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Someone Is Out to Get Us
- A Not So Brief History of Cold War Paranoia and Madness
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
From UFOs to Dr. Strangelove, LSD experiments to Richard Nixon, author Brian Brown investigates the paranoid, panicked history of the Cold War.
In Someone Is Out to Get Us, Brian T. Brown explores the delusions, absurdities, and best-kept secrets of the Cold War, during which the United States fought an enemy of its own making for over 40 years - and nearly scared itself to death in the process. The nation chose to fear a chimera, a rotting communist empire that couldn't even feed itself, only for it to be revealed that what lay behind the Iron Curtain was only a sad Potemkin village.
In fact, one of the greatest threats to our national security may have been our closest ally. The most effective spy cell the Soviets ever had was made up of aristocratic Englishmen schooled at Cambridge. Establishing a communist peril but lacking proof, J. Edgar Hoover became our Big Brother, and Joseph McCarthy went hunting for witches. Richard Nixon stepped into the spotlight as an opportunistic, ruthless Cold Warrior; his criminal cover-up during a dark presidency was exposed by a Deep Throat in a parking garage.
Someone Is Out to Get Us is the true and complete account of a long-misunderstood period of history during which lies, conspiracies, and paranoia led Americans into a state of madness and misunderstanding, too distracted by fictions to realize that the real enemy was looking back at them in the mirror the whole time.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Critic reviews
"Readers who love Cold War-era U.S. history will glom onto Brown's book, even if they come away agreeing with the old Pogo comic strip: 'We have met the enemy, and he is us.'" (Booklist)
"An alternative title for this irreverent romp of a read might be Everything You Wanted to Know About the Cold War (But Were Afraid to Ask), as Brian Brown takes us on a wild ride through a time in American life when public enemy number one was an ethereal political concept that drove everything from policy to popular culture. In an era in which Americans should be (and are) afraid of some very real things, whether the integrity of our elections, global climate change, or the twisted powers of social media, this book enters the dialogue by chronicling the mayhem and misery of a time when fear overwhelmed our ability to see anything for what it really was. Brown reminds us that throughout those four decades, America's greatest enemy was the one it created in its own paranoid collective mind, a lesson that should not be lost on us today." (Amy Bass, author of One Goal)
"Brown provides us with a witty and fast-paced look at the Cold War, Soviet espionage and covert mischief, and how these impacted and helped shape the course of American pop culture for more than three decades." (Bill Yenne, historian and author of Secret Weapons of the Cold War, B-52 Stratofortress, and Area 51 Black Jets)
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Story
From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.
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Non political BUT very anti-violence
- By aaron on 05-11-13
By: Jeremy Scahill
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House of War
- The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power
- By: James Carroll
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 26 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This landmark, myth-shattering work chronicles the most powerful institution in America, the people who created it, and the pathologies it has spawned. Carroll proves a controversial thesis: The Pentagon has, since its founding, operated beyond the control of any force in government or society. It is the biggest, loosest cannon in American history, and no institution has changed this country more.
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A Biased Account
- By GoTravel1385a on 09-06-07
By: James Carroll
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Nemesis
- The Last Days of the American Republic
- By: Chalmers Johnson
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing comparisons to empires past, Johnson explores in vivid detail the likely consequences of US dependence on a permanent war economy, and what it will mean when the globe's sole "hyperpower" is no longer capable of paying for the vaulting ambitions of its leaders - and becomes the greatest hyper-debtor of all time. In his stunning conclusion, Johnson suggests that the crisis of a financial breakdown could ultimately prove to be the only path to a renewed nation.
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The Book Bill O'Rielly Doesn't Want You To Read!
- By Joe on 04-04-07
By: Chalmers Johnson
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Truth Is a Lonely Warrior
- By: James Perloff
- Narrated by: Michael Joseph
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty-five years after publication of The Shadows of Power, James Perloff returns to the venue of political history, and takes you where the mass media won’t.
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Gives you a lot to think about
- By Kevin Vanderwater on 09-11-24
By: James Perloff
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The Afghanistan Papers
- A Secret History of the War
- By: Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: Defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off-course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives.
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Eye-Opening Book
- By David J Ray on 09-01-21
By: Craig Whitlock, and others
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To Start a War
- How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq
- By: Robert Draper
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Even now, after more than 15 years, it is hard to see the invasion of Iraq through the cool, considered gaze of history. For too many people, the damage is still too palpable, and still unfolding. Most of the major players in that decision are still with us, and few of them are not haunted by it, in one way or another. Perhaps it's that combination, the passage of the years and the still unresolved trauma, that explains why so many protagonists opened up so fully for the first time to Robert Draper.
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If you’ve grown weary of the current GOP administration’s incompetence...
- By Marynelle on 09-04-20
By: Robert Draper
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Confront and Conceal
- Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Three and a half years ago, David Sanger’s book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power described how a new American president came to office with the world on fire. Now, just as the 2012 presidential election battle begins, Sanger follows up with an eye-opening, news-packed account of how Obama has dealt with those challenges, relying on innovative weapons and reconfigured tools of American power to try to manage a series of new threats.
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Sobering reminder on what the presidency requires
- By Marilyn on 09-03-12
By: David E. Sanger
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Active Measures
- The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
- By: Thomas Rid
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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We live in the age of disinformation - of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm, even before the 2016 election. But this is not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the clash between communism and capitalism after the Russian Revolution.
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Grounding book for COVID 19 Media
- By fjness on 05-12-20
By: Thomas Rid
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The Exception to the Rulers
- Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them
- By: Amy Goodman, David Goodman
- Narrated by: Amy Goodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Exception to the Rulers, award-winning journalists Amy and David Goodman expose the lies, corruption, and crimes of the power elite, an elite bolstered by large media conglomerates. Her goal is “to go where the silence is, to give voice to the silenced majority.” This audiobook includes numerous archival audio excerpts, including statements from filmmaker Michael Moore, civil liberties victims describing their harrowing ordeals in the United States after 9/11, and more.
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lacks balance
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-23
By: Amy Goodman, and others
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Do Not Disturb
- The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad
- By: Michela Wrong
- Narrated by: Michela Wrong
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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We think we know the story of Africa’s Great Lakes region. Following the Rwandan genocide, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrew the brutal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that made Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. But the truth was considerably more sinister.
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What is true and what isn't?
- By Buretto on 11-30-21
By: Michela Wrong
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White Malice
- The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa
- By: Susan Williams
- Narrated by: Chanté McCormick
- Length: 21 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In White Malice, Susan Williams unearths the covert operations pursued by the CIA from Ghana to the Congo to the UN in an effort to frustrate and deny Africa’s new generation of nationalist leaders. This dramatically upends the conventional belief that the African nations failed to establish effective, democratic states on their own accord. As the old European powers moved out, the US moved in.
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A very good read.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-20-22
By: Susan Williams
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1983
- Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
- By: Taylor Downing
- Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983 - the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon. The year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one - more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the United States, President Reagan vastly increased defense spending, described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and launched the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the country from incoming missiles.
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Great story, poor narration choices.
- By John Gray on 02-11-19
By: Taylor Downing
What listeners say about Someone Is Out to Get Us
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-22-19
Boring yet interesting at the same time
I heard about this book on coast to coast am. I really wanted to like it but find myself checked out while listening to it. it's a lot of unnecessary facts that are trying to tell a story most of us already know but not in a easy to follow order.
I also don't usually mind getting cussing, but for this book it just seemed out of place and lazy sometimes. considered getting my money back, but I finished it.
There are a few stories that I enjoyed and had not heard. The person who read the book did a great job.
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