Audiobooks by Rick Beyer

The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery (Updated Edition)

""A riveting tale told through personal accounts and sketches along the way-ultimately, a story of success against great odds. I enjoyed it enormously." -Tom Brokaw The first book to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives-now updated with new material. In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs-artists, designers, architects, and sound engineers, including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey-landed in France to conduct a secret mission. From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Every move they made was top secret, and their story was hushed up for decades after the war's end. Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles's meticulous research and interviews with many of the soldiers weave a compelling narrative of how an unlikely team carried out amazing battlefield deceptions that saved thousands of American lives and helped open the way for the final drive to Germany. The stunning narrative created between missions also offers a glimpse of life behind the lines during World War II.  This updated edition includes: - A new afterword by co-author Rick Beyer - The successful campaign to have the unit awarded a Congressional Gold Medal   History and WWII enthusiasts will find The Ghost Army of World War II an essential addition to their library."

Elizabeth Sayles, Rick Beyer (Author), Rob Reider, Tom Stechschulte (Narrator)

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Rivals Unto Death: Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr

"From the bestselling author of The Greatest Stories Never Told series, the epic history of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr's illustrious and eccentric political careers and their fateful rivalry. The famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was the culmination of a story three decades in the making. Rivals unto Death vividly traces their rivalry back to the earliest days of the American Revolution, when Hamilton and Burr -- both brilliant, restless, and barely twenty years old -- elbowed their way onto the staff of General George Washington. The fast-moving account traces their intricate tug-of war, uncovering surprising details that led to their deadly encounter through battlefields, courtrooms, bedrooms, and the wildest presidential election in history, counting down the years to their fateful rendezvous on the dueling ground. This is politics made personal: shrill accusations, bruising collisions, and a parade of flesh and blood founders struggling--and often failing--to keep their tempers and jealousies in check. Smoldering in the background was a fundamental political divide that threatened to tear the new nation in two, and still persists to this day. The Burr and Hamilton that leap out of these pages are passionate, engaging, and utterly human characters inextricably linked together as Rivals unto Death."

Rick Beyer (Author), Rick Beyer (Narrator)

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