
Red Scare
Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America
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
3 months free
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:
-
Kevin R. Free
-
By:
-
Clay Risen
About this listen
Now, for the first time in a generation, Clay Risen delivers a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. This period, known as the Red Scare, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, and the terrifying onset of the Cold War. Marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria, this was a defining moment in American history, completely unlike any that preceded it. Drawing upon newly declassified documents and with “scenes are so vivid that you can almost feel yourself sweating along with the witnesses” (The New York Times Book Review), journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.
Beginning with the origins of the era after WWI through to its conclusion in 1957, Risen brings to life the politics, patriotism, courage, and delirium of those years. Red Scare takes us beyond the familiar story of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklists and toward a fuller understanding of what the country went through at a time of moral questioning and perceived threat from the Left, and what we were capable of doing to each other as a result.
“Thorough, impassioned...detailed, [and] tension-packed” (Los Angeles Times), Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment.©2025 Clay Risen (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Ghosts of Iron Mountain
- The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today
- By: Phil Tinline
- Narrated by: Phil Tinline
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A compelling work of investigative journalism that explores the surprising origins and hidden ramifications of an epic late 1960s hoax, perpetrated by cultural luminaries, including Victor Navasky and E.L. Doctorow. For readers curious about the surprising connections between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
-
-
Audio quality
- By Chas30166 on 03-29-25
By: Phil Tinline
-
The Gunfighters
- How Texas Made the West Wild
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “Wild West” gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it all as a corny myth, more a product of dime novels and B movies than a genuinely important American history. In fact, as Bryan Burrough shows us in his dazzling and fast-paced new book, there’s much more below the surface. For three decades at the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history. The reasons behind this boil down to one word: Texas.
-
-
Hits the target
- By S. S. Felzenberg on 06-09-25
By: Bryan Burrough
-
Money, Lies, and God
- Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy
- By: Katherine Stewart
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down.
-
-
Describes a well funded international fascist cult
- By marwalk on 03-24-25
-
Strangers and Intimates
- The Rise and Fall of Private Life
- By: Tiffany Jenkins
- Narrated by: Tiffany Jenkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tiffany Jenkins’s groundbreaking book traces the emergence of private sanctuaries from authority and public opinion to show that private life is a very recent – and hard-won – achievement. Strangers and Intimates is animated by dramatic human confrontations: from the political struggles in the seventeenth century that led to Edmund Coke’s rallying cry that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’; to the first modern privacy panic in 1844, when the British government opened private letters sent to the exiled Italian republican Giuseppe Mazzini; and more.
By: Tiffany Jenkins
-
Charles Sumner
- Conscience of a Nation
- By: Zaakir Tameez
- Narrated by: David Lee Garver
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner's status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen's Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
By: Zaakir Tameez
-
The Field of Blood
- Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
- By: Joanne B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Joanne B. Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the US Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery.
-
-
fascinating look at an untold aspect of US.history
- By P. Cardella on 09-27-18
-
Ghosts of Iron Mountain
- The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today
- By: Phil Tinline
- Narrated by: Phil Tinline
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A compelling work of investigative journalism that explores the surprising origins and hidden ramifications of an epic late 1960s hoax, perpetrated by cultural luminaries, including Victor Navasky and E.L. Doctorow. For readers curious about the surprising connections between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
-
-
Audio quality
- By Chas30166 on 03-29-25
By: Phil Tinline
-
The Gunfighters
- How Texas Made the West Wild
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “Wild West” gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it all as a corny myth, more a product of dime novels and B movies than a genuinely important American history. In fact, as Bryan Burrough shows us in his dazzling and fast-paced new book, there’s much more below the surface. For three decades at the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history. The reasons behind this boil down to one word: Texas.
-
-
Hits the target
- By S. S. Felzenberg on 06-09-25
By: Bryan Burrough
-
Money, Lies, and God
- Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy
- By: Katherine Stewart
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down.
-
-
Describes a well funded international fascist cult
- By marwalk on 03-24-25
-
Strangers and Intimates
- The Rise and Fall of Private Life
- By: Tiffany Jenkins
- Narrated by: Tiffany Jenkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tiffany Jenkins’s groundbreaking book traces the emergence of private sanctuaries from authority and public opinion to show that private life is a very recent – and hard-won – achievement. Strangers and Intimates is animated by dramatic human confrontations: from the political struggles in the seventeenth century that led to Edmund Coke’s rallying cry that ‘an Englishman’s home is his castle’; to the first modern privacy panic in 1844, when the British government opened private letters sent to the exiled Italian republican Giuseppe Mazzini; and more.
