-
How the South Won the Civil War
- Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: History, Military
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $25.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
To Make Men Free
- A History of the Republican Party
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Republican Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession. While progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln’s vision and expanded the government, their opponents appealed to Americans’ latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. In the modern era, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles.
-
-
A 10 Star Listen or Read.
- By Nanalou West Sauder on 12-16-21
-
Wounded Knee
- Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On December 29, 1890, American troops opened fire with howitzers on hundreds of unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women, and children near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing nearly 300 Sioux. As acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson shows in Wounded Knee, the massacre grew out of a set of political forces all too familiar to us today: fierce partisanship, heated political rhetoric, and an irresponsible, profit-driven media.
-
-
Is that your land? If not, i'm taking it.
- By Jay on 07-28-12
-
White Trash
- The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
- By: Nancy Isenberg
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.
-
-
Snarky and condescending
- By G.W. on 12-12-17
By: Nancy Isenberg
-
The Wars of Reconstruction
- The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.
-
-
Atrocities
- By Tad Davis on 07-05-18
-
Allow Me to Retort
- A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution
- By: Elie Mystal
- Narrated by: Elie Mystal
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past.
-
-
Informative and Entertaining
- By Kindle Customer on 03-06-22
By: Elie Mystal
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
To Make Men Free
- A History of the Republican Party
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Republican Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession. While progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln’s vision and expanded the government, their opponents appealed to Americans’ latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. In the modern era, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles.
-
-
A 10 Star Listen or Read.
- By Nanalou West Sauder on 12-16-21
-
Wounded Knee
- Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On December 29, 1890, American troops opened fire with howitzers on hundreds of unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women, and children near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, killing nearly 300 Sioux. As acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson shows in Wounded Knee, the massacre grew out of a set of political forces all too familiar to us today: fierce partisanship, heated political rhetoric, and an irresponsible, profit-driven media.
-
-
Is that your land? If not, i'm taking it.
- By Jay on 07-28-12
-
White Trash
- The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America
- By: Nancy Isenberg
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.
-
-
Snarky and condescending
- By G.W. on 12-12-17
By: Nancy Isenberg
-
The Wars of Reconstruction
- The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.
-
-
Atrocities
- By Tad Davis on 07-05-18
-
Allow Me to Retort
- A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution
- By: Elie Mystal
- Narrated by: Elie Mystal
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is an easily digestible argument about what rights we have, what rights Republicans are trying to take away, and how to stop them. Mystal explains how to protect the rights of women and people of color instead of cowering to the absolutism of gun owners and bigots. He explains the legal way to stop everything from police brutality to political gerrymandering, just by changing a few judges and justices. He strips out all of the fancy jargon conservatives like to hide behind and lays bare the truth of their project to keep America forever tethered to its slaveholding past.
-
-
Informative and Entertaining
- By Kindle Customer on 03-06-22
By: Elie Mystal
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
-
-
Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
-
American Republics
- A Continental History of the United States 1783-1850
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.
-
-
Helps the dots of history to today.
- By Tascha F. on 06-26-21
By: Alan Taylor
-
The 1619 Project
- A New Origin Story
- By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones, Full Cast
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
-
-
History demands the official story be corrected
- By David C. on 12-05-21
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others
-
The Sum of Us
- What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
- By: Heather McGhee
- Narrated by: Heather McGhee
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy - and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for White people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all.
-
-
Good book but Recording tech is poor. Glitches
- By Jeannepup on 02-25-21
By: Heather McGhee
-
The Color of Law
- A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
- By: Richard Rothstein
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation - that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, he incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation - the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
-
-
Better suited to print than audio
- By ProfGolf on 02-04-18
-
The Field of Blood
- Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
- By: Joanne B. Freeman
- Narrated by: Joanne B. Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Field of Blood, Joanne B. Freeman recovers the long-lost story of physical violence on the floor of the US Congress. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, she shows that the Capitol was rife with conflict in the decades before the Civil War. Legislative sessions were often punctuated by mortal threats, canings, flipped desks, and all-out slugfests. When debate broke down, congressmen drew pistols and waved Bowie knives. One representative even killed another in a duel. Many were beaten and bullied in an attempt to intimidate them into compliance, particularly on the issue of slavery.
-
-
fascinating look at an untold aspect of US.history
- By P. Cardella on 09-27-18
-
The Road to Unfreedom
- Russia, Europe, America
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Timothy Snyder
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy was thought to be absolute. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. But we now know this to be premature. Authoritarianism first returned in Russia, as Putin developed a political system dedicated solely to the consolidation and exercise of power. In the last six years, it has creeped from east to west as nationalism inflames Europe, abetted by Russian propaganda and cyberwarfare.
