
El Norte
The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America
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Narrated by:
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Thom Rivera
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By:
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Carrie Gibson
About this listen
Because of our shared English language, as well as the celebrated origin tales of the Mayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in El Norte, the nation has much older Spanish roots - ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims by a century, and has been every bit as important in shaping the nation as it exists today.
El Norte chronicles the sweeping and dramatic history of Hispanic North America from the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century to the present - from Ponce de Leon’s initial landing in Florida in 1513 to Spanish control of the vast Louisiana territory in 1762 to the Mexican-American War in 1846 and up to the more recent tragedy of post-hurricane Puerto Rico and the ongoing border acrimony with Mexico. Interwoven in this stirring narrative of events and people are cultural issues that have been there from the start but which are unresolved to this day: language, belonging, community, race, and nationality. Seeing them play out over centuries provides vital perspective at a time when it is urgently needed.
In 1883, Walt Whitman meditated on his country’s Spanish past: “We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort them, to unify them”, predicting that “to that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most needed parts.” That future is here, and El Norte, a stirring and eventful history in its own right, will make a powerful impact on our national understanding.
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-
Story
Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus' first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most powerful civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and the other explorers and soldiers who took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadors have become the stuff of nightmares.
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A fresh mature perspective on the Spanish conquest
- By Chencheno111 on 03-19-22
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Open Veins of Latin America
- Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
- By: Eduardo Galeano, Isabel Allende - Foreward
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation.
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Please up-date the addition
- By fishrock on 02-20-10
By: Eduardo Galeano, and others
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Conquistadors and Aztecs
- A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan
- By: Stefan Rinke, Christopher Reid
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by a leading historian of Latin America, Conquistadors and Aztecs offers a timely portrayal of the fall of Tenochtitlan and the founding of an empire that would last for centuries.
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Gold and Death
- By Rebecca Hill on 09-13-23
By: Stefan Rinke, and others
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Rivers of Gold
- The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan
- By: Hugh Thomas
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 27 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the greatest historians of the Spanish world, here is a fresh and fascinating account of Spain's early conquests in the Americas. Hugh Thomas shows Spain at the dawn of the sixteenth century as a world power on the brink of greatness. For Spain and for the world, the decision to send Christopher Columbus west was epochal—the dividing line between the medieval and the modern.
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Great sweep of history from Spain to America
- By Anonymous User on 12-31-24
By: Hugh Thomas
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Bad Mexicans
- Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands
- By: Kelly Lytle Hernández
- Narrated by: Joana Garcia
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Bad Mexicans tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magon, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers—and American dissidents—to their cause. Determined to oust Mexico's dictator, Porfirio Diaz, the rebels had to outrun and outsmart the swarm of US authorities vested in protecting the Diaz regime.
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Great book, but why is the narrator so bad?
- By bean on 10-14-22
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The Pueblo Revolt
- The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The dramatic and tragic story of the only successful Native American uprising against the Spanish, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
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Telling a story that doesn’t want to be told
- By Keegan on 12-28-20
By: David Roberts
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When Montezuma Met Cortes
- The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History
- By: Matthew Restall
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction - the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas - has long been the symbol of Cortés' bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened?
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Flawed, but worth it for those interested.
- By "J" on 02-16-18
By: Matthew Restall
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The Company
- The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire
- By: Stephen R. Bown
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hudson’s Bay Company started out small in 1670, trading practical manufactured goods for furs with the indigenous inhabitants of inland subarctic Canada. Controlled by a handful of English aristocrats, it expanded into a powerful political force that ruled the lives of many thousands of people - from the lowlands south and west of Hudson Bay, to the tundra, the great plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest.
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Distracting and Annoying racist tropes
- By Eric on 10-28-22
By: Stephen R. Bown
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Basque History of the World
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning author Mark Kurlansky has drawn enthusiastic praise for his books, which are sharply-focused studies as well as glorious celebrations of their subjects. In The Basque History of the World, he turns his eye toward Europe’s oldest surviving culture - a culture as mysterious as it is fascinating. Settled in the western Pyrenees Mountains of France and Spain, the Basque nation is not drawn on maps and the origin of their forbidden language has never been discovered.
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Fills a gap in most folks' historical knowledge
- By Rz on 11-23-13
By: Mark Kurlansky
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Conquistador
- Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs
- By: Buddy Levy
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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It was a moment unique in human history: the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico, determined not only to expand the Spanish empire but to convert the natives to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in his intentions is one of the most remarkable and tragic aspects of this unforgettable story.
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A Great Book
- By Victor on 02-27-11
By: Buddy Levy
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LatinoLand
- A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority
- By: Marie Arana
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana’s life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise twenty percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage.
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If you’re searching for the truth, this may not be your resource. Had children
- By Melissa L. Cook on 09-17-24
By: Marie Arana
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American Nations
- A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
- By: Colin Woodard
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the 11 distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent....
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One of a Kind Masterpiece
- By Theo Horesh on 02-28-13
By: Colin Woodard
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How to Hide an Empire
- A History of the Greater United States
- By: Daniel Immerwahr
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire", exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, author Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.
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How to beat a straw man to death
- By Susan on 01-25-20
By: Daniel Immerwahr
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Fifth Sun
- A New History of the Aztecs
- By: Camilla Townsend
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes.
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Ethnocentric ethnohistory
- By Jeffrey D on 03-24-21
By: Camilla Townsend
This a huge effort by the writer.
I just wish the reader was more adept at pronouncing spanish words with silent H vs non-silent. His rs also need help when single vs hard or double or at the start of the words.
Still worth the effort!
My take.
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El norte.
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Unbiased history of Latin America & its people
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A must for any Hispanic
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What's not covered in school
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Very comprehensive
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A thoughtful contribution to the literature
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This work seeks to illuminate this and how it has made life hard and unjust for many despite their patriotism.
Hidden history
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Essential North American history
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A Holistic Perspective
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