
Forgotten America
Rediscovering Events That Changed the Nation
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Narrated by:
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Rachel Michelle Gunter
About this listen
From kindergarten onward, school children across the United States learn about the major figures and conflicts that defined America, from George Washington’s battle against the British to Martin Luther King’s struggle for voting rights. The script is always the same: Slowly but surely, the US citizenry triumphs over moral, political, and scientific backwardness. But what do we find when we dig a bit deeper? Are our most triumphant histories based on fact or myth? And what happens when we cast away mainstream histories and focus on under-the-radar legal battles, film censorship fights, disease outbreaks, fringe ideological movements, and quashed slave rebellions instead?
In Forgotten America: Rediscovering Events that Changed the Nation, turn your attention to the unfamiliar in United States history with historian and author Dr. Rachel Michelle Gunter.
Starting with the colonial period, Dr. Gunter will be your guide as you:
- Study the controversies surrounding smallpox and how to prevent its spread in wartime.
- Delve into the brutal quashing of the German Coast Uprising and the zig zag battle to enshrine women’s citizenship rights.
- Investigate efforts to restrict Asian migration as well as the untimely spread of fascism within the United States. Get to know the activists involved in securing key disability accommodations in the 1970s and 1990s.
- Examine how the fight to extinguish tuberculosis shaped fashion, food, and the built environment.
- Look at how soldiers’ dramatic efforts for benefits gave rise to the GI Bill.
- Get to know key movers and shakers from Southern abolitionist sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimké to women’s rights crusaders Ruth Bryan Owen and Ethel Mackenzie.
But that’s not all. Throughout this course, Dr. Gunter encourages you to confront what you know about American history. Over the course of these 12 lectures, you will question the assumption that early Hollywood films reflected a more innocent America, examining how films first acquiesced to—and then ultimately circumvented—the infamous Hays Code censors. You’ll dig into the origins of Thanksgiving, from its dubious connection to Plymouth pilgrims to its uneven spread across the United States. You’ll reexamine the fight for woman suffrage, focusing on the links between suffrage and abolition as well as between suffrage and the movement to restrict the rights of immigrants. And you’ll emerge with a more nuanced, complete portrait of the United States.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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10 Great What-Ifs of American History
- By: Adam Jortner, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Adam Jortner
- Length: 3 hrs and 54 mins
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Accompanied by a selection of guests, Professor Jortner takes you through a mind-bending exploration of the history that could have been. Captivating storytellers and imaginative thinkers, these experts show how history is contingent on split-second decisions, near misses, and sheer dumb luck. By reflecting on what didn’t happen, 10 Great What-Ifs of American History gives you new insights on what did happen—and the impact on our world today.
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Overacting and Multiple Narrators Distracting
- By homedaddy on 05-09-24
By: Adam Jortner, and others
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America After the Cold War
- The First Thirty Years
- By: Patrick N. Allitt, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Patrick N. Allitt
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
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The 30 years of contemporary US history following the fall of the Soviet Union tend to get short shrift, perhaps because this period of history is still being written, or perhaps because the end of the Cold War is a natural stopping point, an inflection point when one story ends and something new - something unpredictable - begins. Nonetheless, events of today have been profoundly shaped by the past several decades, and one must understand this recent history to understand the world today.
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Very consistent
- By J B Tipton on 05-05-20
By: Patrick N. Allitt, and others
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Communism in Decline: From Sputnik to Gorbachev
- By: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
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In Communism in Decline: From Sputnik to Gorbachev, Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius reveals the internal and external forces that ripped apart the grand communist experiment. What were the mistakes made by the Soviet leaders who believed too deeply in their own propaganda? And why were they not able to see the many ironies in their own poor decisions? In 12 fascinating lectures, you will learn how the Soviet Union went from winning the space race against the United States in 1957 to Gorbachev’s resignation and the dissolution of the great experiment in 1991.
By: Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius, and others
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Lost Art: The Stories of Missing Masterpieces
- By: Noah Charney, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Noah Charney
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
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Imagine a Museum of Lost Art. If this imaginary museum contained just the artwork we knew was lost— whether from theft, purposeful destruction, vandalism, war, or the forces of nature—it would still contain more masterpieces than those in all the world’s current museums combined. Imagine that! In Lost Art: The Stories of Missing Masterpieces, art historian Noah Charney guides you through just such an imaginary museum. In 12 fascinating lectures, you will hear the stories behind the theft and/or destruction of some of the world’s most famous pieces of art.
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Fascinating series, but flawed last lecture?
