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The Arsenal of Democracy
- FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
A New York Times best seller.
A dramatic, intimate narrative of how Ford Motor Company went from making automobiles to producing the airplanes that would mean the difference between winning and losing World War II. In 1941, as Hitler’s threat loomed ever larger, President Roosevelt realized he needed weaponry to fight the Nazis - most important, airplanes - and he needed them fast. So he turned to Detroit and the auto industry for help. The Arsenal of Democracy tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call, centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel, who, when asked if they could deliver 50,000 airplanes, made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a "bomber an hour". Critics scoffed: Ford didn’t make planes; they made simple, affordable cars. But bucking his father’s resistance, Edsel charged ahead. Ford would apply assembly-line production to the American military’s largest, fastest, most destructive bomber; they would build a plant vast in size and ambition on a plot of farmland and call it Willow Run; they would bring in tens of thousands of workers from across the country, transforming Detroit, almost overnight, from Motor City to the “great arsenal of democracy.” And eventually they would help the Allies win the war. Drawing on exhaustive research from the Ford Archives, the National Archives, and the FDR Library, A. J. Baime has crafted an enthralling, character-driven narrative of American innovation that has never been fully told, leaving readers with a vivid new portrait of America - and Detroit - during the war.
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- Inside Israel's Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb
- By: Rodger W. Claire
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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From the earliest days of his dictatorship, Saddam Hussein had vowed to destroy Israel. So, when France sold Iraq a top-of-the-line nuclear reactor in 1975, the Israelis were justifiably concerned, especially when they discovered that Iraqi scientists had already formulated a secret program to extract weapon-grade plutonium from the reactor, a first critical step in creating an atomic bomb.
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Fascinating detail of a historic strike
- By Kevin on 04-27-04
By: Rodger W. Claire
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The First Heroes
- The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid
- By: Craig Nelson
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
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Overall
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Immediately after Japan's December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo itself. In those early days of World War II, America was ill-prepared for any sort of warfare. But FDR was not to be dissuaded, and at his bidding a squadron of scarcely trained army fliers, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, set forth on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission.
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Heroic Attempt
- By William on 07-20-04
By: Craig Nelson
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Black Snow
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Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: "If we lose the war, we'll be tried as war criminals."
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Top notch!
- By anonymous on 10-24-22
By: James M. Scott
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A Brotherhood of Spies
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On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union just weeks before a peace summit between the two nations. The CIA concocted a cover story for President Eisenhower to deliver, assuring him that no one could have survived a fall from that altitude. But against all odds, pilot Francis Gary Powers emerged from the wreckage and was seized by the KGB. Award-winning journalist Monte Reel reveals how the U-2 spy program, principally devised by four men working in secret, upended the Cold War and carved a new mission for the CIA.
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Lessons Learned
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Mission
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In March 1941 Jimmy Stewart, America's boy next door and recent Academy Award winner, left fame and fortune behind and joined the United States Army Air Corps to fulfill his family mission and serve his country. He rose from private to colonel and participated in 20 often-brutal World War II combat missions over Germany and France. In mere months the war took away his boyish looks as he faced near-death experiences and the loss of men under his command. The war finally won, he returned home with millions of other veterans to face an uncertain future.
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SKIP THIS ONE
- By G-Man on 05-13-18
By: Robert Matzen, and others
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The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot
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In The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, New York Times best-selling author Blaine Harden tells the riveting story of how Kim Il Sung grabbed power and plunged his country into war against the United States while the youngest fighter pilot in his air force was playing a high-risk game of deception - and escape.
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Great story
- By Jfm on 08-09-15
By: Blaine Harden
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Enduring Courage
- Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed
- By: John F. Ross
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
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At the turn of the twentieth century two new technologies—the car and airplane—took the nation's imagination by storm as they burst, like comets, into American life. The brave souls that leaped into these dangerous contraptions and pushed them to unexplored extremes became new American heroes: the race car driver and the flying ace. No individual did more to create and intensify these raw new roles than the tall, gangly Eddie Rickenbacker, who defied death over and over with such courage and pluck that a generation of Americans came to know his face better than the president's.
