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The Johnstown Flood
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing portrait of life in 19th-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. This is a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are behaving responsibly.
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In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard centered on Washington State hit the Northwest, breaking records. The world stopped - but nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved minute by minute: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned without escape, their railcars gradually being buried in the rising drifts.
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A detailed, yet very readable account.
- By Rindt on 02-20-18
By: Gary Krist
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A Crack in the Edge of the World
- America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
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Grandma Gatewood's Walk
- The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
- By: Ben Montgomery
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than $200. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, atop Maine's Mount Katahdin, she sang the first verse of "America, the Beautiful" and proclaimed, "I said I'll do it, and I've done it."
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Inspiring story about a strong amazing woman
- By David Shear on 12-22-14
By: Ben Montgomery
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Wicked River
- The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild
- By: Lee Sandlin Jeff
- Narrated by: Jeff McCarthy
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed journalist and author Lee Sandlin delivers a riveting glimpse of a dangerous and colorful place in America’s historical landscape - the Mississippi River of the 19th century. Long before it was dredged into a shipping channel or romanticized into myth, the untamed Mississippi - the lifeblood of communities that rose and fell along its banks - spawned a motley array of pirates and dignitaries, visionaries, and thieves.
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Worth a listen
- By Robert B. Golson on 12-09-10
By: Lee Sandlin Jeff
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The Galveston Hurricane of 1900
- The Deadliest Natural Disaster in American History
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Steve Rausch
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. Prior to advanced communications, few people knew about impending hurricanes except those closest to the site. In the days before television or even radio, catastrophic descriptions were merely recorded on paper, limiting our understanding of the immediate impact. Thus it was inevitable that the category 4 hurricane would cause almost inconceivable destruction.
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History
- By Sherry Olson on 12-25-23
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The Children's Blizzard
- By: David Laskin
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent.
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True Account of 1888 Prairie Blizzard
- By Mary Burnight on 01-09-17
By: David Laskin
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The Great Hurricane
- 1938
- By: Cherie Burns
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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On the night of September 20, 1938, the news on the radio was full of Hitler's pending invasion of Czechoslovakia. Severe weather wasn't mentioned; only light rain was forecast for the following day. In a matter of hours, however, a hurricane of unprecedented force would tear through one of the wealthiest and most populated stretches of coastline in America, obliterating communities from Long Island to Providence, destroying entire fishing fleets from Montauk to Narragansett Bay.
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Mesmerizing book!
- By Tracey on 04-23-13
By: Cherie Burns
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Roughing It
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1861, young Mark Twain found himself adrift as a tenderfoot in the Wild West. Roughing It is a hilarious record of his travels over a six-year period that comes to life with his inimitable mixture of reporting, social satire, and rollicking tall tales. Twain reflects on his scuffling years mining silver in Nevada, working at a Virginia City newspaper, being downandout in San Francisco, reporting for a newspaper from Hawaii, and more.
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The wild humorist of the West
- By Tad Davis on 01-02-12
By: Mark Twain
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Train
- Riding the Rails That Created the Modern World - from the Trans-Siberian to the Southwest Chief
- By: Tom Zoellner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Tom Zoellner loves trains with a ferocious passion. In his new audiobook he chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, and could very well change it again. From the frigid Trans-Siberian Railroad to the antiquated Indian Railways to the futuristic maglev trains, Zoellner offers a stirring story of man's relationship with trains. Zoellner examines both the mechanics of the rails and their engines and how they helped societies evolve. Not only do trains transport people and goods in an efficient manner, but they also reduce pollution and dependency upon oil.
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The world history of trains up to the present
- By matthew on 03-06-14
By: Tom Zoellner
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Ruthless Tide
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A gripping narrative history of the 1889 Johnstown Flood - the deadliest flood in US history - from New York Times best-selling author, NBC host, and legendary weather authority Al Roker. May 1889: After a deluge of rainfall swelled the Little Conemaugh River, panicked engineers watched helplessly as swiftly rising waters threatened to breach the South Fork Dam in central Pennsylvania. Though they telegraphed neighboring towns, warning of the impending danger, residents, used to false alarms, remained in their homes. At 3:10 p.m., the dam gave way....
