The Glory and the Dream

A Narrative History of America, 1932 - 1972

By: William Manchester

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

This great time capsule of a book captures the abundant popular history of the United States from 1932 to 1972. It encompasses politics, military history, economics, the lively arts, science, fashion, fads, social change, sexual mores, communications, graffiti...everything and anything indigenous that can be captured in print.

The Glory and the Dream chronicles the progress of life in the United States, from the time William Manchester and his generation reached the beginning of awareness in the desperate summer of '32 to President Nixon's Second Inaugural Address and the opening scenes of Watergate. Masterfully compressing four crowded decades of our history, Manchester relives the epic, significant, or just memorable events that befell the generation of Americans whose lives pivoted between the America before and the America after the Second World War.

©1974 William Manchester (P)1994 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Great book - recording needs to be fixed though

Would you listen to The Glory and the Dream again? Why?

I might listen to it again in the future- as some of the details could need refreshing, and I found the experience relaxing.

What other book might you compare The Glory and the Dream to and why?

I'd compare it to the podcast "Whistlestop" from John Dickerson (of Slate's Political Gabfest and Face the Nation - I purchased this at his recommendation) - it has the same sort of appreciation of the multiple perspectives of history from the big events to the little cultural details that just belies a love of history that becomes infectious.

Which scene was your favorite?

I really enjoyed the section on the Bay of Pigs invasion - I had never understood JFK's decision until I heard the whole story here.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This is audiobook was practically it's own hobby - it's a great value for 1 credit.

Any additional comments?

There were some damaged areas of the audio files, and my attempts to address them with audible support were failures. (Support basically didn't closely read my comments after asking me where to detail the issues with the audio book

Great book but....

The narrator seemed to want to finish the book as fast as possible! It was only listenable at 3/4 speed!

10/30/13 - Simpy one of the best

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This book is really great. I was skeptical about some of the reviews where the listener heard audio glitches. They must have fixed that because I only ever heard one noticible glitch in a book that is two whole volumes.

I first read Manchester's The Last Lion Pt. 2 - Alone, and I thought he was a great author but this book blew me away. It is a narrivitve history and one that everyone should read and listen to.

I plan on listening to it again down the road, it was that good.

Who was your favorite character and why?

No favorites, there are hundreds.

awesome book, subpar recording

One of the best history books covering any period ever written in my opinion. It offers the reader the unique experience of living through this period through the eyes of the forgotten men and women who lived these times. It is truly a unique work by a uniquely gifted writer. Instead of a top to bottom history, focusing on events, dates, battles, meetings and leaders of the time, this is a bottom-up version of history with attention focused on what ordinary men and women felt, did, suffered through, and ultimately triumphed in taking the US from a 2nd rate power to the predominant super power in the world. When you listen to Rock Bottom, you feel like you are living and suffering through the depression, listening to Roosevelt, or been just told that Kennedy was shot. By the end, you feel like you just lived through this entire period of history.

Downside: This is a terrible recording. The narration is way too fast. I had to listen on slower speed on my ipod, or the pace would just be too fast to listen to. Second, there is static which makes certain sections hard to listen to (see on line sample). Most maddening is the “skips” in which words or sentence fragments are skipped in the second section of the book. It sounds like an old LP record where the needle skipped. It is maddening and incredibly distracting.

I would offer future listeners encouragement that once you make it through the 2nd downloadable segments, the worst is over and the rest is from an audio standpoint considerably better. I wish Audible would offer a better version

After listening to the whole work, I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in this period of history, but after struggling through the 1st and 2nd segments, I almost gave up and was extremely upset that this product would even be sold. Overall, however, this is the as good a book I have read/listened to.

The next best thing to living through 1933-1973

There isn't much I can add to what other reviewers have already said but I still had to share my enthusiasm for what may be the best history I've read/heard of the 20th century. There are all the major developments but also minor stories that might seem anecdotal but are often representative of the ethos of the time they describe. My remembered consciousness only begins in the 1980s but I imagine that these are all the things people of those times sat around the kitchen table or the workplace water cooler talking about. The sound quality isn't very good with many glitches throughout and long stretches of distortions in chapters 15 and 26. The material was so spectacularily good though that the sound problems didn't appreciably detract from my enjoyment. Highly, highly recommended! 57 1/2 hours might seem long but at the end I just found myself wanting another 50 hours. I just wish there were a similar a-book covering the following 40 year stretch to the present.