Audiobooks narrated by David De Vries

The Management of Savagery: How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS,

The rise of international jihad and Western ultra-nationalism In the Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal excavates the real story behind America's dealings with the world and shows how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are the inevitable flowering of America's imperial designs. Washington's secret funding of the mujahedin provoked the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. With guns and money, the United States has ever since sustained the extremists, including Osama Bin Laden, who have become its enemies. The Pentagon has trained and armed jihadist elements in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya; it has launched military interventions to change regimes in the Middle East. In doing so, it created fertile ground for the Islamic State and brought foreign conflicts home to American soil. These failed wars abroad have made the United States more vulnerable to both terrorism as well as native ultra-nationalism. The Trump presidency is the inevitable consequence of neoconservative imperialism in the post-Cold War age. Trump's dealings in the Middle East are likely only to exacerbate the situation.

Max Blumenthal (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union-showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong, five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances-and the fragility of authoritarian state power.

Vladislav M. Zubok (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Find your self in myth “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” —Joseph Campbell One of Joseph Campbell’s most popular, most quoted works, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration, thought-provoking in its depth, poetic in its scope. Drawn from a month-long workshop at the world-famous Esalen Institute, the Joseph Campbell Companion captures Campbell at his best: wise, funny, intelligent and inspiring.

Joseph Campbell (Author), Braden Wright, David De Vries, David Devries, Tom Parks (Narrator)

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DeFi and the Future of Finance

During the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, our financial infrastructure failed. Governments bailed out the very institutions that let the economy down. This episode spurred a serious rethink of our financial system. In DeFi and the Future of Finance, Campbell R. Harvey, Ashwin Ramachandran, and Joey Santoro introduce the new world of Decentralized Finance. The book argues that the current financial landscape is ripe for disruption and we are seeing, in real time, the reinvention of finance. The authors provide listeners with a clear assessment of the problems with the current financial system and how DeFi solves many of its issues. The essence of DeFi is that we interact with peers-there is no brick and mortar and all of the associated costs. Savings and lending are reinvented. Trading takes place with algorithms far removed from traditional brokerages. The book conducts a deep dive on some of the most innovative protocols such as Uniswap and Compound. Many of the companies featured in the book you might not have heard of-however, you will in the future.

Ashwin Ramachandran, Campbell R. Harvey, Joey Santoro (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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MiG Alley: The US Air Force in Korea, 1950-53

Of the many myths that emerged following the end of the Korean War, the prevailing one in the West was that of the absolute supremacy of U.S. Air Force pilots and aircraft over their Soviet-supplied opponents. The claims of the 10:1 victory-loss ratio achieved by the U.S. Air Force fighter pilots flying the North American F-86 Sabre against their communist adversaries, amongst other such fabrications, went unchallenged until the end of the Cold War, when Soviet records of the conflict were finally opened. From that point onwards, a very different story began to emerge. Far from decisive American victories over an unsophisticated opponent, the aerial battles of the Korean War were, at least in the early years, evenly matched affairs, fought to an approximate 1:1 victory-loss ratio. Though the Soviet victories declined over the following years, this had more to do with home politics than American tactics. In addition to the aerial combat over MiG Alley, this title covers the full range of U.S. Air Force activities over Korea, including the failed strategic bombing campaign and the escalating nuclear threat. Incorporating first-hand accounts from those involved, both U.S. and Soviet, this new history of the U.S. Air Force in Korea reveals the full story of this bitter struggle in the Eastern skies.

Thomas Mckelvey Cleaver (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Seven Forges

The people of Fellein have lived with legends for many centuries. To their far north, the Blasted Lands, a legacy of an ancient time of cataclysm, are vast, desolate and impassable, but that doesn’t stop the occasional expedition into their fringes in search of any trace of the ancients who once lived there…and oft-rumoured riches. Captain Merros Dulver is the first in many lifetimes to find a path beyond the great northern mountains known as the Seven Forges and encounter, at last, the half forgotten race who live there. It would appear that they were expecting him. But all of the gods of this lost race are gods of war, and their memories of that far-off cataclysm have not faded… “Great things are to be expected of Jim Moore, ladies and gentlemen. Get your tickets early; you don’t want to miss the fireworks.” Christopher Golden

James A. Moore (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Selected Letters of Norman Mailer

