Audiobooks narrated by Tom Perkins

A Long, Long Way: Hollywood's Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation

From the beginning, American cinema has been both a powerful mythmaker and a social critic. D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, arguably the first feature film, shows us just how early in its history cinema had established its influence. Birth of a Nation famously portrayed the Klu Klux Klan in a favorable light, a portrayal that contributed to the modern resurgence of the group and brought racist depictions of African Americans imported from the minstrel show to the silver screen. In response, filmmakers of color have created nuanced and indelible portraits of race, as in Ava DuVernay's Selma or Barry Jenkin's Moonlight. Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman shows us just how far into our culture Birth of a Nation has reached. In this powerful new book, Greg Garrett brings his signature brand of theologically motivated cultural criticism to bear on this history. After more than a century of cinema, he argues, movies have altered our cultural perspectives in the same way that religious narratives have. And in fact, religious traditions offer powerful correctives to our cultural narratives. A Long, Long Way incorporates both cinematic and religious truth-telling to the subject of race and reconciliation. In acknowledging the racist history of America's national art form, Garrett offers the possibility of hope for the future.

Greg Garrett (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno

"Friendships, connections, family ties, trust, loyalty, obedience-this was the 'glue' that held us together." These were the principles that the greatest Mafia "Boss of Bosses," Joseph Bonanno, lived by. Born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Bonanno found his future amid the whiskey-running, riotous streets of Prohibition America in 1924, when he illegally entered the United States to pursue his dreams. By the age of only twenty-six, Bonanno became a Don. He would eventually take over the New York underworld, igniting the "Castellammarese War," one of the bloodiest Family battles ever to hit New York City. Now, in this candid and stunning memoir, Joe Bonanno-likely a model for Don Corleone in the blockbuster movie The Godfather-takes listeners inside the world of the real Mafia. He reveals the inner workings of New York's Five Families-Bonanno, Gambino, Profaci, Lucchese, and Genovese-and uncovers how the Mafia not only dominated local businesses but also influenced national politics. A fascinating glimpse into the world of crime, A Man of Honor is an unforgettable account of one of the most powerful crime figures in America's history.

Joseph Bonanno (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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A Rabble of Dead Money: The Great Crash and the Global Depression: 1929 - 1939

There is no single theory of what caused the Great Depression, and never will be, Morris argues. Macreconomics is a social science, and such a massive event always takes its shape from a terrible confluence of factors. The mismanagement of the gold standard, the growth in consumer credit, the insistence on deflation by some of the best minds in finance, the spread of "Fordism" through the manufacturing sector, the global agricultural catastrophe, and the inability of the major European belligerents of World War I to agree on a reconstruction agenda, are just a few of the shocks that in aggregate pushed the world into an economic Armageddon. Morris does not fail to provide lessons that modern readers can learn from the Great Crash. It's tempting to pontificate about events of eighty years ago, but as Morris reminds us, our modern macroeconomics is still coming to terms with its failure to forecast how directly the much-trumpeted Great Moderation would lead to the Great Financial Crash of 2008.

Charles R. Morris (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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A Strange Whim of the Sea: The Wreck of the USS Macaw

On January 16, 1944, the submarine rescue vessel USS Macaw (ASR-11) ran aground at Midway Atoll while attempting to get a towing line to the stranded submarine USS Flier (SS-250). The Flier was pulled free six days later, but another three weeks of salvage efforts failed to dislodge the Macaw. Then on February 12, the sea accomplished that task, nudging the ship into deeper water. As night fell and the ship slowly sank, the twenty-two men on board sought refuge in the pilot house. By about 0230 Sunday, that compartment having flooded almost entirely, Burton gave the order to open the portside door and make for the foremast. Five of the men, including Burton himself, died, as did three sailors from the base at Midway in a pair of unauthorized and effectively suicidal rescue attempts that morning. This book traces the lives of the Macaw and her enigmatic captain, from birth on San Francisco Bay to death at Midway. Ultimately, for Paul Burton and the Macaw the real enemy was the sea, and in a deadly denouement told here in riveting detail, the sea won. Highlighting the underreported role auxiliary vessels played in the war, A Strange Whim of the Sea should engage the military historian and layperson alike with the previously untold story it tells of struggle, sacrifice, death, and survival in the Pacific in World War II.

Tim Loughman (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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A Wolf Called Romeo

No stranger to wildlife, Nick Jans had lived in Alaska for nearly thirty years. But when one evening at twilight a lone black wolf ambled into view not far from his doorstep, Nick would finally come to know this mystical species-up close as never before. A Wolf Called Romeo is the remarkable story of a wolf who returned again and again to interact with the people and dogs of Juneau, engaging in an improbable, awe-inspiring interspecies dance and bringing the wild into sharp focus. At first the people of Juneau were guarded, but as Romeo began to tag along with cross-country skiers on their daily jaunts, play fetch with local dogs, or simply lie near Nick and nap under the sun, they came to accept Romeo, and he them. Written with a deft hand and a searching heart, A Wolf Called Romeo is an unforgettable tale of a creature who defied nature and thus gave humans a chance to understand it a little more.