By: Tiffany Jenkins
-
Charles Sumner
- Conscience of a Nation
- By: Zaakir Tameez
- Narrated by: David Lee Garver
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner's status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen's Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
By: Zaakir Tameez
-
The Field of Blood
- Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
- By: Joanne B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Joanne B. Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the US Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery.
-
-
fascinating look at an untold aspect of US.history
- By P. Cardella on 09-27-18
-
Lawless
- How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes
- By: Leah Litman
- Narrated by: Leah Litman
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the gravitas of Joan Biskupic and the irreverence of Elie Mystal, Leah Litman brings her signature wit to the question of what’s gone wrong at One First Street. In Lawless, she argues that the Supreme Court is no longer practicing law; it’s running on vibes. By “vibes,” Litman means legal-ish claims that repackage the politics of conservative grievance and dress them up in robes. Major decisions adopt the language and posture of the law, while in fact displaying a commitment to protecting a single minority: the religious conservatives and Republican officials.
-
-
Litman is an essential voice in this moment
- By L B on 07-04-25
By: Leah Litman
-
Martin Van Buren
- America's First Politician
- By: James M. Bradley
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 26 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This new biography of Van Buren—the first full-scale portrait in four decades—charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.
-
-
Woke
- By sriaknal on 06-06-25
By: James M. Bradley
-
Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
-
-
Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
-
The Violent Take It by Force
- The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy
- By: Matthew D. Taylor
- Narrated by: Asa Siegel
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale.
-
-
Comprehensively Researched
- By Chuck Anderson on 09-25-24
-
The Illegals
- Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.”
-
-
Great history of “nelegali”!
- By Amzon Customer on 06-07-25
By: Shaun Walker
-
Miracles and Wonder
- The Historical Mystery of Jesus
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
-
-
I had high hopes for this title
- By Christine on 04-02-25
By: Elaine Pagels
-
Hitler's People
- The Faces of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People, he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Peter Ryers on 09-13-24
By: Richard J. Evans
-
Sister, Sinner
- The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple
- By: Claire Hoffman
- Narrated by: Carmen Seantel
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a spring day in 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson wandered into the Pacific Ocean and vanished. Weeks later she reappeared in the desert, claiming to have been kidnapped. A national media frenzy and months of investigation ensued. Who was this woman? America’s most famous evangelist, McPherson was a sophisticated marketer who used spectacle, storytelling, and the newest technology—including her own radio station—to bring God’s message to the masses.
-
-
A gentle, but honest reflection
- By Nicolle on 04-26-25
By: Claire Hoffman
-
The Death of Expertise (2nd Edition)
- The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters
- By: Tom Nichols
- Narrated by: Tom Nichols
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.
-
-
Tom Nichols is a partisan hack
- By Carl Almgren on 07-06-25
By: Tom Nichols
-
Ignorance and Bliss
- On Wanting Not to Know
- By: Mark Lilla
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Ignorance and Bliss, the acclaimed essayist and historian of ideas Mark Lilla offers an absorbing psychological diagnosis of the human will not to know. With erudition and brio, Lilla ranges from the Book of Genesis and Plato's dialogues to Sufi parables and Sigmund Freud, revealing the paradoxes of hiding truth from ourselves.
By: Mark Lilla
-
Whittaker Chambers
- A Biography
- By: Sam Tanenhaus
- Narrated by: Edward Lewis
- Length: 18 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This first-ever biography of the enigmatic Whittaker Chambers draws on materials from 40 archives, including still-classified KGB dossiers, to trace the remarkable journey that led Chambers to center stage in America's greatest political trial.
-
-
Witness was much better, but this has some value
- By Doug on 11-07-17
By: Sam Tanenhaus
-
Beyond the Big Lie
- The Epidemic of Political Liars, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy
- By: Bill Adair
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Adair knows a lie when he hears one. Since 2008, the site he founded, PolitiFact, has been the go-to spot for media members and political observers alike to seek the truth in an increasingly deceitful world. Since the site’s launching, politics’ tenuous relationship with the truth has only gotten weaker—and weirder. In this groundbreaking book, Adair reveals how politicians lie and why.
-
-
Beyond the Big Lie
- By Steve Tone on 10-22-24
By: Bill Adair
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left
- By: Landon R. Y. Storrs
- Narrated by: Hal Wiedeman
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The loyalty investigations triggered by the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s marginalized many talented women and men who had entered government service during the Great Depression seeking to promote social democracy as a means to economic reform. Their influence over New Deal policymaking and their alliances with progressive labor and consumer movements elicited a powerful reaction from conservatives, who accused them of being subversives.
-
The Crowded Hour
- Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century
- By: Clay Risen
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “gripping” (The Washington Post) story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century. Both a portrait of these men, few of whom were traditional soldiers, and of the Spanish-American War itself, The Crowded Hour dives deep into the daily lives and struggles of Roosevelt and his regiment. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, Risen illuminates an influential moment in American history.
-
-
Dissapointed
- By Bill on 09-13-19
By: Clay Risen
-
Naming Names
- By: Victor S. Navasky
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on interviews with over 150 people who were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee - including Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller award-winning author Victor S. Navasky reveals how and why the blacklists were so effective and delves into the tragic and far-reaching consequences of Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts.
-
-
Critically important history
- By Myra on 01-15-22
-
The Fifteen
- Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America
- By: William Geroux
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown.
-
-
Had no idea that we had almost 400,000 German prisoners in the country during World War II
- By JDM808 on 06-27-25
By: William Geroux
-
Rot
- An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
- By: Padraic X. Scanlan
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate. In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation.
-
-
Really great work of history
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-25
-
The Mesopotamian Riddle
- An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
- By: Joshua Hammer
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
By: Joshua Hammer
-
The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left
- By: Landon R. Y. Storrs
- Narrated by: Hal Wiedeman
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The loyalty investigations triggered by the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s marginalized many talented women and men who had entered government service during the Great Depression seeking to promote social democracy as a means to economic reform. Their influence over New Deal policymaking and their alliances with progressive labor and consumer movements elicited a powerful reaction from conservatives, who accused them of being subversives.
-
The Crowded Hour
- Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century
- By: Clay Risen
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The “gripping” (The Washington Post) story of the most famous regiment in American history: the Rough Riders, a motley group of soldiers led by Theodore Roosevelt, whose daring exploits marked the beginning of American imperialism in the 20th century. Both a portrait of these men, few of whom were traditional soldiers, and of the Spanish-American War itself, The Crowded Hour dives deep into the daily lives and struggles of Roosevelt and his regiment. Using diaries, letters, and memoirs, Risen illuminates an influential moment in American history.
-
-
Dissapointed
- By Bill on 09-13-19
By: Clay Risen
-
Naming Names
- By: Victor S. Navasky
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 19 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on interviews with over 150 people who were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee - including Elia Kazan, Ring Lardner Jr., and Arthur Miller award-winning author Victor S. Navasky reveals how and why the blacklists were so effective and delves into the tragic and far-reaching consequences of Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts.
-
-
Critically important history
- By Myra on 01-15-22
-
The Fifteen
- Murder, Retribution, and the Forgotten Story of Nazi POWs in America
- By: William Geroux
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The revelatory true story of the long-forgotten POW camps for German soldiers erected in hundreds of small U.S. towns during World War II, and the secret Nazi killings that ensnared fifteen brave American POWs in a high-stakes showdown.
-
-
Had no idea that we had almost 400,000 German prisoners in the country during World War II
- By JDM808 on 06-27-25
By: William Geroux
-
Rot
- An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
- By: Padraic X. Scanlan
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1845, European potato fields from Spain to Scandinavia were attacked by a novel pathogen. But it was only in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom, that the blight’s devastation reached apocalyptic levels, leaving more than a million people dead and forcing millions more to emigrate. In Rot, historian Padraic X. Scanlan offers the definitive account of the Great Famine, showing how Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and the British Empire made it uniquely vulnerable to starvation.
-
-
Really great work of history
- By Anonymous User on 04-12-25
-
The Mesopotamian Riddle
- An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
- By: Joshua Hammer
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
By: Joshua Hammer
-
Seven Social Movements That Changed America
- By: Linda Gordon
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do social movements arise, wield power, and decline? Renowned scholar Linda Gordon investigates these questions in a groundbreaking work, narrating the stories of many of America's most influential twentieth-century social movements. Beginning with the turn-of-the-century settlement house movement, Gordon then scrutinizes the 1920s Ku Klux Klan and its successors, the violent American fascist groups of the 1930s.
By: Linda Gordon
-
Demagogue
- The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy
- By: Larry Tye
- Narrated by: Ben Jaeger-Thomas
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the long history of American demagogues from Huey Long to Donald Trump, never has one man caused so much damage in such a short time as Senator Joseph McCarthy. We still use "McCarthyism" to stand for outrageous charges of guilt by association, a weapon of polarizing slander. From 1950 to 1954, McCarthy destroyed many careers and even entire lives, whipping the nation into a frenzy of paranoia, accusation, loyalty oaths, and terror. When the public finally turned on him, he came crashing down, dying of alcoholism in 1957.
-
-
A necessary counterbalance to revisionism
- By Paul Crosby on 07-19-20
By: Larry Tye
-
Revenge
- The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power
- By: Alex Isenstadt
- Narrated by: Alan Peterson
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of the last four years, the American public looked on as the former president faced a series of daunting obstacles to return to the White House. The lingering cloud of January 6, a shadow effort within the Republican establishment to defeat him in the primary, multiple indictments, assassination attempts, and an 11th hour change of his opponent all threatened to derail his return to power at any moment.
