story!
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 01-27-20
By: Stephen Fried
-
The Day the Bubble Burst
- A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929
- By: Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan-Witts
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best seller that tells the story of an overheated stock market and the financial disaster that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. A riveting living history about Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Captures the era, the intoxicating expectancy, the hope that ruled men's heart and minds before the bubble burst and the black despair of the decade that followed.
-
-
Thorough and fascinating
- By Bowen Florsheim on 04-23-21
By: Gordon Thomas, and others
-
"Our Crowd"
- The Great Jewish Families of New York
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 19 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.
-
-
Finance heavy
- By Shayla on 03-28-21
-
The Plaza
- The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel
- By: Julie Satow
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Plaza is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century.
-
-
Don't need your politics, Julie
- By Debra Noe on 03-29-20
By: Julie Satow
-
City of the Century
- The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 24 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, witness Chicago's growth from a desolate fur-trading post in the 1830s to one of the world's most explosively alive cities by 1900. Donald Miller's powerful narrative embraces it all: Chicago's wild beginnings, its reckless growth, its natural calamities (especially the Great Fire of 1871), its raucous politics, its empire-building businessmen, its world-transforming architecture, its rich mix of cultures, its community of young writers and journalists, and its staggering engineering projects.
-
-
A STORY THAT TRIES TOO HARD....AND FAILS
- By The Louligan on 02-01-15
By: Donald L. Miller
-
Sun, Sin, Suburbia
- The History of Modern Las Vegas Revised and Expanded
- By: Geoff Schumacher
- Narrated by: Douglas R. Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Las Vegas is gambling's mecca - Sin City the Entertainment Capital of the World with 40 million visitors a year. But that's just part of the story. This carefully documented history tracks the rise of Las Vegas from its vital role in World War II, of the Rat Pack era of the 50s, the explosive growth of the 90s, and it's colossal collapse in the post 2008 real-estate crash. It offers a history of the iconic Strip, but also profiles the neighborhoods where over 2 million people live.
-
-
Good History of Vegas - old, modern and mundane
- By Amazon Customer on 06-13-14
By: Geoff Schumacher
-
Appetite for America
- Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West - One Meal at a Time
- By: Stephen Fried
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey - told in depth for the first time ever. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name. With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding.
-
-
I loved listening to this fabulous story!
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 01-27-20
By: Stephen Fried
-
The Day the Bubble Burst
- A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929
- By: Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan-Witts
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best seller that tells the story of an overheated stock market and the financial disaster that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. A riveting living history about Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Captures the era, the intoxicating expectancy, the hope that ruled men's heart and minds before the bubble burst and the black despair of the decade that followed.
-
-
Thorough and fascinating
- By Bowen Florsheim on 04-23-21
By: Gordon Thomas, and others
-
"Our Crowd"
- The Great Jewish Families of New York
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 19 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.
-
-
Finance heavy
- By Shayla on 03-28-21
-
The Big Rich
- The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: James Jenner
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best-selling author Bryan Burrough reveals how four Texas oil tycoons transformed America. Rising from humble beginnings through hard work and shrewd dealings, they shifted the balance of power in American politics. While hobnobbing with movie stars and presidents, the Big Rich also created the legend of the swaggering Texas oilman with island hideaways and sprawling ranches.
-
-
Big, Sordid, Fascinating, PoliticallyCorrect
- By Darkcoffee on 11-09-09
By: Bryan Burrough
-
The Last Kings of Shanghai
- The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China
- By: Jonathan Kaufman
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how two rival families participated in an economic boom that opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil at their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.
-
-
Great story with careless flaws
- By pjdusa on 10-20-20
By: Jonathan Kaufman
-
Supreme City
- How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America
- By: Donald L. Miller
- Narrated by: Frangione Jim
- Length: 29 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In four words - "the capital of everything" - Duke Ellington captured Manhattan during one of the most exciting and celebrated eras in our history: The Jazz Age. Radio, tabloid newspapers, and movies with sound appeared. The silver screen took over Times Square as Broadway became America's movie mecca. Tremendous new skyscrapers were built in Midtown in one of the greatest building booms in history.
-
-
the background to the NYC we now live in
- By Marcie on 03-05-15
By: Donald L. Miller
-
Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
-
-
Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
-
Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
-
-
A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
-
Richistan
- A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich
- By: Robert Frank
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The rich have always been different from you and me, but this revealing and funny journey through Richistan entertainingly shows that they are more different than ever. Richistanis have 400-foot-yachts, 30,000-square-foot homes, house staffs of more than 100, and their own "arborists". They're also different from Old Money, and have torn down blue-blood institutions to build their own shining empire.
-
-
Ho Hum....being rich is work!
