-
Looking for the Good War
- American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
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 $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans - all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States' "exceptional" history and destiny.
Samet finds the war's ambivalent legacy in some of its most heavily mythologized figures: the war correspondent epitomized by Ernie Pyle, the character of the erstwhile GI turned either cop or criminal in the pulp fiction and feature films of the late 1940s, the disaffected Civil War veteran who looms so large on the screen in the Cold War Western, and the resurgent military hero of the post-Vietnam period. Taken together, these figures reveal key elements of postwar attitudes toward violence, liberty, and nation - attitudes that have shaped domestic and foreign policy and that respond in various ways to various assumptions about national identity and purpose established or affirmed by World War II.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
-
-
The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
-
Aftermath
- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
- By: Harald Jähner, Shaun Whiteside - translator
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more? This internationally acclaimed revelatory history of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust - and features over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period.
-
-
Where are the photos?
- By Cassandra on 01-17-22
By: Harald Jähner, and others
-
American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
-
-
Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
-
Legacy of Violence
- A History of the British Empire
- By: Caroline Elkins
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe.
-
-
Great ideas, but very disappointing execution
- By Luc Rey-Bellet on 09-05-22
By: Caroline Elkins
-
How Civil Wars Start
- And How to Stop Them
- By: Barbara F. Walter
- Narrated by: Beth Hicks
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country.
-
-
Reveals the limits of a Political Science approach
- By Bill on 01-17-22
-
Gangsters of Capitalism
- Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire
- By: Jonathan M. Katz
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smedley Butler was the most celebrated warfighter of his time. Best-selling books were written about him. Hollywood adored him. Wherever the flag went, “The Fighting Quaker” went - serving in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II.
-
-
nostalgic melancholy sadness of yet another time
- By Robert Eaton Jr. on 01-29-22
By: Jonathan M. Katz
-
Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
-
-
The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
-
Aftermath
- Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955
- By: Harald Jähner, Shaun Whiteside - translator
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does a nation recover from fascism and turn toward a free society once more? This internationally acclaimed revelatory history of the transformational decade that followed World War II illustrates how Germany raised itself out of the ashes of defeat and reckoned with the corruption of its soul and the horrors of the Holocaust - and features over 40 eye-opening black-and-white photographs and posters from the period.
-
-
Where are the photos?
- By Cassandra on 01-17-22
By: Harald Jähner, and others
-
American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
-
-
Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
-
Legacy of Violence
- A History of the British Empire
- By: Caroline Elkins
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe.
-
-
Great ideas, but very disappointing execution
- By Luc Rey-Bellet on 09-05-22
By: Caroline Elkins
-
How Civil Wars Start
- And How to Stop Them
- By: Barbara F. Walter
- Narrated by: Beth Hicks
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the U.S. Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country.
-
-
Reveals the limits of a Political Science approach
- By Bill on 01-17-22
-
Gangsters of Capitalism
- Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire
- By: Jonathan M. Katz
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smedley Butler was the most celebrated warfighter of his time. Best-selling books were written about him. Hollywood adored him. Wherever the flag went, “The Fighting Quaker” went - serving in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II.
-
-
nostalgic melancholy sadness of yet another time
- By Robert Eaton Jr. on 01-29-22
By: Jonathan M. Katz
-
Watergate
- By: Garrett M. Graff
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy, Garrett M. Graff
- Length: 25 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership.
-
-
Elucidating
- By J.B. on 02-23-22
By: Garrett M. Graff
-
Judgment at Tokyo
- World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia
- By: Gary J. Bass
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the weeks after Japan finally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, the world turned to the question of how to move on from years of carnage and destruction. For Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Chiang Kai-shek, and their fellow victors, the question of justice seemed clear: Japan’s militaristic leaders needed to be tried and punished for the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
-
-
Biased revisionist history
- By Amazon Customer on 12-31-23
By: Gary J. Bass
-
Humane
- How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War
- By: Samuel Moyn
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historian Samuel Moyn asks a troubling but urgent question: What if efforts to make war more ethical - to ban torture and limit civilian casualties - have only shored up the military enterprise and made it sturdier? Moyn looks back at a century and a half of passionate arguments about the ethics of using force - from the 19th-century struggle to make war less lethal to the eventual shift from opposing the crime of war to opposing war crimes, with fateful consequences.
-
-
Great History, Weak Arguments
- By Theo Horesh on 01-19-22
By: Samuel Moyn
-
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial
- The Reporters Who Took On a World at War
- By: Deborah Cohen
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 18 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They were an astonishing group: glamorous, gutsy, and irreverent to the bone. As cub reporters in the 1920s, they roamed across a war-ravaged world, sometimes perched atop mules on wooden saddles, sometimes gliding through countries in the splendor of a first-class sleeper car. While empires collapsed and fledgling democracies faltered, they chased deposed empresses, international financiers, and Balkan gun-runners, and then knocked back doubles late into the night.
