Showing results by narrator "David Drummond" in All Categories

In God's Battalions, award-winning author Rodney Stark takes on the long-held view that the Crusades were the first round of European colonialism, conducted for land, loot, and converts by barbarian Christians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. To the contrary, Stark argues that the Crusades were the first military response to unwarranted Muslim terrorist aggression.

Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second is the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although listeners may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up.

Captain Jacob Thomas, USMC, is a divorced combat veteran just trying to get his life back on track. Returning to the marine corps after a failed attempt at reconciliation with his estranged wife, Jake volunteers for a DARPA experiment that catapults him into a future where humanity has been stripped of 200 years of technological advancements and more than half its population. With the help of a faceless benefactor named Alice, he escapes the confines of an abandoned lab facility.

After a devastating galactic war, disgraced veteran Ralston Muck ekes out a living as a bouncer at Last Stop Station’s premier nightclub, A Curtain of Stars. Night after night he listens to the club’s star performer, Siren, sing her memories and ease some of his aching loss. But when Siren goes missing, Muck finds himself drawn into a world of dirty cops, drug lords, and conspiracies that trace back to the war itself.

A thrilling, moment-by-moment account of one of the most famous events of World War II - the sinking of PT-109 and John F. Kennedy's heroic actions that saved his crew - and a fascinating examination of how that extraordinary episode shaped the future president's life.

Carlos Eire, popular professor and gifted writer, chronicles the 200-year era of the Renaissance and Reformation with particular attention to issues that persist as concerns in the present day. Eire connects the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in new and profound ways, and he demonstrates convincingly that this crucial turning point in history not only affected people long gone but continues to shape our world and define who we are today.

In Washington's Circle, David and Jeanne Heidler introduce not just the president but the group of extraordinary men who advised him. The familiar names are here, like the often irked and occasionally irksome John Adams, the scheming Alexander Hamilton, and the prodigiously talented James "Jemmy" Madison, but so are the lesser known Edmund Randolph, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris. Washington's choices of whom to listen to, for better and sometimes worse, were as consequential as the advice his cabinet gave.

A weekend service call changes the life of Doc Anderson forever. Johnny, the surprisingly wealthy energy whiz-kid, introduces Doc to a compelling new investment theme - following the rise of a new spending class. As they set course on a fact-filled adventure, Doc’s eyes are opened to the impact that billions of new consumers will have on our environment and how their increased participation in our fast-changing world will figure into the economy of the future.

The Big Bang is all but dead, and we do not yet know what will replace it. Our universe's "beginning" is at an end. What does this have to do with us here on Earth? Our lives are about to be dramatically shaken again - as altered as they were with the invention of the clock, the steam engine, the railroad, the radio and the Internet.

The universal order is unraveling. The enslaved cry out for freedom. The apocalypse is now. Devis Cameron, hero of the Xenophobe War and the Empire's reluctant champion, has been posted to the 4th Terran Rangers - a gaijin Warstrider unit on New America - to eliminate a newly discovered underground colony of Xenos and to deal harshly with civil unrest spawned by Imperial repression. The situation is rapidly degenerating into total anarchy. And the nuclear option may be the only alternative.

The Pixar Touch is a lively chronicle of Pixar Animation Studios' history and evolution, and the "fraternity of geeks" who shaped it. With the help of visionary businessman Steve Jobs and animating genius John Lasseter, Pixar has become the gold standard of animated filmmaking, beginning with a short special effects shot made at Lucasfilm in 1982 all the way up through the landmark films Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and others.

Scattered across a continent, three dragon siblings are among the last of a dying breed -the final hope for their species' survival. After fighting a war that cost each of them kingdom and land, friends and family, honor and glory, they have removed themselves from the troubles of the world. But the order they fought to establish is falling apart. Ancient sorceries have been awakened. Dragons battle dragons. And men are taking up arms against their winged overlords. The author of the national best-selling Vampire Earth series presents the fiery conclusion to his epic dragon saga.

The demolition of Penn Station in 1963 destroyed not just a soaring neoclassical edifice, but also a building that commemorated one of the last century's great engineering feats: the construction of railroad tunnels into New York City. Now, in this gripping narrative, Jill Jonnes tells this fascinating story - a high-stakes drama that pitted the money and will of the nation's mightiest railroad against the corruption of Tammany Hall, the unruly forces of nature, and the machinations of labor agitators.

The religious turn to their faith to find meaning. But what about the many people who lead secular lives and are also hungry for meaning? What guides, what approaches are available to them? Distinguished philosophers Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly explain that a secular life charged with meaning is indeed within reach.

Dev Cameron joined the military to fly a starship but is rated unsuitable and grudgingly accepts an assignment with the ground forces, piloting a massive walking tank (a warstrider). But Cameron may yet get a chance at glory when he makes a discovery about the alien foes that could change the course of the war.

The Big Money completes John Dos Passos's three-volume "fable of America's materialistic success and moral decline" ( American Heritage) and marks the end of "one of the most ambitious projects that an American novelist has ever undertaken" ( Time). Here we come back to America after the war and find a nation on the upswing.

For more than two years, author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM) - the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) compendium of mental illnesses and what Greenberg calls "the book of woe". Since its debut in 1952, the book has been frequently revised, and with each revision, the "official" view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness has changed.

When Donovan Campbell's platoon deployed to Ramadi in the spring of 2004, they believed they'd be spending most of their time building schools, training police, and making friends with the citizens. But shortly after arriving, when Campbell awoke to the chilling cry of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret across the city, he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands.

Four centuries ago, and 14 years before the Mayflower, a group of men - led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat, a reprobate cleric, and a government spy - left London aboard a fleet of three ships to start a new life in America. They arrived in Virginia in the spring of 1607 and set about trying to create a settlement on a tiny island in the James River.

Blackout Wars is about the historically unprecedented threat to our electronic civilization from its dependence on the electric power grid. In a nationwide blackout lasting months or years, the entire population of the US could be at risk. There would be no food. No water. Communications, transportation, industry, business, and finance - all of the critical infrastructures that support modern civilization would be paralyzed. Threats to the electric power grid are posed by cyber-attack, sabotage, a geomagnetic super-storm, and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from the high-altitude detonation of a nuclear weapon.