- By Nancy on 11-24-23
By: Noah Charney, and others
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Democracy and Its Alternatives
- By: Ethan Hollander, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Ethan Hollander
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
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The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle called man a political animal. But what did he mean by that? What is democracy? How do democracies differ from one another? How do they stack up against their alternatives, like dictatorship? And can democracy survive the many challenges it faces today? To answer these questions, look no further than Democracy and Its Alternatives. Political science, history, and current affairs rolled into one, these 24 lectures investigate democratic government in theory and practice.
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Very Informative
- By Racheal Dorsey on 12-20-22
By: Ethan Hollander, and others
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Searching for People and Places of the Bible
- By: Jean-Pierre. Isbouts, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Jean-Pierre Isbouts
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
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By exploring the stories of the Bible in their actual locations, and the stories of the complex human beings who lived them, you’ll gain fascinating and illuminating new dimensions of the texts. In this visually stunning course, you’ll also experience the Bible’s connection to both the real world and ancient history while you’ll engage with the past in a way that is both immediate and tangible.
By: Jean-Pierre. Isbouts, and others
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12 Women Who Shaped America: 1619 to 1920
- By: Allison K. Lange, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Professor Allison K. Lange
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
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Histories of the United States often overlook the women who shaped the nation. Museums, textbooks, historical sites, and even documentaries omit essential parts of the whole because they leave out her story. Join Allison K. Lange, historian and professor, as she guides you through the fascinating lives of 12 early Americans, all of them women.
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Professor is knowledgeable
- By Kindle Customer on 03-27-22
By: Allison K. Lange, and others
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How Memory Works and Why Your Brain Remembers Wrong
- By: Gabrielle F. Principe, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Gabrielle F. Principe
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
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“Who are you?” Chances are you’d answer this question by describing the highlights of your personality and life experiences. But if you’d been asked this same question yesterday, you might have responded with a slightly different description. Does that mean you are a particular person today but were a different person yesterday? And what about tomorrow? Welcome to the slippery, shape-shifting nature of memory. As Professor Gabrielle Principe reveals, “you” are the conglomeration of the often-unreliable information your brain decides to feed you at any given moment.
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Outstanding
- By Natasha on 01-20-24
By: Gabrielle F. Principe, and others
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God Against the Gods
- The History of Monotheism and Polytheism
- By: Robert Garland, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert Garland
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
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Religion is foundational to what it means to be human. Our quest for meaning is as ancient as our very existence, stretching back to a time when Neanderthal burials and Paleolithic figurines suggest our ancestors recognized a power that transcended visible reality. From ancient civilizations to the 21st century, belief in a higher power seems to be a universal human instinct. These 12 thought-provoking lectures introduce you to the world of comparative religion, giving you insights into a variety of religious expressions and human cultures.
By: Robert Garland, and others
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The Hidden Power of Microbes
- By: Melissa Booth, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Melissa Booth
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
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Right this minute, your body is carrying roughly 38 trillion microbial cells along with it—and in the vast majority of cases, you couldn’t live without them. On top of that, you harbor around 380 trillion viruses, most of which are either beneficial or benign. The Hidden Power of Microbes draws back the curtain on this vast microworld in 24 half-hour lectures delivered by acclaimed science communicator Dr. Melissa Booth, research scientist, professor, and Founder and Principal of The Science Communicator, devoted to training scientists to tell accurate, compelling stories about their fields.
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engaging and informative
- By Peter S on 12-26-24
By: Melissa Booth, and others
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How to Survive in Space
- By: Ronke Olabisi, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Ronke Olabisi
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
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Spaceflight is notoriously dangerous. Beyond launch mishaps and equipment failures, astronauts face serious health problems from long-term weightlessness and high-energy radiation. Not to mention, the space environment is a near-perfect vacuum that can quickly kill anyone who is unprotected. Drawing on the hard-won insights of NASA astronauts and space researchers, this 12-lecture course presents the perils of spaceflight and what experts have done to make them survivable. It also deals with livability in space, including nutrition, sleep, environmental control, and personal hygiene.
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Decent overview of space travel hazards
- By Historian1912 on 08-09-24
By: Ronke Olabisi, and others
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Early Modern Philosophy: Descartes and the Rationalists
- By: James D. Reid, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: James D. Reid
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
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From the 17th to 18th centuries, bold thinkers cast off the authority of ancient traditions and embraced reason as the primary tool for understanding the world. These rationalists, or early modern philosophers, included René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—visionaries whose answers to profound questions remain relevant today. Early Modern Philosophy: Descartes and the Rationalists covers the key philosophers of this period in 12 fascinating half-hour lectures, presented by award-winning teacher James D. Reid, Professor of Philosophy at Metropolitan State University.
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Great Introduction and overview
- By Shawn Klein on 01-16-25
By: James D. Reid, and others