
American Colonies: The Settling of North America
Penguin History of the United States, Book 1
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Narrated by:
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Bob Souer
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By:
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Alan Taylor
About this listen
In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.
Transcending the usual Anglocentric version of our colonial past, he recovers the importance of Native American tribes, African slaves, and the rival empires of France, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Russia in the colonization of North America. Moving beyond the Atlantic seaboard to examine the entire continent, American Colonies reveals a pivotal period in the global interaction of peoples, cultures, plants, animals, and microbes. In a vivid narrative, Taylor draws upon cutting-edge scholarship to create a timely picture of the colonial world characterized by an interplay of freedom and slavery, opportunity and loss.
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- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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This searing story of slavery and freedom in the Chesapeake reveals the pivot in the nation’s path between the founding and civil war. Frederick Douglass recalled that slaves living along Chesapeake Bay longingly viewed sailing ships as "freedom’s swift-winged angels." In 1813 those angels appeared in the bay as British warships coming to punish the Americans for declaring war on the empire. Drawn from new sources, Alan Taylor's riveting narrative re-creates the events that inspired black Virginians, haunted slaveholders, and set the nation on a new and dangerous course.
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one of the best audiobooks I've read recently
- By D. Littman on 03-02-14
By: Alan Taylor
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The Radicalism of the American Revolution
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Grand in scope, rigorous in its arguments, and elegantly synthesizing 30 years of scholarship, Gordon S. Wood's Pulitzer Prize–winning book analyzes the social, political, and economic consequences of 1776. In The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Wood depicts not just a break with England, but the rejection of an entire way of life: of a society with feudal dependencies, a politics of patronage, and a world view in which people were divided between the nobility and "the Herd."
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Changed the Way I Think
- By Cynthia on 01-04-14
By: Gordon S. Wood
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The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 24 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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This classic work explains the evolution of American political thought from the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the Constitution. In so doing, it greatly illuminates the origins of the present American political system.
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This Audible book is NOT for a popular audience!
- By BigWally on 11-22-18
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Thomas Jefferson's Education
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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By turns entertaining and tragic, this beautifully written history reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of Virginia slavery. It offers an incisive portrait of Thomas Jefferson set against a social fabric of planters in decline, enslaved Black families torn apart by sales, and a hair-trigger code of male honor. A man of “deft evasions” who was both courtly and withdrawn, Jefferson sought control of his family and state from his lofty perch at Monticello.
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Written by a hater.
- By Mrs. Mitchell on 03-31-24
By: Alan Taylor
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Union 1812
- The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence
- By: A. J. Langguth
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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This dramatic account of the War of 1812 fills a surprising gap in the popular literature of the nation's formative years. It is this war, followed closely on the War of Independence, that established the young nation as a permanent power and proved its claim to Manifest Destiny.
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Fantastic narrative history
- By Tad on 03-22-12
By: A. J. Langguth
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American Civil Wars
- A Continental History, 1850-1873
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The American Civil War stands at the center of the story, its military history and the drama of emancipation the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrollment of Black soldiers in Union armies.
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fascinating!
- By Brandon Marken on 07-12-24
By: Alan Taylor
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Bloody Mohawk
- The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York's Frontier
- By: Richard Berleth
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In this narrative history of the Mohawk River Valley and surrounding region from 1713 to 1794, Professor Richard Berleth charts the passage of the valley from a fast-growing agrarian region streaming with colonial traffic to a war-ravaged wasteland. The valley's diverse cultural mix of Iroquois Indians, Palatine Germans, Scots-Irish, Dutch, English, and Highland Scots played as much of a role as its unique geography in the cataclysmic events of the 1700s - the French and Indian Wars and the battles of the American Revolution.
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excellent
- By Jonathan P Firl on 09-19-18
By: Richard Berleth
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Power and Liberty
- Constitutionalism in the American Revolution
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history, and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism - the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions.
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Provides Context for Todays Mess
- By Tad on 07-20-24
By: Gordon S. Wood
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The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire
- The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History
- By: Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 21 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing audiobook makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve victory.
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It didn't lose me
- By Matt on 04-28-15
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King Philip's War
- The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict
- By: Eric B. Schultz, Michael J. Tougias, Nathaniel Philbrick - foreword
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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At once an in-depth history of this pivotal war and a guide to the historical sites where the ambushes, raids, and battles took place, King Philip's War expands our understanding of American history and provides insight into the nature of colonial and ethnic wars in general. Through a careful reconstruction of events, including first-person accounts, and by providing information on the exact locations of more than 50 battles, King Philip's War is useful as well as informative.
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Indian Good; White Man Bad
- By Gary M. Hale on 06-04-21
By: Eric B. Schultz, and others
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American Heritage History of the American Revolution
- By: Bruce Lancaster
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 14 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Bruce Lancaster starts his story with an examination of colonial society and the origins of the quarrel with England. He details the ensuing battles and military campaigns from Lexington and Concord to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, as well as the tense political and social situation of the new nation. The American Heritage History of the American Revolution details the birth of America with insight and depth.
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Good thumbnail of the revolution.
- By Tony B. on 07-12-17
By: Bruce Lancaster
What listeners say about American Colonies: The Settling of North America
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- Preston Moore
- 09-17-20
good starting point for new colonialists
the book takes an annales approach to the topic, giving students a good feeling for the historiography and the cultural collision of colonization.
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- Brian
- 01-15-22
Thorough and Detailed
I had wanted to learn more about America in the early colonial days and this book did not disappoint. I appreciated the fact that the author showed a lot from the Native American side. Who they were, how they lived, and how colonialism impacted their way of life.
I wish I had read this a long time ago. A lot of stuff here that did not learn in history class. I will recommending this book to all my history-loving friends.
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- Tim Healy
- 02-10-19
Insightful
Wonderful introduction to the complexities of the many Indian cultures and effects of the varied European and African influences in the Americas. This book paints a broad picture of the melting pot that the New World truly is.
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- Jeffrey H. Jordan
- 06-06-22
Better to read I think.
I loved this book, but I'm likely going to return the audiobook and buy the hardcopy and "reread" it. It's encyclopedic in its scope and presentation, and therefore it's difficult to learn audibly from it. The narrator's voice is good, but the task is near impossible.
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- Joshie
- 06-17-22
Great, if long
A nice overview of the early days of North America. It’s well written and level headed. But it’s not exactly a page turner either.
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- Jeff
- 01-25-23
Excellent
A well balanced, highly informative narrative on early colonialism and its effects on indigenous people and the rise of American Communities.
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- cwesleyg
- 08-15-19
Very informative
Very well assembled and thorough. Narrator is a bit dry, but well performed. Will be listening to more of this series.
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- Tascha F.
- 08-22-20
Essential reading. Great performance.
My one regret about this book is that I didn't read it 19 years ago when it came out...or at least 4 years ago when it came out on Audiobook. There is a certain repetition, which I assume is so professors can assign chapters on different periods while still giving students context. However, these repetitions also make clear the patterns of power and domination so that after specific details fade from one's memory, the historical patterns remain.
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- T_S_shops
- 11-23-21
The why behind different trajectories of colonies
It should be read twice and taught in schools. It is the old principle of supply and demand played out in so many ways amongst different groups of people. Learn what made the colonies in New England, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest and the Pacific so different in their economies, religious denominations, and governance.
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- Use your own judgement
- 01-03-25
Interesting but a bit dull
I was curious about colonial history and my curiosity was mostly sated. However, I would have liked to hear a more engaging telling. Still, it was good.
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