- By Scarlett on 06-16-07
By: Robert Frank
-
Disney's Land
- Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World
- By: Richard Snow
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a spectacular story of error and innovation, a wild ride from a vision to the realization of an iconic cultural landscape. It reflects the park’s uniqueness, but just as strongly that of the man who built it with a watchmaker’s precision, an artist’s conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler.
-
-
Okay, but better books on the subject
- By J.D. on 12-07-19
By: Richard Snow
-
American Entrepreneur
- How 400 Years of Risk-Takers, Innovators, and Business Visionaries Built the U.S.A.
- By: Willie Robertson, William Doyle
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The history of the United States is, to a remarkable degree, the story of its entrepreneurs, those daring movers and shakers who dreamed big and risked everything to build better lives for themselves, and their fellow Americans. In American Entrepreneur, Duck Commander CEO and star of the blockbuster Duck Dynasty series Willie tells the captivating true tale of the visionaries and doers who have embodied the American Dream.
-
-
Should have been narrated by Willie
- By Tyler smoke on 12-05-18
By: Willie Robertson, and others
-
Battle for the Big Top
- P.T. Barnum, James Bailey, John Ringling, and the Death-Defying Saga of the American Circus
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: B.J. Harrison
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions have sat under the “big top,” watching as trapeze artists glide and clowns entertain, but few know the captivating stories behind the men whose creativity, ingenuity, and determination created one of our country’s most beloved pastimes. In Battle for the Big Top, New York Times best-selling author Les Standiford brings to life a remarkable era when three circus kings - James Bailey, P. T. Barnum, and John Ringling - all vied for control of the vastly profitable and influential American Circus.
-
-
Fantastic!
- By IsleWait on 09-30-22
By: Les Standiford
-
"The Rest of Us"
- The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.
-
-
Book 3 of 3
- By Etoile NEOhio on 11-15-22
-
Cornelius Vanderbilt - The Commodore: Insight and Analysis Into the Life and Success of America's First Tycoon
- Business Biographies and Memoirs - Titans of Industry
- By: J.R. MacGregor
- Narrated by: Kevin Kollins
- Length: 3 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cornelius Vanderbilt I had no illusions about his life. He didn’t start out with grand plans and ungodly greed. He merely stepped in this world one foot at a time, one boat at a time, one market at a time - one day at a time. He worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. He worked hard and played hard. When all was said and done, though, he was a simple man who pushed the world of transportation to be all it could be - to be what it is today. Vanderbilt was a man of steel, and we can learn incredible things from him.
-
-
Bravo
- By Arthur Starnes on 09-18-19
By: J.R. MacGregor
-
Hershey
- Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
- By: Michael D'Antonio
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.
-
-
The Benchmark for Chartiable, Rich Men
- By Boyd Tschaggeny on 01-30-19
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Last Train to Paradise
- Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Del Roy
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The paths of the great American robber barons were paved with riches, and though ordinary citizens paid for them, they also profited. Les Standiford, author of the John Deal thrillers, tells how the man who turned Florida's swamps into the playgrounds of the rich performed the almost superhuman feat of building a railroad from the mainland to Key West at the turn of the century.
-
-
A Pleasant Surprise
- By Roy on 04-05-09
By: Les Standiford
-
Scale
- The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
- By: Geoffrey West
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term complexity can be misleading, however, because what makes West's discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities, and our businesses.
-
-
Not for a scientific reader
- By UUbu on 10-30-17
By: Geoffrey West
-
Old Money
- The Mythology of Wealth in America
- By: Nelson Aldrich
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This insider's look at inherited wealth in the United States explores the complex meanings of money and success in American society with a new introduction that examines whether America's privileged class will be willing or able to play a leadership role in the twenty-first century.
-
-
Nice Insights on Old Money Families
- By John P. on 03-19-21
By: Nelson Aldrich
-
The Myth of Capitalism
- Monopolies and the Death of Competition
- By: Jonathan Tepper, Denise Hearn
- Narrated by: Pamela Almand
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies when it comes to high speed internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, or even consumer goods like toothpaste.
-
-
Read and then take action
- By Eric Baird on 05-29-19
By: Jonathan Tepper, and others
-
They Made America
- From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators
- By: Harold Evans, Gail Buckland, David Lefer
- Narrated by: Harold Evans
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The workshop revolutionaries who made our world have never had the attention afforded the political revolutionaries who founded this nation. But it has been these innovators, in small-town attics and on the Mississippi, in Silicon Valley and the wheat fields of Kansas, in a Black woman's beauty parlor and a Dayton bicycle shop, who set America on a course to attain a standard of living unprecedented in the history of the world.
-
-
Wait for the Unabridged audiobook.
