Empire of Liberty

A History of the Early Republic

By: Gordon S. Wood

Narrated by: Robert Fass

Length: 30 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

In Empire of Liberty, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812.

As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life - in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state, like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty, part of The Oxford History of the United States series, offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation.

The Oxford History of the United States is considered the gold standard for serious historians and general readers (and listeners) alike. Three of the titles have won the Pulitzer Prize for history; two have been Pulitzer Prize finalists, and all of them have enjoyed critical and commercial success.

Please note: The individual volumes of the series have not been published in historical order. Empire of Liberty is number IV in The Oxford History of the United States.

Listen to more of the definitive Oxford History of the United States.

©2009 Gordon S. Wood (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Winner - Best History Audiobook, 2011

Excellent historical writing

I've always appreciated Gordon S. Wood's writing -- his "Creation of the American Republic" is one of my favorite books of all time. He manages to write in a popular, main-stream way without dumbing anything down. This is just very good narrative history, much like the other Oxford History of the US books. There is probably not much new being revealed here, but I find his synthesis of the facts about this era very enlightening. For example, I think I had a pretty good understanding already of the basic Federalist/Republican differences, but Wood has retold the story in such a clear and interesting way that the whole thing felt fresh. Also, his style is just great -- the words flow, the vignettes are well-chosen to illustrate his points, and the result is a beautifully told story of the early republic.
The narration is competent but not spectacular. I have downloaded and will listen to the other Oxford History of the US works at Audible (What Hath God Wrought by Howe, Battle Cry of Freedom by McPherson.) I hope Audible will consider getting the others in the series now that they have made such an excellent start.

In depth and enjoyable

This book deepened my owe and admiration of the American experiment in establishing a lasting great experiment in establishing and validating that a republic built on liberty for all is possible. Seldom in history that a nation is blessed with several outstanding almost super human quality, the founding fathers and first presidents and leaders enabling this experiments to be a reality. God bless America and save the west

A thorough, rigorous study.

Most memorable part: The description of the elites' attitudes about people moving west. The now necessary fear of unsupervised, pioneering Americans becoming savages, moving away from the civilized east, ruining the desired European-style homogeneous social structure and consolidation of education, skills, culture, revenue, etc., is described so as to make the reader completely sympathize with these attitudes. The fear becomes understandable via the portrait of the difficulty of holding things together already. A brilliant study in how ideas of the past weren't necessarily crazy, foolish, bigoted, or simple-minded.

jumbled

Wood has lots of great insights and certainly covers a lot of territory - but he covers it in a rather scattershot manner, which hampered this reader's ability to get a clear picture of the whole. A chapter on this political situation, then another on the cultural milieu, then another on the military. In theory, that approach could work quite well - but I found the whole to be less than the sum of its parts (and some of those parts are really amazing, to be sure).

The narration, however, is pretty top-notch.

Outstanding!

A expertly written history of an often overlooked period.

The is the story of how America came of age and learned to navigate the troubled waters of Republicanism.

So relevant to modern times.

Read this instead of studying your textbooks in your American history class.

We get this series of platitudes handed down to us about the origins of our national identity: Puritan ethic, the Founders believed (X), a nation founded under God, Etc. there is some truth too much of it, but we have the ability to understand it's far more complex richness that can actually inform our lives today, and this book goes a long way towards introducing you to that richness.

The truth is that America has always been of multiple minds about most key issues, and understanding the push-and-pull between philosophies and segments of society in The Early Republic can inform your understanding of subsequent American history and even modern-day political debate.

This book does a marvelous job of putting you into the times so you can understand how politics functioned and Society developed as if you were living through it.

An excellent example is from the last chapter in the book. As the Revolutionary generation began to fade from power, there was a push toward democratization of information and empiricism so that everyone would have available all the information and would draw their own conclusions about everything from politics to Social Development to Medicine to science. This frightened many who felt that the middling people were incapable of coming to proper conclusions and making good decisions. to a certain extent those fears were correct. Everyman self-reliance on evaluating information and coming to independent conclusions facilitated charlatans and con artist who produced seemingly authoritative forgeries (think fake news in the modern era) to cheat and manipulate the public, who had not yet figured out how to discern reliable information from crap.

It seems we survived the step function in democratization of information then, and maybe we will survive it now.

Engaging

Good stuff, shows how the study of history and their perspectives are progressing. They are not there yet, however, the professor (and humanity, past and present) having no notion of Continued Universal Human Cluelessness, which answers the myriad of various unanswered questions the professor raises, and which those in the past had raised (the answer being obvious in this new light - read the Philosophy of Broader Survival to understand it).

Early Republic History with Lessons for Today

Masterful, condensed a short yet dramaticly volitlie time which formed our nation. It also begs to be mentioned, but much of the mud-slinging politics of the present day have their foundation in the struggles of the early Republic. It is also facinating to listen as Jefferson had to transition from being the philosophical father of the republic to it's ruller, he found himself breaking many of the republican values he expoused.

Outstanding context on US history

Bottom line, this book provides an exceptional insight into the culture and politics of a burgeoning nation, and it goes a long way to explaining the foundations of much of what we see around us today. It is well written, impeccably organized, and if you don't learn a thing or two about the country after finishing, you might just be the author.

My main contention with the book is that is not a linear narrative, it is organized into a series of topics meant to lay out a comprehensive cultural mosaic, and skips around a lot in painting its picture. To this end it is quite effective, but at the expense of consistent and compelling story. That is, there is nothing passive about this listen, you have to pay constant and close attention to fully appreciate it, less so than you would if it were told as a chronological account with emphasis on the significance of individual events.

That said, it is hard to understate the comprehensive nature of the cultural understanding conveyed in this book. Upon finishing, you will intimately know the people of the late 18th / early 19th century, at all social strata. It is truly a magnificent work.

Terrific History!

This book will undoubtedly give you a new perspective on how America became America. Beautiful history addressing so many aspects of who we are, and how we got to be this way. This is a tremendously readable and interesting history, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to engage in political, social or economic policy debates in America as we know her today.