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Underdogs
- The Making of the Modern Marine Corps
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Marine Corps has always considered itself a breed apart. Since 1775, America's smallest armed service has been suspicious of outsiders and deeply loyal to its traditions. Marines believe in nothing more strongly than the Corps' uniqueness and superiority, and this undying faith in its own exceptionalism is what has made the Marines one of the sharpest, swiftest tools of American military power. Along with unapologetic self-promotion, a strong sense of identity has enabled the Corps to exert a powerful influence on American politics and culture.
Aaron O'Connell focuses on the period from World War II to Vietnam, when the Marine Corps transformed itself from America's least respected to its most elite armed force. He describes how the distinctive Marine culture played a role in this ascendancy. Venerating sacrifice and suffering, privileging the collective over the individual, Corps culture was saturated with romantic and religious overtones that had enormous marketing potential in a postwar America energized by new global responsibilities. Capitalizing on this, the Marines curried the favor of the nation's best reporters, befriended publishers, courted Hollywood and Congress, and built a public relations infrastructure that would eventually brand it as the most prestigious military service in America.
But the Corps' triumphs did not come without costs, and O'Connell writes of those, too, including a culture of violence that sometimes spread beyond the battlefield. And as he considers how the Corps' interventions in American politics have ushered in a more militarized approach to national security, O'Connell questions its sustainability.
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Essays on the Region of the Silk Road
- By Jeff Beardsley on 05-19-18
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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Breach of Trust
- How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country
- By: Andrew Bacevich
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In Breach of Trust, Andrew Bacevich takes stock of the separation between Americans and their military, tracing its origins to the Vietnam era and exploring its pernicious implications: a nation with an abiding appetite for war waged at enormous expense by a standing army demonstrably unable to achieve victory. Among the collateral casualties are values once considered central to democratic practice, including the principle that responsibility for defending the country should rest with its citizens.
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Volunteer Mil+Disengaged Pop = Perpetual War Baby
- By Darwin8u on 10-23-13
By: Andrew Bacevich
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Why We Fight
- Defeating America's Enemies - with No Apologies
- By: Sebastian Gorka
- Narrated by: Sebastian Gorka
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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WAR. It will happen again. We must be ready. Sober words from Dr. Sebastian Gorka, a man who has made the unvarnished truth his specialty. And there’s one eternal truth that Americans are in danger of forgetting: the most important weapon in any geopolitical conflict is the will to win. And we must win. In this powerful manifesto, Dr. Gorka explains the basic principles that have guided strategists since Sun Tzu penned The Art of War in the sixth century BC. To defeat your enemy, you must know him. But that’s the last thing liberal elites are interested in.
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Extremely informative and educational
- By Kami on 10-16-18
By: Sebastian Gorka
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Call Sign Chaos
- Learning to Lead
- By: Jim Mattis, Bing West
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Call Sign Chaos is the account of Jim Mattis’ storied career, from wide-ranging leadership roles in three wars to ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the Middle East. Along the way, Mattis recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, extracting the lessons he has learned about the nature of warfighting and peacemaking, the importance of allies, and the strategic dilemmas - and short-sighted thinking - now facing our nation.
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A pleasant surprise
- By Fountain of Chris on 09-06-19
By: Jim Mattis, and others
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Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 29 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In this Pulitzer Prize - winning biography, Barbara Tuchman explores American relations with China through the experiences of one of our men on the ground. In the cantankerous but level-headed "Vinegar Joe", Tuchman found a subject who allowed her to perform, in the words of the National Review, "one of the historian's most envied magic acts: conjoining a fine biography of a man with a fascinating epic story."
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A period that directly affected our world today
- By Charlotte on 08-29-12
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The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today
- By: Thomas E. Ricks
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A widening gulf between performance and accountability has caused history to be kinder to the American generals of World War II than to those of later wars. In The Generals we meet leaders from World War II to the present who rose to the occasion - and those who failed.
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Provocative
- By Jean on 04-30-15
By: Thomas E. Ricks
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War: How Conflict Shaped Us
- By: Margaret MacMillan
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Margaret MacMillan looks at the ways in which war has influenced human society and how, in turn, changes in political organization, technology, or ideologies have affected how and why we fight. War: How Conflict Shaped Us explores such much-debated and controversial questions as: When did war first start? Does human nature doom us to fight one another? Why has war been described as the most organized of all human activities? Why are warriors almost always men? Is war ever within our control?
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Horrible choice of narrator derails this book
- By Steve Winnett on 02-25-21
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Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II
- American Military Experience, Book 1
- By: Dennis R. Okerstrom
- Narrated by: Charles Henderson Norman
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Project 9: The Birth of the Air Commandos in World War II is a thoroughly researched narrative of the Allied joint project to invade Burma by air. Beginning with its inception at the Quebec Conference of 1943 and continuing through Operation Thursday until the death of the brilliant British General Orde Wingate in March 1944, less than a month after the successful invasion of Burma, Project 9 details all aspects of this covert mission.
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Un-American
- A Soldier's Reckoning of Our Longest War
- By: Erik Edstrom
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Un-American is a hybrid of social commentary and memoir that exposes how blind support for war exacerbates the problems it’s intended to resolve, devastates the people allegedly being helped and diverts assets from far larger threats like climate change. Un-American is a revolutionary act, offering a blueprint for redressing America’s relationship with patriotism, the military and military spending.
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This Veteran supports many of the points in this book!
- By Kevin H. on 06-26-22
By: Erik Edstrom
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War
- By: Phillip Jennings
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The mainstream media and history books would have you believe that the Vietnam War was tragic and a dismal failure. But Phillip Jennings is here to set the record straight, about one of the bright spots in U.S. military history. In this latest Politically Incorrect Guide, Jennings shatters culturally accepted myths and busts politically incorrect lies that liberal pundits and leftist professors have been telling you for years.
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Politically incorrect is right.
- By Joe Dunckel on 09-29-20
By: Phillip Jennings
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Knife Fights
- A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice
- By: John Nagl
- Narrated by: Brian Hutchison
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the most important army officers of his generation, a memoir of the revolution in warfare he helped lead, in combat and in Washington. When John Nagl was an army tank commander in the first Gulf War of 1991, fresh out of West Point and Oxford, he could already see that America’s military superiority meant that the age of conventional combat was nearing an end.
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There's so much I didn't know.
- By Lori James on 12-07-22
By: John Nagl
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Invisible Heroes of World War II
- Extraordinary Wartime Stories of Ordinary People
- By: Jerry Borrowman
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Invisible Heroes of World War II documents 10 fascinating true stories of a diverse group of soldiers and noncombatants from all over the world, including African Americans, women, and Native Americans, who fought with the Allies during World War II. These heroes made significant contributions in the war effort, and sometimes gave their lives for freedom and liberty, often without much recognition or fanfare. All served with valor and distinction as part of the massive Allied forces who fought to free the world from tyranny and oppression.
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EXCELLENT AND INSPIRING!
- By B. ADAMS on 12-22-20
By: Jerry Borrowman
What listeners say about Underdogs
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- Jean
- 04-17-13
The making of the Marine Corps
Aaron B. O'Connell is a professor at Annapolis. O'Connell covers briefly the beginning of the Corp and it's poor reputation because of it tough men many with criminal backgrounds. When the Corp was created it designed it's self on the Royal marines including the uniform. O'Connell covers in detail the period from WWII to the start of the Vietnam war. . The marines transformed itself from American least respected to it's most elite armed forces during this period. He explains in detail how they created a great public relation infrastructure, cultivated newsman and Hollywood to promote the corp. Unlike the other services the Marine stories were focus on the men mainly the privates and aimed the information for the families at home. He shows how the corp created exceptionalism, self promotion, and strong sense of identity, and their role in American politics and culture. It is an interesting book but he could have reduced the amount of repetition. If you want to understand the history of the Corp and how it made itself this is the book for you. If you are a history buff you will also enjoy the book. Danny Campbell did a good job with the narration.
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4 people found this helpful