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To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause
The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
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Narrated by:
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Rich Miller
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By:
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Benjamin Nathans
About this listen
A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR—and still provides a model of opposition in Putin’s Russia
Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world’s imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile—and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.
Benjamin Nathans’s vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents—from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was “simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.”
An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR’s totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin’s Russia—and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today.
“A brilliant book about the success of a hopeless cause, the practicality of self-sacrifice, and the extraordinary transformation of a one-man campaign to follow fictitious laws into an international human rights movement. A remarkable achievement.”—Yuri Slezkine, author of The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution
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Story
In this fascinating pop culture history of the game and its impact, acclaimed Chess.com journalist Peter Doggers (also their news and events director), reveals how computers and the Internet have further strengthened the timeless magic of chess in the digital era, leading to a new peak in popularity and cultural relevance. Doggers explores chess as a cultural phenomenon: from its earliest beginnings in ancient India to its biggest stars and most dramatic moments to the impact of the internet and AI.
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Great Modern History Of Chess Book
- By James on 01-14-25
By: Peter Doggers
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The Kremlin’s Noose
- Putin’s Bitter Feud with the Oligarch Who Made Him Ruler of Russia
- By: Amy Knight
- Narrated by: Holly Adams
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Kremlin's Noose Amy Knight tells the riveting story of Vladimir Putin and the oligarch Boris Berezovsky. When Putin began dismantling Boris Yeltsin's democratic reforms, Berezovsky came into conflict with the new Russian leader by reproaching him publicly. Their relationship quickly disintegrated into a bitter feud played out against the backdrop of billion-dollar financial deals, Kremlin in-fighting, and international politics.
By: Amy Knight
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The Order
- By: Kevin Flynn
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Two courageous investigative journalists deliver an insider’s account of the “silent brotherhood”—the most dangerous radical-right hate group to surface since the Ku Klux Klan. They claim to be patriots, as American as apple pie, but they are this nation’s deadly brotherhood—hate groups that package their alienation against the federal government under such names as the Aryan Nation, the Order, and other white supremacist militias.
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Well written true crime
- By Stefan Borst-Censullo on 02-20-25
By: Kevin Flynn
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The Tin Ticket
- The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women
- By: Deborah J. Swiss
- Narrated by: Corinne Davies
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Tin Ticket takes us to the dawn of the nineteenth century and into the lives of Agnes McMillan, whose defiance and resilience carried her to a far more dramatic rebellion; Agnes's best friend Janet Houston, who rescued her from the Glasgow wynds and was also transported to Van Diemen's Land; Ludlow Tedder, forced to choose just one of her four children to accompany her to the other side of the world; Bridget Mulligan, who gave birth to a line of powerful women stretching to the present day. It also tells the tale of Elizabeth Gurney Fry, a Quaker reformer who touched all their lives.
By: Deborah J. Swiss
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Intent to Destroy
- Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine
- By: Eugene Finkel
- Narrated by: Phillipe Bosher
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Russian invasion of Ukraine brought large-scale warfare to Europe, reshaped relations between key global players, and redefined existing alliances and international organizations, such as NATO and the European Union. It has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, revived the threat of a nuclear war between Russia and the West and might unleash a global famine. Political scientist and historian of genocide Eugene Finkel zooms in on the intersection of one of the most important geopolitical events in recent decades and the most odious type of violence.
By: Eugene Finkel
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Dark Sun
- The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 28 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.
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OK if you like politics, not good for the science
- By Astroman on 12-08-24
By: Richard Rhodes
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The Chess Revolution
- From the Ancient World to the Digital Age
- By: Peter Doggers
- Narrated by: George Weightman
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this fascinating pop culture history of the game and its impact, acclaimed Chess.com journalist Peter Doggers (also their news and events director), reveals how computers and the Internet have further strengthened the timeless magic of chess in the digital era, leading to a new peak in popularity and cultural relevance. Doggers explores chess as a cultural phenomenon: from its earliest beginnings in ancient India to its biggest stars and most dramatic moments to the impact of the internet and AI.
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Great Modern History Of Chess Book
- By James on 01-14-25
By: Peter Doggers
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The Kremlin’s Noose
- Putin’s Bitter Feud with the Oligarch Who Made Him Ruler of Russia
- By: Amy Knight
- Narrated by: Holly Adams
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Kremlin's Noose Amy Knight tells the riveting story of Vladimir Putin and the oligarch Boris Berezovsky. When Putin began dismantling Boris Yeltsin's democratic reforms, Berezovsky came into conflict with the new Russian leader by reproaching him publicly. Their relationship quickly disintegrated into a bitter feud played out against the backdrop of billion-dollar financial deals, Kremlin in-fighting, and international politics.
