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The Wordy Shipmates
- Narrated by: Sarah Vowell
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means - and what it should mean. What was this great political enterprise all about? Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation? What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest. The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance. Along the way she asks:
Sarah Vowell's special brand of armchair history makes the bizarre and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun. She takes us from the modern-day reenactment of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from old-timey Puritan poetry, where "righteousness" is rhymed with "wilderness," to a Mayflower-themed waterslide. Throughout, The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America's most celebrated voices. Thou shalt enjoy it.
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Story
On June 27, 1844, a mob stormed the jail in the dusty frontier town of Carthage, Illinois. Clamorous and angry, they were hunting down a man they saw as a grave threat to their otherwise quiet lives: The founding prophet of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. They wanted blood. At thirty-nine years old, Smith had already lived an outsized life. In addition to starting the Church of Latter-Day Saints and creating his own "Golden Bible" - the Book of Mormon - he had worked as a water-dowser and treasure hunter.
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All religious histories are not created equal
- By Kendra on 07-01-14
By: Alex Beam
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One Nation, Under Gods
- A New American History
- By: Peter Manseau
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian vantage point, Peter Manseau proves that what really happened is worth a close, fresh look.
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Tapestry of different pieces makes for a whole
- By Gary on 03-23-15
By: Peter Manseau
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St. Patrick of Ireland
- A Biography
- By: Philip Freeman
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Ireland's patron saint has long been shrouded in legend: he drove the snakes out of Ireland; he triumphed over Druids and their super-natural powers; he used a shamrock to explain the Christian mystery of the Trinity. But his true story is more fascinating than the myths.
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A Wonderful Discription
- By L. Thibodeaux on 08-12-05
By: Philip Freeman
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The Kingdom
- By: Emmanuel Carrère, John Lambert - translator, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Gripped by the tale of a Messiah whose blood we drink and body we eat, the genre-defying author Emmanuel Carrère revisits the story of the early Church in his latest work. With an idiosyncratic and at times iconoclastic take on the charms and foibles of the Church fathers, Carrère ferries listeners through his "doors" into the biblical narrative. Once inside, he follows the ragtag group of early Christians through the tumultuous days of the faith's founding.
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The Gospel of Emmanuel
- By Mark on 12-31-17
By: Emmanuel Carrère, and others
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The Mayflower
- The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America
- By: Rebecca Fraser
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The voyage of the Mayflower and the founding of Plymouth Colony is one of the seminal events in world history. But the poorly equipped group of English Puritans who ventured across the Atlantic in the early autumn of 1620 had no sense they would pass into legend. They had 80 casks of butter and two dogs but no cattle for milk, meat, or ploughing. They were ill prepared for the brutal journey and the new land that few of them could comprehend.
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I kept saying "Oh My Goodness!"
- By Midwestern on 11-29-19
By: Rebecca Fraser
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The Pilgrim Chronicles: An Eyewitness History of the Pilgrims and the Founding of Plymouth Colony
- By: Rod Gragg
- Narrated by: Micah Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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All Americans are familiar with the story of the Pilgrims--persecuted for their religion in the Old World, they crossed the ocean to settle in a wild and dangerous land. But for most of us, the story ends after their brutal first winter at Plymouth, with a supposedly peaceful encounter with the Native Americans and a happy Thanksgiving.
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I loved it!
- By tiffany on 12-22-15
By: Rod Gragg
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Heaven’s Ditch
- God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal
- By: Jack Kelly
- Narrated by: Andrew Reilly
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn't just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history. Zealots invented new religions and new modes of living. The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier.
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An under told story of the United States.
- By JayHey on 08-28-16
By: Jack Kelly
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They Were Christians
- The Inspiring Faith of Men and Women Who Changed the World
- By: Cristobal Krusen
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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What do Abraham Lincoln, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Louis Pasteur, Frederick Douglass, Florence Nightingale, and John D. Rockefeller, Sr., all have in common? They all changed the world - and they were all Christians. Now the little-known stories of faith behind 12 influential people of history are available in one inspiring volume. They Were Christians reveals the faith-filled motivations behind some of the most outstanding political, scientific, and humanitarian contributions of history.
