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Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.
The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region.
In the 1920s the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow sows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
Thanks to Thomas Cahill, the pivotal era called the "dark ages" is brought back to vibrant life, its personages portrayed in all their seemingly contemporary humanity, its issues simply and compellingly spelled out. How the Irish Saved Civilization will change forever the way we look at our past, and ourselves.
Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son, Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.
The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region.
In the 1920s the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow sows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
Thanks to Thomas Cahill, the pivotal era called the "dark ages" is brought back to vibrant life, its personages portrayed in all their seemingly contemporary humanity, its issues simply and compellingly spelled out. How the Irish Saved Civilization will change forever the way we look at our past, and ourselves.
Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son, Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men for every hour, every day, and every night for more than a year. With only their bare hands and crude homemade tools, they sank shafts, built underground railroads, forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons, and tailored German clothes.
Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.
Edward Rutherfurd's stirring account of Irish history, the Dublin Saga, concludes in this magisterial work of historical fiction. Beginning where the first volume, The Princes of Ireland, left off, The Rebels of Ireland takes us into a world transformed by the English practice of "plantation", which represented the final step in the centuries-long British conquest of Ireland.
In 1935, the Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from the reluctant hobos (many of them displaced farmers who had fled the midwestern dust bowls), robbed dairies, and engaged in all manner of nefarious crimes, including murder. This history was suppressed until 1989, when former logger, Vietnam vet, and Spokane cop Tony Bamonte discovered a strange 1955 deathbed confession while researching a thesis on local law enforcement history.
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.
Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge), and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly and served societal order all his life). He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces he neither understands nor can defend.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.
A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors.
Putting history into a perspective, Irish History for Dummies is an engaging, entertaining and educational trip through time, packing in equal parts fun and facts, providing listeners with a riveting history of this ancient land. The history of Ireland has shaped the world far beyond its borders. And few stories have a greater need for a balanced and light-hearted telling than the complex and often controversial saga of Ireland and her people.
The Irish Revolution has long been mythologized in American culture but seldom understood. For too long the story of Irish independence and its aftermath has been told only within an Anglo-Irish context. Now, in the critically acclaimed Bitter Freedom, journalist Maurice Walsh, with "a novelist's eye for the illuminating detail of everyday lives in extremis" ( Prospect), places revolutionary Ireland in the panorama of the global disorder born of the terrible slaughter of World War I and provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human face of the conflict.
Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: He will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.
A fantastic book! Timothy Egan describes his journeys in the Pacific Northwest through visits to salmon fisheries, redwood forests and the manicured English gardens of Vancouver. Here is a blend of history, anthropology and politics.
From the National Book Award-winning and best-selling author Timothy Egan comes the epic story of one of the most fascinating and colorful Irishmen in 19th-century America.
The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York - the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America.
Meagher's rebirth in America included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade from New York in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War - Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg. Twice shot from his horse while leading charges, left for dead in the Virginia mud, Meagher's dream was that Irish-American troops, seasoned by war, would return to Ireland and liberate their homeland from British rule.
The hero's last chapter, as territorial governor of Montana, was a romantic quest for a true home in the far frontier. His death has long been a mystery to which Egan brings haunting, colorful new evidence.
I thought I knew my Irish history but when it came to Thomas Meagher, sadly I knew very little.
All I really knew about him was that after immigrating from Ireland he had served in the Civil War before serving as the governor of Montana territory.
Of course I knew he had died under mysterious circumstances but that was about it.
I had no idea that he had been sent to Tasmania for participating in the fight for Irish independence from the British Or exactly how big a part he played in the Civil War.
He led a relatively short but very fascinating life.
I would recommend this book not only to those with an interest in Irish history but also those interested in the Civil War era.
It is one of the best biographies that I've listened to in quite a while.
Of course as Gerard Doyle is one of my very favorite narrator, it made to book all that much better in my opinion.
44 of 46 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to The Immortal Irishman again? Why?
I don't think I could. It's a great book, but brutally honest about tyrants, war, and treachery. The reality of the period is gut wrenching, in spite of the great spirit and efforts of a hero..
What other book might you compare The Immortal Irishman to and why?