-
-
Is History Going To Repeat Itself
- By Alesia Weiss on 03-19-22
By: Deborah Cohen
-
Eighteen Days in October
- The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East
- By: Uri Kaufman
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
October 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, a conflict that shaped the modern Middle East. The War was a trauma for Israel, a dangerous superpower showdown, and, following the oil embargo, a pivotal reordering of the global economic order. The Jewish State came shockingly close to defeat. After the war, Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned in disgrace, and a 9/11-style commission investigated the "debacle." But, argues Uri Kaufman, from the perspective of a half century, the War can be seen as a pivotal victory for Israel.
-
-
gripping history
- By Alex Troy on 11-12-23
By: Uri Kaufman
-
A Natural History of the Future
- What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species
- By: Rob Dunn
- Narrated by: Donald Chang
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul.
-
-
Woke Author Worships at the Altar of ESG
- By Dan Collins on 03-22-22
By: Rob Dunn
-
Hitler's American Gamble
- Pearl Harbor and Germany's March to Global War
- By: Brendan Simms, Charlie Laderman
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By early December 1941, war had changed much of the world beyond recognition. Nazi Germany occupied most of the European continent, while in Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War had turned China into a battleground. But these conflicts were not yet inextricably linked - and the United States remained at peace. Hitler’s American Gamble recounts the five days that upended everything: December 7 to 11.
-
-
A waste of time based on a flawed premise
- By Grant on 11-30-21
By: Brendan Simms, and others
-
There Is Nothing For You Here
- Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Fiona Hill
- Narrated by: Fiona Hill
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia—and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, as well as her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
-
-
Excellent book on populism, Putin, Trump and us
- By Erin on 10-08-21
By: Fiona Hill
-
We Don't Know Ourselves
- A Personal History of Modern Ireland
- By: Fintan O'Toole
- Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
- Length: 22 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society - perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history. O'Toole narrates the once unthinkable collapse of the all-powerful Catholic Church, brought down by scandal and by the activism of ordinary Irish. He relates the horrific violence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which led most Irish to reject violent nationalism.
-
-
Relentlessly Negative
- By John on 06-02-22
By: Fintan O'Toole
-
The Undertow
- Scenes from a Slow Civil War
- By: Jeff Sharlet
- Narrated by: Jeff Sharlet
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies—sometimes realities—of violence.
-
-
I'm just not feeling this one....
- By J. Richmond on 08-04-23
By: Jeff Sharlet
-
The Pope at War
- The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler
- By: David I. Kertzer
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. Those questions have only grown and festered, making Pius XII one of the most controversial popes in Church history, especially now as the Vatican prepares to canonize him.
-
-
Intellectually dishonest
- By ReviewAmazon384 on 04-08-23
By: David I. Kertzer
-
The Shattering
- America in the 1960s
- By: Kevin Boyle
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 4, 1961, the rising middle-class families of a Chicago neighborhood gathered before their flag-bedecked houses, a confident vision of the American Dream. That vision was shattered over the following decade, its inequities at home and arrogance abroad challenged by powerful civil rights and antiwar movements. Assassinations, social violence, and the blowback of a "silent majority" shredded the American fabric.
-
-
The insights of this period are enlightening
- By recreational skier on 01-17-22
By: Kevin Boyle
Related to this topic
-
Nothing Ever Dies
- Vietnam and the Memory of War
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing Ever Dies, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes. All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the best-selling novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both the Americans and the Vietnamese.
-
-
Good, probably should be read and not listened to via audible for the best experience.
- By Tanya on 10-24-16
-
Rites of Spring
- The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
- By: Modris Eksteins
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dazzling in its originality, Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War", as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point...for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places."
-
-
Fantastic
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
By: Modris Eksteins
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
War Without Mercy
- Race and Power in the Pacific War
- By: John W. Dower
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States." In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War - race - while writing what John Toland has called "a landmark book...a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan."
-
-
War without Mercy
- By rbergen on 05-02-17
By: John W. Dower
-
Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
-
-
Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
-
Wasteland
- The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror
- By: W. Scott Poole
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War.
-
-
An interesting take
- By CN on 07-30-19
By: W. Scott Poole
-
Nothing Ever Dies
- Vietnam and the Memory of War
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing Ever Dies, Viet Thanh Nguyen writes. All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the best-selling novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both the Americans and the Vietnamese.
-
-
Good, probably should be read and not listened to via audible for the best experience.
- By Tanya on 10-24-16
-
Rites of Spring
- The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age
- By: Modris Eksteins
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dazzling in its originality, Rites of Spring probes the origins, impact, and aftermath of World War I from the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" in 1913 to the death of Hitler in 1945. "The Great War", as Modris Eksteins writes, "was the psychological turning point...for modernism as a whole. The urge to create and the urge to destroy had changed places."
