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Hard Choices
- Narrated by: Kathleen Chalfant, Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Length: 26 hrs and 55 mins
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Publisher's summary
Hillary Rodham Clinton's inside account of the crises, choices, and challenges she faced during her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, and how those experiences drive her view of the future.
In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, she expected to return to representing New York in the United States Senate. To her surprise, her former rival for the Democratic Party nomination, newly elected President Barack Obama, asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. This memoir is the story of the four extraordinary and historic years that followed, and the hard choices that she and her colleagues confronted.
Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. They faced a rising competitor in China, growing threats from Iran and North Korea, and revolutions across the Middle East. Along the way, they grappled with some of the toughest dilemmas of US foreign policy, especially the decision to send Americans into harm's way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Drawing on conversations with numerous leaders and experts, Secretary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive in an interdependent world. She makes a passionate case for human rights and the full participation in society of women, youth, and LGBT people. An astute eyewitness to decades of social change, she distinguishes the trendlines from the headlines and describes the progress occurring throughout the world, day after day.
Secretary Clinton's descriptions of diplomatic conversations at the highest levels offer listeners a master class in international relations, as does her analysis of how we can best use "smart power" to deliver security and prosperity in a rapidly changing world - one in which America remains the indispensable nation.
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A news-breaking memoir revealing the secret, high level negotiations that could soon transform the map of the Middle East. Why would a sitting head of state choose to write about the most explosive issues he faces? King Abdullah does so now because he believes we face a moment of truth: a last chance for peace in the Middle East. The prize is enormous; the cost of failure far greater than we dare imagine.
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Meet the fourth King of Jordan ,
- By katie on 06-29-16
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In the Path of Abraham
- How Donald Trump Made Peace in the Middle East—and How to Stop Joe Biden from Unmaking It
- By: Jason D. Greenblatt
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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This book charts the remarkable journey of Jason D. Greenblatt, who spent nearly two decades in various senior positions at the Trump Organization—including as an Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer—and his subsequent appointment by President Trump as an Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations. Jason was also assigned the position of White House Special Envoy to the Middle East, playing a key role in the Peace to Prosperity Plan.
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Great listen
- By Amazon Customer on 12-29-23
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Reagan
- The Life
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 31 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
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Very little about Reagan
- By Jack Merritt on 07-30-15
By: H. W. Brands
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No Room for Small Dreams
- Courage, Imagination, and the Making of Modern Israel
- By: Shimon Peres
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this, his final work, finished only weeks before his passing, Peres offers a long-awaited examination of the crucial turning points in Israeli history through the prism of having been a decision maker and eyewitness. Told with the frankness of someone aware this would likely be his final statement, No Room for Small Dreams spans decades and events, but as much as it is about what happened, it is about why it happened.
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Great insights
- By Mergen on 05-29-22
By: Shimon Peres
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In My Time
- A Personal and Political Memoir
- By: Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Dick Cheney
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
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In his unmistakable voice and with an insider's eye on history, former Vice President Dick Cheney tells the story of his life and the nearly four decades he has spent at the center of American politics and power. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it - with courage and without compromise.
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Great Book
- By reader on 09-05-11
By: Dick Cheney, and others
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Reagan's Secret War
- The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster
- By: Martin Anderson, Annelise Anderson
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Martin and Annelise Anderson drew upon their access to more than eight million classified documents housed within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. What emerges from this treasure trove of material is evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered eliminating nuclear weapons his paramount objective, and that he was the principal architect of the policies that brought the Soviets to the nuclear-arms negotiating table.
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IMPORTANT HISTORICAL INFORMATION
- By Byron on 06-19-12
By: Martin Anderson, and others
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The Last Empire
- The Final Days of the Soviet Union
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Alex Wyndham
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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On Christmas, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: Earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades. As Serhii Plokhy reveals, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the US.
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Full of Holes; Horrid Narrator
- By Donald on 03-02-23
By: Serhii Plokhy
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The Accidental Admiral
- A Sailor Takes Command at NATO
- By: ADM. James Stavridis USN - Ret.
