Before the Storm
Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
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Narrated by:
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Kiff VandenHeuvel
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By:
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Rick Perlstein
About this listen
Acclaimed historian Rick Perlstein chronicles the rise of the conservative movement in the liberal 1960s. At the heart of the story is Barry Goldwater, the renegade Republican from Arizona who loathed federal government, despised liberals, and mocked "peaceful coexistence" with the USSR. Perlstein's narrative shines a light on a whole world of conservatives and their antagonists, including William F. Buckley, Nelson Rockefeller, and Bill Moyers. Vividly written, Before the Storm is an essential book about the 1960s.
©2017 Rick Perlstein (P)2017 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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From New York Times best-selling author and political mastermind Karl Rove comes a fresh look at President William McKinley, who found a message that healed his nation, pried his party away from its bosses, and extended its reach to forge a governing majority that lasted 30 years.
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Understand Modern Presidential Campaigns
- By Anon on 02-27-16
By: Karl Rove
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Believer
- My Forty Years in Politics
- By: David Axelrod
- Narrated by: David Axelrod
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The man behind some of the greatest political changes of the last decade, David Axelrod has devoted a lifetime to questioning political certainties and daring to bring fresh thinking into the political landscape. Whether as a child hearing John F. Kennedy stump in New York or as a strategist guiding the first African American to the White House, Axelrod shows in Believer how his own life stands at the center of the tumultuous American century.
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Love letter to Obama
- By DaWoolf on 03-15-15
By: David Axelrod
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Nixon's Secrets
- By: Roger Stone, Mike Colapietro
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Learn the inside scoop on Watergate, the Ford Pardon, and the 18-minute Gap. Roger Stone, The New York Times best-selling author of The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, gives the inside scoop on Nixon’s rise and fall in Watergate in his new book Nixon’s Secrets. Stone charts Nixon’s rise from election to Congress in 1946 to the White House in 1968 after his razor-thin loss to John Kennedy in 1960, his disastrous campaign for Governor of California in 1962, and the greatest comeback in American Presidential history.
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Great book but....
- By Alan on 11-20-14
By: Roger Stone, and others
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Pillar of Fire
- America in the King Years, 1963-65
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrated by: Joe Morton, C.C.H. Pounder
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Abridged
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In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage. Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the listener to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the "March on Washington," the Civil Rights Act, and more.
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the audio does not match with the book
- By Katie on 10-09-14
By: Taylor Branch
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The Year That Broke America
- An Immigration Crisis, a Terrorist Conspiracy, the Summer of Survivor, a Ridiculous Fake Billionaire, a Fight for Florida, and the 537 Votes That Changed Everything
- By: Andrew Rice
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Before there was Coronavirus, before there was the contentious 2020 election or the entire Trump presidency, there was a turning-point year that proved momentous and transformative for American politics and the fate of the nation.
By: Andrew Rice
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The Defender
- How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America; from the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama
- By: Ethan Michaeli
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a "Modern Moses", becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process.
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There's an unexpected genius here
- By Porter on 01-19-19
By: Ethan Michaeli
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Into the Bright Sunshine
- Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Pivotal Moments in American History Series)
- By: Samuel G. Freedman
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president—the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate—but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium.
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Narrator bungles pronunciations
- By ARV on 09-23-23
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The Kennedy Half Century
- The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy
- By: Larry J. Sabato
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 24 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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John F. Kennedy died half a century ago - yet because of his extraordinary promise and untimely death, his star still resonates strongly. On the anniversary of his assassination, celebrated political scientist and analyst Larry J. Sabato - himself a teenager in the early 1960s and inspired by JFK and his presidency - explores the fascinating and powerful influence he has had over five decades on the media, the general public, and especially on each of his nine presidential successors.
