Try free for 30 days

  • Someone Is Out to Get Us

  • A Not So Brief History of Cold War Paranoia and Madness
  • By: Brian Brown
  • Narrated by: Dan Woren
  • Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
Someone Is Out to Get Us cover art

Someone Is Out to Get Us

By: Brian Brown
Narrated by: Dan Woren
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Publisher's Summary

From UFOs to Dr. Strangelove, LSD experiments to Richard Nixon, author Brian Brown investigates the paranoid, panicked history of the Cold War.

In Someone Is Out to Get Us, Brian T. Brown explores the delusions, absurdities, and best-kept secrets of the Cold War, during which the United States fought an enemy of its own making for over 40 years - and nearly scared itself to death in the process. The nation chose to fear a chimera, a rotting communist empire that couldn't even feed itself, only for it to be revealed that what lay behind the Iron Curtain was only a sad Potemkin village.

In fact, one of the greatest threats to our national security may have been our closest ally. The most effective spy cell the Soviets ever had was made up of aristocratic Englishmen schooled at Cambridge. Establishing a communist peril but lacking proof, J. Edgar Hoover became our Big Brother, and Joseph McCarthy went hunting for witches. Richard Nixon stepped into the spotlight as an opportunistic, ruthless Cold Warrior; his criminal cover-up during a dark presidency was exposed by a Deep Throat in a parking garage.

Someone Is Out to Get Us is the true and complete account of a long-misunderstood period of history during which lies, conspiracies, and paranoia led Americans into a state of madness and misunderstanding, too distracted by fictions to realize that the real enemy was looking back at them in the mirror the whole time.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Brian Brown (P)2019 Twelve
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic Reviews

"Readers who love Cold War-era U.S. history will glom onto Brown's book, even if they come away agreeing with the old Pogo comic strip: 'We have met the enemy, and he is us.'" (Booklist)

"An alternative title for this irreverent romp of a read might be Everything You Wanted to Know About the Cold War (But Were Afraid to Ask), as Brian Brown takes us on a wild ride through a time in American life when public enemy number one was an ethereal political concept that drove everything from policy to popular culture. In an era in which Americans should be (and are) afraid of some very real things, whether the integrity of our elections, global climate change, or the twisted powers of social media, this book enters the dialogue by chronicling the mayhem and misery of a time when fear overwhelmed our ability to see anything for what it really was. Brown reminds us that throughout those four decades, America's greatest enemy was the one it created in its own paranoid collective mind, a lesson that should not be lost on us today." (Amy Bass, author of One Goal)

"Brown provides us with a witty and fast-paced look at the Cold War, Soviet espionage and covert mischief, and how these impacted and helped shape the course of American pop culture for more than three decades." (Bill Yenne, historian and author of Secret Weapons of the Cold War, B-52 Stratofortress, and Area 51 Black Jets)

What listeners say about Someone Is Out to Get Us

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant and a Must Read!

On top of the best books for 2019! It left me rethinking some US history and with questions but that I would be afraid of the people with the answers! Factual, authoritative and simply a must read for everyone looking from outside America in,

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.