-
-
Fantastic
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
By: Modris Eksteins
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
War Without Mercy
- Race and Power in the Pacific War
- By: John W. Dower
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States." In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War - race - while writing what John Toland has called "a landmark book...a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan."
-
-
War without Mercy
- By rbergen on 05-02-17
By: John W. Dower
-
Fracture
- Life and Culture in the West, 1918-1938
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Great War ended in 1918, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: The old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief.
-
-
Lots of good trivia information
- By Jean on 07-23-15
By: Philipp Blom
-
Wasteland
- The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror
- By: W. Scott Poole
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of ways. The Great War remade the world's map, created new global powers, and brought forth some of the biggest problems still facing us today. But it also birthed a new art form: the horror film, made from the fears of a generation ruined by war. From Nosferatu to Frankenstein's monster and the Wolf Man, the touchstones of horror can all trace their roots to the bloodshed of the First World War.
-
-
An interesting take
- By CN on 07-30-19
By: W. Scott Poole
-
Practicing History
- Selected Essays
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Master historian Barbara W. Tuchman looks at history in a unique way and draws lessons from what she sees. This accessible introduction to the subject of history offers striking insights into America's past and present, trenchant observations on the international scene, and thoughtful pieces on the historian's role. Here is a splendid body of work, the story of a lifetime spent "practicing history".
-
-
Barbara Tuchman fan faced with reality
- By J. Whittle on 09-27-18
-
Making History
- The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Richard Cohen
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are many stories we can spin about previous ages, but which accounts get told? And by whom? Is there even such a thing as “objective” history? In this “witty, wise, and elegant” (The Spectator), book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses, such as the writers of the Bible, novelists, and political propagandists, influence what becomes the accepted record. Cohen argues, for example, that some historians are practitioners of “Bad History” and twist reality to glorify themselves or their country.
-
-
Missing 20 pages from book
- By Rick, Austin on 04-23-22
By: Richard Cohen
-
Russia
- The Story of War
- By: Gregory Carleton
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No nation is a stranger to war, but for Russians war is a central part of who they are. Their "motherland" has been the battlefield where some of the largest armies have clashed, the most savage battles have been fought, the highest death tolls paid. Having prevailed over Mongol hordes and vanquished Napoleon and Hitler, many Russians believe no other nation has sacrificed so much for the world.
-
-
A bit dry and academic
- By Mike From Mesa on 07-16-17
By: Gregory Carleton
-
Embracing Defeat
- By: John W. Dower
- Narrated by: Edward Lewis
- Length: 21 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This illuminating study explores the ways in which the shattering defeat of the Japanese in World War II, followed by over six years of American military occupation, affected every level of Japanese society. The author describes the countless ways in which the Japanese met the challenge of "starting over", from top-level manipulations concerning the fate of Emperor Hirohito to the hopes, fears, and activities of ordinary men and women in every walk of life.
-
-
Pulitzer Prize Winner!
- By KF on 10-09-07
By: John W. Dower
-
The Man Who Invented Fiction
- How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
- By: William Egginton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.
-
-
Very Interesting and Informative, but Poorly Read
- By LCorSMT on 06-21-23
By: William Egginton
-
There Was a Country
- A Personal History of Biafra
- By: Chinua Achebe
- Narrated by: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The defining experience of Chinua Achebe's life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe's people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than 40 years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa's most fateful events.
-
-
The Audible Edition Is a Disaster
- By Olu on 11-28-12
By: Chinua Achebe
-
The Long Shadow
- The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century
- By: David Reynolds
- Narrated by: John FitzGibbon
- Length: 19 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most violent conflicts in the history of civilization, World War I has been strangely forgotten in American culture. It has become a ghostly war fought in a haze of memory, often seen merely as a distant preamble to World War II. In The Long Shadow critically-acclaimed historian David Reynolds seeks to broaden our vision by assessing the impact of the Great War across the twentieth century. He shows how events in that turbulent century—particularly World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of Communism—shaped and reshaped attitudes to 1914–18.
-
-
The World According to David Reynolds (feat. WWI)
- By Steve on 02-26-15
By: David Reynolds
-
Adolf Hitler
- A Captivating Guide to the Life of the Führer of Nazi Germany
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Explore the rise of Adolf Hitler. Was Hitler, as Ian Kershaw asked, a natural consequence of German history, or an aberration? Not that Hitler had been in hiding, waiting to attack. The Führer had actually been following an aggressive and savage foreign policy for almost 10 years, and been named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1938.
