Bankruptcy is booming. The reasons more Americans are filing for personal bankruptcy over the past decade are contentious, from predatory lending to lax morals. And despite a new law designed to slow down filings, America's bankruptcy will likely remain in record territory.
"Death is un-American," an "affront to the American Dream," wrote historian Arnold Toynbee in 1969. It was a time of social movements, and big change: peace and civil rights, environmentalism and women's liberation.
We spend six months following a lively group of innovators, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists who are at the epicenter of an American desire for clean technologies - and they seek riches and solutions to global climate change. This is what happens when good deeds grapple with the realities of the free market.
Follow Russian writer Aleksandr Radishchev's 200-year-old footsteps from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and discover the soul of a people and the character of a nation.
Say It Plain: A Century of Great African-American Speeches
(51 mins)
By American RadioWorks
Narrated By Michele Norris
Overall
(30)
Performance
(2)
Story
(2)
The visceral impact of history's great speechmakers is at the heart of Say It Plain. This new American RadioWorks documentary highlights a selection of landmark sermons, speeches, and broadcasts by remarkable African-American speakers.
Rarely has one speech changed history so dramatically. In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev exposed and denounced the crimes of Joseph Stalin, stunning a nation and opening the door to a human rights movement in the USSR. With the assistance of Khrushchev's son, Sergei, producer Robert Rand explores that bold event and its consequences for the Soviet Union and the world.
American RadioWorks Black History Month Special Collection
(3 hrs and 21 mins)
By American RadioWorks
Overall
(7)
Performance
(0)
Story
(0)
In honor of Black History Month, Audible is proud to offer a collection of superb original recordings featuring some of the most influential voices in African-American history.
In August 1944, five years after the start of World War II, the people of Warsaw, armed with just a few guns and gasoline bombs, rose up against the German occupation of their city. The uprising was meant to last just 48 hours. Instead, it went on for two months. A quarter of a million people were killed and the Polish capital was razed to the ground. It was one of the great tragedies of World War II, and yet it is rarely talked about outside Poland.
To fully grasp the ongoing tensions between the United States and North Korea, it is important to understand the war that ended more than fifty years ago. John Biewen and Stephen Smith of American RadioWorks examine the often-overlooked war that helped define global politics and American life for the second half of the 20th century.
Three of America's most compelling presidents, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, bugged their White House offices and tapped their telephones. They left behind thousands of secretly recorded conversations, from momentous to mundane. In this documentary project, American RadioWorks eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history.
Brian says:
"Good Concept But Very Little Content"
Twenty-five years after the fall of Saigon, the legacy of the war affects lives on both sides of the Pacific. In this series of reports, American RadioWorks reveals how events fading into memory still influence our environments, institutions, and cultures.
"Las Vegas: An Unconventional History" commemorates the 100th anniversary of Las Vegas with a sweeping look at the city's dramatic past. The program follows a century of Las Vegas' development, from its humble, dusty beginnings as a remote railway station to the fluorescent, 24-hour, corporate-financed destination it is today.
During an 18-month investigation, the 9/11 Commission heard extraordinary testimony about the terrorist attacks on America. Witnesses told stories of lucky breaks and deadly errors. The commission pieced together new evidence and new details to tell the most complete story to date of the al Qaeda plot.
More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, Americans are still grappling with questions of why it was fought, and how it was lost. Vietnam and the Presidency offers insiders' perspectives on the war from key policymakers of the era, journalists who covered the war, and leading historians. Their reflections and analysis will help illuminate the Vietnam War at a time when the nation is debating the past and future of the war in Iraq.
After 30 years, America's War on drugs costs U.S. taxpayers $40 billion a year with no victory in sight. Combatants from both sides of the drug war shed light on the U.S. government's fight against one of the world's most profitable industries.
Supermax prisons are icons of America¿s tough penal system. But do Supermaxes live up to their promise of stopping violent crime? This report takes listeners inside one Supermax prison where sophisticated prison gangs flourish, often against all odds.
In the new global economy, can America depend on having a safe and affordable food supply? Two stories in this special report: "The Future of the Family Farm" and "Antibiotics on the Farm".
