This detailed and well-organized account of American music's most prominent evolutionary decades--the 1840s, 1920s, and 1950s-- provides a fascinating overview of the way popular music changed in response to a variety of factors over the past 180 years. While artists arriving from Europe were influential at the start of the 1800s, music also came to change because of well-established ethnic groups, the visceral power of American culture in the 1920s, and the unmistakable impact of jazz and popular Black artists on pop music in the 1950s. John McLain's enunciation patterns keep everything clear. Although they don't have enough dramatic variation to highlight the broad thematic shifts in this rich cultural history, his baritone pitch patterns sound natural and pleasing in themselves.
Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2024
Duration: 13 hrs, 30 mins
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Carol Matthau epitomizes a glamour and lifestyle not associated with the 1990's. Here is a life of privilege, tragedy and worry about what friends would think of her new frock or lover. Matthau possesses a voice and delivery that simply could not be improved on. In her coy whisper, she tells compelling stories involving everyone from William Saroyan (husband #1) and Truman Capote to Carson McCullers, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Walter Matthau (husband #2). This excellent audio presentation will leave you wanting to read the entire book to discover what juicy tidbits were left out.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 3 hrs
Publisher: The Publishing Mills
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Tales of the rescued don’t diminish the sorrow for the millions lost.
Jim Meskimen’s authoritative voice and evenhandedness carry a narrative with many highs and lows and steeped in tragic irony. As Nazi attacks on Jews worsened in the 1930s, a group of poker-playing friends in Manila, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, conceived a plan to repatriate German Jews to the Philippines. Hundreds of people were subsequently saved, but antisemitism bothin the U.S. and the Philippines blocked a full effort. Most effectively, this episode offers a fresh perspective on the Pacific theater and subsequent independence of the Philippines—and on the careers of two men at the table, one of whom almost became a U.S. president, and one of whom did.
Tales of the rescued don’t diminish the sorrow for the millions lost.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
Duration: 11 hrs, 13 mins
DD ISBN: 9798228966093
Publisher: Blackstone Audio
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2026
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