American Oligarchs
The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power
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Narrated by:
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Andrea Bernstein
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By:
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Andrea Bernstein
About this listen
A multigenerational saga of two families who rose from immigrant roots to the pinnacle of US power that tracks the unraveling of American democracy.
In American Oligarchs, award-winning investigative journalist Andrea Bernstein creates a vivid portrait of two emblematic American families. Their journey to the White House is a story of survival and loss, crime and betrayal, which stretches from the Gilded Age through Nazi-occupied Poland to the rising nationalism and inequality of the 21st century.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews and over 100,000 pages of documents, many previously unseen or long forgotten, Bernstein traces how the families grew rich on federal programs that bolstered the middle class, and then sheltered their wealth from tax collectors. Wielding half-truths, secrecy, and media manipulation, they blurred the lines between public and private interests, then leveraged political, prosecutorial, and judicial power to avoid legal consequences. At once intimate and sweeping, American Oligarchs reveals how these dynasties encouraged and profited from a system of political dark money that has pushed America to the precipice of oligarchy.
©2020 Andrea Bernstein (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Anyone concerned about American democracy should read Andrea Bernstein’s devastating exposé of the Trump and Kushner families. With meticulous precision, she documents the pernicious effects of dynastic wealth and power, now threatening to turn the highest rungs of the US government into a corrupt oligarchy." (Jane Mayer, The New Yorker staff writer and New York Times best-selling author of Dark Money)
"A rich and highly readable compendium...Bernstein is an intrepid reporter." (William Cohan, New York Times Book Review)
"By building American Oligarchs around the Kushner and Trump family narratives, Bernstein offers readers a fresh perspective.... Readers who follow the news more casually will also find the epic family tales a compelling way to understand the myriad deals and ambitions that define the Kushners and Trumps." (David Kocieniewski, Bloomberg.com)
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Author Thomas Healy resurrects a forgotten saga of race, capitalism, and the struggle for equality in this fascinating, forgotten story of the 1970s attempt to build a city dedicated to racial equality in the heart of “Klan Country”.
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awesome narrator
- By Arthur F. Jackson on 06-23-21
By: Thomas Healy
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Spooked
- The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies
- By: Barry Meier
- Narrated by: Kerry Shale
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist’s journey into a billon-dollar secret industry that is shaping our world - the booming business of private spying, operatives-for-hire retained by companies, political parties, and the powerful to dig up dirt on their enemies and, if need be, destroy them.
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Was ok
- By markofu on 11-21-21
By: Barry Meier
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Boardwalk Empire
- The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City
- By: Nelson Johnson
- Narrated by: Joe Mantegna, Terence Winter (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.
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The Unmasked History of Atlantic City
- By Steven Schuster on 08-07-10
By: Nelson Johnson
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Collusion
- Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win
- By: Luke Harding
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Russia expert Luke Harding lays out the most in-depth look to date at the Trump campaign's dealings with Russia. Beginning with a meeting with Christopher Steele, the man behind the shattering dossier that first brought the allegations to light, Harding probes the histories of key Russian and American players with striking clarity and insight. Harding exposes the disquieting details of the Trump-Russia story - a saga so huge it involves international espionage, offshore banks, sketchy real estate deals, mobsters, money laundering, disappeared dissidents, and more.
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Good summation, but gaps, patched with spin
- By Philo on 11-24-17
By: Luke Harding
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The King of Content
- Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire
- By: Keach Hagey
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Sumner Murray Redstone, once feared as the “mad genius” of media who would dump his CEOs for mere wobbles in his companies’ stock price, had built one of the world’s greatest media empires through a series of audacious takeovers constructed to ensure that he always maintained control. Today he controls 80 percent of the voting shares of both Viacom and CBS, meaning that on a whim he could replace the entire boards of two public companies with a combined value of $40 billion.
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Feels biased. Well researched, but not engaging.
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-19
By: Keach Hagey
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Family of Secrets
- The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America
- By: Russ Baker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 24 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said that "words are loaded pistols". In the hands of Russ Baker, they are hydrogen bombs. On each and every page of his masterpiece, Family of Secrets, he explodes the myths and lies that powerful forces have perpetrated on the American consciousness. He digs beneath the surface in a form of journalistic archeology to reveal the hidden history of one of America's most powerful families, leaving no stone unturned.
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Still Relevant, Impossible to Put Down
- By Emilio Largo on 12-14-12
By: Russ Baker
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Mike Bloomberg
- Money, Power, Politics
- By: Joyce Purnick
- Narrated by: Mark Moseley
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Bloomberg is not only New York City's 108th mayor; he is a business genius and self-made billionaire. He has run the toughest city in America with an independence and show of ego that first brought him great success and eventually threatened it. Yet while Bloomberg is internationally known and admired, few people know the man behind the carefully crafted public persona.
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Not the most captivating, but a decent summary
- By liz w on 03-06-17
By: Joyce Purnick
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Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
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Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
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The Plot to Betray America
- How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Compromised Our Security, and How We Can Fix It
- By: Malcolm Nance
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Plot to Betray America, New York Times best-selling author and renowned intelligence expert Malcolm Nance reveals exactly how President Trump and his inner circle conspired, coordinated, communicated, and eventually strategized to commit the greatest acts of treachery in the history of the United States: Compromising the presidential oath of office in exchange for power and personal enrichment.
