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The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream Audiobook
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THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
The capstone book in a trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of How to Lead and The American Story and host of Bloomberg TV’s The David Rubenstein Show—American icons and historians on the ever-evolving American experiment, featuring Ken Burns, Madeleine Albright, Wynton Marsalis, Billie Jean King, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and many more.
In this lively collection of conversations—the third in a series from David Rubenstein—some of our nations’ greatest minds explore the inspiring story of America as a grand experiment in democracy, culture, innovation, and ideas.
-Jill Lepore on the promise of America
-Madeleine Albright on the American immigrant
-Ken Burns on war
-Henry Louis Gates Jr. on reconstruction
-Elaine Weiss on suffrage
-John Meacham on civil rights
-Walter Isaacson on innovation
-David McCullough on the Wright Brothers
-John Barry on pandemics and public health
-Wynton Marsalis on music
-Billie Jean King on sports
-Rita Moreno on film
Exploring the diverse make-up of our country’s DNA through interviews with Pulitzer Prize–winning historians, diplomats, music legends, and sports giants, The American Experiment captures the dynamic arc of a young country reinventing itself in real-time. Through these enlightening conversations, the American spirit comes alive, revealing the setbacks, suffering, invention, ingenuity, and social movements that continue to shape our vision of what America is—and what it can be.
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“This audiobook is proof positive that some texts work best as audiobooks…Jill Lepore’s take on American history, Madeleine Albright’s account of her family’s journey, Henry Louis Gates’s commentary on Reconstruction, Rita Moreno’s look back at her life and loves, and Ken Burns’s discussion of the legacy of the War in Vietnam are among the many highlights.”
— AudioFile
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“These conversations—warm, engaging, and informative—help Rubenstein point up America’s particular qualities that ‘have made the whole American Experiment work,’ even though, facing significant challenges, the country has fallen short.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Explores the lessons of the past that will help us through this historically challenging time…at exactly the right time.”
— Tom Brokaw, #1 New York Times bestselling author -
“A book that forces America to look in the mirror. It’s a reality pill.”
— LL Cool J, rapper, actor, and entrepreneur -
“A stirring reminder of what our ‘American experiment’ has achieved so far and what’s at stake as we move forward.”
— Katie Couric, television journalist -
“This captivating dialogue about the meaning of democracy and the American dream provides much needed inspiration and hope. What a terrific book!”
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, historian and #1 New York Times bestselling author
Awards
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A New York Times bestseller
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A Wall Street Journal bestseller
The American Experiment Listener Reviews
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Anthony Riedel , 2/9/2022
About the Authors
Madeleine Albright (1937-2022) served as America’s sixty-fourth secretary of state from 1997 to 2001, the first woman to hold that position. Her distinguished career also includes positions on Capitol Hill, on the National Security Council, and as US ambassador to the United Nations. She also wrote several New York Times bestselling books.
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including three that have made their #1 bestsellers list. He is a contributing writer for the New York Times Book Review and a contributing editor of Time magazine, and he holds the Rogers Chair in the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University
Ken Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs. His documentaries have been nominated for two Academy Awards, and have won Emmy Awards, among other honors.
David M. Rubenstein is the New York Times bestselling author, host of The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV and PBS, an original signer of The Giving Pledge, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award. He is chairman of the boards of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is cofounder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private equity firms.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. is an award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder. He has authored or coauthored more than twenty books, including Stony the Road, The Black Church, and The Black Box, and created more than twenty documentary films, including his groundbreaking genealogy series Finding Your Roots. His six-part PBS documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, earned an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and an NAACP Image Award. This series and his PBS documentary series Reconstruction: America after the Civil War were both honored with the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award. His most recent PBS documentary is Gospel. He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
Sonja Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1976, and from Yale Law School in 1979. She worked as assistant district attorney in New York and then at the law firm of Pavia & Harcourt. From 1992 to 2009, she served as a judge on the US District Court, Southern District of New York, and from 1998, on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court; she assumed this role on August 8, 2009.
Drew Gilpin Faust is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestselling This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, winner of the Bancroft Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War, which won the Francis Parkman Prize. A former dean and university president, she is the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University.
Douglas Brinkley is an acclaimed historian and award-winning author of many books, including six New York Times bestsellers. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” His book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was awarded a Grammy for Presidential Suite and his two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes recently won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. Other awards he has won include the Frances K. Hutchison Medal, Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. He is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies.
Walter Isaacson is the author of highly acclaimed works of nonfiction, including several biographies that have made the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list. A professor of history at Tulane University, he has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor of Time. Visit him at Isaacson.Tulane.edu.
Cary Hite has performed in several theaters across the country as a cast member in the longest-running African American play in history, The Diary of Black Men. He also appeared in Edward II, Fences, Macbeth, Good Boys, Side Effects May Vary, and the indie feature The City Is Mine. He has voiced several projects for AudibleKids, including Souls Look Back in Wonder, From Slave Ship to Freedom Road, and Papa, Do You Love Me?
About the Narrators
Rita Moreno is one of the few artists to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. She has also received a Golden Globe Award and a National Medal of Honor. She is regularly appears in the television show, Happily Divorced.
Bleak December Inc. is a multimedia company founded by Canadian actor and filmmaker Anthony D.P. Mann.