Law & Politics Audiobooks | Biography & Memoir

Born into one of the wealthiest families in America—he was the youngest son of Standard Oil scion John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the celebrated patron of modern art Abby Aldrich Rockefeller—David Rockefeller has carried his birthright into a distinguished life of his own. His dealings with world leaders from Zhou Enlai and Mikhail Gorbachev to Anwar Sadat and Ariel Sharon, his service to every American president since Eisenhower, his remarkable world travels and personal dedication to his home city of New York—here, the ﬁrst time a Rockefeller has told his own story, is an account of a truly rich life.

David Rockefeller (Author), Dan Woren (Narrator)

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Sting Like a Bee: Muhammad Ali vs. the United States of America, 1966-1971

An insightful portrait of Muhammad Ali from the New York Times bestselling author of At the Altar of Speed and The Big Bam. It centers on the cultural and political implications of Ali's refusal of service in the military and the key moments in a life that was as high profile and transformative as any in the twentieth century. With the death of Muhammad Ali in June, 2016, the media and America in general have remembered a hero, a heavyweight champion, an Olympic gold medalist, an icon, and a man who represents the sheer greatness of America. New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville goes deeper, with a fascinating chronicle of a story that has been largely untold. Muhammad Ali, in the late 1960s, was young, successful, brash, and hugely admired but with some reservations. He was bombastic and cocky in a way that captured the imagination of America, but also drew its detractors. He was a bold young African American in an era when few people were as outspoken. He renounced his name Cassius Clay as being his 'slave name,' and joined the Nation of Islam, renaming himself Muhammad Ali. And finally in 1966, after being drafted, he refused to join the military for religious and conscientious reasons, triggering a fight that was larger than any of his bouts in the ring. What followed was a period of legal battles, of cultural obsession, and in some ways of being the very embodiment of the civil rights movement located in the heart of one man. Muhammad Ali was the tip of the arrow, and Leigh Montville brilliantly assembles all the boxing, the charisma, the cultural and political shifting tides, and ultimately the enormous waft of entertainment that always surrounded Ali. Muhammed Ali vs. the United States of America is an important and incredibly engaging book.

Leigh Montville (Author), J. D. Jackson, Jd Jackson (Narrator)

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The Court of Last Resort

Erle Stanley Gardner devoted thousands of hours to a project called "The Court of Last Resort." This project, which he undertook with his many friends in the forensic, legal, and investigative communities, sought to review and, if appropriate, to reverse, miscarriages of justice against possibly innocent criminal defendants. These defendants'' cases were examined for causes originally convicted owing to poor legal representation; or to the inadequate, careless or malicious actions of police and prosecutors; or most especially, because of the abuse or misinterpretation of medical and other forensic evidence. The resulting 1952 book earned Gardner his only Edgar Award, in the Best Fact Crime category.

Erle Stanley Gardner (Author), Mel Foster (Narrator)

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Blonde Ambition - Book Five - Never Tweet Dirty Deals

Like most of us - Donald Trump wants to be loved. But unlike most of us, the Donald wants to be obsessively loved - by the entire World. That's why he's always tweeting. But no matter how much he craves our undying adulation - there are some things - the Donald will never tweet. In this no holds barred book - investigative journalist Atherton Cooper reveals a container carload of the Donald's untweetable dirty deals.

Atherton Cooper (Author), Atherton Cooper (Narrator)

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Sharks

Curious about the modern love affair with criminal personalities, investigative reporter Conor Woodman spent four years exploring the hidden depths of dynamic cities across the globe. Sharks takes us on a journey through the lawless backstreets of cities as diverse as Mumbai, Bogotá, New Orleans, Barcelona and London. In each he uncovers the people and the scams that keep the global black economy moving.

Conor Woodman (Author), Conor Woodman (Narrator)

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Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father

Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than the "thorough deist" who emerges in his autobiography. As Thomas Kidd reveals, deist writers influenced Franklin's beliefs, to be sure, but devout Christians in his life-including George Whitefield, the era's greatest evangelical preacher; his parents; and his beloved sister Jane-kept him tethered to the Calvinist creed of his Puritan upbringing. Based on rigorous research into Franklin's voluminous correspondence, essays, and almanacs, this fresh assessment of a well-known figure unpacks the contradictions and conundrums faith presented in Franklin's life.

