-
The Hoover Dam: The History and Construction of America's Most Famous Engineering Project
- Narrated by: Jack Nolan
- Length: 1 hr and 14 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
![Prime logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/Audible/Homestead/Prime_Logo_RGB.png)
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $6.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Hoover Dam
- An American Adventure
- By: Joseph E. Stevens
- Narrated by: Kevin Charles Minatrea
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken: the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.
-
-
Enjoyed this book
- By Nancy Ann on 02-18-20
-
Colossus
- Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America's greatest achievements. The story of its conception, design, and construction is the story of the United States at a unique moment in history: when facing both a global economic crisis and the implacable elements of nature, we prevailed.
-
-
A Political Biography of the Dam
- By Roy on 02-20-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
-
Never Give an Inch
- Fighting for the America I Love
- By: Mike Pompeo
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Complete with a road map of the trends and players shaping the world today, Never Give an Inch is more than a historical review of the Trump Administration's greatest victories. It is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the challenges of the future. And it is an inspirational story of leadership through dangerous times that will leave you with a greater appreciation for America.
-
-
A really great book
- By John A. on 01-24-23
By: Mike Pompeo
-
The Johnstown Flood
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon.
-
-
A page-turner! HIstory that reads like a novel
- By Susan K Donley on 06-17-05
By: David McCullough
-
The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
-
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
The Great Bridge
- The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 27 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.
-
-
An Historian and not a Novelist
- By Tim on 06-01-12
By: David McCullough
-
Hoover Dam
- An American Adventure
- By: Joseph E. Stevens
- Narrated by: Kevin Charles Minatrea
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken: the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.
-
-
Enjoyed this book
- By Nancy Ann on 02-18-20
-
Colossus
- Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America's greatest achievements. The story of its conception, design, and construction is the story of the United States at a unique moment in history: when facing both a global economic crisis and the implacable elements of nature, we prevailed.
-
-
A Political Biography of the Dam
- By Roy on 02-20-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
-
Never Give an Inch
- Fighting for the America I Love
- By: Mike Pompeo
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Complete with a road map of the trends and players shaping the world today, Never Give an Inch is more than a historical review of the Trump Administration's greatest victories. It is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the challenges of the future. And it is an inspirational story of leadership through dangerous times that will leave you with a greater appreciation for America.
-
-
A really great book
- By John A. on 01-24-23
By: Mike Pompeo
-
The Johnstown Flood
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon.
-
-
A page-turner! HIstory that reads like a novel
- By Susan K Donley on 06-17-05
By: David McCullough
-
The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
-
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
The Great Bridge
- The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 27 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.
-
-
An Historian and not a Novelist
- By Tim on 06-01-12
By: David McCullough
-
The Great Wall of China and the Salton Sea
- Monuments, Missteps, and the Audacity of Ambition
- By: Russell Rathbun
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We've been building and making things ever since we stumbled out of paradise. Some of those things are incredible continuations of God's creation, while others are nothing but ambitious catastrophes. We continue making, says Russell Rathbun, but we've lost ourselves in the process.
-
-
Excellent narrator
- By Tammy on 03-17-18
By: Russell Rathbun
-
Brave Companions
- Portraits in History
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: David McCullough
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of exceptional men and women past and present who have not only shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little woman who made the big war”....
-
-
I USUALLY LOVE THIS GUY
- By Randall on 01-28-19
By: David McCullough
-
The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
-
-
Sarcastic
- By Cynthia Hartman on 06-16-16
By: Simon Winchester
-
Sellout
- How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home
- By: Victoria Bruce
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the US government, once proprietary materials, components, and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the United States. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements - materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets, and weapons systems.
-
-
Uncovering unsung heroes of modern America
- By Ben DeNardo on 08-24-17
By: Victoria Bruce
-
Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
-
-
Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
-
The Promise of the Grand Canyon
- John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West
- By: John F. Ross
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Wesley Powell’s first descent of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in 1869 counts among the most dramatic chapters in American exploration history. When the Canyon spit out the surviving members of the expedition - starving, battered, and nearly naked - they had accomplished what others thought impossible and finished the exploration of continental America that Lewis and Clark had begun almost 70 years before.
