Tour of Duty
Written by Douglas Brinkley
Narrated by Douglas Brinkley
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
One of our most acclaimed historians explores the decorated military service of one of America’s most intriguing politicians—the leading Democratic presidential candidate for 2004—and its profound effects on his career and life
In Tour of Duty, Brinkley explores Senator John Kerry’s career and deftly deals with such explosive issues as U.S. atrocities in Vietnam and the bombing of Cambodia. Using new information acquired from the recently released Nixon tapes, Brinkley reveals how White House aides Charles Colson and H.R. Haldeman tried to discredit Kerry. Refusing to be intimidated, Kerry started running for public office, eventually becoming a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
Covering more than four decades, this is the first full-scale definitive account of Kerry’s journey from war to peace. In writing this riveting, action-packed narrative, Brinkley has drawn on extensive interviews with virtually everyone who knew Kerry well in Vietnam. Kerry also relegated to Brinkley his letters home from Vietnam and his voluminous “war notes” journals, notebooks, and personal reminiscences written during and shortly after the war. This material was provided without restriction, to be used at Brinkley’s discretion, and has never before been published.
Douglas Brinkley
Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” He is the recipient of such distinguished environmental leadership prizes as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), the Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conservation Association), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. 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 is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.
More audiobooks from Douglas Brinkley
Cronkite Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Deluge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Parish Priest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JFK: A Vision for America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Heritage History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom, 1910-1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boys of Pointe du Hoc Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Tour of Duty
Related audiobooks
All This Marvelous Potential: Robert Kennedy's 1968 Tour of Appalachia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLincoln's Greatest Journey: Sixteen Days that Changed a Presidency, March 24 - April 8, 1865 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the President 1960 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Distant Service: The Life of the First U.S. Foreign Service Officer to be Assassinated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThaddeus Stevens: Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Tyler, the Accidental President Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5LBJ's 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Passage of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Promise and the Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Abraham Lincoln American President Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPresidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jimmy Carter and the Birth of the Marathon Media Campaign Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Rift: Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and the Broken Friendship That Defined an Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Michael Beschloss: Taking Charge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51957: The Year That Launched the American Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Michael Beschloss: Presidential Courage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGround War: Courts, Commissions, and the Fight over Partisan Gerrymanders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmbition, Pragmatism, and Party: A Political Biography of Gerald R. Ford Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Political Biographies For You
John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Romney: A Reckoning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White House Plumbers: The Seven Weeks That Led to Watergate and Doomed Nixon's Presidency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lincoln Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Assassination Vacation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women's Voices from the Gulag Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Truman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mornings on Horseback Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Rivals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5V Is For Victory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Tour of Duty
12 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From one Amazon reviewWhen excerpts from Douglas Brinkley's forthcoming book on John Kerry and the Vietnam War appeared in The Atlantic in December 2003, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the author. Obviously he had spent a lot of time researching and writing a book that would be forgotten before the ink was even dry. Of course, at that time Senator Kerry's campaign for the presidency was dead in the water, while the supposedly smart money was accumulating around Howard Dean.Now Douglas Brinkley has the last laugh. His time spent on "Tour of Duty" looks like a shrewd bet. Not only has Kerry locked up the Democratic nomination to challenge George W. Bush--his experiences in the Vietnam War have become central to the campaign in a way few could have predictedAnd now 2015 there is another Kerry role...Secretary of State. I am considering this book for discard, but now I think it is akeeper.