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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After he was selected to be NATO's 16th Supreme Allied Commander, the New York Times described Jim Stavridis as a "Renaissance admiral." A US Naval Academy graduate with a master's degree and doctorate from Tufts University, conversant in both French and Spanish, this author of numerous books and articles impressed the Navy's leaders and senior Pentagon civilians. The Accidental Admiral offers an intimate look at the challenges of directing NATO operations in Afghanistan, military intervention in Libya, and preparation for possible war in Syria.
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Insider View on Complexity in Nato
- By Theo Horesh on 05-16-22
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Asia's Reckoning
- China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century
- By: Richard Mcgregor
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard McGregor's Asia's Reckoning is a compelling account of the widening geopolitical cracks in a region that has flourished under an American security umbrella for more than half a century. The toxic rivalry between China and Japan, two Asian giants consumed with endless history wars and ruled by entrenched political dynasties, is threatening to upend the peace underwritten by Pax Americana since World War II.
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Good info to learn, but...
- By Neal on 02-24-18
By: Richard Mcgregor
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Duty
- Memoirs of a Secretary at War
- By: Robert M. Gates
- Narrated by: George Newbern, Robert M. Gates
- Length: 25 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vivid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he'd long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving as president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of duty.
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The Fighting Season
- By Cynthia on 01-28-14
By: Robert M. Gates
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For more than a year, Hillary Clinton has laid out an ambitious agenda to improve the lives of the American people and make our country stronger and safer. Stronger Together presents that agenda in full, relating stories from the American people and outlining the Clinton/Kaine campaign's plans on everything from apprenticeships to the Zika virus.
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If only she didn't sell us out and lie so much!
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What listeners say about Hard Choices
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Cynthia
- 07-20-14
Senior Stateswoman in need of Editor
I have often wondered what former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was thinking on May 1, 2011 when that famous photo of her, with her hand over her mouth, was taken in the White House Situation Room as she waited for the results of Operation Neptune Spear. I read/listen to just about everything I can get my hands on about the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden, like Mark Owens and Kevin Maurer's "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden" (2012) and former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates "Memoirs of a Secretary at War" (2014). I would have listened to HRC's "Hard Choices" (2014) just for her perspective on that mission, but this book has so much more.
HRC sets forth comprehensive US foreign policy, starting with her husband, Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton, president from 1993 to 2001; George H. Bush, 2001 to 2009; to Barack Obama, 2009 to the present. HRC has been a first hand observer or participant in international politics for more than 20 years, as First Lady; then as a Senator from New York; and then as Secretary of State.
The book is so current, it talks about Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimea. HRC's position on Russia is hawkish, and Vladimir Putin should count himself fortunate she isn't president right now. I'm not an up-and-coming or current world leader, or rebel general working on being a dictator, but if I were - and wanted to know where I, or my country stood with the current most-likely-next-president of the United States, I'd find out in "Hard Choices".
If I wanted to know about her husband's infamous dalliance more than 20 years ago, I guess I could read "The National Enquirer" - but I wouldn't waste my I time reading about it and HRC doesn't waste my time writing about it. I would rather know her position on Iran's nuclear enrichment program, Syria's use of chemical weapons, or what might work in patching up international relationships badly damaged by leaks of candid assessments of world leaders in State Department cables. "Hard Choices" talks about those issues, not about whether staying with her husband was a difficult decision.
HRC has a unique view of countries and their leaders. Some nations - for example, China and India - have national feelings and attributes (inferiority and insecurity) that she does not confuse with the beliefs or actions of their leaders. Other very small nations - such as Qatar, with a population about 20% of that of Los Angeles County - are so closely aligned with their leaders, they can't be distinguished. HRC's ability to separate the nutcase in charge from the population as a whole has been key in the Obama administration's arguable successes in various Arab countries.