Over the course of a nearly sixty-year career, Norman Mailer wrote more than 40 novels, essay collections, and nonfiction books. Yet nowhere was he more prolific-or more exposed-than in his letters. All told, Mailer crafted more than 45,000 pieces of correspondence. Now the best of these are published here in one remarkable volume that spans seven decades and, it seems, several lifetimes. Compiled by Mailer's authorized biographer, J. Michael Lennon, and organized by decade, Selected Letters of Norman Mailer features the most fascinating of Mailer's missives from 1940 to 2007-letters to his family and friends, to fans and fellow writers, including Truman Capote and James Baldwin, to political figures from Henry Kissinger to Bill and Hillary Clinton, and to such cultural icons as John Lennon, Marlon Brando, and even Monica Lewinsky. Together these letters form a stunning autobiographical portrait of one of the most original, provocative, and outspoken public intellectuals of the twentieth century. "The shards and winks at Mailer's own past that are scattered throughout the letters-the stories of friendships and of family, of his identity-forming relationship with his mother and his 'Victorian childhood' surrounded by loving women, of his street-corner adolescence and his erotic and literary awakening...are so tantalizing. They glitter throughout like unrefined jewels that Mailer took to the grave." -The New Yorker "Umpteen pleasures to pluck out and roll between your teeth, like seeds from a pomegranate." -The New York Times "Indispensable...a subtle document of an unsubtle man's wit and erudition, even (or especially) when it's wielded as a weapon." -New York

Norman Mailer (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Blood Makes Noise

On a summer's night in 1955, CIA agent Michael Suslov is summoned to a secret vault in the heart of Buenos Aires. His mission: transport the corpse of Eva Peron to a new hiding place in the wake of her husband's fall from power. But before Michael can comply, everything goes tragically, horribly wrong... Sixteen years later, Michael Suslov is a ghost of a man, an ex-government agent living off the radar-and the only soul alive who knows where Evita is buried. When an old friend from Argentine Military Intelligence appeals to him for help bringing the body home, Michael agrees, hoping this final mission will quiet the demons from his past. But he's not the only one on a recovery mission: two rogue CIA agents are tracking him, desperate to unearth Evita before Michael does-and to claim the secret millions they believe she took to her grave. Based on a little-known yet fascinating true story, Blood Makes Noise is a brilliant examination of the power of the dead over the lives of the living.

Gregory Widen (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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My Senator and Me

There's an old saying: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." A few years ago, Senator Ted Kennedy decided to do just that. Now his beloved Portuguese Water Dog Champion Amigo's Seventh Wave (nicknamed Splash) is the most famous canine on Capitol Hill. Here we follow Senator Kennedy and Splash through a busy day in D.C., from press conferences to meetings with school groups to committee discussions to a floor vote. The result is an exciting, behind-the-scenes look at the life of one of the most energetic figures in American politics -- and, of course, his equally famous owner.

Edward M. Kennedy (Author), David De Vries, Edward M. Kennedy (Narrator)

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Going Dark

The New York Times Book Review calls Edgar Award winner James W. Hall a “master of suspense,” and this new high-stakes thriller shows why as Thorn embarks on a mission to save his newfound son. Earth Liberation Front, known as ELF, is a loosely knit organization comprised of environmental activists scattered around the country. These extremists take a “by any means necessary” approach to defending the planet. In the last decade ELF has been responsible for close to a hundred million dollars in damage mainly through arson. The FBI ranks them, along with other eco-radicals, as the number-one homegrown terrorist threat. Flynn Moss, Thorn’s newly discovered son, has naively fallen in with an ELF cell in Miami which has its sights on Turkey Point, the largest nuclear power plant in the state. This ELF group has concocted a nonviolent plan to shut the nuke plant down - nothing more than a huge publicity stunt to call attention to the dangers of nuclear power. But unbeknownst to some in the group, there are other members with a far more violent scheme in mind - to cause a radioactive catastrophe rivaling Chernobyl or Fukushima. With a growing sense of dread about Flynn’s whereabouts, Thorn tracks down this son he barely knows to Prince Key, the remote island off the shores of Miami where the ELF group is camped. Once he arrives at Prince Key, Thorn quickly reaches a frightening realization: There is only one way to save his son’s life. He must join with the ecoterrorists and help them complete their deadly mission.

James W. Hall (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy

In this challenging work, Christopher Lasch makes an accessible critique of what is wrong with the values and beliefs of America's professional and managerial elites. The distinguished historian argues that democracy today is threatened not by the masses, as Jose Ortega y Gasset (The Revolt of the Masses) had said, but by the elites. These elites-mobile and increasingly global in outlook-refuse to accept limits or ties to nation and place. As they isolate themselves in their networks and enclaves, they abandon the middle class, divide the nation, and betray the idea of a democracy for all America's citizens. This is Lasch's clarion call for a return to the virtues of community, responsibility, and religion.

Christopher Lasch (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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A Prince Without a Kingdom

Vango has been in danger for as long as he can remember. He has spent his life running along rooftops, fleeing to mysterious islands, and abandoning those he loves in order to protect them from the demons of his past. But Vango will not run for much longer. The mystery of his identity has started to unravel, and now in the shadows of war and persecution, the truth will finally come to light.

Timothee De Fombelle (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by David De Vries