-
-
Parallels
- By Bruce McClenahan on 01-25-19
By: John F. Ross
-
The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
-
-
Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
-
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
-
Floodpath
- The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles
- By: Jon Wilkman
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Driven by eyewitness accounts and combining urban history with a life-and-death drama and a technological detective story, Floodpath grippingly reanimates the reality behind LA noir fictions like the classic film Chinatown. In an era of climate change, increasing demand on water resources, and a neglected American infrastructure, the tragedy of the St. Francis Dam has never been more relevant.
-
-
Incredible story
- By C. Jackson on 04-07-21
By: Jon Wilkman
-
Nothing Like It in the World
- The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. As its peak the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, lived off buffalo, deer, and antelope.
-
-
A tragic waste
- By Joshua Tretakoff on 04-11-03
-
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian
- John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
- By: Wallace Stegner
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner recounts the remarkable career of Major John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of the Southwest Indian tribes. This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the Powell’s career, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, in which Powell and his men famously became the first to descend the Colorado River, to his eventual expulsion from the Geological Survey.
-
-
History repeats itself.
- By Roy on 09-12-11
By: Wallace Stegner
-
Water to the Angels
- William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created - William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct - a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today.
-
-
Water challenges never end
- By John Matel on 04-10-15
By: Les Standiford
Publisher's summary
"This morning I came, I saw, and I was conquered, as everyone would be who sees for the first time this great feat of mankind.... Ten years ago the place where we gathered was an unpeopled, forbidding desert. In the bottom of the gloomy canyon whose precipitous walls rose to height of more than a thousand feet, flowed a turbulent, dangerous river.... The site of Boulder City was a cactus-covered waste. And the transformation wrought here in these years is a twentieth century marvel.” (President Franklin D. Roosevelt, September 30, 1935)
During the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, thousands of workers began work on the Hoover Dam, built in the Black Canyon, which had been cut by the powerful Colorado River. The Colorado River was responsible for the Grand Canyon, and by the 20th century, the idea of damming the river and creating an artificial lake was being explored for all of its potential, including hydroelectric power and irrigation. By the time the project was proposed in the 1920s, the contractors vowing to build it were facing the challenge of building the largest dam the world had ever known. As if that wasn’t enough, the landscape was completely unforgiving, as described by the famous explorer John Wesley Powell generations earlier: “The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock - cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock - ten thousand strangely carved forms...cathedral shaped buttes, towering hundreds or thousands of feet, cliffs that cannot be scaled, and canyon walls that shrink the river into insignificance, with vast hollow domes and tall pinnacles and shafts set on the verge overhead; and all highly colored.”
Related to this topic
-
Hoover Dam
- An American Adventure
- By: Joseph E. Stevens
- Narrated by: Kevin Charles Minatrea
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken: the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.
-
-
Enjoyed this book
- By Nancy Ann on 02-18-20
-
Colossus
- Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America's greatest achievements. The story of its conception, design, and construction is the story of the United States at a unique moment in history: when facing both a global economic crisis and the implacable elements of nature, we prevailed.
-
-
A Political Biography of the Dam
- By Roy on 02-20-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
-
Water to the Angels
- William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created - William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct - a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today.
-
-
Water challenges never end
- By John Matel on 04-10-15
By: Les Standiford
-
The Big Roads
- The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways
- By: Earl Swift
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From author Earl Swift comes the surprising history of the U.S. interstate system, a fascinating route through the dreams, discoveries, and protests that shaped these mighty roads.
-
-
Lessons from The Big Roads
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Earl Swift
-
Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
-
-
Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
-
The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
-
-
Sarcastic
- By Cynthia Hartman on 06-16-16
By: Simon Winchester
-
Hoover Dam
- An American Adventure
- By: Joseph E. Stevens
- Narrated by: Kevin Charles Minatrea
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken: the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.
-
-
Enjoyed this book
- By Nancy Ann on 02-18-20
-
Colossus
- Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As breathtaking today as when it was completed, Hoover Dam ranks among America's greatest achievements. The story of its conception, design, and construction is the story of the United States at a unique moment in history: when facing both a global economic crisis and the implacable elements of nature, we prevailed.