Thomas S. Kidd (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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Rising Star

Barack Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention instantly catapulted the little-known state senator from Illinois into the national spotlight. Three months later, Obama would win election to the U.S. Senate; four years later he would make history as America's first black president. Now, at the end of his second presidential term, David J. Garrow delivers the most compelling and comprehensive Obama biography - as epic in vision and rigorous in detail as Robert Caro's .Moving around the globe, from Hawaii to Indonesia to the American Northeast and Midwest, meticulously unpacks Obama's life, from his tumultuous upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, to his formative time as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, working in some of the roughest neighborhoods, to Cambridge, where he excelled at Harvard Law School, and finally back to Chicago, where he pursued his political destiny. In voluminous detail, drawn from more than 1,000 interviews and encyclopedic documentary research, Garrow reveals as never before the ambition, the dreams, and the all-too-human struggles of an iconic president in a sure to be news-making biography that will stand as the most authoritative account of Obama's pre-presidential life for decades to come.

David Garrow, David J. Garrow (Author), Charles Constant (Narrator)

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This Fight is Our Fight

One of America's leading progressive voices, Elizabeth Warren made headlines after she was ejected from the Senate floor for highlighting the attorney general's troubling history on racial matters and civil rights. Her fiery denunciations of corporate greed have long made her a political celebrity and her stand against Jeff Sessions confirmed her once again as one of the Democratic Party's most influential leaders.In this passionate and inspiring book, Senator Warren tells the story of how the United States built the greatest middle class in history, and how big corporations and financial institutions then came to overpower the interests of poor, lower-income and middle-class people. The story moves from President Roosevelt's New Deal to President Reagan's disastrous trickle-down economics, to President Trump's phoney promises that are pushing working people ever closer to collapse.Writing in the candid, high-spirited voice that is her trademark, Warren delivers a rousing call to action and an outline of how government can better serve the people who work hard every day but now face an uncertain future. The book provides eye-opening accounts of her battles in the Senate, vivid stories about her life and work, and powerful descriptions of the experience of working people who have too often suffered under economic policies that leave them out in the cold.Warren lays out the many wrongs she seeks to right and builds on her meme - 'Nevertheless, she persisted' - that spread across the world to act as a rallying cry for the millions of people who do not wish to build walls or put up barriers to free trade and fairness in our society. It is a book that gives voice to those who wish for a different type of future and who wish to fight back.

Elizabeth Warren (Author), Elizabeth Warren (Narrator)

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Practise the Great Habit of Relaxation with Conscious Relaxation

This breakthrough programme is for all who wish to acquire practice tools that will minimise stress and enhance their ability to think and act clearly. Are you stressed too much of the time and on edge? Relaxation can be practiced so you find it easier to achieve, like playing the piano or learning tennis. This Relax kit gives you tools to help you do this. And so you must try them all out and see which works for you when. You can keep using them whenever you wish and as part of a regular wellbeing self help programme. There are seven audios in this Conscious Relaxation programme: R1 Introduction (7 mins) R1 sets the scene and explains why relaxation practice is so beneficial. R2 Three Techniques (10 mins) R2 teaches three simple relaxation techniques for you to practice so they are there for you, when you need to be calmer in real life situations. R3 Priming (8 mins) R3 is short but will extend your capacity to achieve a more relaxed state in your day to day lives. R4 Anchoring (9 mins) R4 teaches a method that connects calm feelings to the physical. R5 Progressive Muscle Relaxation (12 mins) R5 is slightly longer body scan practice – a classic of its type (12 mins) R6 Breathing Meditation (16 mins) R6 is designed to enhance your capacity to breathe in a relaxing way whenever you need to. R7 Anxiety Control (21 mins) R7 focuses on anxious feelings and how to use them and control them in the right kind of way. Email access to Andrew Richardson I want to hear how you have got on with Conscious Relaxation and be available for you with advice, mentoring and if needed personalised one on one help – so you can truly recover and find the optimism and energy that is your birthright.