-
-
The Most Important Book I've Read in Years
- By chiz f on 06-30-18
By: Timothy Snyder
-
The Myth of the Lost Cause
- Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won
- By: Edward H. Bonekemper III
- Narrated by: C.J. McAllister
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The former Confederate states have continually mythologized the South's defeat to the North, depicting the Civil War as unnecessary, or as a fight over states' Constitutional rights, or as a David v. Goliath struggle in which the North waged "total war" over an underdog South. In The Myth of the Lost Cause, historian Edward Bonekemper deconstructs this multi-faceted myth, revealing the truth about the war that nearly tore the nation apart 150 years ago.
-
-
The Civil War was about Slavery. Period.
- By Reg on 02-07-17
-
White Flight
- Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
- By: Kevin M. Kruse
- Narrated by: Aaron Williamson
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms.
-
-
Local history is important
- By Adam Shields on 10-02-19
By: Kevin M. Kruse
-
One Nation Under God
- How Corporate America Invented Christian America
- By: Kevin M. Kruse
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conventional wisdom holds that America has been a Christian nation since the Founding Fathers. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse argues that the idea of "Christian America" is nothing more than a myth - and a relatively recent one at that.
-
-
Excellent
- By 1844 Prophecy on 05-06-15
By: Kevin M. Kruse
-
Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
-
-
Reductive and simplistic
- By Erik C on 08-16-20
By: Anne Applebaum
-
Fault Lines
- A History of the United States Since 1974
- By: Kevin M. Kruse, Julian E. Zelizer
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: You might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right. How did the US become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.
-
-
Good overview of the past 45 years
- By Adam Shields on 02-26-19
By: Kevin M. Kruse, and others
Publisher's Summary
While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The South and West equally depended on extractive industries - cotton in the former and mining, cattle, and oil in the latter - giving rise a new birth of white male oligarchy, despite the guarantees provided by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the economic opportunities afforded by expansion.
To reveal why this happened, How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the American paradox, the competing claims of equality and subordination woven into the nation's fabric and identity. At the nation's founding, it was the Eastern "yeoman farmer" who galvanized and symbolized the American Revolution. After the Civil War, that mantle was assumed by the Western cowboy, singlehandedly defending his land against barbarians and savages as well as from a rapacious government. New states entered the Union in the late nineteenth century and western and southern leaders found yet more common ground. As resources and people streamed into the West during the New Deal and World War II, the region's influence grew. "Movement Conservatives," led by westerners Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, claimed to embody cowboy individualism and worked with Dixiecrats to embrace the ideology of the Confederacy.
Richardson's searing book seizes upon the soul of the country and its ongoing struggle to provide equal opportunity to all. Debunking the myth that the Civil War released the nation from the grip of oligarchy, expunging the sins of the Founding, it reveals how and why the Old South not only survived in the West, but thrived.
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about How the South Won the Civil War
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ekim N.
- 06-05-20
A Concealed Story that Could Not be More Relevant
this is the story of how the current Republican party is the Confederates of the 19th century, and how they got there. The author does a brilliant job with storytelling and connecting the dots that people see throughout American history but can't quite wrap together... to make a linear path from the racist, slave-holding south to the terrible situation that the anti-democracy Republican party now tries to well its way in government and society. very easy listen and I hope this becomes a bestseller so everybody else can understand how we got where we are today.
24 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 08-07-21
Disappointing book that wasted such potential.
I was excited to listen to this book but it was ultimately a large disappointment. After listening to much of the book I looked up the author. I realized that she is really just a political activist who has no problem throwing away any credibility she has to make a misleading political argument. After finishing the rest of it: The main thesis of the book is that current day Republicans are the direct descendants of southern antebellum Democrats. The problem with the book is that she takes large logical leaps without explanation or just skips inconvenient parts altogether. Wonder how those racist Democrats turned into Republicans? No good explanation is provided other than the Republicans are racist too so they must be the same. Think the disagreements that led to the Civil War were more complicated than just racist white Democrat slave owners becoming traitors to their country? Sorry, you wont find any competing views here because that would be inconvenient for the narrative she is creating to justify her modern political views. Overall, if you are a modern progressive looking to find a poorly reasoned argument to validate your worldview - have fun. If you are anyone else looking for an interesting historical argument for the current state of American politics then you will want to save your money and time by looking elsewhere.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Summers
- 05-03-20
An Important Thread of Our History
As a native Alabamian, I have watched in sadness and in anger at what I have been calling the Alabamafication of America, a process by which our worst regional impulses are becoming nationalized. This work provided me with essential ties to the West that I had not connected passed Texas, knowing that so many slaveowners seeking to escape mortgage foreclosures on their slave "properties" simply moved them to the Texas Territory beyond the legal reach of their creditors. I underestimated the reach of Confederate influence in the formation of the West.