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Job Well Done
- By Kathy on 08-12-14
By: Larry J. Sabato
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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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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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Engaging subject, but fact-checking needed
- By loix on 04-25-12
By: Nancy Gibbs, and others
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In the early hours of June 17, 1972, a security guard named Frank Wills enters six words into the log book of the Watergate office complex that will change the course of history: 1:47 AM Found tape on doors; call police. The subsequent arrests of five men seeking to bug and burgle the Democratic National Committee offices—three of them Cuban exiles, two of them former intelligence operatives—quickly unravels a web of scandal that ultimately ends a presidency and forever alters views of moral authority and leadership.
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Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. The doomed White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky’s Red Army and the single-minded Communist dictatorship under Lenin.
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What listeners say about Before the Storm
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- C. Matthew Hawkins
- 09-20-20
Enthralling Tale of the Seeds of 21st Century
A riveting, accurate, and informative account of American politics in the mid-20th century, setting the stage for all that would follow. Perlstein has a storyteller's skills and an historian's respect for selecting key events and getting all perspectives. This book provides the essential but often missing context behind today's headlines. The reader for the audiobook brings the whole thing to life.
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- Robert J. Sutcliffe
- 01-29-22
Another Perlstein tour-de-force
no one is better than Perlstein at collecting and ordering the detail with requisite nuance.
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- Christoph
- 03-30-21
great
excellent narration, enjoyed the impersonations of the various presidents quoted. fascinating book, filled in some blank spots in an era that is a little blurry for most of is who didn't live through it.
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- enthusiast
- 04-18-23
Excellent
A great start to the rise of the conservative wing of the US Republican Party.
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- MGS
- 08-04-23
Another banger from Ricky P
So now I have read or listened to all of perlstein’s books. This is a compelling work; start this series if you haven’t already.
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- cakebreaker
- 01-16-21
Narrator Detracts From Superb Content
Whether mispronunciations - for example, what should be South Vietnamese President Diem [dee-em] rather than Deem - to his attempts at voice impersonations, the narrator undermines the author’s superb content of what is significant history of the emergence of the Big Lie wing of national governance and campaign
Necessary to know of this context to acquire the tools needed to deconstruct the Big Lie with calm and repetitive truth
Excellent, illuminating content Mr. Perlstein!
Thank you
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4 people found this helpful
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- Ted
- 04-07-22
Excellent but marred by narration
This book features an intriguing thesis, in-depth research, and an annoying narrator who for reasons I can’t fathom offers lame impressions of the historical figures quoted in the text. The JFK and Nixon mimicry is bad enough but the half-baked Willy Brandt about 1/3 in was too much for me. I switched to the print version.
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- Jesse Stell
- 07-12-24
Fascinating view into the shape of our future
Loved this from beginning to end. This era of the US has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I know enough about Reagan to hate what he's done to us historically, but seeing the essential blueprint for the republican party was extremely interesting. Especially since Goldwater's loss is such an inevitability. You learn to understand why people fell into this rhetoric and how it began to take shape for future candidates in Nixon and Reagan.
I also gained quite an insight into LBJ, who is often not talked about. I understand the controversy of Vietnam but seeing his undying fortitude against opposition for Civil Rights and Basic Rights of all to health was refreshing. It's fascinating seeing a strong armed democrat in the age of our wildly weak willed leftist options in modernity.
Cannot wait to read more Perlstein, particularly in regards to this era of politics since it's such a turning point in our history.
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- Jane H
- 08-07-18
Thoroughly Informative and Chilling
An outstanding beginning to Rick Perlstein’s modern American conservatism saga. You get to hear about all of the details behind the origin of the modern movement that first took off with the Goldwater campaign in 1964. You go behind the scenes to learn about that idiosyncratic, abrasive ideologue and the people who supported him. As you listen, it will become increasingly clear how the story Perlstein tells has ultimately culminated in a Trump presidency which shares many of the core instincts at the heart of the movement - but little of the intellectual foundation.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Alex
- 04-30-21
Great author. Okay narrator.
Rick Perlstein is a great writer. The narrator for this book is only great if you love sub-par impressions of politicians. When he just reads, it’s fine. When he impersonates JFK or LBJ or MLK or Nixon, it’s cringe-inducing.
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