Nick Jans (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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After Lincoln: How the North Won the Civil War and Lost the Peace

With Abraham Lincoln's assassination, his "team of rivals" was left adrift. President Andrew Johnson, a former slave owner from Tennessee, was challenged by Northern Congressmen, Radical Republicans led by Thaddeus Stephens and Charles Sumner, who wanted to punish the defeated South. When Johnson's policies placated the rebels at the expense of the freed black men, radicals in the House impeached him for trying to fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Johnson was saved from removal by one vote in the Senate trial, presided over by Salmon Chase. Even William Seward, Lincoln's closest ally in his cabinet, seemed to waver. By the 1868 election, united Republicans nominated Ulysses Grant, Lincoln's winning Union general. His attempts to reconcile Southerners with the Union and to quash the rising Ku Klux Klan were undercut by postwar greed and corruption during his two terms. Reconstruction died unofficially in 1887 when Republican Rutherford Hayes joined with the Democrats in a deal that removed the last federal troops from South Carolina and Louisiana. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill with protections first proposed in 1872 by Charles Sumner, the Radical senator from Massachusetts.

A.J. Langguth (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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All In: How Our Work-first Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Business and How We Can Fix It Together

Josh Levs (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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All Roads Led to Gettysburg: A New Look at the Civil War's Pivotal Campaign

It has long been a trope of Civil War history that Gettysburg was an accidental battlefield. Troy D. Harman argues for a new interpretation: once Lee invaded Pennsylvania and the Union army pursued, a battle at Gettysburg was entirely predictable, perhaps inevitable. Most Civil War battles took place along major roads, railroads, and waterways. And yet this perspective hasn't been fully explored when it comes to Gettysburg. Moreover, once the battle started, Harman argues, the blue and gray fought tactically for the two creeks that mark the battlefield in the east and the west as well as for the roadways that led to Gettysburg from all points of the compass. This is a perspective often overlooked in many accounts of the battle, which focus on the high ground-the Round Tops, Cemetery Hill-as key tactical objectives. Gettysburg Ranger and historian Troy Harman draws on a lifetime of researching the Civil War and more than thirty years of studying the terrain of Gettysburg and south-central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland to reframe the story of the Battle of Gettysburg. In the process he shows there's still much to say about one of history's most written-about battles.

Troy D. Harman (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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America Ascendant: The Rise of American Exceptionalism

President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized an extraordinary partnership between the US government and America's media outlets to communicate to the reluctant and isolationist American public the nature of the threat that World War II posed to the nation and the world. The coalition's aim was to promote the concept of American exceptionalism and use it to galvanize the public for the government's cause. America Ascendant details the efforts of many prominent individuals and officials to harness the collective energy of the nation and guide the United States throughout World War II then describes its aftermath and the Cold War period. Dennis M. Spragg demonstrates how the news and entertainment of American broadcasters such as David Sarnoff, William Paley, and Elmer Davis helped rally the American people to fashion a new liberal democratic order to stop the global spread of Communism. This media-government alliance, however, was not achieved without difficulty. Spragg highlights the competing visions and personalities that clashed, as media and government leaders tried to develop the paradigm that ultimately shifted American cultural and political thought.

Dennis M. Spragg (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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American Autopsy: One Medical Examiner's Decades-Long Fight for Racial Justice in a Broken Legal Sys

Dr. Michael Baden has been involved in some of the most high-profile civil rights and police brutality cases in United States history, from the government's 1976 re-investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the 2014 death of Michael Brown, whose case sparked the initial Ferguson protests that grew into the Black Lives Matter movement. The playbook hasn't changed since 1979, when Dr. Baden was demoted from his job as New York City's Chief Medical Examiner after ruling that the death of a Black man in police custody was a homicide. So in 2020 when the Floyd family, wary of the same system that oversaw George Floyd's death, needed a second opinion-Dr. Baden is who they called. In these pages, Dr. Baden chronicles his six decades on the front lines of the fight for accountability within the legal system. In the process, he brings to life the political issues that go on in the wake of often unrecorded fatal police encounters and the standoff between law enforcement and those they are sworn to protect. Full of behind-the-scenes drama and surprising revelations, American Autopsy is both timely and crucial for this turning point in our nation's history.

Michael M. Baden Md, Michael M. Baden, M.D. (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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American Mojo: Lost and Found: Restoring our Middle Class Before the World Blows By

In American Mojo: Lost and Found, Peter D. Kiernan, the award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Becoming China's Bitch, focuses on America's greatest challenge and opportunity: restoring the middle class to its full promise and potential. Our educated, skilled, and motivated middle class was the cornerstone of America's postwar economic might, but the country's dynamic core has struggled and changed dramatically through the last three decades. Kiernan's extensively researched story, told through individual histories, shows how the middle class flourished under unique circumstances following World War II and details how our middle class has been rocked and shaped by events abroad as much as at home. What emerges through his storytelling is a picture of middle-class decline and opportunity that is fuller, more moving, and ultimately more useful in terms of charting a path forward than other examinations.

Peter D. Kiernan (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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American Patriots: A Short History of Dissent

The history of America is a history of dissent. Protests against the British Parliament's taxation policies led to the American Revolution and the creation of the United States. In the twenty-first century, hundreds of thousands protested the war in Iraq, joined the 2011 Occupy movement, the 2017 Women's March, and the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings. There have been dissenting Americans for as long as there has been an America. In American Patriots, historian Ralph Young chronicles the key role dissent has played in shaping the United States. Some of these protesters are celebrated heroes of American history, while others are ordinary people, frequently overlooked, whose stories show that change is often accomplished through grassroots activism. Yet not all dissent is equal. In 2021, thousands of rioters stormed the US Capitol, and Americans on both sides of the aisle watched the destruction with horror. American Patriots contrasts this attack with the history of American protest, and challenges us to explore our definition of dissent. What are the limits of dissent? American Patriots is a necessary defense of our right to demand better for ourselves, our communities, and our nation.

Ralph Young (Author), Tom Perkins (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Tom Perkins