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Unlikely Heroes
- Franklin Roosevelt, His Four Lieutenants, and the World They Made
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
Drawing on new materials, Unlikely Heroes constructs an entirely fresh understanding of FDR and his presidency by spotlighting the powerful, equally wounded figures whom he raised up to confront the Depression, then to beat the Axis.
Only four people served at the top echelon of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Administration from the frightening early months of spring 1933 until he died in April 1945, on the cusp of wartime victory. These lieutenants composed the tough, constrictive, long-term core of government. They built the great institutions being raised against the Depression, implemented the New Deal, and they were pivotal to winning World War II.
Yet, in their different ways, each was as wounded as the polio-stricken titan. Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins, and Henry Wallace were also strange outsiders. Up to 1933, none would ever have been considered for high office. Still, each became a world figure, and it would have been exceedingly difficult for Roosevelt to transform the nation without them.
By examining the lives of these four, a very different picture emerges of how Americans saved their democracy and rescued civilization overseas. Many of the dangers that they all overcame are troublingly like those America faces today.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story5 out of 5 stars 26
As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the US Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau. As German forces closed in on the French capital, Bullitt wrote the president, "In case I should get blown up before I see you again, I want you to know that it has been marvelous to work for you."
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent and Meticulous…
- By Anonymous User on 03-09-23
By: David McKean
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The Ambassador
- Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940
- By: Susan Ronald
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 12 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Acclaimed biographer Susan Ronald reveals the truth about Joseph P. Kennedy's shockingly controversial tenure as ambassador to Great Britain on the eve of World War II.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Needs a bit of editing
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-02-21
By: Susan Ronald
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1948
- Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year That Transformed America
- By: David Pietrusza
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 18 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Award-winning historian David Pietrusza unpacks the most ingloriously iconic headline in the history of presidential elections - DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN - to reveal the 1948 campaign's backstage events and recount the down-to-the-wire brawl fought against the background of an erupting Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the birth of Israel, and a post-war America facing exploding storms over civil rights and domestic communism.
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2 out of 5 stars
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1948 Presidential election retold by Truman hater
- By The Fabulous GT on 01-21-19
By: David Pietrusza
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Great Society
- A New History
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 373
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 320
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 316
In Great Society, Shlaes offers a powerful companion to her legendary history of the 1930s, The Forgotten Man, and shows that in fact there was scant difference between two presidents we consider opposites: Johnson and Nixon. Just as technocratic military planning by "the Best and the Brightest" made failure in Vietnam inevitable, so planning by a team of the domestic best and brightest guaranteed fiasco at home. At once history and biography, Great Society sketches moving portraits of the characters in this transformative period.
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5 out of 5 stars
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How have we forgotten how bad these ideas were?
- By Robert S. Allen on 02-09-20
By: Amity Shlaes
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The Hour of Fate
- Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism
- By: Susan Berfield
- Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4 out of 5 stars 56
A riveting narrative of Wall Street buccaneering, political intrigue and two of American history’s most colossal characters, struggling for mastery in an era of social upheaval and rampant inequality. Today, as the country again asks whether saving democracy means taming capital, the lessons of Roosevelt and Morgan’s time are more urgent than ever.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Engaging
- By Jean on 06-08-20
By: Susan Berfield
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Reaganland
- America's Right Turn 1976-1980
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrated by: Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Jacques Roy, and others
- Length: 45 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 433
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 363
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 361
Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga's final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford's defeat, too old to make another run.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This Book is Censored by Audible
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-07-20
By: Rick Perlstein
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The Year of Peril
- America in 1942
- By: Tracy Campbell
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The Second World War exists in the American historical imagination as a time of unity and optimism. In 1942, however, after a series of defeats in the Pacific and the struggle to establish a beachhead on the European front, America seemed to be on the brink of defeat and was beginning to splinter from within. Exploring this precarious moment, Campbell paints a portrait of the deep social, economic, and political fault lines that pitted factions of citizens against each other in the post-Pearl Harbor era....
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By David S. on 06-08-20
By: Tracy Campbell
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A Promised Land
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 29 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 54,462
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 47,065
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Story5 out of 5 stars 46,714
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Color me grateful.
