Showing results by narrator "Kevin Stillwell" in All Categories

Multibillion-dollar valuations in Silicon Valley have obscured underlying problems in the way the United States develops technology. Government policies increasingly favor powerful interest groups over promising start-ups, stifling technological innovation.

Over the last few decades, governments have increasingly sought to reclaim indigenous artifacts from museums abroad. Yet inappropriate calls for repatriation should be resisted. Encyclopedic museums do more than house artifacts; they also spread cosmopolitan ideas.

It is said that bad things come in threes. If there’s any truth to that, the first two were sure as hell about to show up at my front door. I hadn’t been home long, maybe a half hour or so spent watching the lingering remnants of the Kona sunset leach from the sky while I tipped a cold bottle of Asahi to my lips. I had skipped my regular visit to Snyder’s bar, and had dropped in at Lola’s instead, in order to catch a little face time with Lani, who bartended there.

Released in 1974, Sweet Home Alabama has become synonymous with Southern rock. From its opening guitar riff, it is instantly recognizable, a raucous, irreverent defense of a Deep South state and its segregationist governor against the jabs of Neil Young. But the roots of Lynyrd Skynyrd's best-selling anthem go much deeper than regional pride or resentment of a fellow rocker.

Fifteen years after saving only one of two drowning identical twin girls, Dave Quinn meets Anne, a struggling Canadian artist and the woman he had rescued as a child, who is drawn back to the scene of the old tragedy by the specter of her dead sister, who is out to avenge her missed chances and live.

Allan Pinkerton sat in the reception area of the Executive Mansion, wondering if he had made a mistake by coming. Many men would have been intimidated by the prospect of meeting with the President of the United States of America, but that wasn’t what was bothering Pinkerton. In fact, he had sat in the same chair in that outer office many times before, waiting to see the current president’s predecessor.

Harrison Raines hunts for a savage double murderer on the killing fields of Shiloh. General Grant's army is camped along the Tennessee River, ready to deal a crushing blow to the South. If they are able to capture Corinth, the Confederacy's railways will disintegrate, bringing its army to its knees. But first, Grant must pass through the crucible of Shiloh - the most fearsome fight of the Civil War.

Harrison Raines struggles to keep the Civil War from overtaking the West. It's 1862, and the Civil War hangs in the balance. Although the Union has beaten back the Southern armies in the East, the Confederacy is intent on opening new fronts to the west - and perhaps securing British support to widen this ugly conflict into a world war.

It's been years since Harrison Raines set foot in Richmond. Although a proud Virginian, he fled the South before the Civil War, unable to bear the evil of slavery. In 1862, battles rage on all sides of the Confederate capital, but Raines is not here as a soldier - he comes as a spy. Union intelligence, led by the formidable Allen Pinkerton, has sent him to steal the plans for a rumored Confederate superweapon: a seagoing ship clad entirely in iron that could break the Union blockade and turn the war around.

Over the past 30 years, the rate of start-up formation in the United States has slowed down. To reclaim its status as a hub of innovation, the United States must tackle reforms in many areas, from immigration and business regulation to health care and education.

Indonesia’s new president talks to Foreign Affairs about his recent victory, his national agenda, and the threat of Islamic extremism.

Venture capitalist Michael Moritz talks to Foreign Affairs about predicting success, investing globally, and why Google’s original business model was a failure.

Harlowe Franklin blew out a tired, scotch-laced breath. It was May, yet he’d had Stevens light a fire before the personal concierge turned in around 10 p.m. He craved a sense of cozy, but would settle for any feeling other than the frustration that had taken up residence in his bones. The defense attorney sighed and sank deeper into the tufted leather chair, still missing the wallowed out one his wife donated to Goodwill months ago.

Having awakened from its communist slumber, Russia in the roaring '90s is a place where everything and everyone is for sale and fortunes can be made and lost overnight. Into this maelstrom steps rookie Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Brzezinski. Assigned to make sense of the financial markets, he is instantly plunged into the crazed world of Russian capitalism, where corrupt Moscow bankers and American carpetbaggers preside over the greatest boom and bust in international financial history. Brzezinski knows he's in over his head; what he comes to realize is that "so is the entire country".

Lawrence Freedman’s massive, ambitious new audiobook, Strategy, offers a personal take on an important term, one so overused that it has become almost meaningless.

Three big trends - a growing reliance on older voters, an extremist ideological turn, and an increasing internal rigidity - have changed the Republican Party over the past decade, weakening its ability to win presidential elections and inhibiting its ability to govern.

In today's dollar-dominated financial system, changes in U.S. monetary policy can have immediate and significant global effects, wrecking economies and toppling regimes. As a result, for many countries monetary sovereignty is nothing but a dream.

"What Really Happened in Iran", by Ray Takeyh: Conventional wisdom about the 1953 coup in Iran rests on the myth that the CIA toppled the country's democratically elected prime minister. In reality, the coup was primarily a domestic Iranian affair, and the CIA's impact was ultimately insignificant.

Despite all the grim predictions, the European Union is not on the verge of collapse. Quite the contrary: If European leaders act with resolve and persistence, the union could experience a rebirth.

During and after several long hospital stays for what should have been a simple knee replacement but turned into something much more exhausting, writer Robert Ungar reflects on his deep intrigue with the way hospitals are managed. In Hospital Impressions, Ungar delves into the roles of nurses and doctors, the day-to-day madness visited upon the patients, and his own personal history with the medical world.