Showing results by narrator "Joe Barrett" in All Categories

Dick Cheney and Colin Powell emerged on the national scene more than 30 years ago, and it is easy to forget that they were once allies....

One of America's greatest investigative reporters brings to life the gripping, no-holds-barred clash of two American titans: Robert Kennedy and his nemesis, Jimmy Hoffa. From 1957 to 1964, Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa channeled nearly all of their considerable powers into destroying each other. Kennedy's battle with Hoffa burst into the public consciousness with the 1957 Senate Rackets Committee hearings and intensified when his brother named him attorney general in 1961.

For more than a century, the interplay between private, investor-owned electric utilities and government regulators has shaped the electric power industry in the United States. Provision of an essential service to largely dependent consumers invited government oversight and ever more sophisticated market intervention. The industry has sought to manage, coopt, and profit from government regulation. In The Power Brokers, Jeremiah Lambert maps this complex interaction from the late 19th century to the present day.

JFK's Secret Doctor tells a thrilling story of adventure and a historic medical career. Set against the grand panorama of 20th century world events, it captures the remarkable life and spirit of climber and medical visionary Hans Kraus (1905–1996). Kraus was taught English by writer James Joyce, escaped Nazi-dominated Europe, and was JFK's secret back specialist.

In 1940 Steinbeck sailed in a sardine boat with his great friend the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, to collect marine invertebrates from the beaches of the Gulf of California. The expedition was described by the two men in Sea of Cortez, published in 1941. The day-to-day story of the trip is told here in The Log, which combines science, philosophy and high-spirited adventure. An exhilarating and highly entertaining listen.

A fledgling business takes a shocking turn when James and Skip unload the contents of their first moving-van job and find some unexpected cargo: a bloody human finger. James and Skip must scramble to stay ahead of the perpetrators of the gruesome crime in this witty, gritty mystery about big dreams, big ideas, and big trouble.

Colleges and universities have become increasingly costly and - except for a handful of highly selective, elite institutions - unresponsive to 21st century needs. But for the past few years, technology-fueled innovation has begun to transform higher education, introducing new ways to disseminate knowledge and better ways to learn - all at lower cost. In this impassioned account, Richard DeMillo tells the behind-the-scenes story of these pioneering efforts and offers a road map for transforming higher education.

The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian falling apart onstage - an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice, before their eyes. They could get up and leave or boo and whistle and drive him from the stage, if they were not so drawn to glimpse his personal hell.

"Madam President. The nuclear bombs just detonated in China, Russia, and off the coast of the United States did not, I repeat, did not originate from the planet Earth. It is my opinion, and the opinion of everyone here, that the Earth can no longer be defended from the Earth." President Carolina Garcia sat in the Roosevelt Room across the hall from the Oval Office and gazed at the four people sitting opposite her in unblinking shock.

In 1939 Rev. Waitstill Sharp, a young Unitarian minister, and his wife, Martha, a social worker, accepted a mission from the American Unitarian Association: They were to leave their home and young children in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to help address the mounting refugee crisis. Armed with only $40,000, the Sharps quickly learned the art of spy craft and covertly sheltered political dissidents and Jews and helped them escape the Nazis.

Acclaimed biographer John Loughery tells the story of John Hughes, son of Ireland, friend of William Seward and James Buchanan, founder of St. John's College (now Fordham University), builder of Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, pioneer of parochial school education, and American diplomat. As archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York in the 1840 and 1850s and the most famous Roman Catholic in America, Hughes defended Catholic institutions in a time of nativist bigotry and church burnings and worked tirelessly to help Irish Catholic immigrants find acceptance.

Centered around multi-million dollar stakes and a series of nationally televised poker tournaments, Fading Hearts on the River offers a story of odds - the odds of a newborn surviving severe jaundice, the odds of Congress passing a law that renders one's online gambling income inaccessible, the odds of drawing the right card on the turn or the river.

Kip Weiler is a self-destructive, washed-up, middle-aged professor. Once a superstar of the literary set, he has bottomed out after years of drinking and not writing anything worth a damn. As the novel begins, he’s teaching classes at a small, rural community college. Kip's talent, money, and chances have just about run out, when he rescues a classroom full of his students from a deranged student gunman who opens fire and takes the class hostage. Things then begin to change for Kip - seemingly for the better....

In Terrorism: What Everyone Needs to Know, Todd Sandler, one of America's leading scholars on the topic, provides a broad and example-rich overview of this perennially important issue. After clearly defining terrorism, he then discusses terrorism's causes, the nature of terrorist groups, how governments seek to counter terrorism, its economic consequences, and the future of terrorism.

The Great War is often overlooked, especially compared to World War II, which is considered the "last good war." The United States was disillusioned with what it achieved in the earlier war and withdrew into itself. Americans have tried to forget about it ever since. The Great War in America presents an opportunity to reexamine the country's role on the global stage and the tremendous political and social changes that overtook the nation because of the war.

During 1944, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur's forces fought their way from New Guinea to the Philippines, Allied air commander Gen. George Kenney, discarding pre-war doctrine, planned and ran an "air blitz" offensive. His 5th Air Force drove forward like a tank army, crash-landing in open country, seizing terrain, bulldozing new airfields, winning air control, and moving forward. At airfields on the front line, Rocky Boyer kept the radios working for the 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group, a fighter-bomber unit.

When a stolen car is recovered on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it sets off a search for a missing woman, local motel owner Sabine Musil-Buehler. Three men are named persons of interest - her husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole the car - and the residents of Anna Maria Island, with few facts to fuel their speculation, begin to fear the worst. Then, with the days passing quickly, her motel is set on fire, her boyfriend flees the county, and detectives begin digging on the beach. Cutter Wood was a guest at Musil-Buehler's motel as the search for the missing woman gained momentum.

A dying convict's last request thrusts small-town newspaperman Jefferson Morgan into a deadly maelstrom as he explores a 50-year-old case of child murder - a wound his town still isn't ready to scrape open. Under the heaviest deadline of his life, and amid threats from unexpected foes, Morgan must struggle with his own conscience to tell a story no matter the consequences, dig deep into the town's past, and unveil a killer who's managed to remain hidden in plain sight for almost 50 years.

Bino Phillips, a tough Texan crime lawyer, links the murder of his seedy underworld client to the assassination of one of the most prominent politicians in Texas. As a result, Bino finds himself the most unpopular man in the state, but this does not stop him digging deeper into therotten heart of Texas. His search takes him from the halls of Congress to the arms of a sexy FBI agent to the sleaziest bars in Dallas.

Detective Harry Jordan sees his lake home as a respite from solving crimes on the streets of Boston. The Osborne family views their cottage as a way to avoid the distractions of life - especially for Wally Osborne, a famous horror writer who seems to need the peace and quiet more than anyone. One night, Harry is walking alongside the lake when the night is rocked by an explosion: the Havnel house is engulfed in a conflagration, and young Bea is seen fleeing, hair on fire, and plunging into the lake.