-
Liberty's Chain
- Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 20 hrs and 55 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Prime members: New to Audible?Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Liberty's Chain
Buy for $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,242
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,043
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
New York Burning
- Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Beth McDonald
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Over a few weeks in 1741, 10 fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. Tried and convicted before the colony's Supreme Court, 13 black men were burned at the stake and 17 were hanged. Four whites, the alleged ringleaders of the plot, were also hanged, and seven more were pardoned on condition that they never set foot in New York again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting
- By Phillip Goodson on 05-15-09
By: Jill Lepore
-
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 456
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 399
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 398
Thomas Jefferson once asserted that "for depth of purpose, zeal, and sagacity, no man in Congress exceeded, if any equaled, Sam Adams." John Adams called him "the most elegant writer, the most sagacious politician, and celebrated patriot perhaps of all." But in spite of his celebrated status among America's founding fathers as a revolutionary leader, Samuel Adams' life and achievements have been largely overshadowed in the history books. Now, in The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff brings her masterful skill as historian and storyteller to the life of Samuel Adams.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The revolutionary
- By Charles on 11-02-22
By: Stacy Schiff
-
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley
- A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence
- By: David Waldstreicher
- Narrated by: Kim Staunton
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose poetry was at the heart of the American Revolution.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Good, in depth research on the life and times of PW
- By Beatriz on 05-08-24
-
Debunking the 1619 Project
- Exposing the Plan to Divide America
- By: Mary Grabar
- Narrated by: Liisa Ivary
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 131
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 121
According the New York Times’ “1619 Project”, America was not founded in 1776, with a declaration of freedom and independence, but in 1619 with the introduction of African slavery into the New World. Ever since then, the “1619 Project” argues, American history has been one long sordid tale of systemic racism.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
the ultimate downplay
- By Stephen Alston on 01-09-22
By: Mary Grabar
-
The Grimkes
- The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
- By: Kerri K. Greenidge
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, have been highly revered figures in American history, lauded for leaving behind their lives as elite slave-owning women on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand abolitionists in the North. Yet the focus on their story has obscured the experiences of their Black relatives, the progeny of their brother, Henry, and one of the enslaved people he owned, a woman named Nancy Weston.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Before you read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd read The Grimkes first.
- By Sherri Harris on 01-03-23
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,242
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,043
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
New York Burning
- Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Beth McDonald
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 80
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Over a few weeks in 1741, 10 fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. Tried and convicted before the colony's Supreme Court, 13 black men were burned at the stake and 17 were hanged. Four whites, the alleged ringleaders of the plot, were also hanged, and seven more were pardoned on condition that they never set foot in New York again.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting
- By Phillip Goodson on 05-15-09
By: Jill Lepore
-
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 456
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 399
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 398
Thomas Jefferson once asserted that "for depth of purpose, zeal, and sagacity, no man in Congress exceeded, if any equaled, Sam Adams." John Adams called him "the most elegant writer, the most sagacious politician, and celebrated patriot perhaps of all." But in spite of his celebrated status among America's founding fathers as a revolutionary leader, Samuel Adams' life and achievements have been largely overshadowed in the history books. Now, in The Revolutionary Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff brings her masterful skill as historian and storyteller to the life of Samuel Adams.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The revolutionary
- By Charles on 11-02-22
By: Stacy Schiff
-
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley
- A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence
- By: David Waldstreicher
- Narrated by: Kim Staunton
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 4
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose poetry was at the heart of the American Revolution.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Good, in depth research on the life and times of PW
- By Beatriz on 05-08-24
-
Debunking the 1619 Project
- Exposing the Plan to Divide America
- By: Mary Grabar
- Narrated by: Liisa Ivary
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 131
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 122
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 121
According the New York Times’ “1619 Project”, America was not founded in 1776, with a declaration of freedom and independence, but in 1619 with the introduction of African slavery into the New World. Ever since then, the “1619 Project” argues, American history has been one long sordid tale of systemic racism.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
the ultimate downplay
- By Stephen Alston on 01-09-22
By: Mary Grabar
-
The Grimkes
- The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family
- By: Kerri K. Greenidge
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 25
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 21
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 21
The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, have been highly revered figures in American history, lauded for leaving behind their lives as elite slave-owning women on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand abolitionists in the North. Yet the focus on their story has obscured the experiences of their Black relatives, the progeny of their brother, Henry, and one of the enslaved people he owned, a woman named Nancy Weston.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Before you read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd read The Grimkes first.