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cullen Cantwell
- 05-16-20
Stunning!
Exceptional book that spans American History to deliver a damning revelation. Cox Richardson navigates through the American History to constantly deliver on her premise: the United States is an oligarchy which disguises itself in the name of democracy and capitalism. Time and time again, the author delivers points on policy, culture, and other factors which prove that the commoners of the United States has never truly moved out of the shadow of the oligarchical antebellum South. The United States top have and are consistently consolidating power to progress their own self-interest.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jim
- 04-29-20
Repeating History
Such a well written book and with Heather narrating, a very enjoyable listen. This book shows how the failure to learn from history leads to a continued repetition of Americans being divided by the wealthy elite and in turn, that division is used to continue a transfer of wealth and power to the oligarchs. I highly recommend!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Natasha Saber
- 01-24-21
Was hopeful of a truthful read
Couldn’t make it past the introduction. False information and slander gave me no hope for the accuracy of the remainder of this book.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Iver
- 06-22-20
Clear, Compelling and Fascinating
This is the best explanation I have encountered of how the US has arrived at this political and cultural moment. The story is vivid, fast-moving and well-substantiated. The author, a historian and educator, also does a great job of reading her work, adding just the right amount of subtle emphasis at the right times.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mitzy
- 06-11-20
spoilers? I'm practicing verbalizing the lesson
At the end I reflected on what had stayed constant in the ideology of the South as it migrated parties, etc. The author said the American Paradox, I need your freedom to be curtailed for my liberty, and valuing property rights above all other Human Rights, Blacks have less support (all of that typically guised in "rugged individualism")
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jared Covarrubias
- 06-27-20
Now I understand how we got here today
I understand how we got here today. I have always been a US history buff and have always had a deep understanding of the real American history with many of the untold stories you don’t hear in high school. This book takes it two steps further helping to illustrate how politics and the political party became what it is today.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- mark moorhead
- 06-15-20
Well, that’s pretty depressing...
Prof. Richardson’s text functons as a call to arms for those adherents to demcratic principles. Principles which stretch back to Enlightenment era thinking and champion humankind’s impulse toward the greater good for the many, recognizing the perfidy of those few whose monetary advantage provides leverage to the few who would
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Sera
- 05-19-20
Fascinating, enjoyable, insightful
Fascinating insight into why the US is the way it is today, with ideologies of past times still very much present in today’s society and the cyclical dominance of oligarchy, with its rise and fall, repeated, being a core aspect of US history. For someone not too knowledgeable of US history I was not overwhelmed by information nor was I in want of more to put be able to put the discussion into context.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- lisa cain
- 04-28-21
Enlightening
As someone trying to come to terms with my Southern heritage, this excellent book has helped debunk many of the myths I was told. Clear sighted, educated and broad, it puts our epic journey into perspective.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Dawson Ruhl
- 05-31-21
Excellent, highly recommended
The American paradox Richardson describes so well is hard to comprehend; a white male elite convinced citizens that extending the franchise would make them and every other white God fearing American poorer. But just look at the demagogue who lost an election and was still nonetheless able to convince a plurality of citizens they were robbed. The book took me back to my childhood where I swam in a beautiful pool in lovely surroundings in Rock Island Illinois during the 50’s and 60’s. Much to my shame I couldn’t remember a single black person. It made me feel sad because black families lived just two blocks away from us. Where did those black children swim? Books like this remind us just what our future will be if we allow ourselves to be deceived by the big lie that if my neighbour succeeds I will inevitably fall behind. See Richardson’s Ted Talk, it’s a great synopsis. Highly recommend the book.
Dawson Ruhl
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Luisa
- 02-17-21
Packed full of historical events
This book is an amazing collection of events and little known connections between events that follow the thread of oligarchs and their influence on politics and society.
So many bits of data it is easy to get lost and in the multiple timelines and threads.
Could have done with a bit more analysis and commentary to make more sense of all the detail, but perhaps the author just wanted to avoid opinion.