-
-
Awesome little book
- By Bryan T. on 02-02-19
-
The Long March
- How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America
- By: Roger Kimball
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The architects of America's cultural revolution of the 1960s were Beat authors like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, and celebrated figures like Norman Mailer, Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver, and Susan Sontag. In examining the lives and works of those who spoke for the 1960s, Roger Kimball conceives a series of cautionary tales, an annotated guidebook of wrong turns, dead-ends, and blind alleys.
-
-
The Long March
- By Suzanne on 05-16-06
By: Roger Kimball
-
Existentialism and Excess
- The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
- By: Gary Cox
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.
-
-
a capitalista biography of Sartre
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-20
By: Gary Cox
-
The N Word
- Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn't, and Why
- By: Jabari Asim
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2003, the book Nigger started an intense conversation about the uses and implications of that epithet. The N Word moves beyond that short, provocative book by revealing how the word has both reflected and spread the scourge of bigotry in America.
-
-
Good points, long winded
- By Amazon Customer on 02-06-21
By: Jabari Asim
-
This Republic of Suffering
- Death and the American Civil War
- By: Drew Gilpin Faust
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Civil War, 620,000 soldiers lost their lives - equivalent to six million in today's population. This Republic of Suffering explores the impact of the enormous death toll from material, political, intellectual, and spiritual angles. Drew Gilpin Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and describes how a deeply religious culture reconciled the slaughter with its belief in a benevolent God.
-
-
a unique civil war perspective
- By D. Littman on 04-21-08
What listeners say about Looking for the Good War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert D Hunter
- 03-06-22
mistitlef
This book is much more about the reflection of the mythology of American history including war in the cultural dynamic of today in books, movies, Presidential speeches, TV shows and the like than it is about the the mythology itself and how it came to be and the influence it now has on American politics and attitudes. Too bad. We are drowning in these myths making reasonable discussion and disagreement very difficult.
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
- Nice guy
- 04-09-22
Every Hawkish Person Should Listen to This Book
This is a wonderful listen if you want to understand how we sell the myth of warfare and hide the true gruesomeness of war from the eyes of "a grateful nation". When I listened to this I also found an article that Dr. Samet wrote in American Scholar Magazine, her thoughts about the current conflicts and this book make me proud to think that our military cadets are being exposed to scholars who make them think about the consequences of war, and how the post war narrative may not always prepare future generations for the wars to come. This book is a must listen for all serious students of the impact of warfare on the American culture, and a must for the war hawks out there.
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
- jbfuller317
- 09-01-23
Interesting revisionist discussion of WWII, society and memory
A sweeping survey of the experience and attitudes of contemporary Americans about WWII. Fluid and highly informed discussion of attitudes about the was through the lens of America’s sense of itself as shaped by previous wars, specifically the Civil War. Not a military history.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- chetyarbrough.blog
- 08-06-23
WARS TRUTH
Elizabeth Samet's "Looking for the Good War" tells a hard truth about war. As a professor at West Point, it seems incongruous for Samet to write this book. On the other hand, who would better understand a career for future military officers than a West Point' professor? The command structure of the military requires soldiers do what they are ordered to do. In that doing, they may lose their minds, their lives, or their physical health. Samet raises the hard truth of every war, i.e., a soldier's duty is to follow orders and when necessary, kill or be killed.
Truth of war becomes distorted by memory, and human bias that is memorialized by the visual arts and literature. The support for Samet's view of war is in art and media representations of its history. From Picasso's Guernica that illustrates the real horror of war to movies like Sands of Iwo Jima, war's reality is distorted. Art and literature tell different truths. Samet is arguing no war is a good war because war is inherently bad for the mental and physical existence of human life. She argues narratives of America's Civil War are prime examples of the distortion of truth about a "...Good War..." in the same sense as Brokaw's WWII narrative. Samet coldly notes America's idealization of rebel opposition to union and civil rights falls into the same category as the idealization of America's role in WWII. Just as America did not save the world for democracy in WWII, America's Civil War did not erase institutional racism. Racism hardened after America's civil war and continues to this day.
As seen in Ukraine, Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Sudan--wars continue to roil the world. War is only a destroyer, not a builder of society. Samet implies the truth of war will continue to be distorted by both victors and losers who tell the tale.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Arlene S. Burke
- 02-23-22
Essential reading for military officers and political decision makers.
This is an excellent and well researched piece of historical importance. It contains insights seldom heard or seen in other publications, and yet essential to decision making in the future. I would hope that this book would be required reading at all US service academies and for senior diplomats and political leaders.
Richard J. Burke
Madison, Connecticut and Marco Island, Florida
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brandon A Mazander
- 01-07-23
Skip it
I was looking forward to a strategic view of a discussion of the negative benefits of hero worship. This was mostly a diatribe of what felt like random historical pop culture facts about how bad the United States really is. Forgetting that no society is completely homogenous and that you will always find valid reasons for dissenters and empathetic reasons to do better. It was hard to finish, and did not feel like I truly learned anything when I finished.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!