- By Sherri Harris on 01-03-23
-
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
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2,804
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,488
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2,479
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.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
-
African Founders
- How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals
- By: David Hackett Fischer
- Narrated by: Lamarr Gulley
- Length: 35 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, producing a new distinctly American culture.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
faux vocalizations
- By Porter on 08-19-22
-
Misinformation Nation
- Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America
- By: Jordan E. Taylor
- Narrated by: Christopher P. Brown
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
The American Revolution was not only a political contest for liberty, equality, and independence (for white men, at least); it was also a contest to define certain accounts of reality to be truthful while defining others as false and dangerous. Misinformation Nation argues that we must also conceive of the American Revolution as a series of misperceptions, misunderstandings, and uninformed overreactions.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
History repeats itself
- By D. Littman on 02-18-23
By: Jordan E. Taylor
-
The Palace Papers
- Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil
- By: Tina Brown
- Narrated by: Tina Brown
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,376
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,066
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,042
Tina Brown has been observing and chronicling the British monarchy for three decades, and her sweeping account is full of powerful revelations, newly reported details, and searing insight gleaned from remarkable access to royal insiders. Stylish, witty, and erudite, The Palace Papers will irrevocably change how the world perceives and understands the royal family.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Tina Brown reads her book
- By Karen on 04-26-22
By: Tina Brown
-
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
- Britain and the American Dream
- By: Peter Moore
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 9
Peter Moore's Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness tells the true story of what may be the most successful import in US history: the "American dream." Centered on the friendship between Benjamin Franklin and the British publisher William Strahan, and featuring figures including the cultural giant Samuel Johnson, the ground-breaking historian Catharine Macaulay, the firebrand politician John Wilkes, and revolutionary activist Thomas Paine, this book looks at the generation that preceded the Declaration in 1776.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Review
- By W Zuelzer on 07-22-23
By: Peter Moore
-
American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 347
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 295
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 295
From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
-
First Family
- By: Cassandra A. Good
- Narrated by: Courtney Patterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5
While it’s widely known in the US that the first president did not have any biological children, few are aware that he had several stepgrandchildren. In First Family, we see Washington as a father figure, as well as meet the children he helped raise and trace their complicated roles in American history. First Family brings new focus and attention to this surprisingly neglected aspect of George Washington’s life and legacy.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Like reading a documentary
- By deborah moser on 11-09-23
-
North of America
- Loyalists, Indigenous Nations, and the Borders of the Long American Revolution
- By: Jeffers Lennox
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1
At the start of the Revolutionary War, there were more than thirteen British colonies in North America. Patriots were surrounded by Indigenous homelands and loyal provinces. Independence had its limits. In this book, historian Jeffers Lennox looks north, as so many Americans at that time did, and describes how Loyalists and Indigenous leaders frustrated Patriot ambitions, defended their territory, and acted as midwives to the birth of the United States while restricting and redirecting its continental aspirations.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Exciting! Expanded my understanding and knowledge
- By mamacita on 11-28-23
By: Jeffers Lennox
-
American Inheritance
- Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? We have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now have that history in Edward J. Larson's insightful synthesis of the founding.
By: Edward J. Larson
-
The Last Slave Ships
- New York and the End of the Middle Passage
- By: John Harris
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 20
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 14
A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Must-read on the end of the international slavery
- By Darya Silman on 07-29-22
By: John Harris
-
The Island at the Center of the World
- The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 522
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 454
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 451
In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Incomplete history, but fun. Performance is poor.
- By Matthew on 11-27-18
By: Russell Shorto
-
Poverty, by America
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 693
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 609
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 608
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A testimonial based on facts and witness
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-27-23
By: Matthew Desmond
Publisher's summary
Liberty's Chain forges a new path for thinking about slavery and the nation's founding. John Jay served as the inaugural president of a pioneering antislavery society. His descendants, especially his son William and his grandson John Jay II, embraced radical abolitionism in the nineteenth century, the cause most likely to rend the nation. The scorn of their elite peers—and racist mobs—did not deter their commitment to end southern slavery and to combat northern injustice.