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A true ace, and an example for us all.
- By Gotta Tellya on 08-20-14
By: John F. Ross
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The Millionaires' Unit
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The Millionaires' Unit is the story of a gilded generation of young men from the zenith of privilege: a Rockerfeller; the son of the head of the Union Pacific Railroad; several who counted friends and relatives among presidents and statesmen of the day. They had it all and, remarkably by modern standards, they were prepared to risk it all to fight a distant war in France.
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Hard story to get into.
- By Craig Walker on 01-14-15
By: Marc Wortman
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Boyd
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John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest US fighter pilot ever - the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than 40 seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft - the F-15 and F-16. Still, others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu. They know only half the story.
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Stick With It if You Want a Rare Gem
- By Michael Richards on 08-30-16
By: Robert Coram
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What listeners say about The Arsenal of Democracy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-01-14
Misleading title
What made the experience of listening to The Arsenal of Democracy the most enjoyable?
I enjoyed the book but the title was very misleading. The book should be renamed Ford Motor Company in WWII. There was very little about any other Company switching from civilian production to war production or the changes this brought. This is the story of Edsel and Henry Ford II developing the Willow Run plant to build B-24 bombers and eventually achieving their goal of producing a bomber a day. This is not the story of how American industry converted to build the tanks, planes and bombs that won the war. Nor is the story about the great migration of people from rural areas to large urban areas to work in the war factories and the changes this brought.
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30 people found this helpful
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- John
- 04-09-15
Tough Review to Write
I thought it was a well researched, organized and thoughtful work. Most of the time, I thought the narrator did a credible job. But, at times I couldn't figure out why he did what he did. Best example. He consistently referred to FDR as Rooooooooosevelt. Almost to the point of rubbing it in. I know that's how Teddy's branch pronounced it but in 50 years of studying history, I've never heard the Franklin branch referred to as anything other Rose-a-velt. It got in the way. Also, he ascribed accents and speech patterns that certainly don't fit. In one conversation, Edsel Ford breaks into what I guess was supposed to be a southern accent. Why? Other places, many of them in fact, he was channeling James Cagney playing a depression era gangster. Some drama can be good but gratuitous mispronunciation bugs me to no end. He's good but would be so much better if he stopped trying to be someone he's not or gave up trying to force feed us a pronunciation that we've heard differently for our entire lines.
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24 people found this helpful
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- TG
- 12-21-14
Edsel Ford, a tragic hero
Where does The Arsenal of Democracy rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This is one of the best books I've listened to - well researched, well put together, and well read. It was such a great story that I'm glad to hear.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Edsel Ford. Esdel is the tragic hero - not allowed to participate in WW1 by his father, Henry, he seemed to go above and beyond to make up for that in WW2.
Which character – as performed by Peter Berkrot – was your favorite?
Harry Bennett - the obvious "bad buy" in this story, there was always a bit of nastiness in the narrator's voice when he performed Harry.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Absolutely. As a car buff, and airplane buff, it was a wonderful book. Layer in the story of WW2 in the process, and it was irresistible.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Chris Caldwell
- 01-09-15
Excellent historical account
Henry Ford (genius Nazi sympathizer), Lindbergh (Nazi sympathizer), Hitler (Lunatic Nazi), Churchill (all around genius/hero), Detroit & Auto Giants - Ford, GM, Packard are all characters in this grand story. So we'll researched and so well paced. I didn't want it to end and that's my measure of a great book. The only drawback is the narrator's voice took some getting used to but I did get used to him.
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- UA UNCW
- 01-24-16
why can't producers check pronunciation?
this is an excellent book with very good narration unfortunately marred by incorrect pronunciations. the narrator who is otherwise very good and engaging says Roosevelt with a long oo. it is astonishingly annoying and leads me to wonder why producers can't check their narrator's pronunciation.