Which brings me to the editor part: "Hard Choices" is 657 pages in print and 27 hours on Audible. Even with 'a long commute' it took me a while to finish the listen, because, well, I got a mired in the details, and sometimes, I got bored. I had the same problem with Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" (2005). I could have used a Playbill, a world map, and a timeline for both books.
HRC has a great voice, and I would have been happier with her doing the entire narration. She did the introduction, and there's an Easter egg: there's a 15 minute epilogue in her own voice. Kathleen Chalfant is fine, but it's not the same.
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- Jean
- 06-14-14
Will she run?
In the book Hillary Clinton tells about her time as Secretary of State. I had read “The Secretary” by Kim Ghattas and “HRC” by Jonathan Allan and Amie Parnes which covered the same topic. The interesting part of the book for me was her side comments such as her discussion about William Seward; I read his biography last year. He also was a senator from New York who lost his Presidential nomination and the faithfully served Lincoln, the man who beat him, as Secretary of State. She frequently quotes Eleanor Roosevelt which I found delightfully as I am a big fan of Eleanor Roosevelt. The meeting to discuss increasing troops to Afghanistan was also described in detail in the book “Duty” by Robert Gates. Hillary covers in great depth her philosophy of “Smart Power.” She opens her tour as Secretary of State by travelling to Asia. She tells why she thought it was important to emphasize Asia, the problems facing the area, in fact, she goes area by area throughout the book describing each areas problems, what has been done, needs to be done to overcome the problems. She covers Burma, China and Pakistan in depth. A picture of Hillary does come through as a person who is an optimist and very persistent. It appears she keeps going, by building on the small victories so they outweigh the defeats. She goes about breaking things down. She is a disaggregator, who can’t see problems without trying to make it smaller, more manageable, and then she tries to fit the pieces back together again. Between the stories of diplomacy are scattered personal stories about her mother, her life as a college student, meeting and marrying Bill Clinton, her daughter and how much she is looking forward to being a grandmother. The book is cautiously written and free of politically charged rhetoric and appears to be factually correct. The only comments she made about two politically charged issues was on Iraq, she apologized. She said “I got it wrong” and she learned from the mistake. On the deaths of State Department people killed in Benghazi Libya she said she is responsible because she was Secretary of State. Hillary mostly has good thing to say about people including George W. Bush. She quotes a maxim from China’s Deng Xiaoping: “Coolly observe, calmly deal with things, hold your position, hide your capacities, bide your time, accomplish things where possible.” The book was narrated by Kathleen Chalfont and Hillary Clinton.
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- Heizenberg
- 07-18-14
An Excellent book on Modern History
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed reading this book! It is amazing how much diplomacy goes on that you never hear about. As you read this book you'll learn about world history happening right now, which helps shed light on and add context to current events. Reading this book has given me a much great appreciation for the role of Secretary of State and the critical role that diplomacy plays in our international strategy.
Regardless of your political views, this book is a great read! After reading this book though, I have to say that am very glad to have had Hillary Clinton serve as our Secretary of State and I know that our country has benefited greatly from her contributions.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Kate
- 07-05-14
dry as sandpaper
Would surely have been better if she weren't running. The book MUST be playing it safe. I can't believe the actual foreign policy events were as dull as the recounting here. Any question the narrator might have salvaged it is moot: I've never heard a more killingly monotone performance. Still, I love Hillary - she's smart and pragmatic and will make a superb president - she will most certainly have my vote. But I wish I hadn't offered up my credit.
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18 people found this helpful
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- Charles I Allport
- 01-07-15
As a Republican turned disillusioned libertarian
I appreciated the narrative quality of the book. It would have been difficult to complete had it simply been intended to posture for political purposes. The narrator was well-composed. The material flows well.
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16 people found this helpful
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- E. Ard
- 07-20-14
A wealth of information
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes.Hillary Clinton expertly runs through an incredible amount of information regarding her actions as Secretary of State and the circumstances surrounding them. In this, the short choppy bylines of our impotent domestic media are elaborated upon and fleshed out, casting light on on both the role of US Diplomacy and the countries that received her in her travels.
