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Walt Whitman’s America
- A Cultural Biography
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 28 hrs and 47 mins
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Publisher's Summary
In his poetry, Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America, and in so doing, heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.
Combing through the full range of Whitman’s writing, David Reynolds shows how Whitman gathered inspiration from every stratum of 19th-century American life: the convulsions of slavery and depression; the raffish dandyism of the Bowery “b’hoys”; the exuberant rhetoric of actors, orators, and divines. We see how Whitman reconciled his own sexuality with contemporary social mores and how his energetic courtship of the public presaged the vogues of advertising and celebrity. Brilliantly researched, captivatingly told, Walt Whitman’s America is a triumphant work of scholarship that breathes new life into the biographical genre.
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What listeners say about Walt Whitman’s America
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Scott Free
- 06-14-21
Finally understanding Whitman
I thought David Reynolds does an excellent job deeply exploring the influences and motivations of not only Walt Whitman but the people around him. By going thoroughly from the beginning to the end, a sense of how Whitman changed and evolved. Reynolds does an excellent job talking about the cultural influences on Whitman and how the culture also evolved during Whitman's life. Smooth narration I enjoyed it to the end.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Phil F.
- 10-13-22
Helps the listener to understand Leaves of Grass
This book is a thorough piece of scholarship and a fine telling of the story of Walt Whitman's life and the national context at the time he wrote each of the editions of "Leaves of Grass" (LOG). LOG is one of those books that having an overview of the author's project when writing it is helpful. This is that kind of book. It has helped me to understand the four editions of LOG that I've read over the years. It also helps to explain why Whitman created 6 editions that were so different from each other without giving the editions different titles.
I highly recommend this book.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Ernest C. Lisi
- 09-23-21
Simply Superb
Superb and engrossing, a full and culturally based depiction of the gray bearded artist of the word. Thorough, interesting and a most welcome read. Narration excellent and Whitman comes alive. Many thanks, and good reading be yours, my Audible friends. Ernie
1 person found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- KSK5
- 12-02-22
A wonderful insightful biography well narrated
This biography gives the listener a deep sense of the contradictory elements in the larger than life figure of Walt Whitman. It interweaves his fascinating biography with the main events in American history from the 1830s to the 1890s. Having read Whitman's poetry for many years, I come away from this book with a much deeper insight into his work and an appreciation of it.
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Good book. Terrible narration.
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- By: Walt Whitman, American Renaissance Books
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Story
Abraham Lincoln did not come out of nowhere. But if he was shaped by his times, he also managed at his life's fateful hour to shape them to an extent few could have foreseen. Ultimately, this is the great drama that astonishes us still, and that Abe brings to fresh and vivid life. The measure of that life will always be part of our American education.
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Spectacular research and performance.
- By Doug O. on 11-22-20
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Walt Whitman Speaks
- His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America
- By: Walt Whitman, Brenda Wineapple - editor
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In Walt Whitman Speaks, acclaimed author Brenda Wineapple draws from Traubel’s extensive interviews an extraordinary gathering of Whitman’s observations that conveys the core of his ethos and vision. Here is Whitman the sage, champion of expansiveness and human freedom. Here, too, is the poet’s more personal side - his vivid memories of Thoreau, Emerson, and Lincoln, his literary judgments on writers such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Tolstoy, and his expressions of hope in the democratic promise of the nation he loved.
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Walt is here!
- By katherine beattie on 08-01-22
By: Walt Whitman, and others
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Leaves of Grass
- By: Walt Whitman
- Narrated by: Ed Begley
- Length: 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Walt Whitman's celebrated poetry collection, read by Ed Begley.
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It is NOT unabridged.
- By Mark D Worthen PsyD on 09-19-15
By: Walt Whitman
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Emerson
- The Mind on Fire
- By: Robert D. Richardson
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.
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Finally!
- By Douglas on 08-15-14
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Dark Carnivals
- Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire
- By: W. Scott Poole
- Narrated by: Enrique McGavin
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation's influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie.
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i love history, love horror, but was disappointed
- By Amazon Customer on 01-09-23
By: W. Scott Poole
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Beneath the American Renaissance
- The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville
- By: David S. Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 29 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning Beneath the American Renaissance is a classic work on American literature. It immeasurably broadens our knowledge of our most important literary period, as first identified by F.O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which David Reynolds is known. Here the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and others receive striking, original readings set against the rich backdrop of contemporary popular writing.
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Literary criticism taken to a higher level!
- By Scott Free on 10-24-21
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Waking Giant
- America in the Age of Jackson
- By: David S. Reynolds
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The years from 1815 to 1848 were arguably the richest period in American life. In Waking Giant, award-winning historian David S. Reynolds illuminates the era's exciting political story alongside the fascinating social and cultural movements that influenced it. He casts fresh light on Andrew Jackson, who redefined the presidency, as well as John Quincy Adams and James K. Polk, who expanded the nation's territory and strengthened its position internationally.
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Lucid narration
- By Tad Davis on 12-09-08
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The Last American Aristocrat
- The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams
- By: David S. Brown
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Henry Adams is perhaps the most eclectic, accomplished, and important American writer of his time. The last member of his distinguished family - after great-grandfather John Adams and grandfather John Quincy Adams - to gain national attention, he is remembered today as a historian, a political commentator, and a memoirist. Now, historian David Brown sheds light on the brilliant yet under-celebrated life of this major American intellectual.
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outstanding book, highly recommend it
- By D. Littman on 02-19-21
By: David S. Brown
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John Brown, Abolitionist
- The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
- By: David S. Reynolds
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 25 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Few historical figures are as intriguing as John Brown, the controversial Abolitionist who used terrorist tactics against slavery and single-handedly changed the course of American history. This brilliant biography of Brown (1800-1859) by the prize-winning critic and cultural biographer David S. Reynolds brings to life the Puritan warrior who gripped slavery by the throat and triggered the Civil War. When does principled resistance become anarchic brutality? How can a murderer be viewed as a heroic freedom fighter? The case of John Brown opens windows on these timely issues.
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The story of the man who saved America from itself
- By Marc on 09-29-20
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Dinner with Joseph Johnson
- Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age
- By: Daisy Hay
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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This audiobook narrated by Kristin Atherton provides a fascinating portrait of a radical age through the writers associated with a London publisher and bookseller—from William Wordsworth and Mary Wollstonecraft to Benjamin Franklin.
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Fascinating and entertaining
- By RAY MONTECALVO on 01-06-23
By: Daisy Hay