Andrew Richardson (Author), Andrew Richardson (Narrator)

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The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

By the New York Times bestselling author of Manson, the comprehensive, authoritative, and tragic story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre-the largest murder-suicide in American history. In the 1950s, a young Indianapolis minister named Jim Jones preached a curious blend of the gospel and Marxism. His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics, and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader. In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones's life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died-including almost three hundred infants and children-after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink. Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones's Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones's orders. The Road to Jonestown is the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.

Jeff Guinn (Author), George Newbern (Narrator)

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The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

The first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions and inactions have defined the course of our country. What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to the president of the United States as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others. The chiefs of staff, often referred to as 'the gatekeepers,' wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and most crucially enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks. Through extensive, intimate interviews with all seventeen living chiefs and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker 's expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might have been prevented by a more effective chief. Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, The Gatekeepers offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.

Chris Whipple (Author), Mark Bramhall (Narrator)

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Killings

True stories of sudden death in the classic collection by a master of American journalism 'Reporters love murders,' Calvin Trillin writes in the introduction to Killings. 'In a pinch, what the lawyers call 'wrongful death ' will do, particularly if it 's sudden.' Killings, first published in 1984 and expanded for this edition, shows Trillin to be such a reporter, drawn time after time to tales of sudden death. But Trillin is attracted less by violence or police procedure than by the way the fabric of people 's lives is suddenly exposed when someone comes to an untimely end. As Trillin says, Killings is 'more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.' These stories, which originally appeared in The New Yorker between 1969 and 2010, are vivid portraits of lives cut short. An upstanding farmer in Iowa finds himself drastically changed by a woman he meets in a cocktail lounge. An eccentric old man in Eastern Kentucky is enraged by the presence of a documentary filmmaker. Two women move to a bucolic Virginia county to find peace, only to end up at war over a shared road. Mexican American families in California hand down a feud from generation to generation. A high-living criminal-defense lawyer in Miami acquires any number of enemies capable of killing him. Stark and compassionate, deeply observed and beautifully written, Killings is 'that rarity, reportage as art' (William Geist, The New York Times Book Review). Praise for Killings 'Riveting tales of murder and mayhem. . . . [Calvin] Trillin is a superb writer, with a magical ability to turn even the most mundane detail into spellbinding wonder. Armed with this wealth of material, he utterly shines. Every piece here is a gem.' The Seattle Times 'What Mr. Trillin does so well, what makes Killings literature, is the way he pictures the lives that were interrupted by the murders. Even the most ordinary life makes a terrible noise . . . when it 's broken off.' Anatole Broyard, The New York Times 'Fascinating, troubling . . . In each of these stories is the basis of a Dostoevskian novel.' Edward Abbey, Chicago Sun-Times 'The stories . . . are unforgettable. They leave us, finally, with the awareness of the unknowable opacity of the human heart.' Bruce Colman, San Francisco Chronicle '[Trillin] writes brilliantly. . . . These stories still hold up, as classics.' The Buffalo News 'In his artful ability to conjure up a whole life and a whole world, Trillin comes as close to achieving the power of a Chekhov short story as can anyone whose material is so implacably tied to fact.' Frederick Iseman, Harper 's Bazaar 'I have a book for you true-crime addicts if you 're caught up on the podcast Serial, the cascade on TV of 48 Hours and Dateline NBC episodes. . . . It 's time to pick up Calvin Trillin 's Killings.' The New York Times Book Review 'Well-crafted and thoughtfully composed, lacking judgment and admonishment, these are a true piece of quality journalism, which clearly continues to captivate audiences.' Library Journal 'With telling detail and shrewd insights, [Calvin Trillin] masterfully evokes the places and personalities that hatched these grim episodes.' Publishers Weekly

Calvin Trillin (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

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Law & Politics Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir