Fordlandia
The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City
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Fordlandia
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Davis
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By:
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Greg Grandin
About this listen
In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian Amazon. His intention was to grow rubber, but the project rapidly evolved into a more ambitious bid to export America itself. Fordlandia, as the settlement was called, soon became the site of an epic clash. On one side was the lean, austere car magnate; on the other, the Amazon, the most complex ecological system on the planet. Indigenous workers rejected Ford's midwestern Puritanism, turning the place into a ribald tropical boomtown. And his efforts to apply a system of regimented mass production to the Amazon's diversity resulted in a rash environmental assault that foreshadowed many of the threats laying waste to the rain forest today.
More than a parable of one man’s arrogant attempt to force his will on the natural world, Greg Grandin's Fordlandia is "a quintessentially American fable". (Time).
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Editorial reviews
Fordlandia is a wide-ranging history not only of Henry Ford’s problem-plagued foray into the Amazonian rainforest, but also of his place in advancing mechanized manufacturing. While the jungle experience did not make a lasting imprint on the Ford Company’s existence, the perfection of assembly-line processes, the invention of machines to replace workers, and Henry Ford’s desire to control all facets of his automobile production process certainly combined to change the way goods are manufactured and life for workers around the world. Jonathan Davis aptly takes listeners through the story as the book first details Henry Ford’s rise to world prominence through the debacle of Fordlandia, and finally to Ford’s legacy of multinational corporations and mechanized labor.
The experience of Fordlandia brings forth Davis’ many skills as a gifted narrator. While his even voice tells the tale, he offers engaging and enjoyable moments as he describes various characters who helped make Ford’s poorly thought-out excursion into virgin rainforest the misery that it was. Davis reads excerpts from the letters botantist Carl LaRue sent to Henry Ford from Brazil, detailing the forlorn existence of the natives who would, supposedly, benefit from Ford’s insistence on a workforce that adhered to his personal Puritan values. Davis also reads the poetry of George Washington Sears, whose work describes a Brazilian workers revolt, and of Elizabeth Bishop, who put the Amazon Rivers untouched beauty into verse.
Mostly though, Davis introduces listeners to the wheelers and dealers who finessed the Brazilian land deal. According to author Grandin, that deal “snookered” the richest man in the world into paying for land he could have gotten for free. Later, Davis voices upper- and mid-level Ford managers who saw opportunities for money and power in time spent at the struggling Amazonian rubber plantation.
Fordlandia has it all: from American ingenuity, pride, wealth, and stubbornness to the tendency of some towards exploitation, greed, and nativism. Davis gives voice to Grandin’s words as he describes that moment in American history when the country changed from being mostly agrarian pioneers to factory workers; When American businessmen and factory owners began looking farther than the shores of the United States and saw income possibilities in foreign countries. Fordlandia ultimately relates how badly Henry Ford’s arrogance was shattered by the natural forces of the jungle: from the building of Cape Cod-style housing in cleared rainforest tracts to insisting on rainforest natives using a factory time clock it simply did not work. Anyone interested in a preview of the U.S. role in Latin America will welcome Grandin’s book and Davis’ narration. Carole Chouinard
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
For more than 30 years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet while the Green Revolution succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. More than 9 million people every year die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every yearmost of them in Africa and most of them children. More die of hunger in Africa than from AIDS and malaria combined. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It's Time For Us To Be More Compassionate
- By James on 07-18-10
By: Roger Thurow, and others
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Hershey
- Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams
- By: Michael D'Antonio
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The Benchmark for Chartiable, Rich Men
- By Boyd Tschaggeny on 01-30-19
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The Swamp
- The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise
- By: Michael Grunwald
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 242
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 210
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. In this book Michael Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and "reclaim" it and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations.
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4 out of 5 stars
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This is not Jiminy Cricket's river
- By Robert R. on 09-02-18
By: Michael Grunwald
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The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,588
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,358
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,354
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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Rising Tide
- The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
- By: John M. Barry
- Narrated by: Barry Grizzard
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 530
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 400
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 400
An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known, the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north, and transformed American society and politics forever.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Where is the rest of the book?