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Mispronunciation bothers me
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Mornings on Horseback
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Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma, and his struggle to manhood.
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Great!
- By Michael O'Brien on 06-15-04
By: David McCullough
What listeners say about The Johnstown Flood
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Susan K Donley
- 06-17-05
A page-turner! HIstory that reads like a novel
This is one of the best books I've read on any subject. It is as well-researched as a good history and as superbly paced as a well-written novel. I first read it about ten years ago, making the mistake of starting it in the evening. I ended up staying up all night to finish it! Then I lent it to my brother, who also stayed up all night to finish it! I recently reread it via audiobook -- it is still as gripping as ever!
The story of the Great Johnstown (PA) Flood of 1889, the result of a record-setting rainstorm speeding the failure of an earthen dam, was the top story of its day. The catastrophe, in which over 2,200 were killed, dominnated the front pages of newspapers around the world just as the terrorist strikes of September11, 2001 did in our generation. In fact, until 9/11, it was the single largest loss of American civilian lives in one day (the greater number of deaths of Galveston hurricane disaster of 1903 happened over several days).
Despite the media attention the Flood recieved in its day, it has been all but forgotten to most Americans. Yet it has plenty of lessons to teach the 21st century: altering the environment without consiering the consequences begs disaster; people in positions of authority (the owners of the dam was a secretive club whose members included the likes of industry moguls Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick) don't necessarily act responsibly. The better side of human nature also shines through: despite the fact that their home towns nearly scoured off the map, the survivors of the Flood began almost immediately rebuilding their homes and businesses. The world responded to stories of the Flood with an unprecedented out-pouring of charity.
The Johnstown Flood is still relevant today and David McCullough is just the writer to bring its riveting story to life
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58 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Brenda
- 07-21-05
Great Narrator
Having listened to quite a number of audible selections, including numerous McCullough books, I am quite sure that this narrator is the best of the best. I hope he produces more recordings because he adds so much by his natural and unadorned narrative style that any book he would read, would be worth hearing.
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24 people found this helpful
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- Christopher
- 03-29-08
The story behind the lyrics...
I first heard a reference to this American tragedy from the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's _Nebraska_ album in the early 1980s, and knew it must have been really bad.
This book tells the whole story of the events of that day, as well as what led up to it, the tragic aftermath, and the stories of the heroes and heroines both during the flood, and those who helped the survivors, including Clara Barton, who chaired the American Red Cross in its first major peacetime relief effort.
Meticulously researched, and for the most part, very well written by Mr. McCullough. Listeners should note that the chapter numbering for each part of the book starts at 1, and it's easy to lose track of where you are...
Very well read by Mr. Herrmann.
Highly recommended!
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15 people found this helpful
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- Darwin8u
- 11-01-16
The 'horrible tempest,' with flood and fire...
"It had been the 'horrible tempest,' with flood and fire 'come as a destruction from the Almighty.' It had been awful, but it had been God awful."
― David McCullough, The Johnstown Flood
I was wrapping a couple of my first edition, eBay book purchases with mylar and discovered my first edition 'The Johnstown Flood' had a bit of water damage to the spine. I took this as a positive portent (ex dīrīs diluvium?) it was time to read it. One couldn't find a better divination that it is time to read a book unless one stumbles upon a pressed butterfly in a Nabokov or dirty photo in a Henry Miller at the Library (which reminds me I need to start carrying butterflies and McGill postcards into public libraries regularly).
I'm not sure what if there is a specific word for the disaster history genre, but I've recently read The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, and now I've just finished a flood history, I've read about volcanoes (Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded) and earthquakes (A Crack in the Edge of the World), so now I just need plagues and pestilence histories and I'll be able to fill my disaster dance card (programme du décès?).
