
The Small and the Mighty
Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement
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Narrated by:
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Sharon McMahon
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By:
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Sharon McMahon
About this listen
A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From America’s favorite government teacher, a “fascinating and fun” (Adam Grant) portrait of twelve ordinary Americans whose courage formed the character of our country.
In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time.
You’ll meet a woman astride a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Ave, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train, and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies. More than one thing is bombed, and multiple people surprisingly become rich. Some rich with money, and some wealthy with things that matter more.
This is a book about what really made America – and Americans – great. McMahon’s cast of improbable champions will become familiar friends, lighting the path we journey in our quest to make the world more just, peaceful, good, and free.
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Critic reviews
“With shimmering research, an observant eye, and a bright moral compass, Sharon McMahon leads us through the thickets of the past until we can see where we came from and where we are going.”―David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon
“Sharon McMahon is a national treasure and a one-woman cavalry for truth, saving our republic one loving and clear-eyed lesson at a time. She and this book are a gift to our country.”—Isabel Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Caste and The Warmth of Other Suns
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Story
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
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Vividly Told History of the Start of the Civil War
- By WLC on 05-01-24
By: Erik Larson
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When the World Tips Over
- By: Jandy Nelson
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Alex McKenna, Briggon Snow, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fall siblings live in hot Northern California wine country, where the sun pours out of the sky, and the devil winds blow so hard they whip the sense right out of your head. Years ago, the Fall kids’ father mysteriously disappeared, cracking the family into pieces.
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Just a great book!!
- By denise chaney on 11-12-24
By: Jandy Nelson
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Never Not Working
- Why the Always-On Culture Is Bad for Business—and How to Fix It
- By: Malissa Clark
- Narrated by: Lauren Pedersen
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Many workers believe that to compete with other top talent they must embrace a culture that rewards long hours and constant connection to work. Businesses and society have encouraged this by endorsing busyness, overwork, and extreme commitment as the most valued traits in workers. But more often it's an implicit contract, a buildup of organizational and cultural norms and the adoption of new technologies that increasingly make it easy to tether people to work. Either way, this workaholic behavior is unhealthy and counterproductive for workers and for organizations. It's time to fight back.
By: Malissa Clark
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Pathogenesis
- A History of the World in Eight Plagues
- By: Jonathan Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Kennedy
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
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Devolves into political advocacy
- By Mark Fackler on 04-29-23
By: Jonathan Kennedy
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Challenger
- A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
- By: Adam Higginbotham
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that flows like a thriller.
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Best book about Challenger so far
- By Bruce Baumbush on 06-05-24
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On Tyranny
- Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Timothy Snyder
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
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History does not repeat, but it does instruct.
- By Darwin8u on 11-19-18
By: Timothy Snyder
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Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
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The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
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Undue Burden
- Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America
- By: Shefali Luthra
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar Young, Shefali Luthra
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2024, abortion was virtually unavailable or significantly restricted in 21 states. In Undue Burden, reporter Shefali Luthra traces the unforgettable stories of patients faced with one of the most personal decisions of their lives.
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Women's reproductive rights stripped
- By Constance L. Brown on 06-11-24
By: Shefali Luthra
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Be Ready When the Luck Happens
- A Memoir
- By: Ina Garten
- Narrated by: Ina Garten
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with those hungry for a seat at her table. Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail.
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I love that Ina narrated it.
- By Tricia on 10-06-24
By: Ina Garten
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Revenge of the Tipping Point
- Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
- By: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is Miami… Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena. Through a series of gripping stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering
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Lame
- By Kindle Customer on 10-09-24
By: Malcolm Gladwell
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Democracy in Retrograde
- How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives
- By: Sami Sage, Emily Amick
- Narrated by: Nikki Massoud
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In today’s political climate, it’s hard not to get discouraged. Isolated, doom scrolling, lacking a sense of purpose or community...it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the dire state of American democracy and do nothing, because why try when the odds are never in our favor?
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Better for reading vs listening
- By Shara D. Webb on 08-14-24
By: Sami Sage, and others
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The Warmth of Other Suns
- The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
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Superior non-fiction
- By Lila on 05-20-11
By: Isabel Wilkerson
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Enough
- By: Cassidy Hutchinson
- Narrated by: Cassidy Hutchinson
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House.
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Painful
- By Melissa C. on 09-28-23
I was so eager to listen to this book. And the stories are worth hearing. But as the author and narrator of this Audible, I struggled to listen. She tries to make an impact with her voice and it was ultimately too distracting for me to continue. This is not a criticism of her work as her book is thoroughly researched and put together in a way the reader or listener can follow along. This is a critique of the way it was read which (for me) had me turning the Audible off. I look forward to reading the physical book.
Conflicted
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Good stories, but hard to follow
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Masterpiece
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Absolutely Beautiful!
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Informative, Moving and Riveting
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This is the book we all need, written by the only person who could have given it to us. Sharon McMahon is a national treasure and should be protected at all costs. She has single-handedly taken me from feeling shame over America and our current political landscape, to instead feeling an overwhelming sense of pride in my country and her people.
As she says, “And it is us, the small and the mighty, who make America great. Not again, but always.”
A National Treasure
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Courage and compassion of the 12 people.
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The book doesn't just teach us history in an engaging way. The book is a call to action. "America at her best is just. She is peaceful. She is good. And she she is free. And it is us [yes, I know, Mrs Hawkes, my 8th grade grammar teacher... it probably should say 'it is we'], the small and the mighty, who make America great." "None of us can do it all. But all of us can do something. And it might as well be the next needed thing." "The character you've been cultivating will be called upon, and when that moment comes, whenever it is, I hope you'll rise to it." "Hope is a choice that we make each morning, and we do not have the luxury of hopelessness if we want to see progress."
Sharon narrates the audiobook and it sounds like she is just talking to you and telling you a story on IG or her podcast ("Here's Where It Gets Interesting"). I have to look at the print version to see if she is inserting into the audio version some of the funny things that she says. Also, there are plenty of inside jokes for long-time governerds (the "ho" is silent, for example.).
I am planning to read it again.
A call to action and a call to hope
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Remember that your little part matters
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Wonderful!!!!
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