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Dagger John
- Archbishop John Hughes and the Making of Irish America
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
Acclaimed biographer John Loughery tells the story of John Hughes, son of Ireland, friend of William Seward and James Buchanan, founder of St. John's College (now Fordham University), builder of Saint Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, pioneer of parochial school education, and American diplomat. As archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York in the 1840 and 1850s and the most famous Roman Catholic in America, Hughes defended Catholic institutions in a time of nativist bigotry and church burnings and worked tirelessly to help Irish Catholic immigrants find acceptance in their new homeland. His galvanizing and protecting work and pugnacious style earned him the epithet Dagger John. When the interests of his church and ethnic community were at stake, Hughes acted with purpose and clarity.
In Dagger John, Loughery reveals Hughes' life as it unfolded amid turbulent times for the religious and ethnic minority he represented. Hughes the public figure comes to the fore, illuminated by Loughery's retelling of his interactions with and responses to every major figure of his era, including his critics (Walt Whitman, James Gordon Bennett, and Horace Greeley) and his admirers (Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, and Abraham Lincoln). Loughery peels back the layers of the public life of this complicated man, showing how he reveled in the controversies he provoked and believed he had lived to see many of his goals achieved until his dreams came crashing down during the Draft Riots of 1863 when violence set Manhattan ablaze.
To know "Dagger" John Hughes is to understand the US during a painful period of growth as the nation headed toward civil war. Dagger John's successes and failures, his public relationships and private trials, and his legacy in the Irish Catholic community and beyond provide context and layers of detail for the larger history of a modern culture unfolding in his wake.
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Story
During the worst smallpox epidemic in Boston history, Mather convinced Doctor Boylston to try a procedure that he believed would prevent death - by making an incision in the arm of a healthy person and implanting it with smallpox. "Inoculation" led to vaccination, one of the most profound medical discoveries in history.
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Glad that's done
- By GB on 04-21-16
By: Stephen Coss
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Jefferson
- Architect of American Liberty
- By: John B. Boles
- Narrated by: Michael Johnson
- Length: 24 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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From an eminent scholar of the American South, the first full-scale biography of Thomas Jefferson since 1970. Not since Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation has a scholar attempted to write a comprehensive biography of the most complex Founding Father. In Jefferson, John B. Boles plumbs every facet of Thomas Jefferson's life, all while situating him amid the sweeping upheaval of his times. We meet Jefferson the politician and political thinker - as well as Jefferson the architect, scientist, bibliophile, paleontologist, musician, and gourmet.
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Makes Jefferson Human
- By MichaelBuffalo on 06-23-20
By: John B. Boles
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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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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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A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
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Frederick Douglass
- Prophet of Freedom
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 36 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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As a young man, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of his lifetime and published his own newspaper. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence, he bore witness to the brutality of slavery.
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The sound of rollerskating in sand
- By Rico X Ludovici on 02-06-19
By: David W. Blight
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Washington's Circle
- The Creation of the President
- By: David S. Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In Washington's Circle, David and Jeanne Heidler introduce not just the president but the group of extraordinary men who advised him. The familiar names are here, like the often irked and occasionally irksome John Adams, the scheming Alexander Hamilton, and the prodigiously talented James "Jemmy" Madison, but so are the lesser known Edmund Randolph, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris. Washington's choices of whom to listen to, for better and sometimes worse, were as consequential as the advice his cabinet gave.
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Very Enlightening
- By Morgan on 06-04-18
By: David S. Heidler, and others
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Lincoln and the Jews
- A History
- By: Jonathan D. Sarna, Benjamin Shapell
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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One hundred and fifty years after Abraham Lincoln's death, the full story of his extraordinary relationship with Jews is told here for the first time. Lincoln and the Jews: A History provides listeners both with a captivating narrative of his interactions with Jews and the opportunity to immerse themselves in rare manuscripts. Lincoln's lifetime coincided with the emergence of Jews on the national scene in the United States.
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Excellent information, repeats annoying
- By NebSoilDoc on 02-19-16
By: Jonathan D. Sarna, and others
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James Madison
- A Life Reconsidered
- By: Lynne Cheney
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A major new biography of the fourth US president, from New York Times best-selling author Lynne Cheney. James Madison was a true genius of the early republic, the leader who did more than any other to create the nation we know today. This majestic new biography tells his story. Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force behind the Constitution. His visionary political philosophy was a crucial factor behind the Constitution’s ratification, and his political savvy was of major importance in getting the new government underway.
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Great man, great ideas, muddling book
- By NDFletch on 06-13-15
By: Lynne Cheney
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Lincoln's Boys
- John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln's Image
- By: Joshua Zeitz
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Lincoln's official secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay, enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president's immediate family. Hay and Nicolay were the gatekeepers of the Lincoln legacy. They read poetry and attendeded the theater with the president, commiserated with him over Union army setbacks, and plotted electoral strategy.
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Best Publicists since Mathew, Mark, Luke, & John
- By James on 04-06-15
By: Joshua Zeitz
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The Problem of Democracy
- The Presidents Adams Confront the Cult of Personality
- By: Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 22 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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John and John Quincy Adams: rogue intellectuals, unsparing truth-tellers, too uncensored for their own political good. They held that political participation demanded moral courage. They did not seek popularity (it showed). They lamented the fact that hero worship in America substituted idolatry for results; and they made it clear that they were talking about Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. When John Adams succeeded George Washington as President, his son had already followed him into public service and was stationed in Europe as a diplomat.
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Very insightful and rewarding adding understanding
- By William on 05-12-19
By: Nancy Isenberg, and others
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Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 35 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power.
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An Outstanding & Riveting Book!
- By Kevin on 03-04-05
By: Ron Chernow
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Thomas Paine
- Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations
- By: Craig Nelson
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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John Adams told Thomas Jefferson that “history is to ascribe the American Revolution to Thomas Paine.” Thomas Edison called him “the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible.” He was a founder of both the United States and the French Revolution. He invented the phrase, “The United States of America.” He rose from abject poverty in working-class England to the highest levels of the era’s intellectual elite. And yet, by the end of his life, Thomas Paine was almost universally reviled.
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This man should be a household name!
- By Darlene Davis on 11-21-11
By: Craig Nelson
What listeners say about Dagger John
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- Richard
- 05-25-23
Not in agreement with everything…
Got a good understanding of the time in New York and the author wasn’t too focused on being an apologist for the Catholic Church or Hughes. My main criticism of the philosophy of that time. me being half Irish, is that the bill had come due on slavery, and it wasn’t a matter of incremental change. Basically unless you were part of making it somehow better before it happened, you were the problem.
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