The Patriarch
The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
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The Patriarch
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Narrated by:
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Malcolm Hillgartner
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By:
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David Nasaw
About this listen
Celebrated historian David Nasaw brings to life the story of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, in this, the first and only biography based on unrestricted and exclusive access to the Joseph P. Kennedy papers.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy - whose life spanned the First World War, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the Cold War - was the patriarch of America’s greatest political dynasty. The father of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy, 'Joe' Kennedy was an indomitable and elusive figure whose dreams of advancement for his nine children were matched only by his extraordinary personal ambition and shrewd financial skills. Trained as a banker, Kennedy was also a Hollywood mogul, a stock-exchange savant, a shipyard manager, the founding chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and ambassador to London during the Battle of Britain. Though his incredible life encompasses the very heart of the American century, Joseph Kennedy has remained shrouded in rumor and prejudice for decades.
Drawing on never-before-published material from archives on three continents, David Nasaw - the renowned biographer of Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst - unearths a man far more complicated than the popular portrait. Was Kennedy an appeaser and isolationist, an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer, a stock swindler, a bootlegger, and a colleague of mobsters? Did he push his second son into politics and then buy his elections for him? Why did he have his daughter Rosemary lobotomized? Why did he oppose the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, and American assistance to the French in Vietnam? What was his relationship to J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI? How did he influence his son’s politics and policies in the White House?
In this groundbreaking biography, Nasaw ignores the tired old answers surrounding Kennedy, starting from scratch to discover the truth behind this misunderstood man.
Though far from a saint, Joseph Kennedy in many ways exemplifies the best in American political, economic, and social life. His rags-to-riches story is one of exclusion and quiet discrimination overcome by entrepreneurship, ingenuity, and unshakable endurance. Kennedy’s story deserves to be told in full, with no holds barred, and Nasaw’s magnificent The Patriarch is the first book to do so.
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The Defining Moment
- FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 774
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 772
In this dramatic and fascinating account, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his first 100 days in office to lift the country from the despair and paralysis of the Great Depression and transform the American presidency.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very infomative, and also refreshingly honest
- By Anonymous User on 02-19-09
By: Jonathan Alter
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Ike and Dick
- Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage
- By: Jeffrey Frank
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Richard Nixon was a young Navy officer when he first saw Dwight D. Eisenhower through a storm of tickertape as Manhattan celebrated the end of the war in Europe. Seven years later, Nixon was Eisenhower's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket-the beginning of a political and personal relationship that lasted for nearly twenty years. Despite a gulf that separated them by age and temperament, their association evolved into a collaboration that helped to shape the nation's political ideology.
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4 out of 5 stars
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He's against NIxon
- By Anonymous User on 01-20-14
By: Jeffrey Frank
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Traitor to His Class
- The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 37 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 547
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 468
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 467
A sweeping, magisterial biography of the man generally considered the greatest president of the 20th century, admired by Democrats and Republicans alike. Traitor to His Class sheds new light on FDR's formative years; his remarkable willingness to champion the concerns of the poor and disenfranchised; and his combination of political genius, firm leadership, and matchless diplomacy in saving democracy during the Great Depression and the American cause of freedom in World War II.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Talented writer and narrator, but too biased/long
- By Anonymous User on 01-24-20
By: H. W. Brands
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The Woman Behind the New Deal
- The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
- By: Kirstin Downey
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 204
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
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Story5 out of 5 stars 179
Frances Perkins is no longer a household name, yet she was one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Based on extensive archival materials, new documents, and exclusive access to Perkins' family members and friends, this biography is the first complete portrait of a devoted public servant with a passionate personal life, a mother who changed the landscape of American business and society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Absorbing Biography
- By Anonymous User on 08-16-17
By: Kirstin Downey
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The Wise Men
- Six Friends and the World They Made
- By: Evan Thomas, Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Reese
- Length: 33 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 394
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 329
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 334
Six close friends shaped the role their country would play in the dangerous years following World War II. They were the original best and brightest, whose towering intellects, outsize personalities, and dramatic actions would bring order to the postwar chaos, and whose strong response to Soviet expansionism would leave a legacy that dominates American policy to this day. In April 1945, they converged to advise an untutored new president, Harry Truman.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Dull with poor narration
- By Anonymous User on 03-31-17
By: Evan Thomas, and others
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Counselor
- A Life at the Edge of History
- By: Ted Sorensen
- Narrated by: Ted Sorensen
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor, recounts in full, for the first time, his experience counseling Kennedy through some of the most dramatic moments in American history. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions and was later named special counsel to the president.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Rare Insight
- By Anonymous User on 05-10-08
By: Ted Sorensen
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Coolidge
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 930
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 820
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 812
Calvin Coolidge, president from 1923 to 1929, never rated highly in polls, and history has remembered the decade in which he served as an extravagant period predating the Great Depression. Now Amity Shlaes provides a fresh look at the 1920s and its elusive president, showing that the mid-1920s was in fact a triumphant period that established our modern way of life: The nation electrified, Americans drove their first cars, and the federal deficit was replaced with a surplus.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Silent Cal
- By Anonymous User on 02-19-13
By: Amity Shlaes
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The Irregulars
- Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 514
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 306
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Story4 out of 5 stars 307
Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Spying in Washington
- By Sara on 10-03-14
By: Jennet Conant
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The Presidents Club
- Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
- By: Nancy Gibbs, Michael Duffy
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,448
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,251
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,256
The Presidents Club was born at Eisenhower’s inauguration when Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover first conceived the idea. Over the years that followed - and to this day - the presidents relied on, misunderstood, sabotaged, and formed alliances with one another that changed history. The world’s most exclusive fraternity is a complicated place: its members are bound forever because they sat in the Oval Office and know its secrets, yet they are immortal rivals for history’s favor.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Engaging subject, but fact-checking needed
- By Anonymous User on 04-25-12
By: Nancy Gibbs, and others
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Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
- By: Chris Matthews
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 489
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 426
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 423
In Chris Matthews’ extraordinary biography, we see this most beloved president in the company of friends. We see and feel him close-up, having fun and giving off that restlessness of his. We watch him navigate his life from privileged, rebellious youth to gutsy American president. We witness his bravery in war and selfless rescue of his PT boat crew. We watch JFK as a young politician learning to play hardball and watch him grow into the leader who averts a nuclear war.
