Waging a Good War
A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968
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Narrated by:
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JD Jackson
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By:
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Thomas E. Ricks
About this listen
This program is read by multiple-award-winning narrator JD Jackson.
#1 New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas E. Ricks offers a new take on the civil rights movement, stressing its unexpected use of military strategy and its lessons for nonviolent resistance around the world.
In Waging a Good War, bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks offers a fresh perspective on America’s greatest moral revolution—the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s—and its legacy today. While the movement has become synonymous with Martin Luther King Jr.’s ethos of nonviolence, Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize–winning war reporter, draws on his deep knowledge of tactics and strategy to note the surprising affinities between that ethos and the organized pursuit of success at war. The greatest victories for Black Americans of the past century, he stresses, were won not by idealism alone, but by paying attention to recruiting, training, discipline, and organization—the hallmarks of any successful military campaign.
An engaging storyteller, Ricks deftly narrates the movement’s triumphs and defeats. He follows King and other key figures from Montgomery to Memphis, demonstrating that Gandhian nonviolence was a philosophy of active, not passive, resistance – involving the bold and sustained confrontation of the Movement’s adversaries, both on the ground and in the court of public opinion. While bringing legends such as Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis into new focus, Ricks also highlights lesser-known figures who played critical roles in fashioning nonviolence into an effective tool—the activists James Lawson, James Bevel, Diane Nash, and Septima Clark foremost among them. He also offers a new understanding of the Movement’s later difficulties as internal disputes and white backlash intensified. Rich with fresh interpretations of familiar events and overlooked aspects of America’s civil rights struggle, Waging a Good War is an indispensable addition to the literature of racial justice and social change—and one that offers vital lessons for our own time.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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"Innovative and provocative . . . [Waging a Good War's] novel military framing [. . .] allows Ricks to offer engaging reappraisals of some civil rights figures . . . Ricks wisely and consistently highlights the important tensions and cleavages that existed within the civil rights movement itself . . . Powerful." —Justin Driver, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] vigorous retelling of what historians have come to call the [civil rights] movement’s 'classic phase' . . . An intriguing analogy swept along by Ricks’s impressive storytelling skills." —Kevin Boyle, The Washington Post
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Story
The saga of the Freedom Riders is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, 450 Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account.
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excellent book
- By test on 05-05-11
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Bearing the Cross
- Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- By: David J. Garrow
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 34 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, this is the most comprehensive book ever written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. David J. Garrow had unrestricted access to Martin Luther King's personal papers, to thousands of pages of newly released FBI documents and more than 700 interviews with King's closest friends and enemies.
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great but long
- By Thomas on 04-29-10
By: David J. Garrow
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At Canaan's Edge
- America in the King Years 1965-68
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
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At Canaan's Edge concludes America in the King Years, a three-volume history that will endure as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. Pulitzer Prize-winner and best-selling author Taylor Branch makes clear in this magisterial account of the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King, Jr., earned a place next to James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of American history.
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I hate abridged books
- By Four Bears on 10-19-10
By: Taylor Branch
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Undelivered
- The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History
- By: Jeff Nussbaum
- Narrated by: Adam Gifford, Brian Bowles, Elisa Roth, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A fascinating insight into notable speeches that were never delivered, showing what could have been if history had gone down a different path. For almost every delivered speech, there exists an undelivered opposite. These "second speeches" provide alternative histories of what could have been if not for schedule changes, changes of heart, or momentous turns of events.
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Recognize that this is a profoundly partisan book
- By Scott on 11-05-23
By: Jeff Nussbaum
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The Race Beat
- The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
- By: Gene Roberts, Hank Klibanoff
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 21 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen - first black reporters, then liberal Southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media - revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.
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A fascinating inside look at history
- By Ron on 09-22-09
By: Gene Roberts, and others
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You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
- A Personal History of Our Times
- By: Howard Zinn
- Narrated by: David Strathairn
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, tells his personal stories about more than 30 years of fighting for social change, from teaching at Spelman College to recent protests against war. A former bombardier in World War II, Zinn emerged in the civil rights movement as a powerful voice for justice. Although he's a fierce critic, he gives us reason to hope that by learning from history and engaging politically, we can make a difference in the world.
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mind blowing
- By WILLIAM on 11-27-19
By: Howard Zinn
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Nixonland
- The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 36 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of America's most talented historians and winner of a LA Times Book Prize comes a brilliant new account of Richard Nixon that reveals the riveting backstory to the red state/blue state resentments that divide our nation today. Told with urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency.
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A 5-Star Book Injured by the Narrator
- By Frank on 08-12-09
By: Rick Perlstein
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Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr
- By: Michael Vinson Williams
- Narrated by: Brandon Church
- Length: 19 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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This biography of a seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow), his two remaining siblings, friends, grade-school-to-college schoolmates, and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual, leader, husband, brother, and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers, the NAACP Papers, oral history collections, FBI files, Citizen Council collections, and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers, to list a few, provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and more.
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Incredible Narration
- By Estella Owoimaha on 10-02-17
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Killing a King
- The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
- By: Dan Ephron
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel's recent history and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. Killing a King relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace - and the other plotted murder.
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Tragic history well presented.
- By Mmday on 02-28-16
By: Dan Ephron
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My Life, My Love, My Legacy
- By: Coretta Scott King, Barbara Reynolds
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, Phylicia Rashad
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The life story of Coretta Scott King - wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and singular 20th-century American civil rights activist - as told fully for the first time, toward the end of her life, to one of her closest friends. Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising Black parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose.
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Inspirational memoir
- By Jean on 01-30-17
By: Coretta Scott King, and others
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The Defender
- How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America; from the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama
- By: Ethan Michaeli
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a "Modern Moses", becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process.
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There's an unexpected genius here
- By Porter on 01-19-19
By: Ethan Michaeli
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Goliath
- Life and Loathing in Greater Israel
- By: Max Blumenthal
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In Goliath, New York Times best-selling author Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads of Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens. Beginning with the national elections carried out during Israel's war on Gaza in 2008/9, which brought into power the country's most right-wing government to date, Blumenthal tells the story of Israel in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process.
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The truth is rarely pretty
- By William on 10-15-13
By: Max Blumenthal
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Witness to the Revolution
- Radicals, Resisters, Vets, Hippies, and the Year America Lost Its Mind and Found Its Soul
- By: Clara Bingham
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 18 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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As the 1960s drew to a close, the United States was coming apart at the seams. From August 1969 to August 1970, the nation witnessed 9,000 protests and 84 acts of arson or bombings at schools across the country. It was the year of the My Lai massacre investigation, the Cambodia invasion, Woodstock, and the Moratorium to End the War. The American death toll in Vietnam was approaching 50,000, and the ascendant counterculture was challenging nearly every aspect of American society.
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great perspective on an era
- By james on 04-02-18
By: Clara Bingham
What listeners say about Waging a Good War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Russell Bernard
- 03-27-23
I had no idea, being white and privileged
This book was an eye-opener to me, and I am so glad that I listened to this book. it exposed a whole world to me of the black experience. I am a middle-class white privileged boy from Utah. I went to school with all white kids till I graduated from high school. I am greatfull to this new perspective and will work on being a better human.
I am sorry the pain my race caused people of color, we must do better.
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- Andrea Y Tolbert
- 10-31-22
Revised The Times
Yeah I remember the struggles my mom trying to educate the people she worked with in Wilson and Elm City North Carolina when she told the white man he cheated the black sharecroper of change. They tried to kill her but they run her out of town.Great book of the truth.
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- Robert and TaShundra Robinson
- 01-08-23
Powerful and honest.
The author creates a powerful and honest parallel between the human rights struggle in America and military campaigns - a work this is as poignant as it is unforgettable.
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- Michael AJ Randolph
- 12-28-22
Great study of history
the insights in the story about the history of the civil Rights movement are amazing
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- Jackie
- 06-16-23
Learned an enormous amount
As a Marine veteran, the context of the review was absolutely superb for me to understand the complexity and focus of the movement. Strongly recommend this book and have shared it with several friends already.
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- Afrophonics
- 02-15-23
Great book from a skilled war historian.
Ricks frames the Civil Rights movement as an action that spanned decades and continues, but strategized as if it were a war. He makes good arguments and backs them up with copious background and historical evidence. Understanding the movement as a war strategy is critical to measuring whether it has been effective or not. He makes clear that the work isn’t finished, but details success and progress in a way that should give readers optimism, despite what they’ll hear in the news and on social media. Very worthwhile study.
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- Pj
- 07-23-23
Moving account of Civil Right Movement.
Engaging account of the civil rights movement. A nice wrap up with pointing out how the BLM I
is alike and different. Hearing about the lesser known figures was a treat.
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- Moses Pitts
- 10-06-22
I was born and raised in Alabama. Jim Crow Era.
I remember George Wallace inaugural address on Segregation. I was 13 years old. my heart ❤️ felt like a cold steel stab my heart.
Bull Connor turns on his dogs and BFD fire hoses on young Black students. I lived 48 miles south east from Birmingham. Sylacauga was the transfer hubs for Trail way BusTerminal points South.
The saddest Month was September 16th Baptist Church Bombing where young Girls were killed attending Sunday School.
These So called white Christians ✝️ hiding behind a sheet with cut out known as KKK MURDEREDS INNOCENT CHRISTIAN CHILDREN ✝️.
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2 people found this helpful
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- MARY F
- 10-31-22
The Sixties
I was a child during this history. This book refreshed my memories and reminded me of the energy of the time period. Younger folks ask me to describe my insights of that time. Now I have a book to direct them too. This is a great addition to other books This is the best I have read so far. A must read. Thank you Thomas Ricks!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Michael Porter
- 12-09-22
Great perspective of the Civil Rights Movement
I can’t recommend this enough. As a military veteran Rick’s examination of the movement as a military campaign and it effects on the people that carried it out and the country that benefited from it are spot on.
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1 person found this helpful