By: Amy Knight
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Red Hook
- Brooklyn Mafia, Ground Zero
- By: Frank Dimatteo, Michael Benson
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Packed with jaw-dropping stories of public violence and personal vengeance, vivid insights into the Mafia's way of life, and shocking portraits of America's most wanted crime families, Red Hook is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by the history of organized crime in America.
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Great History of Red Hook
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 02-18-25
By: Frank Dimatteo, and others
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The Great Gamble
- The Soviet War in Afghanistan
- By: Gregory Feifer
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
During the last years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent some of its most elite troops to unfamiliar lands in Central Asia to fight a vaguely defined enemy, which eventually defeated their superior number with unconventional tactics. Although the Soviet leadership initially saw the invasion as a victory, many Russian soldiers came to view the war as a demoralizing and devastating defeat, the consequences of which had a substantial impact on the Soviet Union and its collapse.
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Correction
- By Alyssa B. Goss on 11-22-09
By: Gregory Feifer
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Punishing Putin
- Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia
- By: Stephanie Baker
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
From seizing superyachts to manipulating the global price of oil to trying to block the sale of military technology to Russia, we learn how the White House coordinated with top officials in London and Brussels to freeze a staggering $300 billion in foreign currency reserves accumulated in the West by Russia’s central bank. Mobilizing an army of white collar-crime investigators and experts on international law, Baker explores how the West has cracked down on illicit Russian money by targeting oligarchs, one superyacht at a time, and their enablers around the world.
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Interesting in-depth storytelling
- By EBM on 10-01-24
By: Stephanie Baker
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The Notebook
- A History of Thinking on Paper
- By: Roland Allen
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did these indispensable implements come from? How did they revolutionize our lives? And how can using a notebook help change the way you think? In this wide-ranging history, Roland Allen reveals how the notebook became our most dependable and versatile tool for creative thinking.
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A fascinating look at an often overlooked powerful tool.
- By Andrew Darlow on 12-28-24
By: Roland Allen
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Oathbreakers
- The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe
- By: Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
By the early ninth century, the Carolingian empire was at the height of its power. The Franks, led by Charlemagne, had built the largest European domain since Rome in its heyday. Though they jockeyed for power, prestige, and profit, the Frankish elites enjoyed political and cultural consensus. But just two generations later, their world was in shambles. Civil war, once an unthinkable threat, had erupted after Louis the Pious’s sons tried to overthrow him—and then placed their knives at the other’s neck. Families who had once charged into battle together now drew each other’s blood.
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A Delightful Threading of the Needle
- By Chrstopher R. Baker on 02-22-25
By: Matthew Gabriele, and others
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Iron Curtain
- The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 26 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete.
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Important story, imperfectly executed
- By jackifus on 12-08-12
By: Anne Applebaum
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The Icon and the Idealist
- Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America
- By: Stephanie Gorton
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the 1910s, as the birth control movement was born, two leaders emerged: Margaret Sanger and Mary Dennett. Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, while Dennett’s name has largely faded from public awareness. Each held a radically different vision for what reproductive autonomy and birth control access should look like in America. Few are aware of the fierce personal and political rivalry that played out between Sanger and Dennett over decades—a battle that had a profound impact on the lives of American women.
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I already knew a lot about this issue, i thought. But this book taught me a great deal.
- By Louise Beecher on 01-13-25
By: Stephanie Gorton
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Forged in War
- A military history of Russia from its beginnings to today
- By: Mark Galeotti
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The national identity has been forged in the furnace of war. From the medieval kingdom of Rus battling against a Scandinavian princes and Mongol emperors, to its own empire-building conflicts in 19th-century Asia, to the formative wars of the 20th century which saw Russia pitch from Tsarist empire to communist state and defender against Nazism, all these conflicts stained the lands of Russia red with blood. A weak post-Cold War Russia then turned to Putin, who created a new mood for martial triumphalism which led directly to the Ukrainian war.
By: Mark Galeotti
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V13
- Chronicle of a Trial
- By: Emmanuel Carrère
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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A moving, hard-hitting account of the Paris attacks trial by France’s leading nonfiction writer.
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Insightful
- By elliott e. on 02-03-25
By: Emmanuel Carrère
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The Last Tsar
- The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs
- By: Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Though Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs—it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy. Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy.
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Confusion
- By Michael L. Cook on 01-24-25
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
- By: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Unflinchingly honest about the brutality of this nation’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide, the impact of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s 2014 book is profound. This classic is revisited with new material that takes an incisive look at the post-Obama era from the war in Afghanistan to Charlottesville’s white supremacy-fueled rallies, and from the onset of the pandemic to the election of President Biden.
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To Overthrow the World
- The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism
- By: Sean McMeekin
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe. In To Overthrow the World, Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes.
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An informative tale of plots and revolution that, tragically, loses the plot itself
- By Anonymous User on 12-22-24
By: Sean McMeekin