- By Angela on 11-19-20
By: Barack Obama
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Dewey Defeats Truman
- The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Scott Aiello
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Story5 out of 5 stars 160
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Accidental President comes the thrilling story of the 1948 presidential election, one of the greatest election stories of all time, as Truman mounted a history-making comeback and staked a claim for a new course for America.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent account of the 1948 election
- By A. Crystal on 07-15-20
By: A. J. Baime
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Lyndon
- An Oral Biography
- By: Merle Miller
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 32 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
Best-selling presidential biographer Merle Miller has crafted a candid portrait of one of the most complex, fascinating, difficult, and colorful figures in American history. From his birth in 1908 to his death in 1973, the story of Lyndon B. Johnson is told with no sparing his personal excesses and contentious public image - while also highlighting the strength of his greatest accomplishments in Washington.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Flawless
- By Jeffrey on 01-04-21
By: Merle Miller
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FDR
- By: Jean Edward Smith
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 32 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,372
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,142
One of today's premier biographers, Jean Edward Smith, has written a modern, comprehensive, indeed ultimate book on the epic life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This is a portrait painted in broad strokes and fine details. We see how Roosevelt's restless energy, fierce intellect, personal magnetism, and ability to project effortless grace permitted him to master countless challenges throughout his life. Smith recounts FDR's personal battles and also tackles head-on and in depth the numerous failures and miscues of Roosevelt's political career.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but flawed
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-15-13
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Three Days at the Brink
- FDR’s Daring Gamble to Win World War II
- By: Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney
- Narrated by: Bret Baier
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 596
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 517
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 513
From the number-one best-selling author of Three Days in Moscow and anchor of Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier, a gripping history of the secret meeting that set the stage for victory in World War II - the now-forgotten 1943 Tehran Conference, where Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin plotted the war's endgame, including the D-Day invasion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A history lesson and SO much more
- By ScottG on 11-18-19
By: Bret Baier, and others
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The Washington War
- FDR's Inner Circle and the Politics of Power That Won World War II
- By: James Lacey
- Narrated by: Ray Porter, James Lacey
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
The Washington War is the story of how the Second World War was fought and won in the capital’s halls of power - and how the United States, which in December 1941 had a nominal army and a decimated naval fleet, was able in only 30 months to fling huge forces onto the European continent and shortly thereafter shatter Imperial Japan’s Pacific strongholds. Three quarters of a century after the overwhelming defeat of the totalitarian Axis forces, the terrifying, razor-thin calculus on which so many critical decisions turned has been forgotten....
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4 out of 5 stars
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interesting but tedious
- By Joey on 06-07-20
By: James Lacey
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Eleanor
- By: David Michaelis
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 610
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 515
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 509
In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York’s Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York’s most important power couple in a generation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stands apart from other biographies of ER
- By Debra Malone on 11-20-20
By: David Michaelis
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31 Days
- The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today
- By: Barry Werth
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In 31 Days, Barry Werth takes listeners inside the White House during the tumultuous days following Nixon's resignation and the swearing-in of America's "accidental president", Gerald Ford. The congressional hearings, Nixon's increasing paranoia, and, finally, the devastating revelations of the White House tapes had torn the country apart. Within the White House and the Republican Party, Nixon's resignation produced new fissures and battle lines and new opportunities for political advancement.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The politics of 1974
- By D. Littman on 11-27-06
By: Barry Werth
What listeners say about Unlikely Heroes
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anthony Pierulla
- 03-09-23
Long but worth every minute
things I should’ve known, but never didn’t know this book taught me. The author unknown to me but fluid and rewrites like a novelist.
Born in 1942 I never knew the background and backstory of the first two decades of my life. Things for whatever reason I didn’t learn while I was in college and graduate school. I can now readily find on the Internet that’s the positive side of the Internet.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Grange '64
- 04-05-23
Too negative.
Crushingly negative regarding people’s personalities. Important times unfortunately viewed by someone deeply depressed. Far better written histories exist. Don’t waste your time on this one.
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