
The Infernal Machine
A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective
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Narrated by:
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Steven Johnson
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By:
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Steven Johnson
About this listen
“A fast-burning fuse of a book, every page bursting with revelatory detail.”—ERIK LARSON
A sweeping account of the anarchists who terrorized the streets of New York and the detective duo who transformed policing to meet the threat—a tale of fanaticism, forensic science, and dynamite from the bestselling author of The Ghost Map
WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD • A CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION
Steven Johnson’s engrossing account of the epic struggle between the anarchist movement and the emerging surveillance state stretches around the world and between two centuries—from Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite and the assassination of Czar Alexander II to New York City in the shadow of World War I.
April 1914. The NYPD is still largely the corrupt, low-tech organization of the Tammany Hall era. To the extent the police are stopping crime—as opposed to committing it—their role has been almost entirely defined by physical force: the brawn of the cop on the beat keeping criminals at bay with nightsticks and fists. The solving of crimes is largely outside their purview.
The new commissioner, Arthur Woods, is determined to change that, but he cannot anticipate the maelstrom of violence that will soon test his science-based approach to policing. Within weeks of his tenure, New York City is engulfed in the most concentrated terrorism campaign in the nation’s history: a five-year period of relentless bombings, many of them perpetrated by the anarchist movement led by legendary radicals Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. Coming to Woods’s aide are Inspector Joseph Faurot, a science-first detective who works closely with him in reforming the police force, and Amadeo Polignani, the young Italian undercover detective who infiltrates the notorious Bresci Circle.
Johnson reveals a mostly forgotten period of political conviction, scientific discovery, assassination plots, bombings, undercover operations, and innovative sleuthing. The Infernal Machine is the complex pre-history of our current moment, when decentralized anarchist networks have once again taken to the streets to protest law enforcement abuses, right-wing militia groups have attacked government buildings, and surveillance is almost ubiquitous.
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Critic reviews
“Dynamite, cops, anarchists—what more could you ask for? With narrative élan, Johnson tells the story of how an ‘infernal’ invention forever disrupted our political world. It’s a fast-burning fuse of a book, every page bursting with revelatory detail.”—Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile
“Drawing parallels with contemporary acts of terrorism and governmental abuses of power in monitoring citizens, Johnson makes history part of an ongoing story we all need to consider. Smart, accessible, and highly readable.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Drawing parallels with contemporary acts of terrorism and governmental abuses of power in monitoring citizens, Johnson makes history part of an ongoing story we all need to consider. Smart, accessible, and highly readable.”—Kirkus Reviews
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Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of How We Got to Now and Extra Life, a look at the world-changing innovations we made while keeping ourselves entertained. This history of popular entertainment takes a long-zoom approach, contending that the pursuit of novelty and wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change. Steven Johnson argues that, throughout history, the cutting edge of innovation lies wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused.
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It will delight you
- By T. Leach on 02-09-17
By: Steven Johnson
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Extra Life
- A Short History of Living Longer
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Steven Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1920, at the end of the last major pandemic, global life expectancy was just over 40 years. Today, in many parts of the world, human beings can expect to live more than 80 years. As a species, we have doubled our life expectancy in just one century. There are few measures of human progress more astonishing than this increased longevity.
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Thought provoking
- By MacGyver124 on 06-14-21
By: Steven Johnson
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Where Good Ideas Come From
- The Natural History of Innovation
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Eric Singer
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.
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Ambitious
- By Roy on 12-08-10
By: Steven Johnson
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Gomorrah
- A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System
- By: Roberto Saviano
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast
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Eye Opener
- By Roy on 02-20-09
By: Roberto Saviano
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Farsighted
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: George Newbern, Steven Johnson - introduction
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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There's no one-size-fits-all model for the important decisions that can alter the course of a life, an organization, or a civilization. But Farsighted explains how we can approach these choices more effectively and how we can appreciate the subtle intelligence of choices that shaped our broader social history.
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Powerful Book for Business and Personal Decisions
- By Robert Z on 09-30-18
By: Steven Johnson
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Stakeknife's Dirty War
- The Inside Story of Scappaticci, the IRA's Nutting Squad and the British Spooks Who Ran the War
- By: Richard O'Rawe
- Narrated by: Alan Turkington
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Freddie Scappaticci was born in 1946 and raised in a deeply nationalist area of Belfast. When the Troubles broke out in 1969, he joined the Provisional IRA, where he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming commander of Belfast in 1984. From the outside, Scappaticci appeared to be a dedicated volunteer, but inwardly, he had become disenchanted with the IRA and, in 1977, he started working for British intelligence.
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Only losers in this ‘war’ were the Irish people
- By puplhunt on 03-11-24
By: Richard O'Rawe
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The Unvanquished
- The Untold Story of Lincoln's Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby's Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America's Special Operations
- By: Patrick K. O'Donnell
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Civil War is most remembered for the grand battles that have come to define it: Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, among others. However, as bestselling author Patrick K. O’Donnell reveals in The Unvanquished, a vital shadow war raged amid and away from the major battlefields that was in many ways equally consequential to the conflict’s outcome.
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Gray Ghost
- By O. G. Ramos on 07-29-24
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Long Haul
- Hunting the Highway Serial Killers
- By: Frank Figliuzzi
- Narrated by: Frank Figliuzzi
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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From the FBI’s former assistant director, a shocking journey to the dark side of America’s highways, revealing the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative’s hunt for the long-haul truckers behind an astonishing 850 murders–and counting.
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Not What I Expected Not what I expected
- By Huntryx on 06-06-24
By: Frank Figliuzzi
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The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
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Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
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The Thirty Years War
- Europe's Tragedy
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.
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Less caffeine, narrator
- By Jeff Joyner on 02-12-24
By: Peter H. Wilson
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Fire and Brimstone
- The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917
- By: Michael Punke
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history began a half hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, when fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than 2,000 feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour more than 400 men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days 164 of them would be dead.
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Fairly Solid Book With Good History
- By Matthew on 08-18-16
By: Michael Punke
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Red Scare
- Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America
- By: Clay Risen
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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An urgent, accessible, and important history, 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. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, 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.
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Very disappointing narrator
- By DB on 04-19-25
By: Clay Risen
A Must Read
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History we all need to know about
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The story revealed not reviled
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This could have been a straightforward tale of good versus evil, but in Steven Johnson’s hands, it transforms into a thought-provoking exploration of ideas—what worked, what didn’t, and why. Highly recommended
Revolutionary Insights
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definitely worth a listen.
Very enjoyable and very informative
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Explosives, terrorism, police and state power
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Really Emma Goldman bio
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Learning the history of the time
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so boring
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