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- Wolfpacker
- 05-16-15
Better Than Fiction
This book read like a great novel. It has so many twists and turns and covers such a broad geographic and temporal span yet it is still amazingly cohesive. The characters in the story are too amazing to have been made up.
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- Charles
- 09-11-16
Narrator too dramatic
Amazing story and information. Very easy to follow, but hated the narrator's voice. He put far too much drama into reading where not necessary. The story was dramatic enough
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- Cynthia
- 06-23-15
Arms and Allies
A.J. Baime's "The Arsenal of Democracy" (2014) was, for me, one of those impulse buys Audible makes so easy. "It's about World War II," I thought, "and the cover has planes. I'm probably interested, but if it turns out just to be a technical discussion of wingspans and payloads, I can return it with a few clicks." Obviously, I kept the book.
I learned a tremendous amount about the B-24 Liberator bomber, but that was almost a footnote. What "The Arsenal of Democracy" actually does is thoroughly discuss Henry Ford's dynasty, and in particular, the life and tragic death of his only child, Edsel. While Henry aged gracelessly, a victim of dementia and the soul sucking paranoia that so often is its bellwether, Edsel shepherded Ford Motor Company through the depression and partway through the war years.
Ford's standardization of aircraft, much like automobiles two decades earlier, turned each plane from an inexact, handcrafted boutique product to a standardized vehicle that could be operated and repaired with relative ease. Aviation standardization was a struggle for Charles E. Sorenson, Ford's production chief, who kept claiming he wanted to retire. Sorenson made it work, but not before what must have seemed like the entire country cried inevitable failure.
Franklin Roosevelt was president when the United States began ramping up manufacturing in the 1930's for war under "Lend-Lease" to the Allied countries. Henry, a pacifist and a raging anti-Semite, was given an award by Adolf Hitler he never returned - and he detested Roosevelt so much he refused to meet him for years. Edsel had to convince his father to switch to war production, and Henry nearly backed out dozens of times. Eventually, the gargantuan Willow Run plant where B-24's were built, was constructed on the site of a former charity boys camp run by Henry Ford.
Edsel struggled with his father to his end. What Henry thought was exaggerated hypochondria was the cancer that took Edsel. Henry II, Edsel's son, took Edsel's position - but his life is another story. Perhaps A.J. Baime has enough to write that? "The Arsenal of Democracy" was no hagiography, and it would be nice to read a biography of Henry Ford II that doesn't sound like it was written by a corporate marketing department.
The narration was fine, but there's an editing problem: sometimes, you can't tell which Ford in general, or which Henry Ford in particular, is being referred to. It was enough to have me rewinding occasionally.
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- Jean
- 05-24-15
Fascinating
The American labor leader Walter Reuther declared in 1940, “America’s battles can be won on the assembly lines of Detroit.” This is one of the main themes of the book and it left me thinking, the U.S. and Canada won WWI and WWII by building more military equipment faster than any other counties. What are we going to do if or when, we have another big war? We no longer are the manufacturing giant we were in the past. We no longer have the manufacturing plants to convert to the war effort, in fact we no longer even manufacture the uniforms and boots our troops wear. After reading this book I cannot help but think we will be at a big disadvantage in the future. I know I must have heard the saying “the arsenal of democracy” but I did not remember that was what FDR called the production of war materials.
Baime focuses primarily on the Ford Motor Company and its production of the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber. Ford also manufactured tanks, trucks, jeeps, aircraft engines and parts, gun mounts and armor plates. Ford was not the only plane and manufacture of tanks trucks, autos etc., in fact General Motors’ was by far the larger manufacture. Baime writes primarily about the conflict between Edsel Ford who was the head of the company at the time and his father Henry Ford. The author also discusses the conflict between FDR and Henry Ford. Baime also reviews the role of William Knudsen, Roosevelt’s mobilization czar. The author also notes that as the majority of white men were mobilized to fight the war, the women and black men and women were recruited to work the assembly lines with great success. Peter Berkrot narrated the book.
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- JSC51
- 10-06-15
Great story and performance
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Henry and Edsel back story was riveting and framed this amazing American story.
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