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The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era
- An Intellectual History (Studies in Constitutional Democracy)
- Narrated by: Lisa S. Ware
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's summary
Scholars have long debated the meaning of the pursuit of happiness, yet have tended to define it narrowly, focusing on a single intellectual tradition, and on the use of the term within a single text, the Declaration of Independence. In this insightful volume, Carli Conklin considers the pursuit of happiness across a variety of intellectual traditions, and explores its usage in two key legal texts of the Founding Era, the Declaration and William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England.
For Blackstone, the pursuit of happiness was a science of jurisprudence, by which his students could know, and then rightly apply, the first principles of the Common Law. For the founders, the pursuit of happiness was the individual right to pursue a life lived in harmony with the law of nature and a public duty to govern in accordance with that law. Both applications suggest we consider anew how the phrase, and its underlying legal philosophies, were understood in the founding era. With this work, Conklin makes important contributions to the fields of early American intellectual and legal history.
The book is published by University of Missouri Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
Critic reviews
"Original, significant, and well-documented...an important contribution to eighteenth-century intellectual history." (Alan Charles Kors, University of Pennsylvania)
"Conklin offers a deep and rich analysis...deserves a broad audience."(Choice)
"Conklin has provided invaluable tools for further interpretation...." (Political Science Quarterly)
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 100
Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party. These radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as "infidels" and "atheists" in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent exploration of this subject
- By Caroline on 01-13-15
By: Matthew Stewart
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Theory and History
- An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution (LvMI)
- By: Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Like F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises moved beyond economics in his later years to address questions regarding the foundation of all social science. But unlike Hayek's attempts, Mises' writings on these matters have received less attention than they deserve. Theory and History, writes Rothbard in his introduction, "remains by far the most neglected masterwork of Mises". Here Mises defends his all-important idea of methodological dualism: one approach to the hard sciences and another for the social sciences.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Without This Book, You Are Uneducated
- By Michael D. Rubin on 10-03-18
By: Ludwig von Mises, and others
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A Short History of Ethics
- By: Alasdair MacIntyre
- Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
A Short History of Ethics is a significant contribution written by one of the most important living philosophers. It remains an important work, ideal for all students interested in ethics and morality.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great philosopher made ridiculous by accents
- By Olivia Walling on 10-04-17
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Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers
- The Ideas That Have Shaped Our World
- By: Philip Stokes
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4 out of 5 stars 94
This engaging and accessible book invites the listener to explore the questions and arguments of philosophy through the work of 100 of the greatest thinkers within the Western intellectual tradition - covering philosophical, scientific, political, and religious thought over a period of 2500 years.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Unpretentious, honest, with a big picture
- By Mike S. on 05-29-17
By: Philip Stokes
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The Enlightenment
- The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
- By: Ritchie Robertson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 40 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 243
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 197
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 197
This magisterial history - sure to become the definitive work on the subject - recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The quickest 40 hour audio book I’ve listen to
- By Joey Caster on 04-02-21
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The Enlightenment
- And Why It Still Matters
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4 out of 5 stars 110
One of our most renowned and brilliant historians takes a fresh look at the revolutionary intellectual movement that laid the foundation for the modern world. Liberty and equality. Human rights. Freedom of thought and expression. Belief in reason and progress. The value of scientific inquiry. These are just some of the ideas that were conceived and developed during the Enlightenment, and which changed forever the intellectual landscape of the Western world.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A thorough political tract rather than history
- By Jacobus on 03-08-14
By: Anthony Pagden
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Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
- Thinkers of the New Left
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. Scruton delivers a critique of modern left-wing thinking.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deconstructing the New Left
- By Wayne on 01-17-20
By: Roger Scruton
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Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story5 out of 5 stars 39
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
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How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
- By: Thomas E. Woods Jr.
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,260
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,007
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,004
Western civilization has given us modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of law, a sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts we take for granted.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating and informative
- By Michael Kellogg on 09-29-05
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On Liberty
- By: John Stuart Mill
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 669
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 575
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 570
First published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is an exhaustive exploration of social and civic liberty, its limits, and its consequences. Mill's work is a classic of political liberalism that contains a rational justification of the freedom of the individual in opposition to the claims of the state.
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5 out of 5 stars
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should be read by liberals and conservatives
- By Jim Hennessy on 09-13-18
By: John Stuart Mill
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On Revolution
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 230
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 201
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 200
Hannah Arendt's penetrating observations on the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the 18th-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the 20th century, Arendt traces the changing face of revolution and its relationship to war while underscoring the crucial role such events will play in the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful Analysis of Differing Revolutions
- By Roger on 01-10-18
By: Hannah Arendt
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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
- By: Max Weber
- Narrated by: Monroe Clark McBride
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
Max Weber's best-known and most controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, first published in 1904, remains to this day powerful and fascinating. Weber's highly accessible style is just one of many reasons for his continuing popularity. The book contends that the Protestant ethic made possible and encouraged the development of capitalism in the West.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very good unprejudiced scholar
- By Viktor V. Choban on 07-11-19
By: Max Weber
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On Liberty
- By: John Stuart Mill
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
On Liberty is a book by John Stuart Mill, one of the most celebrated philosophers on the subject of leadership and governing ideals. The book focuses on Mill's philosophy on utilitarianism which is one of his defining principles. The principles of the book are focused on developing a relationship between the ruling authority and liberty.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Must read
- By Trevor M. on 08-04-21
By: John Stuart Mill
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The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
- By: Bernard Bailyn
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
To the original text of what has become a classic of American historical literature, Bernard Bailyn adds a substantial essay, "Fulfillment", as a postscript. Here he discusses the intense nationwide debate on the ratification of the Constitution, stressing the continuities between that struggle over the foundations of the national government and the original principles of the Revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bernard Bailyn is a genius!
- By John M. Crean on 04-21-19
By: Bernard Bailyn