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Fantastic Read
- By Customer on 11-14-19
By: Malcolm Nance
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The Wizard of Lies
- Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust
- By: Diana B. Henriques
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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Who is Bernie Madoff, and how did he pull off the biggest Ponzi scheme in history? These questions have fascinated people ever since the news broke about the respected New York financier who swindled his friends, relatives, and other investors out of $65 billion. Many have speculated about what must have happened, but no reporter has been able to get the full story - until now. Diana B. Henriques of the New York Times has written the definitive book on the man and his scheme.
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The best of 3 madoff books
- By Angela willis on 03-18-13
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Tokyo Underworld
- The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan
- By: Robert Whiting
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945 and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters.
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A Man with a fork in a world of soup
- By Kindle Customer on 09-01-20
By: Robert Whiting
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Other People's Money
- Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made
- By: Charles V. Bagli
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investors' dollars on a single deal. In Other People's Money, Charles V. Bagli, the New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village takes listeners inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
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Solid
- By BryanW on 05-22-24
By: Charles V. Bagli
What listeners say about American Oligarchs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lawrence V. Nolan
- 03-02-20
Journalism at its best... giving us hope
Thank you Andrea (and team). I anxiously await your Trump Inc podcasts and applaud your efforts to inform me and your audience.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-17-20
Prequel to A Family of Villans Origin Story
I am completely floored. There were so many times I had to rewind the book because I couldn't believe what I'd heard. Bernstein's presentation of the Kushners & Trumps made this almost sound like work of fiction. So much so that is was difficult to accept this is actually happening. The beginnings of both family shines a light into the individuals we see today. I am honestly amazed at how Jared has been seemingly brainwashed by the Trumps, granted his father planted the seed of corruption. It just goes to show how easily Man is susceptible to greed., no matter the upbringing of their ancestors. Truly an incredible book. I highly recommend. It's written in a way that's not too dense, with memorable lines that will have you turning in bed as you try to dissect.
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- ratufa
- 07-30-20
One of the best books to date on the Trumps
Firstly, I'm a huge fan of Berstein's ProPublica podcast, Trump, Inc. Secondly, I spend far too much of my free time educating myself on the train wreck that is the Trump administration/family. So far I've read/listened to 8-10 books on the topic, and this is by far the most informative in terms of how the Trump and Kushner families have to date faced minimal accountability for the generations of fraud, harming taxpayers, people of color, employees/contractors, tenants, investors, and now the entire country. Most appalling are the multiple squandered opportunities to stop the ongoing grift, and the hypocrisy of the xenophobic grandsons of two immigrant families.
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- Robert C. Miller
- 06-29-20
Excellent content, sing song presentation.
I thank the author for her diligent research. The more information made public, the better for the country. I would recommend a professional reader for your next effort. I almost quit listening several times because of the annoying sing song cadence.
I’m glad I didn’t.
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1 person found this helpful
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- LAMA
- 02-06-20
Fabulous book with far reaching historical context
Fabulous book with far reaching historical context that helps to “explain” as far as one can in our current times, how these two families ended up where they are, doing what they are doing.
Obviously well researched despite the many obstacles both families put up.
Everyone should read this book, regardless of political persuasion. Bernstein is known to be a fact based reporter with a long history reporting in the greater NYC region and provides important information to every citizen about who is running things and what can’t
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- Ken Elliott
- 02-11-20
Socialist Cretins
The audacity to not only bilk the government, banks, family, and business associates out of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS by two families who were given every advantage afforded by government agencies at all levels within their chosen locales of the United States is a soul crushing revelation within this in depth investigation of the Trumps and the Kushners. That Trump magnifies his abuse of governmental amenities can be compounded by his bald faced accusations of socialist candidates and socialist proposals by potential political opposition candidates.
I would love to get a PowerPoint presentation of every underhanded deed over the decades described in this wonderful book to help offset social media claims by the cult followers of the luckiest cretins on earth.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 08-16-21
Very True Account of Trump's White House
Trump was just as horrific a President as he is a person.
Well written
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- Yvonne Brown
- 06-28-20
Well researched and written
Get this book. it's excellent. My only complaint is the audio is sometimes difficult to follow.
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- EveLynn
- 01-27-20
This book left me sad and mad!
The Kushner family history is horrific. I cannot imagine having to live through the nightmares. As opposed to the Trump family. What a bunch of spoiled brats. Both explain from a different perspective what is happening in our country at present.
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- K. Maver
- 12-08-20
Fills in a lot of blanks
If you have been at all bewildered by this Road to Perdition known as the Trump Administration, Bernstein will answer a lot of questions— some questions you might not have even realized you should be asking. Tying the machinations of politics and the motivations of America’s Uber-wealthy, reckless Trump and Kushner families together, the author gives context for the hell we’ve just lived through for the past four or five years. She concludes her book with reflections on social philosopher Hannah Arendt—who had so much to say about the dangers of totalitarianism, authority, and Truth, following Hitler’s devastation of Europe—and the lives of Jerod Kushner’s own grandparents—witnesses to, and survivors of, the Holocaust.
I will be thinking about this work for a long time. I’ve gained a reference for so many of the nefarious characters of Trump World, and their place in the geography of wealth and power. I’ve gained a deeper respect for the dangers of this great wealth inequality we are experiencing. And I’m feeling a deeper commitment to the preservation of democracy and the value of all humanity. Never again. Never again.
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