- By Susie on 10-21-13
By: John M. Barry
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The Idealist
- Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty
- By: Nina Munk
- Narrated by: Susan Nezami
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
Jeffrey Sachs - celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential best seller The End of Poverty - disagrees. In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about ending extreme poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Sachs tries hard but the system is not there
- By Amazon Customer on 11-13-15
By: Nina Munk
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Enough
- Why the World's Poorest Starve in An Age of Plenty
- By: Roger Thurow, Scott Kilman
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
For more than 30 years, humankind has known how to grow enough food to end chronic hunger worldwide. Yet while the Green Revolution succeeded in South America and Asia, it never got to Africa. More than 9 million people every year die of hunger, malnutrition, and related diseases every yearmost of them in Africa and most of them children. More die of hunger in Africa than from AIDS and malaria combined. Now, an impending global food crisis threatens to make things worse.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It's Time For Us To Be More Compassionate
- By James on 07-18-10
By: Roger Thurow, and others
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A Shorter History of Australia
- By: Geoffrey Blainey
- Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 208
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 153
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Story4 out of 5 stars 154
After a lifetime of research and debate on Australian and international history, Geoffrey Blainey is well-placed to introduce us to the people who have played a part and to guide us through the events which have created the Australian identity: the mania for spectator sport, the suspicion of the tall poppy, the rivalries of Catholic and Protestant, Sydney and Melbourne, new and old homelands, the conflicts of war abroad and race at home, the importance of technology, the recognition of our Aboriginal past and Native Title.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Just couldn't stand the paternalism
- By Matthew on 04-02-14
By: Geoffrey Blainey
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Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 577
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 485
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 485
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
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The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,484
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,181
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,182
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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4 out of 5 stars
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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Banana
- The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
- By: Dan Koeppel
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist) - ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world's most beloved fruit.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very Good Book - History, Science, and Economics
- By Jose on 11-08-17
By: Dan Koeppel
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Chocolate Wars
- The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Deborah Cadbury
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4 out of 5 stars 104
With a cast of characters that wouldnt be out of place in a Victorian novel, Chocolate Wars tells the story of the great chocolatier dynasties, through the prism of the Cadburys. Chocolate was consumed unrefined and unprocessed as a rather bitter, fatty drink for the wealthy elite until the late 19th century, when the Swiss discovered a way to blend it with milk and unleashed a product that would conquer every market in the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The World of Chocolate
- By Jean on 11-05-14
By: Deborah Cadbury
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Trees in Paradise
- A California History
- By: Jared Farmer
- Narrated by: Kevin Scollin
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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lovely audiobook
- By Michael M. on 08-02-22
By: Jared Farmer
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1493
- Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,770
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,769
More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating Mindbending History.
- By Betsy Powel on 12-19-11
By: Charles C. Mann
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American-Made
- The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work
- By: Nick Taylor
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4 out of 5 stars 38
When President Roosevelt took the oath of office in March 1933, he was facing a devastated nation. Four years into the Great Depression, a staggering 13 million American workers were jobless and many millions more of their family members were equally in need. Desperation ruled the land. In 1935, after a variety of temporary relief measures, a permanent nationwide jobs program was created.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The true spirit of America.
- By Helen on 07-01-08
By: Nick Taylor
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A Little History of the World
- By: E. H. Gombrich
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,081
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,428
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,414
E. H. Gombrich's world history, an international best seller now available in English for the first time, is a text dominated not by dates and facts but by the sweep of experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements, and an acute witness to its frailties.
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5 out of 5 stars
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an enlightening book; very well read
- By A.B.Oxford on 06-03-06
By: E. H. Gombrich
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The Graves Are Walking
- The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People
- By: John Kelly
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 424
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 376
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Story4 out of 5 stars 372
It started in 1845 and lasted six years. Before it was over, more than one million men, women, and children starved to death and another million fled the country. Measured in terms of mortality, the Great Irish Potato Famine was one of the worst disasters in the 19th century-it claimed twice as many lives as the American Civil War. A perfect storm of bacterial infection, political greed, and religious intolerance sparked this catastrophe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unforgettable, Haunting, and a Compelling Warning
- By Carole T. on 08-22-12
By: John Kelly
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The King of California
- J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
- By: Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting story of California Ag history
- By Jean on 08-11-14
By: Mark Arax, and others
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The Men Who United the States
- America's Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics, and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,074
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,068
How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators. Introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Sarcastic
- By Cynthia Hartman on 06-16-16
By: Simon Winchester
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The End of the Myth
- From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
- By: Greg Grandin
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 274
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From a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.
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5 out of 5 stars
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