Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in History

The ambitious radio series, The Greatest Story Ever Told—based on the book of the same name by Fulton Oursler—came to ABC in the 1940s with a full orchestra and 16-voice chorus. The series dramatized the life and times of Jesus Christ—"the greatest life ever lived"—and was the first radio series to simulate the voice of Christ as a continuing character. The stories quite effectively captured the essence of Oursler's book—a beautifully simple dramatization of Christ's life as set down by four apostles.

Lisa Kron invites her audience on a roller coaster ride through the Kron family album in 2.5 Minute Ride. Rising and falling between high hilarity and deep disquiet, Kron demonstrates with disarming simplicity that humor and horror can share the same human moment. Kron's' performance switches back and forth between her journey to Auschwitz with her septuagenarian father, a Holocaust survivor; her Michigan family's annual pilgrimage to a Sandusky, Ohio amusement park, and more.

Chutzpah, says Alan M. Dershowitz, is "boldness, assertiveness, a willingness to demand what is due, to defy tradition, to challenge authority, to raise eyebrows." Assessing his experiences, he brings to bear all the chutzpah for which he is famous in examining such issues as anti-Semitism, assimilation, the Holocaust, Zionism. The changes in Eastern Europe, and the turmoil in the Middle East, as well as what the future will bring—and needs to bring.

On Thursday, August 28, 1947, a 30-year-old millionaire named Manuel Laureano Rodriguez—Manolete—and a Miura bull named Islero killed each other. The Death of Manolete recounts the extraordinary life and demise of this young bullfighter, from the childhood that made the Spanish boy and the sacrifice that made the man to the girl who brought him love and the acclaim that brought him incredible success. 

You're sure to recognize the voices of Gary Owens, who Radio & Records deemed, "the Babe Ruth of Radio" and the beloved Mel Blanc, who provided the voices of many of the world's most famous cartoon characters, including those of Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Pie, Sylvester, and The Road Runner, who together provide all voices featured on this performance.

Honor's Voice provides a revealing look at how Abraham Lincoln became the 16th president of the United States and one of the greatest men of his time. Douglas Wilson traces the development of this great leader from an insecure country boy full of ambition to schoolboy, storekeeper, riverboat man, and, finally, politician. The author returns to original sources, including friends and acquaintances in the Illinois of the 1830s and '40s and exposes truths about Lincoln never before revealed.

In this dramatic series of interviews, General Powell describes his ascent from the ROTC to four-star general and eventually to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and mastermind of Desert Storm. He discusses his assignments in Germany, Korea, and Vietnam, his role in the Carter, Reagan, and Bush administrations, and his eyewitness accounts of Desert Storm, the invasion of Panama, and the Iran-Contra scandal.

For Forgotten Heroes, a few of the country's leading historians were invited to choose their favorite stories of under appreciated Americans—from Stephen Jay Gould on deaf baseball player Dummy Hoy, to Alfred Kazin on "the failed president" John Quincy Adams, to Christine Stansell on Margaret Anderson, the publisher of James Joyce's Ulysses.

In the current wave of seafaring literature, no fictional sailor's story can match this true real-life adventure. With Charles Tyng's Before the Wind we roam the world of the early 19th century: visit Lord Byron in Italy, King Tamehameha in Hawaii, and skirt Napoleon's prison isle of St. Helena. We learn to siphon rum from the captain's cask, relive the historic battle of The Bulwark and The Chesapeake, and witness an encounter with a mermaid.

Fearlessly taking aim at the seemingly impressive façade of modern military power, Dirty Little Secrets is an unusual, entertaining and thought provoking look at the myths, mysteries and arcana unknown to the rest of us. Did you know that. Modern tanks use as much fuel standing still as they do when moving?

The Obama Revolution is an in-the-trenches look at how President Barack Obama mobilized a generation to reclaim America. In this timely book, the author draws a vivid picture of grassroots organizing, from the grueling all-nighters to the endless canvassing, and explores the steps Obama took to clinch the Democratic nomination and win the election.

The horrific bombing in Oklahoma City, the discovery of huge caches of weapons stockpiled in private residences, and the astounding rise in membership of various armed militias across the United States has forced Americans to re-examine what it means to have the "right to bear arms". And the scrutinizing public eye wasted no time in looking to the NRA for answers, a group whose foundation and lifeblood is founded in the Second Amendment. Now, from famed muckraker Jack Anderson comes an expose on this controversial organization that will forever change the public's perception of the NRA

Laugh with political humorist Gerald Gardner, as she takes an entertaining and probing look at how our last six Presidents have deliberately and effectively employed humor to achieve their political goals. In a special live recording of his best-selling book, Gardner sounds remarkably like JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan, as he demonstrates how our Chief Executives have made strategic use of humor to win people over, avoid sensitive issues, to defuse tense situations, and to deflect criticism.

Seven years ago, newspapers across America called it "the espionage case of the century." While serving a security guard at the American Embassy, Sgt. Clayton Lonetree, a Native American marine, fell in love with a beautiful Russian woman and was recruited by a KGB officer posing as her "Uncle Sasha" to become a spy for the Soviet Union. The "sex-for-Secrets Marine Spy Scandal," as it was called by the press, had all the elements of a great novel...but it was a story.

In this startling and original work, best-selling author Charles Higham (Howard Hughes: The Secret Life) addresses one of the greatest historical mysteries: Did John Wilkes Booth act alone on the night of Good Friday, 1865, or was he part of a wide conspiracy? Drawing from letters, diaries, previously unstudied records of official hearings, railway timetables, and obscure shipping manifests, Higham weaves a spellbinding account of intrigue. 

Though he was a great statesman, one of America's founding fathers, and the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson suffered from depression. In Jefferson's Demons, Michael Knox Beran examines episodes of melancholia in Jefferson's life. In particular, he focuses on the journey Jefferson made to Europe in 1787 to escape the depression that set in due to his tumultuous experience as governor of Virginia following the Revolution and his wife Martha's death.

A volume in a series called The Library of Contemporary Thought—which provides top opinion makers a forum to explore the most provocative, fascinating, and relevant issues of the day—News Is a Verb focuses on contemporary journalism and its evolving readership. 

The story of Pocahontas, the young daughter of Chief Powhatan, is one that has captured the imagination of children and adults for more than 400 years. Responsible for saving the life of Captain John Smith, Pocahontas also saved Jamestown colonists from starvation and saved them from being massacred by her father's warriors. To this day, no one really knows what motivated the unselfish deeds of Pocahontas. What we do know is, without her, American history would not be the same.