Germs
Biological Weapons and America's Secret War
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Narrated by:
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Murphy Guyer
About this listen
Germs uncovers the truth about biological weapons and shows why bio-warfare and bio-terrorism are fast becoming our worst national nightmare. Based on hundreds of interviews with scientists and senior officials - including President Clinton and defectors from the former Soviet Union's sinister bio weapons labs - as well as recently declassified documents, Germs shows us bio-warriors past and present at work in their trade.
A frightening and unforgettable narrative of cutting-edge science and spycraft, Germs shows us why advances in biology and the spread of germ weapons expertise to such countries as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea could make germs the weapon of the 21st century.
©2001 Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad, All Rights Reserved (P)2001 Simon & Schuster Inc., AUDIOWORKS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Your Government Failed You
- Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters
- By: Richard A. Clarke
- Narrated by: Richard A. Clarke
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
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In Your Government Failed You, Clarke looks at why failures have continued and how America and the world can succeed against the terrorists. But Clarke goes beyond terrorism to examine the recurring U.S. government disasters. Despite the lessons of Vietnam, we've gotten involved in Iraq. Drawing on his 30 years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and Intelligence Community, Clarke discovers patterns in the failure and suggests ways to stop the cycle.
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Stellar Criticism
- By Tim on 04-01-09
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Pay Any Price
- Greed, Power, and Endless War
- By: James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses - and until this audiobook, it has worked very hard to cover them up.
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If you care about our liberties, read this book.
- By John L. Moncrief on 11-02-14
By: James Risen
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Chain of Command
- The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
- By: Seymour M. Hersh
- Narrated by: Peter Friedman
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
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Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers, and outraged the Bush Administration, with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from that clear morning in September to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq?
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Absolutely Fantastic
- By Nicholas on 10-12-04
By: Seymour M. Hersh
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Burn Pits
- The Poisoning of America's Soldiers
- By: Joseph Hickman
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 3 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Thousands of American soldiers are returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with severe wounds from chemical war. They are not the victims of ruthless enemy warfare, but of their own military commanders. These soldiers, afflicted with rare cancers and respiratory diseases, were sickened from the smoke and ash swirling out of the "burn pits" where military contractors incinerated mountains of trash, including old stockpiles of mustard and sarin gas, medical waste, and other toxic material.
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Great Book
- By Amazon Customer on 05-14-20
By: Joseph Hickman
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Lab 257
- The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory
- By: Michael Christopher Carroll
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Strictly off limits to the public, Plum Island is home to virginal beaches, cliffs, forests, ponds - and the deadliest germs that have ever roamed the planet. Lab 257 blows the lid off the stunning true nature and checkered history of Plum Island. It shows that the seemingly bucolic island in the shadow of New York City is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us can safely ignore.
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More Politics Than Science
- By A Customer on 05-26-17
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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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Directorate S
- The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 28 hrs and 30 mins
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Resuming the narrative of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, best-selling author Steve Coll tells for the first time the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.
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Slow At Times But Always Horrifying And Engaging
- By Gillian on 02-20-18
By: Steve Coll
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The Great Influenza
- The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the winter of 1918, at the height of World War I, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision between modern science and epidemic disease.
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Great book but very disturbing...
- By Tim on 01-15-09
By: John M. Barry
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Confront and Conceal
- Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Three and a half years ago, David Sanger’s book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power described how a new American president came to office with the world on fire. Now, just as the 2012 presidential election battle begins, Sanger follows up with an eye-opening, news-packed account of how Obama has dealt with those challenges, relying on innovative weapons and reconfigured tools of American power to try to manage a series of new threats.
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Sobering reminder on what the presidency requires
- By Marilyn on 09-03-12
By: David E. Sanger
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Dark Sun
- The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Richard Rhodes
- Length: 6 hrs
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Richard Rhodes' landmark history of the atomic bomb won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now, in this majestic new masterpiece of history, science, and politics, he tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made, and traces the path by which this supreme artifact of 20th-century technology became the defining issue of the Cold War.
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Abridged??
- By Delano on 04-17-13
By: Richard Rhodes
What listeners say about Germs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- GMJ
- 11-28-19
Government programs & small scale terrorism.
Governments the world over keep "Demons in the Freezer" for "research.
All the while allowing for a horrible potentiality. Know your "neighbors".
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- David Pierce
- 01-06-22
This info is relevant to our pandemic
Given the current pandemic response of the government it is easy to see how this book is relevant. Too bad no one paid attention.
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- Seth
- 09-10-12
It's Judith Miller.
Is there anything you would change about this book?
I would have preferred a text more focused on current trends and historical facts and less focused on justifying anything any Bush Administration has ever done.
What was most disappointing about the authors’s story?
The fact that in the end, it's still an apologia for government paternalism.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Brandon D Bush
- 08-08-22
A Foundation for Understanding the DoD’s Anthrax Strategy
Another book full of information I wish I had known before taking a series of Anthrax shots over the course of 14 years. This book was an easy read, full of history that flowed page after page, detailing the birth of the military’s controversial vaccine programs. The threat is one that nightmares are made of. The government’s efforts to develop a strategic defense and vaccine policy is food for more nightmares. Who gets the shot? How to get enough of the shots? What are the long term health ramifications from receiving the shot? All answers that still don’t really have good answers! Germs does a great job providing a foundation for understanding that I, again, wish I had known all those years ago.
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- Jennifer
- 05-02-14
Deep study of important topic
Where does Germs rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Near the top, but not at the top. It contained some truly fascinating case studies, but I ended up wishing there were more case studies and less policy discussion.
Any additional comments?
The overall lessons are really interesting and valuable, but at times there was too much detail about the behind-the-scenes movements that a person doesn't really need to know. One does end up learning how the US arrives at policies for different types of defense strategies, including this one. I am glad I listened to it - I just think a potential reader should know it's almost at an academic level, not just a popular one. That's fine with me, but not everyone would enjoy the depth.
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- G. Spence
- 07-14-15
Should be called "Beltway Dollars"
This book is more about Washington politics than about biological warfare agents. Sadly, this is typical when establishment journalists like Judith Miller write a book about a scientific topic. We start out talking about "germs" and end up talking about Bill Clinton. The author is at times unfair, like when she does a hatchet job on the National Guard Civil Support Teams in the final chapter. Bottom line: if you are interested in biology, don't buy this book. If you're interested in Washington politics and gossip, by all means go ahead.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Eric
- 09-06-23
Neo-Con Propaganda
Want justification for US bioweapons? Read this. Everything is a crisis or emergency that justifies breaking the law. Chapter 2 really frustrated me. Iraq’s Bioweapons justify us doing it too. As if readers never heard of Iran Contra. Nor recall US companies sold Iraq their WMD to fight Iran for us!!!
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