- By Jim on 01-02-05
By: Harold Evans, and others
-
Cattle Kingdom
- The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
- By: Christopher Knowlton
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Open Range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades. Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today.
-
-
Disappointing - Author has an Agenda
- By McMullen on 09-19-21
-
Last Train to Paradise
- Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Del Roy
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The paths of the great American robber barons were paved with riches, and though ordinary citizens paid for them, they also profited. Les Standiford, author of the John Deal thrillers, tells how the man who turned Florida's swamps into the playgrounds of the rich performed the almost superhuman feat of building a railroad from the mainland to Key West at the turn of the century.
-
-
A Pleasant Surprise
- By Roy on 04-05-09
By: Les Standiford
-
Scale
- The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life, in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
- By: Geoffrey West
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term complexity can be misleading, however, because what makes West's discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities, and our businesses.
-
-
Not for a scientific reader
- By UUbu on 10-30-17
By: Geoffrey West
-
Old Money
- The Mythology of Wealth in America
- By: Nelson Aldrich
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This insider's look at inherited wealth in the United States explores the complex meanings of money and success in American society with a new introduction that examines whether America's privileged class will be willing or able to play a leadership role in the twenty-first century.
-
-
Nice Insights on Old Money Families
- By John P. on 03-19-21
By: Nelson Aldrich
-
The Myth of Capitalism
- Monopolies and the Death of Competition
- By: Jonathan Tepper, Denise Hearn
- Narrated by: Pamela Almand
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Myth of Capitalism tells the story of how America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon are gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies when it comes to high speed internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, or even consumer goods like toothpaste.
-
-
Read and then take action
- By Eric Baird on 05-29-19
By: Jonathan Tepper, and others
-
They Made America
- From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators
- By: Harold Evans, Gail Buckland, David Lefer
- Narrated by: Harold Evans
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The workshop revolutionaries who made our world have never had the attention afforded the political revolutionaries who founded this nation. But it has been these innovators, in small-town attics and on the Mississippi, in Silicon Valley and the wheat fields of Kansas, in a Black woman's beauty parlor and a Dayton bicycle shop, who set America on a course to attain a standard of living unprecedented in the history of the world.
-
-
Wait for the Unabridged audiobook.
- By Jim on 01-02-05
By: Harold Evans, and others
-
Cattle Kingdom
- The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
- By: Christopher Knowlton
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Open Range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades. Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today.
-
-
Disappointing - Author has an Agenda
- By McMullen on 09-19-21
-
The Swamp Peddlers
- How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream
- By: Jason Vuic
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Florida has long beckoned retirees seeking to spend their golden years in the sun, but, for many, the American dream of owning a home there was financially impossible. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called "installment land sales industry" appeared out of nowhere to hawk billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded homesite that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build.
-
-
Florida Deserves Better
- By Amazon Customer on 07-18-21
By: Jason Vuic
-
Too Big to Fail
- The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves
- By: Andrew Ross Sorkin
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.
-
-
Best Book About Meltdown
- By Chuck on 12-08-09
-
Other People's Money
- Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made
- By: Charles V. Bagli
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investors' dollars on a single deal. In Other People's Money, Charles V. Bagli, the New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village takes listeners inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
-
-
Solid
- By BryanW on 05-22-24
By: Charles V. Bagli
-
In Fed We Trust
- Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic
- By: David Wessel
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
That was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s vow as the worst financial panic in more than fifty years gripped the world and he struggled to avoid the once unthinkable: a repeat of the Great Depression. Brilliant but temperamentally cautious, Bernanke researched and wrote about the causes of the Depression during his career as an academic. Then when thrust into a role as one of the most important people in the world, he was compelled to boldness by circumstances he never anticipated.
-
-
Stops boldly at the surface
- By Wayne on 09-15-09
By: David Wessel
-
A Land Remembered
- By: Patrick D. Smith
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this best-selling novel, Patrick D. Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias MacIvey arrives in the Florida wilderness to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that the land has been exploited far beyond human need.
-
-
Excellent historical tale
- By Boysmom on 04-10-15
By: Patrick D. Smith
-
When Genius Failed
- The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Roger Lowenstein
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
-
-
When Genius Failed
- By Sean on 12-17-08
By: Roger Lowenstein
-
A Man in Full
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The setting is Atlanta, Georgia - a racially mixed, late-century boomtown full of fresh wealth and wily politicians. The protagonist is Charles Croker, once a college football star, now a late-middle-aged Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has at last hit up against reality. Charlie has a 29,000-acre quail-shooting plantation, a young and demanding second wife, and a half-empty office complex with a staggering load of debt. Meanwhile, Conrad Hensley, idealistic young father of two, is laid off from his job at the Croker Global Foods warehouse near Oakland.