-
-
A Political Biography of the Dam
- By Roy on 02-20-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
-
Water to the Angels
- William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created - William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct - a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today.
-
-
Water challenges never end
- By John Matel on 04-10-15
By: Les Standiford
-
The Big Roads
- The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways
- By: Earl Swift
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From author Earl Swift comes the surprising history of the U.S. interstate system, a fascinating route through the dreams, discoveries, and protests that shaped these mighty roads.
-
-
Lessons from The Big Roads
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Earl Swift
-
Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
-
-
Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
-
The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
-
-
Sarcastic
- By Cynthia Hartman on 06-16-16
By: Simon Winchester
-
The Great Bridge
- The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 27 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.
-
-
An Historian and not a Novelist
- By Tim on 06-01-12
By: David McCullough
-
The Race Underground
- Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America's First Subway
- By: Doug Most
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew larger, the streets became increasingly clogged with horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a halt, a solution had to be found. Two brothers - Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York City - pursued the dream of his city being the first American metropolis to have a subway and the great race was on.
-
-
Informative Cobbled Telling of an Important Story
- By Lynn on 05-21-14
By: Doug Most
-
Nothing Like It in the World
- The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise comes to life. The U.S. government pitted two companies - the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads - against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. As its peak the work force approached the size of Civil War armies, with as many as 15,000 workers on each line. The surveyors, the men who picked the route, lived off buffalo, deer, and antelope.
-
-
A tragic waste
- By Joshua Tretakoff on 04-11-03
-
On the Grid
- A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work
- By: Scott Huler
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In our daily lives, we're surrounded by wires, pipes, utility poles, cell phone towers, and myriad other infrastructure that facilitates almost everything we do. Even though these systems are essential, when was the last time you gave them much thought? In On the Grid, Scott Huler sets out to understand all of the systems that shape our society - from transportation, water, and garbage to the Internet coming through our cable lines.
-
-
Amazing!
- By Skippy the Okie on 01-27-16
By: Scott Huler
-
Uranium
- War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uranium is a common element in the earth's crust and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order---whoever could master uranium could master the world. Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan Project gave us reason to believe that civilization would end with apocalypse.
-
-
GREAT book, awful narration
- By Carolyn on 03-30-09
By: Tom Zoellner
-
Divided Highways
- Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life
- By: Tom Lewis
- Narrated by: Jim D. Johnston
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape.
-
-
Lots of interesting facts. Poor narration
- By Richard on 06-01-21
By: Tom Lewis
-
Higher
- A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City
- By: Neal Bascomb
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This riveting, true account of the 1929 race to build New York City's tallest skyscraper evokes the glory of an exciting time long past.
-
-
Outstanding Audio Book!!!
- By Tim on 11-16-05
By: Neal Bascomb
-
A Crack in the Edge of the World
- America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
-
-
7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
-
The Great Wall of China and the Salton Sea
- Monuments, Missteps, and the Audacity of Ambition
- By: Russell Rathbun
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We've been building and making things ever since we stumbled out of paradise. Some of those things are incredible continuations of God's creation, while others are nothing but ambitious catastrophes. We continue making, says Russell Rathbun, but we've lost ourselves in the process.
-
-
Excellent narrator
- By Tammy on 03-17-18
By: Russell Rathbun
-
Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
-
-
The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
-
The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
-
-
No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
-
Ruthless Tide
- The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster
- By: Al Roker
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gripping narrative history of the 1889 Johnstown Flood - the deadliest flood in US history - from New York Times best-selling author, NBC host, and legendary weather authority Al Roker. May 1889: After a deluge of rainfall swelled the Little Conemaugh River, panicked engineers watched helplessly as swiftly rising waters threatened to breach the South Fork Dam in central Pennsylvania. Though they telegraphed neighboring towns, warning of the impending danger, residents, used to false alarms, remained in their homes. At 3:10 p.m., the dam gave way....
-
-
Mispronunciation bothers me
- By Tracy on 09-08-18
By: Al Roker
What listeners say about The Hoover Dam: The History and Construction of America's Most Famous Engineering Project
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kim
- 04-11-15
Awesome
loved it what a wonderful peace of history. One of the most interesting books I have read so far.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful