Political

Reagan in His Own Voice: Ronald Reagan's Radio Addresses

• ORIGINAL (5 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Ronald Reagan
• Narrated By Ronald Reagan

From 1975 to 1979 Ronald Reagan gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, the great majority of which he wrote himself. These addresses transform our image of Reagan, and enhance and revise our understanding of the late 1970s - a time when Reagan held no political office, but was nonetheless mapping out a strategy to transform the economy, end the Cold War, and create a vision of America that would propel him to the presidency.

The Modern Scholar: World War l: The Great War and the World It Made

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 30 mins)
• By John Ramsden

"The Great War", as it was known at the time, was also said to be the "war to end all wars." It seized all of Europe and much of the rest of the world in its grip of death and destruction. The first truly modern war, it changed how war and peace would be conducted throughout the remainder of the 20th century and even to the present.

No Ordinary Time

• ABRIDGED (6 hrs)
• By Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Narrated By Edward Herrmann

Presenting an aspect of American history that has never been fully told, Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become, only five years later, the preeminent economic and military power in the world. Using diaries, interviews, and White House records, Goodwin paints an intimate, detailed portrait not only of the presidency during wartime but also of Franklin and Eleanor themselves.

The Reagan Diaries: Extended Selections

• ABRIDGED (13 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Ronald Reagan
• Narrated By Eric Conger

During his two terms as the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day-to-day occurrences of his presidency. Now, nearly two decades after he left office, this remarkable record, the only daily Presidential diary in American history, is available for the first time.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 55 mins)
• By (edited by Clayborne Carson)
• Narrated By Levar Burton

He was a husband, a father, a preacher - and the preeminent leader of a movement that continues to transform America and the world. Now, in a special program commissioned and authorized by his family, here is the life and times of Martin Luther King, Jr. Featuring King's I Have a Dream Speech.

Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

• ABRIDGED (8 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Robert A. Caro
• Narrated By Stephen Lang

Master of the Senate carries Lyndon Johnson's story through one of its most remarkable periods: his 12 years in the U.S. Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. "There is something uniquely mesmerizing about the wily, combative Lyndon Johnson as portrayed by Caro," says Publishers Weekly.

The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and Rise and Decline of Black Politics 

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Fredrick Harris
• Narrated By Mary Kane

The historical significance of Barack Obama's triumph in the presidential election of 2008 scarcely requires comment. Yet it contains an irony: He won a victory as an African American only by denying that he was the candidate of African Americans. Obama's very success, writes Fredrick Harris, exacted a heavy cost on black politics.

In The Price of the Ticket, Harris puts Obama's career in the context of decades of black activism, showing how his election undermined the very movement that made it possible.

Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy 

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 45 mins)
• By Alex Jones
• Narrated By Kurt Elftmann

In Losing the News, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex S. Jones offers a probing look at the epochal changes sweeping the media, changes which are eroding the core news that has been the essential food supply of our democracy. Losing the News depicts an unsettling situation in which the American birthright of fact-based, reported news is in danger. But it is also a call to arms to fight to keep the core of news intact.

Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Series)

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 37 mins)
• By Robert L. Jervis
• Narrated By Kevin Pierce

The U.S. government spends enormous resources each year on the gathering and analysis of intelligence, yet the history of American foreign policy is littered with missteps and misunderstandings that have resulted from intelligence failures. In Why Intelligence Fails, Robert Jervis examines the politics and psychology of two of the more spectacular intelligence failures in recent memory: the belief that the Shah in Iran was secure and stable in 1978, and the claim that Iraq had active WMD programs in 2002.

Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings

• ORIGINAL (55 mins)
• By Che Guevara
• Narrated By Che Guevara

"A faithful reflection of Che as he was, or, better, as he developed." (Joseph Hansen)

In 20 speeches, interviews, and letters, Guevara dissects the workings of the imperialist system with scientific clarity, unflinching truthfulness, and biting humor. Cuba has shown by its example, he says, that "People can liberate themselves and keep themselves free."

History's Worst Dictators: A Short Guide to the Most Brutal Rulers, From Emperor Nero to Ivan the Terrible

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 1 min)
• By Michael Rank
• Narrated By Kevin Pierce

Nasty, brutish, and short. This is the way English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the living conditions into which humans inevitably fall without a strong, central authority. However, Hobbes would agree that living under a brutal dictator could lead to the same conditions. This exciting new book from historian Michael Rank looks at the lives and times of the worst dictators in history.

A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy

• UNABRIDGED (50 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Philip Pettit, Robert E Goodin
• Narrated By Eric Michael Summerer

Political philosophy has become an increasingly active area of research over the past four decades. In response to the growing interest in the field, this new edition of A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy has been extended significantly to include fifty–five chapters across two volumes written by some of today’s most distinguished scholars. Straddling analytic and continental philosophy, the first part of the Companion considers the contributions of economics, history, law, political science, international relations...