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Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
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Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
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Publisher's summary
Kaplan explores Lincoln's life through his use of language as a vehicle for complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment. Like the other great canonical writers of American literature - a status he is gradually attaining - Lincoln had a literary career that is inseparable from his life story.
Kaplan focuses on the elements that shaped the form of Lincoln's mental and imaginative world: how his use of language molded his identity, relationships, and career; and how it simultaneously generated both the distinctive political figure he became and the public discourse of the nation.
Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and addressed his audience with equal and enduring effectiveness. Kaplan's unique account of Lincoln's life and career highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency and reminds us that the effective and honest use of language is a necessity for a successful democracy.
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-
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Great Read
- By Jean on 12-22-17
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Founders' Son
- A Life of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Richard Brookhiser
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Research and Evenhanded Work
- By Amazon Customer on 09-26-15
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Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
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"Most Blessed of the Patriarchs"
- Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination
- By: Annette Gordon-Reed, Peter S. Onuf
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4 out of 5 stars 73
Thomas Jefferson is still presented today as a hopelessly enigmatic figure despite being written about more than any other Founding Father. Lauded as the most articulate voice of American freedom even as he held people in bondage, Jefferson is variably described by current-day observers as a hypocrite, an atheist, and a simple-minded proponent of limited government.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By Steve on 06-09-16
By: Annette Gordon-Reed, and others
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Washington's Farewell
- The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations
- By: John Avlon
- Narrated by: John Avlon
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 249
George Washington's Farewell Address was a prophetic letter from a "parting friend" to his fellow citizens about the forces he feared could destroy our democracy: hyper-partisanship, excessive debt, and foreign wars. Once celebrated as civic scripture, more widely reprinted than the Declaration of Independence, the Farewell Address is now almost forgotten. Its message remains starkly relevant. In Washington's Farewell, John Avlon offers a stunning portrait of our first president and his battle to save America from self-destruction.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very well written and performed
- By Michael Reading on 03-02-17
By: John Avlon
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Lincoln in Private
- What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President
- By: Ronald C. White
- Narrated by: Ronald C. White
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story5 out of 5 stars 38
A deeply private man, shut off even to those who worked closely with him, Abraham Lincoln often captured “his best thoughts", as he called them, in short notes to himself. He would work out his personal stances on the biggest issues of the day, never expecting anyone to see these pieces of writing, which he’d then keep close at hand, in desk drawers and even in his top hat. The profound importance of these notes has been overlooked, because the originals are scattered across several different archives and have never before been brought together and examined as a coherent whole.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Good One--Highly Recommend
- By Jeffy on 04-18-23
By: Ronald C. White
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The American Political Tradition
- And the Men Who Made It
- By: Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch - foreword
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story5 out of 5 stars 28
The American Political Tradition is one of the most influential and widely read historical volumes of our time. First published in 1948, its elegance, passion, and iconoclastic erudition laid the groundwork for a totally new understanding of the American past. By writing a "kind of intellectual history of the assumptions behind American politics", Richard Hofstadter changed the way Americans understand the relationship between power and ideas in their national experience. Hofstadter was able to articulate, in a single work, a historical vision that inspired and shaped an entire generation.
By: Richard Hofstadter, and others
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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
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Edifying
- By Jean on 01-15-18
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Revolutionary Characters
- What Made the Founders Different
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
Gordon Wood's wondrous accomplishment here is to bring these men and their times down to earth and within our reach, showing us just who they were and what drove them. In so doing, he shows us that although a lot has changed in two hundred years, to an amazing degree the virtues these founders defined for themselves are the virtues we aspire to still.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Wood clearly dislikes Adams
- By Michael on 01-15-07
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Henry Clay
- The Man Who Would Be President
- By: James C. Klotter
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 19 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story5 out of 5 stars 44
Charismatic, charming, and one of the best orators of his era, Henry Clay seemed to have it all. He offered a comprehensive plan of change for America, and he directed national affairs as Speaker of the House, as Secretary of State to John Quincy Adams - the man he put in office - and as acknowledged leader of the Whig party. As the broker of the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay fought to keep a young nation united when westward expansion and slavery threatened to tear it apart. Yet, despite his talent and achievements, Henry Clay never became president.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful book by a talented writer and historian
- By Timothy on 08-24-18
By: James C. Klotter
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Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Jon Meacham
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,594
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,799
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,757
In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
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Our Declaration
- A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
- By: Danielle Allen
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
In just 1,337 words, the Declaration of Independence changed the world, but curiously it is now rarely read from start to finish, much less understood. Unsettled by this, Danielle Allen read the text quietly with students and discovered its animating power. "Bringing the analytical skills of a philosopher, the voice of a gifted memoirist, and the spirit of a soulful humanist to the task, Allen manages to find new meaning in Thomas Jefferson' s understanding of equality," says Joseph J. Ellis about Our Declaration.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Second Most Interesting Book I've Ever Read
- By Christopher on 01-27-15
By: Danielle Allen
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Thomas Jefferson
- By: R. B. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
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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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In-Depth and Interesting
- By Sarahi Nieves on 04-24-19
By: R. B. Bernstein
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Lincoln's Greatest Speech
- The Second Inaugural
- By: Ronald C. White Jr.
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
After four years of unspeakable horror and sacrifice on both sides, the Civil War was about to end. On March 4, 1865, at his second inauguration, President Lincoln did not offer the North the victory speech it yearned for; nor did he blame the South solely for the sin of slavery. Calling the whole nation to account, Lincoln offered a moral framework for peace and reconciliation. Eventually this "with malice toward none" address would be accepted and revered as one of the greatest in the nation's history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Ronald White gets Lincoln right
- By Ronnie Brown on 12-04-18
What listeners say about Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- mark s. zumhagen
- 03-11-19
Some needed perspective
While not exhaustive or comprehensive, Mr Kaplan's perspective in analyzing the great man from a literary perspective brings body and detail to many aspects of Lincoln's life. I thoroughly enjoyed this addition to the Lincoln corpus.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- rose
- 02-06-23
Love it, interested Biography, nice history!!
Lengthy but, I loved its clear and well pronounce narration. Love its final powerful words!!!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Alexis
- 01-29-09
Beautiful, essential biography!
Thank you, Mr. Kaplan and Brilliance Audio, for a wonderful rendition of this fabulous book. Every paragraph is beautiful, wise, insightful, and the narrator has done a splendid job with the reading. I strongly recommend this book to all readers and lovers of fine literature. It is destined to become a classic.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Carol Crouse
- 07-07-15
A different look at Lincoln
Lincoln, the writer, and someone I have never met before. I have read many books about him but never about his writing specifically. There was lots of new information and a fresh look at some of his speeches. The reader was boring, pausing in the wrong spots and then for sizing the wrong words.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
- Larry
- 04-13-09
This deserved a better reading
Sometines the content simply can't overcome a wooden, uninflected reading. I don't know what happened here; but, my Kindle II reads better than this narrator. In fact, the TI Speak and Spell would give him a run for the money.
The narrator should be forced to listen to this flat and uninspired reading so that he would swear, by all that's holy in literature, never to treat any material to this form of abuse ever again.
The irony is that it is about the roots of Lincoln's gift as a speaker and writer.
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2 people found this helpful