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The Infernal Machine
- A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective
- Narrated by: Steven Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
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Publisher's summary
“A fast-burning fuse of a book, every page bursting with revelatory detail.”—ERIK LARSON
A sweeping account of the anarchists who terrorized the streets of New York and the detective duo who transformed policing to meet the threat—a tale of fanaticism, forensic science, and dynamite from the bestselling author of The Ghost Map
Steven Johnson’s engrossing account of the epic struggle between the anarchist movement and the emerging surveillance state stretches around the world and between two centuries—from Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite and the assassination of Czar Alexander II to New York City in the shadow of World War I.
April 1914. The NYPD is still largely the corrupt, low-tech organization of the Tammany Hall era. To the extent the police are stopping crime—as opposed to committing it—their role has been almost entirely defined by physical force: the brawn of the cop on the beat keeping criminals at bay with nightsticks and fists. The solving of crimes is largely outside their purview.
The new commissioner, Arthur Woods, is determined to change that, but he cannot anticipate the maelstrom of violence that will soon test his science-based approach to policing. Within weeks of his tenure, New York City is engulfed in the most concentrated terrorism campaign in the nation’s history: a five-year period of relentless bombings, many of them perpetrated by the anarchist movement led by legendary radicals Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. Coming to Woods’s aide are Inspector Joseph Faurot, a science-first detective who works closely with him in reforming the police force, and Amadeo Polignani, the young Italian undercover detective who infiltrates the notorious Bresci Circle.
Johnson reveals a mostly forgotten period of political conviction, scientific discovery, assassination plots, bombings, undercover operations, and innovative sleuthing. The Infernal Machine is the complex pre-history of our current moment, when decentralized anarchist networks have once again taken to the streets to protest law enforcement abuses, right-wing militia groups have attacked government buildings, and surveillance is almost ubiquitous.
Critic reviews
“Dynamite, cops, anarchists—what more could you ask for? With narrative élan, Johnson tells the story of how an ‘infernal’ invention forever disrupted our political world. It’s a fast-burning fuse of a book, every page bursting with revelatory detail.”—Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile
“Drawing parallels with contemporary acts of terrorism and governmental abuses of power in monitoring citizens, Johnson makes history part of an ongoing story we all need to consider. Smart, accessible, and highly readable.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Drawing parallels with contemporary acts of terrorism and governmental abuses of power in monitoring citizens, Johnson makes history part of an ongoing story we all need to consider. Smart, accessible, and highly readable.”—Kirkus Reviews
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Story
Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his senior thesis for Harvard in 1880 that women ought to be paid equal to men and have the option of keeping their maiden names upon marriage. It’s little surprise he’d be a feminist, given the women he grew up with. A dazzling and lyrical look at one America’s most significant presidents as we’ve never seen him before, The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt celebrates five extraordinary yet unsung women who opened the door to the American Century and pushed Theodore Roosevelt through it.
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Hitler's People
- The Faces of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People, he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down.
By: Richard J. Evans
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Vertigo
- The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany
- By: Harald Jähner
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launched an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic, named for the city where it was established, endured for only fifteen years before it was toppled by the insurgent Nazi Party in 1933. In Vertigo, prizewinning historian Harald Jähner tells the Republic’s full story, capturing a nation caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty and struggling toward a better future.
By: Harald Jähner
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Death of Innocence
- The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
- By: Mamie Till-Mobley, Christopher Benson
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Christopher Benson
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old African American, Emmett Till, was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two White men and brutally murdered. His crime: allegedly whistling at a White woman in a convenience store. The killers were eventually acquitted.
By: Mamie Till-Mobley, and others
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When the Sea Came Alive
- An Oral History of D-Day
- By: Garrett M. Graff
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
D-Day is one of history’s greatest and most unbelievable military and human triumphs. Though the full campaign lasted just over a month, the surprise landing of over 150,000 Allied troops on the morning of June 6, 1944, is understood to be the moment that turned the tide for the Allied forces and ultimately led to the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II.
By: Garrett M. Graff
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The Call to Serve
- The Life of an American President, George Herbert Walker Bush
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Jon Meacham
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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In honor of the one hundredth anniversary of George H. W. Bush’s birth, this visually stunning chronicle features never-before-published photos and memories celebrating the forty-first president’s vision of leadership as service to country—curated by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham.
By: Jon Meacham
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Where Good Ideas Come From
- The Natural History of Innovation
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Eric Singer
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.
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Ambitious
- By Roy on 12-08-10
By: Steven Johnson
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Massacre in the Clouds
- An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History
- By: Kim A. Wagner
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In March 1906, American soldiers on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines surrounded and killed 1000 local men, women, and children, known as Moros, on top of an extinct volcano. The so-called ‘Battle of Bud Dajo’ was hailed as a triumph over an implacable band of dangerous savages, a “brilliant feat of arms” according to President Theodore Roosevelt. Some contemporaries, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Mark Twain, saw the massacre for what it was, but they were the exception and the U.S. military authorities successfully managed to bury the story.
By: Kim A. Wagner
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Tripped
- Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age
- By: Norman Ohler
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The author of the New York Times bestseller Blitzed returns with a provocative new history of drugs and postwar America, examining the untold story of how Nazi experiments into psychedelics covertly influenced CIA research and secretly shaped the War on Drugs.
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An absolute eye opener
- By Omar on 04-21-24
By: Norman Ohler
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The Killing Season
- The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War
- By: Robert Cowley
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Marne may have saved Paris and prevented a humiliating setback for the Allies, but it did not spell eventual defeat for Germany. Ypres did.
By: Robert Cowley
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Bitter Waters
- By: Vivian Shaw
- Narrated by: Catrin Walker-Booth
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A barrow-wight shows up on Greta and Varney’s doorstep one night with 11-year-old Lucy Ashton who’s been newly—and forcefully—bitten and turned. Who did this to her, and why? With the help of her vampiric friends, Greta is determined to find out.
By: Vivian Shaw