This is McCullough's first book, published in 1968. He was an early master of strong narrative histories. Having been trained at Yale in English and almost fumbled by grace, accident, talent or opportunity into historical writing. Once he started publishing, Mccullough has almost never been a disappointment to his publishers. He now reigns as one of the supreme masters of American popular biography, along with Walter Isaacson, Jon Meacham, Joseph Ellis and Doris Kearns Goodwin. These are the Costco historian set. They aren't always the 'best' or most rigorous historians, but there is a certain skill in being able to carry a story to the historically, unwashed masses. There are certainly better academic historians (Burlingame, etc), but McCullough's skill at telling a story and bringing his story-telling flair to the 1889 Johnstown Flood, makes the history of this very American disaster not just a moving story, but a very good social history.
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Overall
- Ken Mitchell
- 07-21-06
Vivid
The story of the Johnstown Flood is the story of America in the late 1880's... robber barons, the industrial revolution, a careless disregard for human life and safety, railroads and telegraphs, the power of nature overwhelming the works of man, heroism and cowardice, disaster on an unimaginable scale followed by compassion on an even greater level.
This is the quintessential book about the flood, read by Edward Herman, one of the great actors of our day. It is detailed, fascinating and sobering.
This book is for you.
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- Jan
- 03-29-15
I can see the wave of water in my mind...
Aside from a paragraph in a high school history text, I knew nothing about the 1889 Johnstown Flood that killed over 2,000. David McCullough has distilled and organized a mountain of information into this very readable, heartbreaking but often humorous account.
It starts a bit slow with how the dam came to be built, abandoned, scavenged and restored... but before long I was holding my breath and then taking a slow motion ride with the wave down the mountain. At times on a floating roof, mattress or in a train car... though the small towns on the river and on into Johnstown. After reading I did an internet search of images and found I had formed very accurate pictures in my mind.
The book follows up nicely with the rush of aid (first response of the Red Cross), reporters and finishes with the resulting lawsuits. So interesting how everyone knew there was a high risk of the dam giving way, but no one prepared for it.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Michael
- 03-03-06
detailed and researched
Rich in detail and thoroughly researched. I am from the area where the flood occured and while listening feel that I am transported back in time.
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8 people found this helpful
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- John S
- 04-09-15
Great Listen with Excellent Narration
I have listened to many of David McCllough books, actually my first audible book was his novel 1776. Although nonfiction it reads more like a novel with an excellent description of the devastation created by the Johnstown flood. If you like American history this is a must listen.
About a third of the book is a lead up to the flood, about 1/3 is the flood, and the reminder is the after investigation of the flood. In the end one can suppose mother nature was mostly to blame. THe description of a eighty foot wall of water that tore down the valley after the collapse of the dam is gripping. It is interesting to here the tales of what separated the living from the dead, mostly plain dumb luck
Worth the credit
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7 people found this helpful
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- Allan
- 11-26-09
Like You Were There
As the title states, to hear this book is like you were there. A lover of history will surely like this.....an amazing event described wonderfully and narrated very well.
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- Frank Gallinaro
- 08-26-07
A little piece of American history
David McCullough has written another excellent book on a little piece of American history. To the nation this was not a momentous event but to the people of Johnstown and the surrounding towns it was a matter of life or death. Several towns in PA were destroyed in hours by the unrelenting flood caused by the failure of an earthen dam. It is a story about our country of which I was unware. David revealed the unscruplous behavior of certain men, but also the generousity of Americans in the face of the tradegy of their fellow citizens. He descibed the heroism of many men and woman and the life or death result of the flood which seemed almost to be the result of the roll of the die.
Well worth a read if you like American history and you will certainly come away with a new understanding of a small part of our nation's history written in clear prose by a master historian.
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7 people found this helpful