John Jay's personal dealings with African Americans ranged from callousness to caring. Across the generations, even as prominent Jays decried human servitude, enslaved people and formerly enslaved people served in Jay households. Abbe, Clarinda, Caesar Valentine, Zilpah Montgomery, and others lived difficult, often isolated, lives that tested their courage and the Jay family's principles.
The personal and the political intersect in this saga, as Gellman charts American values transmitted and transformed from the colonial and revolutionary eras to the Civil War, Reconstruction, and beyond. The Jays, as well as those who served them, demonstrated the elusiveness and the vitality of liberty's legacy. This remarkable family story forces us to grapple with what we mean by patriotism, conservatism, and radicalism. Their story speaks directly to our own divided times.
Related to this topic
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 519
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 427
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 428
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
The Slave's Cause
- A History of Abolition
- By: Manisha Sinha
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 30 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved, found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Thorough, convincing and haunting
- By Roger on 07-23-17
By: Manisha Sinha
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,242
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,043
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers
- By: Brion McClanahan Ph. D.
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 378
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 297
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 296
Here to rescue the reputations of our Founding Fathers from the plague of modern political correctness is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers. Author and Professor Brion McClanahan shows how patriots like Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton laid the foundations of American civil liberty and had a better understanding of the problems facing us today than our current Congress.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Highly Recommended
- By Colleen H. on 08-13-09
-
Thomas Jefferson
- By: R. B. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone, describing himself simply as "Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia". It is in this simple epitaph that R. B. Bernstein finds the key to this enigmatic Founder - not as a great political figure, but as leader of "a revolution of ideas that would make the world over again". In Thomas Jefferson, Bernstein offers the definitive short biography of this revered American - the first concise life in six decades. Bernstein deftly synthesizes the massive scholarship on his subject into a swift, insightful, evenhanded account.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
In-Depth and Interesting
- By Sarahi Nieves on 04-24-19
By: R. B. Bernstein
-
Patrick Henry
- Champion of Liberty
- By: Jon Kukla
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Born in 1736, Patrick Henry was an attorney and a planter and an outstanding orator in the movement for independence. A contemporary of Washington, Henry stood with John and Samuel Adams among the leaders of the colonial resistance to Great Britain that ultimately created the United States. The first governor of Virginia after independence, he was reelected several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it granted too much power to the central government.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Long awaited biography of Patrick Henry
- By GallowsJudge on 11-18-17
By: Jon Kukla
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 519
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 427
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 428
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
The Slave's Cause
- A History of Abolition
- By: Manisha Sinha
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 30 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved, found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Thorough, convincing and haunting
- By Roger on 07-23-17
By: Manisha Sinha
-
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,242
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,048
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,043
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
-
The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers
- By: Brion McClanahan Ph. D.
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 378
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 297
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 296
Here to rescue the reputations of our Founding Fathers from the plague of modern political correctness is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers. Author and Professor Brion McClanahan shows how patriots like Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton laid the foundations of American civil liberty and had a better understanding of the problems facing us today than our current Congress.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Highly Recommended
- By Colleen H. on 08-13-09
-
Thomas Jefferson
- By: R. B. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone, describing himself simply as "Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia". It is in this simple epitaph that R. B. Bernstein finds the key to this enigmatic Founder - not as a great political figure, but as leader of "a revolution of ideas that would make the world over again". In Thomas Jefferson, Bernstein offers the definitive short biography of this revered American - the first concise life in six decades. Bernstein deftly synthesizes the massive scholarship on his subject into a swift, insightful, evenhanded account.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
In-Depth and Interesting
- By Sarahi Nieves on 04-24-19
By: R. B. Bernstein
-
Patrick Henry
- Champion of Liberty
- By: Jon Kukla
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 24
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Born in 1736, Patrick Henry was an attorney and a planter and an outstanding orator in the movement for independence. A contemporary of Washington, Henry stood with John and Samuel Adams among the leaders of the colonial resistance to Great Britain that ultimately created the United States. The first governor of Virginia after independence, he was reelected several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it granted too much power to the central government.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Long awaited biography of Patrick Henry
- By GallowsJudge on 11-18-17
By: Jon Kukla
-
The Birth of Modern Politics
- Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828
- By: Lynn Hudson Parson
- Narrated by: Milton Bagby