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Great book
- By Amazon Customer on 12-10-18
By: Cristobal Krusen
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Who Is This Man?
- The Unpredictable Impact of the Inescapable Jesus
- By: John Ortberg
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author John Ortberg shares how Jesus' influence has swept over history and how his vision of life continues to impact humanity today. Jesus' impact on our world is highly unlikely, widely inescapable, largely unknown, and decidedly double-edged. It is unlikely in light of the severe limitations of his earthly life; it is inescapable because of the range of impact; it is unknown because history doesn't connect dots; and it is doubled-edged because his followers have wreaked so much havoc, often in his name.
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NOT narrated by John Ortberg, sadly
- By T. Harris on 08-15-12
By: John Ortberg
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America's Prophet
- Moses and the American Story
- By: Bruce Feiler
- Narrated by: Bruce Feiler
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The exodus story is America's story. Moses is our real founding father. In this groundbreaking book, New York Times best-selling author Bruce Feiler travels through touchstones in American history and traces the biblical prophet's influence from the Mayflower through today.
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Another great book
- By TR on 11-06-09
By: Bruce Feiler
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God’s Secretaries
- The Making of the King James Bible
- By: Adam Nicolson
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment “Englishness” and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.
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Not what I was expecting
- By Greg on 12-29-13
By: Adam Nicolson
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
What listeners say about The Wordy Shipmates
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Audiophile
- 10-25-09
I love Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell's innate medium is audiobooks and radio (NPR). In her squeaky voice, she recounts history with passion, irony and humor intertwined with curent events and pop culture. There is nobody I can think of who is quite rivals her in contemporary commentary. She is a modern version of Mark Twain. If she ever decides to auction off on eBay her attendance at a dinner party, I will certainly be one of the bidders.
This book provides a good companion piece to Philbrick's Mayflower which chronicles the Pilgrims from the point of view of the Indian Wars. Vowell focuses on the cousins of the Pilgrims in Boston and the Winthrop legacy. But the real hero of both books turns out to be Roger Williams who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious freedom and civil liberties / property rights for the Native Americans. Thus, whatever cynicism one has for the Puritan settlers, it is leavened by the pride in the early recognition in this country for the values of freedom. She also balances the strictness of the Protestant ethic with the great devotion to education embodied in the founding of Harvard College that initiated the common goal of educational excellence that is so much part of American ideals.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- John
- 10-13-08
Absolutely the best !!!
Amazingly fun. Hard to believe a subject like the Puritans could be this interesting or this funny. Ms. Vowell is a national treasure.
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12 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Mari
- 05-29-09
Vowell Nailed It Again
Once again, Vowell has managed to bring American history to life, "as only Sarah Vowell can". (Sorry, I just had to say that)
She has brought up some of the most compelling issues surrounding the first european settlers, particularly their religious and philosophic debates with each other and those outside their particular brand of puritanism. She is helped in the narration by the usual cast of Upper West Siders (Bogosian, Keener, et al) which helps keep the book moving along nicely.
Vowell is an amateur historian in the classic sense. She is not formally trained, but her vast knowledge comes from her own curiosity about this country's origins. She ably bounces forward and back in time, commenting freely on current events and viewing the past with a decidedly contemporary lens. She threads in her views on current politics, just as she did in "Assassination Vacation" and "The Partly Cloudy Patriot". She is developing a terrific way to view and understand history - as one other review (Baron's) said, "History as reported by the Daily Show". That says it all.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Samantha
- 10-14-08
Wordy in all the right ways
Sarah Vowell writes history with the voices of humor and irony. The Wordy Shipmates is highly entertaining while it clearly draws out modern similarities and points out various repercussions and misrepresentations in todays society. I found the book to be equally enjoyable and informative. I greatly enjoyed the slightly liberal narrative voice while having a difficult time adjusting to the audio voices. Over all I think this is an excellent lively read and I cherish Vowell as one of my favorite non-fiction writers.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Baron
- 11-25-08
History as reported by "The Daily Show"
This is wonderful. I am biased. I love neurotic, intelligent, sarcastic women. Oh baby. It's a good thing I encountered this in audio format because my eyes kept rolling back in my head at the sheer wonderfullness of it.