-
-
if you followed the election, you already know most of it, but it's still a great listen.
- By Tony on 03-22-25
By: Alex Isenstadt
-
Show Trial
- Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist (Film and Culture Series)
- By: Thomas Doherty
- Narrated by: Keith McCarthy
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the dooror had it shut in their faces.
By: Thomas Doherty
-
Let Only Red Flowers Bloom
- Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China
- By: Emily Feng
- Narrated by: Emily Feng
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. will be one of the defining issues of our generation. But to understand modern China, one has to understand the people who live there–and the way the Chinese state is trying to control them along lines of identity and free expression. In vivid, cinematic detail, Let Only Red Flowers Bloom tells the stories of nearly two dozen people who are pushing back.
-
-
Genuine experiences yield clear insights to life in China and for the Chinese diaspora.
- By Brian Thorson on 06-19-25
By: Emily Feng
-
McCarthyism
- The Controversial History of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the Red Scare During the Cold War
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Dan Gallagher
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Shortly after World War II, Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began investigating Americans across the country for suspected ties to communism. The most famous victims of these witch hunts were Hollywood actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, whose "un-American activity" was being neutral at the beginning of World War II, but at the beginning of the Cold War, many Americans had the Red Scare.
-
Knead to Know
- A History of Baking
- By: Neil Buttery
- Narrated by: Neil Buttery
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Food historian and chef Neil Buttery takes the listener on a journey exploring the creation, evolution and cultural importance of some of our most beloved baked foods, whether they be fit for a monarch's table, or served from the bakestone of a lowly farm labourer. This book charts innovations, happy accidents and some of the most downright bizarre baked foods ever created.
By: Neil Buttery
-
The Spanish Civil War
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Helen Graham
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Amid the many catastrophes of the 20th century, the Spanish Civil War continues to exert a particular fascination among history buffs and the layperson alike. This Very Short Introduction integrates the political, social, and cultural history of the Spanish Civil War. It sets out the domestic and international context of the war for a general audience. In addition to tracing the course of war, the book locates the war's origins in the cumulative social and cultural anxieties provoked by a process of rapid, uneven, and accelerating modernism taking place all over Europe.
-
-
As exciting as a Communist Party meeting...
- By brendan f kelly on 05-26-21
By: Helen Graham
-
Ghosts of Iron Mountain
- The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today
- By: Phil Tinline
- Narrated by: Phil Tinline
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A compelling work of investigative journalism that explores the surprising origins and hidden ramifications of an epic late 1960s hoax, perpetrated by cultural luminaries, including Victor Navasky and E.L. Doctorow. For readers curious about the surprising connections between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
-
-
Audio quality
- By Chas30166 on 03-29-25
By: Phil Tinline
-
The Stalin Affair
- The Impossible Alliance That Won the War
- By: Giles Milton
- Narrated by: Giles Milton
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Enter Averell Harriman: a railroad magnate and, at the start of the war, the fourth-richest man in America. At Roosevelt’s behest, he traveled to Britain to serve as a liaison between the president and Churchill and to spearhead what became known as the Harriman Mission. Together with his fashionable young daughter Kathy, an unforgettable cast of British diplomats, and Churchill himself, he would eventually manage to wrangle Stalin into the partnership the Allies needed to defeat Hitler.
By: Giles Milton
-
Pure America
- Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia
- By: Elizabeth Catte
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Between 1927 and 1979, more than 8,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in five hospitals across the state of Virginia. From this plain and terrible fact springs Elizabeth Catte's Pure America, a sweeping, unsparing history of eugenics in Virginia, and by extension the United States.
-
-
Long on Commentary, Short on History
- By Sarah Friedrich on 10-14-24
By: Elizabeth Catte
-
The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire
- Why Our Species Is on the Edge of Extinction
- By: Henry Gee
- Narrated by: Henry Gee
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living through a period that is unique in human history. For the first time in more than ten thousand years, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. In the middle of this century population growth will stop, and the number of people on Earth will start to decline—fast. In this provocative book, award-winning science writer Henry Gee offers a concise, brilliantly told history of our species—and argues that we are on a rapid one-way trip to extinction.
-
-
Too many facts..no wisdom
- By Anonymous User on 03-30-25
By: Henry Gee
Learning about the present through history
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Also, the narrator’s choice of word emphasis and, frankly, his lack of gravitas, brings the whole experience way below par. Not a good choice for this material.
So maybe just read the book.
Very disappointing narrator
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.