Any well researched book about the civil war.
Which scene was your favorite?
Thomas Meagher comes alive in the pages, with faults, glory and failures. The author shows all sides of the great man's complexity. The author's depiction of President Lincoln outlines his dilemmas and the strain of responsibility he faced in governing a country in the most bloody of human wars.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Nothing, His Irish brogue was understandable and clear. It added a reality to the story that would not have been as gripping without him.
Any additional comments?
It is not an easy book to listen to. This period of history was bloody, brutal, and depressing to witness through the author's words. The truth of it is painful and at times, I had to put the book down and force myself to go back to finish it. It's illuminating for our current political environment. I constantly thought of the parallels with our society and the difficulties we are facing in the world today. So many things have not changed.
67 of 71 people found this review helpful
Timothy Egan has done it again. He makes history touchable and personable. Never dry. I wish he had written the history books when I was in school. I would have been an honor student!!
10 of 10 people found this review helpful
I was a bit apprehensive of this book before I bought it; very few reviews... Ok 1
The Irish brogue of the narrator drew me in. It was well performed and yes, well written.
It really changed my historical perception of Irish immigrants and especially the Civil War.
This book isn't full of eye/ear 'catching pros' that often hold my interest. But, the historical content written in a smooth, intelligent and interesting format was awesome!
I recommend it to everyone. Especially if you enjoy an author like David McCollough and history told in a fascinating way.
20 of 21 people found this review helpful
It is a biography, a history of Ireland, the Civil War, and the Irish people. It is one of the best books I've listened to.
I would give it 6 stars if I could.
30 of 32 people found this review helpful
I thought it was authentic to have an Irish narrator; however, that partly became the reason I left points off. The narrator's cadence was so consistent that my mind often wandered or I fell asleep. There were also parts I didn't understand and sometimes wondered if it were also due to the author's style of writing. A more animated narration and cleaner writing would have made this 5 stars because the author clearly did his research. I felt uncomfortable not being able to grasp this story to its fullest but to do so you'd intermittently need superb listening skills.
18 of 19 people found this review helpful
For me, this was one of those "aha!" books which come along every now and then. We had just moved near the little town of Sharpsburg in Maryland - so, of course, one of the first local history places we visited was the Antietam Battlefield. Prominent at the head of the infamous "bloody alley" sunken road, there is a monument and plaque detailing the role of the Irish Brigade and General Thomas Meagher.
So when I saw this book about the man, and because I have appreciated Tim Egan and Gerard Doyle's work for a long time, I jumped at the chance to hear it.
It's a tale as rollicking and mysterious as anyone - not just the Irish - could want. This man's life was not only full and incredible, but his ever-optimistic, passionate soul reflects that of so many who have made America great.
We never seem to learn much from the horrors of war and human hatred and misunderstanding in the past. The story of Meagher (so good to know how that is actually pronounced!) resonates - a man who fought prejudice and injustice for the Irish cause, but also came to see how those same issues affected other Americans, like slaves and Native tribes.
We need more people in the world like Thomas Meagher - and Nelson Mandela and Malala. May good writers like Tim Egan continue to tell us their stories!
33 of 36 people found this review helpful
Would you listen to The Immortal Irishman again? Why?
Yes. This is an absolutely terrific book. I gave it as a gift to another Audible member because I knew he would like it.
Any additional comments?
The narration was simply outstanding. To pick an Irishman with skill and talent to narrate this book was absolutely the right move. The story included the perfect mix of specific life events of the protagonist and historical context. You will learn about this man's life as well as a great deal about the times in which he lived. I will be looking for more books by this author and this narrator to be sure. One of my all-time favorite audiobooks.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful
Loved this audiobook it will remain one of the best, it also put a lot of history into context for me, and may I add, the delivery was perfect.
15 of 16 people found this review helpful
Thomas Meagher could've taken the easier, softer route of life of a noble Irishman. However, the sacrifices and the burden he freely accepted epitomizes a truly heroic individual who sacrificed himself for a free Ireland Republic. An amazing man who was guided by principles rather than public sentiment. A great book!
4 of 4 people found this review helpful