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Road to Disaster
- A New History of America’s Descent into Vietnam
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 23 hrs and 12 mins
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Publisher's summary
"The most thoughtful and judicious one-volume history of the war and the American political leaders who presided over the difficult and painful decisions that shaped this history. The book will stand for the foreseeable future as the best study of the tragic mistakes that led to so much suffering." (Robert Dallek)
Many books have been written on the tragic decisions regarding Vietnam made by the young stars of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Yet despite millions of words of analysis and reflection, no historian has been able to explain why such decent, brilliant, and previously successful men stumbled so badly.
That changes with Road to Disaster. Historian Brian VanDeMark draws upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford, who served as Defense Secretaries for Kennedy and Johnson. Yet beyond that, Road to Disaster is also the first history of the war to look at the cataclysmic decisions of those in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations through the prism of recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and organizational theory to explain why the "Best and the Brightest" became trapped in situations that suffocated creative thinking and willingness to dissent, why they found change so hard, and why they were so blind to their own errors.
An epic history of America’s march to quagmire, Road to Disaster is a landmark in scholarship and a book of immense importance.
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From master storyteller and historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II.
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A Vivid Dramatic Accounting
- By Jean on 11-11-16
By: H. W. Brands
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The War Within
- A Secret White House History 2006-2008
- By: Bob Woodward
- Narrated by: Boyd Gaines
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Abridged
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As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, Bob Woodward takes listeners deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial back channels, distrust, and determination within the White House, Pentagon, State Department, intelligence agencies, and U.S. military headquarters in Iraq.
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Too short the story...
- By Mr. Miint on 10-21-08
By: Bob Woodward
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Dereliction of Duty
- Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam
- By: H. R. McMaster
- Narrated by: H. R. McMaster
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Dereliction of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations, and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got the United States into the morass and reveals who made these decisions and the motives behind them, disproving the published theories of other historians and excuses of the participants.
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Rough narration
- By AC Griffin on 12-04-19
By: H. R. McMaster
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Kissinger: Volume I
- 1923-1968: The Idealist
- By: Niall Ferguson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super-K" - the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama - he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.
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Riveting
- By Jean on 11-10-15
By: Niall Ferguson
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A World of Trouble
- The White House and the Middle East
- By: Patrick Tyler
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Middle East is the beginning and the end of U.S. foreign policy: events there influence our alliances, make or break presidencies, govern the price of oil, and draw us into war. But it was not always so - and as Patrick Tyler shows in this thrilling chronicle of American misadventures in the region, the story of American presidents' dealings there is one of mixed motives, skulduggery, deceit, and outright foolishness, as well as of policymaking and diplomacy.
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Does't deliver
- By Matthew on 02-10-09
By: Patrick Tyler
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JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated
- By: Douglas Horne
- Narrated by: Larry Wayne
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since researchers and commentators began questioning the conclusions of the Warren Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the response has been: Why would the US national-security establishment - that is, the military and the CIA - kill Kennedy? As Douglas P. Horne details in this audiobook, JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated, the answer is because Kennedy's ideas about foreign policy collided with those of the US national-security establishment during the height of the Cold War.
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FINALLY THE TRUTH!
- By Helen Williamson on 05-28-16
By: Douglas Horne
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Japan 1941
- Countdown to Infamy
- By: Eri Hotta
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When Japan attacked the United States in 1941, argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a conflict they were bound to lose. Availing herself of rarely consulted material, Hotta poses essential questions overlooked by historians in the seventy years since: Why did these men - military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor - put their country and its citizens in harm's way? Why did they make a decision that was doomed from the start?
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Japanese viewpoint
- By Jean on 01-01-14
By: Eri Hotta
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Berlin 1961
- Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
- By: Frederick Kempe
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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A former Wall Street Journal editor and the current president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Frederick Kempe draws on recently released documents and personal interviews to re-create the powder keg that was 1961 Berlin. In Cold War Berlin, the United States and the Soviet Union stand nose to nose, with the possibility of nuclear war just one misstep away.
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I am scared in retrospect
- By theenglishmajor on 06-26-11
By: Frederick Kempe
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Kissinger's Shadow
- The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman
- By: Greg Grandin
- Narrated by: Brian O'Neill
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A new account of America's most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America's current imperial stance. In his fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin argues that to understand the crisis of contemporary America - its never-ending wars abroad and political polarization at home - we have to understand Henry Kissinger.
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A Rehash of Rehashes...nothing new
- By A. M. on 10-06-19
By: Greg Grandin
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Not One Inch
- America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate
- By: M.E. Sarotte
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on over a hundred interviews and on secret records of White House-Kremlin contacts, Not One Inch shows how the United States successfully overcame Russian resistance in the 1990s to expand NATO to more than 900 million people. But it also reveals how Washington's hardball tactics transformed the era between the Cold War and the present day, undermining what could have become a lasting partnership.