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3 out of 5 stars
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What Might Have Been?
- By Anonymous User on 12-06-11
By: Chris Matthews
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JFK's Last Hundred Days
- The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President
- By: Thurston Clarke
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
A revelatory, minute-by-minute account of JFK’s final days that asks what might have been. Fifty years after his assassination, President John F. Kennedy’s legend endures. Noted author and historian Thurston Clarke reexamines the last months of the president’s life to show a man in the midst of great change, both in his family and in the key issues of his day: The Cold War, Civil Rights, and Vietnam, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In Depth and Beautifully Written
- By Anonymous User on 06-03-23
By: Thurston Clarke
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 460
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 412
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Story5 out of 5 stars 411
The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What a fascinating story!
- By Anonymous User on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Truman
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 54 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 5,274
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,669
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Story5 out of 5 stars 4,653
Hailed by critics as an American masterpiece, David McCullough's sweeping biography of Harry S. Truman captured the heart of the nation. The life and times of the 33rd president of the United States, Truman provides a deeply moving look at an extraordinary, singular American.
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5 out of 5 stars
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That Mousy Little Man From Missouri Revisited
- By Anonymous User on 07-23-15
By: David McCullough
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The Rockefellers
- By: Peter Collier, David Horowitz
- Narrated by: Michael Anthony
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4 out of 5 stars 57
Against a richly detailed backdrop of history, the story of this unique American family unfolds. It begins with John D. Rockefeller Sr., who amassed a fortune amid the muck and disorder of the Pennsylvania oil fields and left his son to deal with the public outcry.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Too Long
- By Anonymous User on 05-25-07
By: Peter Collier, and others
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The Bully Pulpit
- Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 36 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,336
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,897
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,889
Goodwin describes the broken friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. With the help of the "muckraking" press, Roosevelt had wielded the Bully Pulpit to challenge and triumph over abusive monopolies, political bosses, and corrupting money brokers. Roosevelt led a revolution that he bequeathed to Taft only to see it compromised as Taft surrendered to money men and big business. The rupture led Roosevelt to run against Taft for president, an ultimately futile race that gave power away to the Democrats.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Makes You Forget You Live in the 21st Century Good
- By Anonymous User on 01-11-14
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The Hopkins Touch
- By: David Roll
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 89
The Hopkins Touch offers the first portrait in over two decades of the most powerful man in Roosevelt's administration. David Roll shows how Harry Hopkins, an Iowa-born social worker who had been an integral part of the New Deal's implementation, became the linchpin in FDR's - and America's - relationships with Churchill and Stalin, and spoke with an authority second only to the president's.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Hopkins - the glue of the tripartite coalition
- By Anonymous User on 05-19-13
By: David Roll
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The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson
- The White House Years
- By: Joseph A. Califano Jr.
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
President Lyndon Johnson was bigger than life - and no one who worked for him or was subjected to the "Johnson treatment" ever forgot it. As Johnson's "Deputy President of Domestic Affairs", Joseph A. Califano's unique relationship with the president greatly enriches our understanding of our 36th president. Califano shows listeners LBJ's commitment to economic and social revolution, and his willingness to do whatever it took to achieve his goals.
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5 out of 5 stars
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LBJ The Greatest President of 20th century
- By David W. Goldstein on 07-28-15
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The Chief
- The Life of William Randolph Hearst
- By: David Nasaw
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 30 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 145
William Randolph Hearst, known to his staff as the "Chief", was a brilliant business strategist and a man of prodigious appetites. By the 1930s, he controlled the largest publishing empire in the United States, including 28 newspapers, the Cosmopolitan Picture Studio, radio stations, and 13 magazines. He quickly learned how to use this media stronghold to achieve unprecedented political power. In The Chief, David Nasaw presents an intimate portrait of the man famously characterized in the classic film Citizen Kane.