She isn't intimidated by history, and she brings history alive in a quirky and relevant way. She enhances the narrative with just the right amount of historical context, and then shows how politicians today are influenced by these characters even today.
I think if you like "The Daily Show" you will like this. Oh, and if you like "This American Life." You don't have to like both, just one will do.
On the quibble front, the interspersing of quotes didn't work as well as it could have. It left Ms. Vowell sounding like she was at the end of her sentence when it was the middle. I suggest she read the full sentence and the audio engineer insert the actors' voices, so it sounds like she is a really good mimic rather than she stopped and someone else started.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
Wish I Was Friends with Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell is a national treasure. Who is the last person that made understanding the Puritans both cool and fascinating. Reading the Wordy Shipmates helped me connect the dots between our current military adventures and our earliest colonial history. Growing up in Boston you'd think the I'd know more about the Boston Puritans, but somehow teaching this sort of history went out of style during my school years. This funny, smart, and wise book is a great demonstration as to why understanding the Boston Puritans is important for us all. I'm trying to figure out a way to assign this book in the classes I teach (out of a business school!).
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Stacy
- 12-07-08
Unusual, fantastic, and much needed
This audiobook rocks. I say "audiobook" and not "book" because not only is the content great, it actually SOUNDS good. If you are familiar to audiobooks, you realize some are tragically awful sounding. This audiobook features interludes of sea voyage inspired music and humorous yet realistic renditions of the Puritan letters, etc. Makes it almost fun to be stuck in traffic.
That being said, the true value of this book is the witty humor of Sarah Vowell, the mix of pure intelligence with pop culture references, and the thorough research and obvious passion with which it was clearly created. SV's findings are important in the context of our current culture and world issues and should be an urgent call to seriously (and humorously) consider our actions based on the Puritan culture and what we've learned (or haven't learned) about it. Thank you Sarah!
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Paris Granville
- 10-30-08
Funny Scholarly Work
Sarah Vowels amusing history of the Puritans and the Native Americans around them, is engaging, scholarly, and, yes.... funny. It takes a good writer to subtly highlight the ironies of 17th Century New England. She liberally cites primary documents from the time period. Her greatest triumph is her ability to make the period come alive and relate it to today's America. The Author does a lovely job reading. Don't forget that she is a voice actress too. (The Incredibles)
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Kindle Customer
- 02-11-09
Would be better without the leftist commentary
I suppose I should have known better than to think this was a straightforward history of the Puritans. Given the author's bio, I was aware that she might provide a humorous slant on the subject matter. She actually does provide that perspective, and it helps illustrate her points. However, she soon degenerates into such a sarcastic, left-leaning perspective that it begins to obscure the very story she is attempting to tell. In my view, the book would have been more compelling had she not tarnished its value with her unnecessary political commentary.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Forrest
- 02-25-13
Hard to listen to the narration and boring.
What would have made The Wordy Shipmates better?
I think the narration left A LOT to be desired. Sarah Vowell may want to stick to writing and avoid narration. I found her voice hard to listen too.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
I just think her book needed some re-thinking. Although the subject matter was of importance, I think the way it was presented in the book needed to be re-evaluated.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
I found her voice very difficult to listen too for any length of time and additional voices a distraction.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Disappointed!
Any additional comments?
I will not listen to a book that Sarah Vowell narrated again. I can't say the first book I downloaded of her has made me any kind of fan. I felt the money was not well spent at all on this one.
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4 people found this helpful