What did you like best about this story?
If you want some insight into a likely Presidential contender, this is a good spot. This is not Wolf Blitzer, Bill O'Reilly, or even Dan Rather's take on who Hillary Clinton is or what she's done. It is incredible how humdrum, though not boring, some of these issues can seem in her retelling. It is truly the result of one of the most seasoned political figures in the world being completely and totally in the briar patch, bouncing and happy, where most of us would be petrified by the sheer weight of responsibility.
What about Kathleen Chalfant and Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s performance did you like?
I preferred Hillary Clinton's voice, but Kathleen Chalfant did an admirable job of retaining as much continuity as possible.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Clinton can show up in China, go on their television, and speak truth to their power-that women's rights are human rights, Tibet deserves freedom, and poverty is out of control. In response the giant of a country can only hope to keep as many people from hearing it as possible. Only words and nukes can be this powerful.
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- Flavio Casoy
- 09-10-15
Illuminating
Pros: Secretary Clinton is clearly fiercely intelligent and dominates the international landscape. While this IS a campaign book, the breadth and depth is impressive.
She is candid about her ideological position, even though she is more hawkish than the average democrat.
Throughout there are weak points were there is no substance, just platitudes that sound like they've gone through focus groups.
Glad I listened to this book in its entirety, but I did consider quitting a few times.
The reading and production are excellent.
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- jack lichtenstein
- 10-07-17
A tone deaf politician
Prior to listening to this book I had been a fan of Hillary and voted for her. I could not understand why she was so despised by people I respected. After listening to this book I understand why she is disliked and would never vote for her again, even if she ran again the despised Donald Trump. Why the change?
Her attitude is that she is president of the world,that she wears a cape and can save any situation. There is no event that can be spared her casuistry. A ridiculous incident in which she rescues a blind Chinese dissident who is manipulating both sides for personal gain, is treated as though Hillary saved the world, rather than for the black humor and ridiculous theater she has created.
Which brings up another problem, her complete lack of humor. She takes herself so seriously. And then there is her unabashed arrogance. Her position is always the only right decision. She does not recognize grays or nuances, And finally the fantasy world she lives in. That the United Sates is the bastion of Human rights and civil rights, when in fact we are a failure in both areas and treat our dissidents much more harshly than most other countries. And finally, the fact she and her husband were responsible for the incarceration of over 50% of black males between 15 and 25 while he was president. She should not be lecturing any one on human rights and civil rights. She is what we used to call a limousine liberal. Using others peoples suffering to make herself look goo. Contrast this piece of trash with the excellent biographies of Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, both written with a sense of humility and humor, and alack of arrogance.
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- Angelhair
- 06-22-14
A MUST READ FOR ALL AMERICANS
What did you love best about Hard Choices?
What I like best about Hard Choices was insight into the issues of today. The explanation of the background behind the issues in the world press. Americans should be proud to have a statesman like Hillary Rodham Clinton.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Hard Choices?
When Ms. Clinton explained the diplomacy behind the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas at the end of 2012.
Have you listened to any of Kathleen Chalfant and Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
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- Pauly Morefuss
- 06-20-14
Magnificent
For me, this is a truly beautiful book. It is a surprising blend of being well-researched, historic, and heart-warming. I am in awe of her accomplishments, intelligence, and patriotic service to our country.
The length of the book was a concern only at first. When I began listening to the equally talented narration, I was transfixed and didn't want the book to end! I plan on buying a copy of the book to enjoy again.
As I listened, I was reminded of others who face these kinds of incredible responsibilities and whose outstanding and inspirational books I would also recommend to add to your library*.
"Madame Secretary: A Memoir" by Madeline Albright
"A Fighting Chance" by Elizabeth Warren
"Back to Work" by Bill Clinton
"My Beloved World" by Sonia Sotomayor
"Conservatives Without Conscience" by John W. Dean
"Swim Against the Current" by Jim Hightower
*They are all available from Audible and your favorite bookstore.
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9 people found this helpful