-
-
What a pity!
- By Edgar on 08-01-18
By: Tom Wolfe
-
The Swamp
- The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise
- By: Michael Grunwald
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. In this book Michael Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and "reclaim" it and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations.
-
-
This is not Jiminy Cricket's river
- By Robert R. on 09-02-18
By: Michael Grunwald
-
The Gulf
- The Making of an American Sea
- By: Jack E. Davis
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When painter Winslow Homer first sailed into the Gulf of Mexico, he was struck by its "special kind of providence." Indeed, the Gulf presented itself as America's sea - bound by geography, culture, and tradition to the national experience - and yet, there has never been a comprehensive history of the Gulf until now. And so, in this rich and original work that explores the Gulf through our human connection with the sea, environmental historian Jack E. Davis finally places this exceptional region into the American mythos in a sweeping history that extends from the Pleistocene age to the 21st century.
-
-
Decolonize gulf history
- By Jesse Carr on 05-02-18
By: Jack E. Davis
-
The History of Florida
- By: Michael Gannon - editor
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the heralded "definitive history" of Florida. No other book so fully or accurately captures the highs and lows, the grandeur and the craziness, the horrors and the glories of the past 500 years in the Land of Sunshine.
-
Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
- An American History
- By: Ada Ferrer
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Ada Ferrer - prologue
- Length: 23 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued—through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country’s future. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation.
-
-
US Bash Job
- By Derek & Amber Witt on 04-14-22
By: Ada Ferrer
-
Am I Being Too Subtle?
- The Adventures of a Business Maverick
- By: Sam Zell
- Narrated by: Sam Zell
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Self-made billionaire Sam Zell consistently sees what others don't. From finding a market for overpriced Playboy magazines among his junior high classmates, to buying real estate on the cheap after a market crash, to investing in often unglamorous industries with long-term value, Zell acts boldly on supply and demand trends to grab the first-mover advantage. And he can find opportunity virtually anywhere - from an arcane piece of legislation to a desert meeting in Abu Dhabi.
-
-
Excellent story, but ....
- By David K. Robbins on 08-06-17
By: Sam Zell
What listeners say about Bubble in the Sun
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sandra Ryan
- 04-01-21
Essential History
This should be in the curriculum of every business school in the country. Great read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jackie R
- 09-23-20
an eye-opening performance
so well done as a moving pictorial of what we see in South Florida today
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gary Dworkin
- 01-28-24
As A Longtime Fan And Resident I Loved It’s Remarkable History!
I Truely Enjoyed All Of This Book! There Is No Question Of its Value! The Benefit For Any Reader Is It’s Tremendous Value To It As. Residency.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Reagan
- 12-12-22
SO GOOD
This book is magnificent. As a resident of south Florida, the history is so robust and gives color to everything around me. I’ve recommended it to at least 10 people so far.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Karen McLaughlin
- 06-14-23
Fascinating listen
Very cool history of 1900s Florida. Love how the author weaved environmentalism in with the history of real estate development and profiled all the developers/architects along with Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Vladimir Gorescu
- 08-27-20
highly recommended
very revealing and educational and entertaining
I couldn’t put it down, and I didn’t
loved the book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rebecca C.Layfield
- 07-01-23
I loved this book!
As a lifelong Florida resident, I found this book fascinating. The history of the development of our state starting with Henry Flagler and continuing on with the other key players, their motivations right or wrong, and the consequences of their decisions then and now, was eye opening. I highly recommend this book, particularly to those who are multi-generational Floridians.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Fletcher
- 10-09-24
Loved the history of the book, wish it didn’t have the DEI slant
Overall great book for learning about the real estate bubble and a lot of the development history in Florida. I wish it didn’t feel the need to push the DEI agenda throughout the book.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dan Pinkston
- 02-07-20
One irritating point...
Two, actually, and both are probably crotchets. One is the pronunciation of St. Augustine by the narrator. I have always heard it pronounced as “AWE-guss-teen.” A call to the city hall confirms that. The narrator says “ow-GUSS-tin.” Ok, minor, but it takes away from the listening experience. Second is the use of the long “a.” I suppose it is personal preference, but consistently hearing that brings me up short. One more as I continue to listen. The narrator talks about the “binder boys” and pronounces it the “binn-der” boys. I’m fairly certain it should be pronounced with a long “i,” as in “insurance binder.” Those are my only quibbles with the narration. The narrator has a great voice and pace.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 03-29-23
10/10 would read again and again and again
This book is a wonderful retelling of the history of florida and it’s early development. great attention to detail was paid in the presentation of information in a factual and interesting manner. would have liked if the author highlighted the development of broward county a bit more. still a spectacular read!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!