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 84
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 66
The 1828 presidential election, which pitted Major General Andrew Jackson against incumbent John Quincy Adams, has long been hailed as a watershed moment in American political history. It was the contest in which an unlettered, hot-tempered southwestern frontiersman, trumpeted by his supporters as a genuine man of the people, soundly defeated a New England "aristocrat" whose education and political resume were as impressive as any ever seen in American public life.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
a very good popular history book
- By D. Littman on 01-29-10
-
The Three Lives of James Madison
- Genius, Partisan, President
- By: Noah Feldman
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 34 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 518
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 463
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 461
Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician, he cofounded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Cogently organized, meticulously balanced
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 06-15-18
By: Noah Feldman
-
The Lost Founding Father
- John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics
- By: William J. Cooper
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
Why has John Quincy Adams been largely written out of American history when he is, in fact, our lost Founding Father? Overshadowed by both his brilliant father and the brash and bold Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams has long been dismissed as hyper-intellectual. Viciously assailed by Jackson and his populist mobs for being both slippery and effete, Adams nevertheless recovered from the malodorous 1828 presidential election to lead the nation as a lonely Massachusetts congressman in the fight against slavery.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Edifying
- By Jean on 01-15-18
-
Andrew Jackson, Southerner
- By: Mark R. Cheathem
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
Many Americans view Andrew Jackson as a frontiersman who fought duels, killed Indians, and stole another man's wife. Historians have traditionally presented Jackson as a man who struggled to overcome the obstacles of his backwoods upbringing and helped create a more democratic United States. In his compelling new biography of Jackson, Mark R. Cheathem argues for a reassessment of these long-held views, suggesting that in fact "Old Hickory" lived as an elite southern gentleman.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Lesser Work than HW Brands or John Meacham's books
- By Jose on 05-10-17
By: Mark R. Cheathem
-
Friends Divided
- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 443
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 394
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 392
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist view of government.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Great Read
- By Jean on 12-22-17
By: Gordon S. Wood
-
The Supreme Court
- The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America
- By: Jeffrey Rosen
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 187
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 91
A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Overruled!
- By Stephen McLeod on 08-23-08
By: Jeffrey Rosen
-
American Sphinx
- The Character of Thomas Jefferson
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Susan O'Malley
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 74
For a man who insisted that life on the public stage was not what he had in mind, Thomas Jefferson certainly spent a great deal of time in the spotlight. Historian Joseph J. Ellis sifts the facts shrewdly from the legends and the rumors, treading a path between vilification and hero worship in order to formulate a plausible portrait of the man who still today "hover[s] over the political scene like one of those dirigibles cruising above a crowded football stadium, flashing words of inspiration to both teams".
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
So: they did the DNA and … time to change appendix
- By Jamanosa on 11-03-21
By: Joseph J. Ellis
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
The Problem of Democracy
- The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality
- By: Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 22 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
John and John Quincy Adams: rogue intellectuals, unsparing truth-tellers, too uncensored for their own political good. They held that political participation demanded moral courage. They did not seek popularity (it showed). They lamented the fact that hero worship in America substituted idolatry for results; and they made it clear that they were talking about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. When John Adams succeeded George Washington as President, his son had already followed him into public service and was stationed in Europe as a diplomat.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Very insightful and rewarding adding understanding
- By William on 05-12-19
By: Nancy Isenberg, and others
-
A Magnificent Catastrophe
- The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: John Dossett
- Length: 6 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 44
A Magnificent Catastrophe tells the story of the most perverse, bizarre, nail-biting, and influential election battle ever in U.S. history: America's first true presidential campaign, and a contest so important to the future of the country that Jefferson referred to it as "the second American Revolution" because the outcome resolved so much unfinished business about just what kind of government we would have. This election in many ways determined just how democratic a country we would be.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Get this if you have to use it for a class!!!
- By Gabriel on 03-03-17
By: Edward J. Larson
-
Mr. Jefferson's Hammer
- William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy
- By: Robert M. Owens
- Narrated by: Doug McDonald
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 151
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 128
Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Title = Truth in Advertising
- By William Jenks on 06-18-19
By: Robert M. Owens
-
The War Before the War
- Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
- By: Andrew Delbanco
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 192
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 170
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 170
For decades after its founding, America was really two nations—one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Great promise greater disappointment
- By Amazon Customer on 12-09-18
By: Andrew Delbanco