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America's NATO problem
- By Jeffrey D on 03-24-22
By: M.E. Sarotte
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Potsdam
- The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe
- By: Michael Neiberg
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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After Germany's defeat in World War II, Europe lay in tatters. Millions of refugees were dispersed across the continent. Food and fuel were scarce. Britain was bankrupt while Germany had been reduced to rubble. In July 1945, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin gathered in a quiet suburb of Berlin to negotiate a lasting peace - a peace that would finally put an end to the conflagration that had started in 1914, a peace under which Europe could be rebuilt.
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Richly told and entertaining.
- By John Kaiser on 06-20-15
By: Michael Neiberg
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On the early morning of March 16, 1968, American soldiers from three platoons of Charlie Company entered a group of hamlets located in the Son Tinh district of South Vietnam, located near the Demilitarized Zone and known as "Pinkville" because of the high level of Vietcong infiltration. The soldiers, many still teenagers who had been in the country for three months, were on a "search and destroy" mission. Three hours after the GIs entered the hamlets, more than 500 unarmed villagers lay dead, killed in cold blood.
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Outstanding audiobook
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The Road to Dien Bien Phu
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On May 7, 1954, when the bullets stopped and the air stilled in Dien Bien Phu, there was no doubt that Vietnam could fight a mighty colonial power and win. After nearly a decade of struggle, a nation forged in the crucible of war had achieved a victory undreamed of by any other national liberation movement. The Road to Dien Bien Phu tells the story of how Ho Chi Minh turned a ragtag guerrilla army into a modern fighting force capable of bringing down the formidable French army.
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Motley Crew History new, true...,
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What listeners say about Road to Disaster
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Daniel O'Connell
- 07-19-24
Clarity of the readers voice
Excellent reading of a complex subject and a very important t part of our history
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-13-23
A phenomenal read for amateur historians and behavioral economists.
The book is able to narrate the events leading up to the Vietnam war with amazing primary source evidences. It is further able to explain the context and reasoning of the protagonists using psychological research and behavioral economics. This is palatable for all readers and definitely something informative.
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- D. Littman
- 10-19-18
Interesting interpretation of Vietnam decisions
This new book on the Vietnam War takes a different approach to the usual book on the subject. It focuses on the personalities and decision-making of the Washington DC based politicians (Eisenhower, Kennedy & Johnson administrations), cabinet members & other advisors, and the military leadership. Van DeMark also gives a window to flaws in the psychology, personal and organizational, that contributed powerfully to decisionmaking patterns. He usefully explicates the flaws in decisionmaking in the context of Vietnam, but employs examples from the psychology research literature to illustrate these points. The book is not the be all & end all on Vietnam, no book can be. But because of its focus on decisionmaking it makes a great new contribution to understanding what happened & why it happened. The book has good narrative drive and a very effective narrator.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Will C.
- 03-20-23
An exceptional book exploring flawed decision making
This book brings a behavior economics lens to the decisions driving the continued involvement and escalation of the US in the Vietnam conflict. I’ve read a number of books on Vietnam, but this was one of the best. I highly recommend it.
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- E. Ronakov
- 01-29-22
A+
I have read a vast amount of books on Vietnam combat and general history, but Road To Disaster took me on an incredible ride through the political view of our descent into the war. I learned much about the top echelons on government and their decision making regarding the initial involvement in SE Asia and its escalation. Narration for this book was perfect. Mr. Butler did a fantastic job. I could listen to him for hours on end (and often did).
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jim Rollins
- 04-02-19
Vietnam Veteran
As a Vietnam veteran I lived in a world believing myths and opinions of Vietnam that in some part were untrue and other just not believable. This book opened my eyes to what really happened and why. It is very well done and documented. The narrator reading is superior. Thanks to the author and all the people involved in writing this account of the Vietnam tragedy. I lived this entire period as a member of the US Army, from the Bay of Pigs to the Vietnam War, and retired in January 1985 as a Command Sergeant Major.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Charles
- 04-10-19
On academics and word choice
Early on I read this sentence: “Mental mistakes are inherent in human nature.”
In grad school I’d have written something similar. Now I’d write, “We all make mistakes.”
This is a good study and worthwhile. But please spare me the academic prose.
When academics learn English and stop trying to impress those of their ilk then they’ll sell some books.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Joe
- 04-20-23
A uniquely well informed history
A uniquely well informed comparative history of national decision-making covering the three crises in the title. Outstanding. This would make great assigned reading for an International Relations course as an example of cognitive decision-making theory applied to case studies.
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- Bruce Cline
- 06-20-24
Great analysis
Road to Disaster is an engaging, well articulated critique of many factors that led to political and military disaster in Vietnam, including a similar and prophetic summary of failures related to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. This is NOT a regurgitation of battles, but rather a look at high level miscalculations, misunderstandings, the impact of having unreliable ally and an unpredictable foe, and often poorly considered decision making by well-intentioned but imperfect, politically influenced, and often ill-informed political and military officials. Arguably, many of the same errors were repeated in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- Tay
- 10-25-24
fantastic overview and concly
I really like the perspective of this book. refreshing. I learned a lot about Robert McNamara.
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