
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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Story
Taught by award-winning Professor Patrick Grim of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room arms you against the perils of bad thinking and supplies you with an arsenal of strategies to help you be more creative, logical, inventive, realistic, and rational in all aspects of your daily life.
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This should NOT be an audio book
- By Brooks Emerson on 03-21-20
By: Patrick Grim, and others
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Margaret Atwood: A Modern Mythmaker
- By: Jennifer Cognard-Black, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Jennifer Cognard-Black
- Length: 3 hrs
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In the six lectures of Margaret Atwood: A Modern Myth-Maker, Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black will take you on a thorough exploration of Atwood’s most celebrated novel to examine the many ways this book has transcended its dystopian roots to become something more than a tale of, “What if?” Over the course of these lectures, you’ll examine the social, political, cultural, and spiritual impact of the novel—and of Atwood herself—as you dive deep into the text to unravel its themes and inspirations.
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Whenever republicans are in office Atwood makes a lot of money
- By Jerry Harwood on 05-31-25
By: Jennifer Cognard-Black, and others
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Conspiracies & Conspiracy Theories
- What We Should and Shouldn't Believe - and Why
- By: Michael Shermer, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
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The stuff of conspiracy theories makes for great, entertaining stories in movies, books, and television. And there is no shortage of subjects: from who really killed JFK to the truth behind 9/11. And then, there are subjects from alien invasions to the Moon landing was simulated - theories that are truly out of this world, which according to some, is flat. Many of these crazy concepts have jumped off the pages or screens to become so pervasive in our culture that thousands - even millions - subscribe to them as reality.
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No chapter titles!!???
- By Nomad of the World on 09-21-19
By: Michael Shermer, and others
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Renaissance: The Transformation of the West
- By: Jennifer McNabb, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Jennifer McNabb
- Length: 26 hrs and 35 mins
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While it’s easy to get caught up - and, rightfully so - in the art of the Renaissance, you cannot have a full, rounded understanding of just how important these centuries were without digging beneath the surface, without investigating the period in terms of its politics, its spirituality, its philosophies, its economics, and its societies. Do just that with these 48 lectures that consider the European Renaissance from all sides, that disturb traditional understandings, that tip sacred cows, and that enlarges our understanding of how the Renaissance revolutionized the Western world.
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Reads like a bad high school essay.
- By Matthew Dennis on 10-29-18
By: Jennifer McNabb, and others
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The Story of Human Language
- By: John McWhorter, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: John McWhorter
- Length: 18 hrs and 15 mins
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Language defines us as a species, placing humans head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators. But it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries, allowing us to ponder why different languages emerged, why there isn't simply a single language, how languages change over time and whether that's good or bad, and how languages die out and become extinct.
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You'll Never Look at Languages the Same Way Again
- By SAMA on 03-11-14
By: John McWhorter, and others
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A Day's Read
- By: The Great Courses, Emily Allen, Grant L. Voth, and others
- Narrated by: Arnold Weinstein, Emily Allen, Grant L. Voth
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
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Join three literary scholars and award-winning professors as they introduce you to dozens of short masterpieces that you can finish - and engage with - in a day or less. Perfect for people with busy lives who still want to discover-or rediscover-just how transformative an act of reading can be, these 36 lectures range from short stories of fewer than 10 pages to novellas and novels of around 200 pages. Despite their short length, these works are powerful examinations of the same subjects and themes that longer "great books" discuss.
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Stories not included, only discussed
- By Julie Newman on 01-15-16
By: The Great Courses, and others
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Great Heroes and Heroines of Hawaiian Heritage
- By: Leilani Basham, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Leilani Basham
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
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In the six lectures of Great Heroes and Heroines of Hawaiian Heritage, you will meet some of the key figures of Hawaiian history from the 19th and 20th centuries, a tumultuous period in Hawaii’s transformation from a secluded group of independent islands to the 50th US state and a bustling tourist destination. With Leilani Basham of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa as your guide, you’ll be introduced to the political leaders, scholars, activists, and artists who have been integral to Hawaii’s story and the preservation of Hawaiian culture.
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This great!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-25
By: Leilani Basham, and others
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The Many Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
- By: Sean Carroll, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
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In a field known for startling ideas, the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics may take the prize. It holds that parallel to our own world are a large number of other universes, almost identical to ours but with small variations. Copies of each of us inhabit a myriad of these worlds. But they are not us exactly; they share our past history, but they are different people who have unique futures. Although these realms are invisible and can’t communicate with each other, prominent physicists are convinced they must exist.
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Sean Carroll always has such amazing content
- By Amazon Customer on 12-26-23
By: Sean Carroll, and others
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How to Say It: Words That Make a Difference
- By: Allison Friederichs Atkison, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Allison Friederichs Atkison
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
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Words. We use them all the time, every day, mostly without giving them much thought at all. We take for granted that they’re here at our disposal whenever we need them. But if you’ve ever wished you could communicate more effectively, words are the place to start. It’s incumbent upon you to choose the best words to accomplish your goals, because how you choose to communicate influences—well, everything! The power of communication shapes our professional goals, our relationships, and our lives—so the words we choose to use carry a great deal of power.
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Meh. Glad I didn't pay for it.
- By Paula on 07-23-22
By: Allison Friederichs Atkison, and others
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Pillars of Creation
- How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos
- By: Richard Panek
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The James Webb Space Telescope is transforming the universe right before our eyes—and here, for the first time, is the inside account of how the mission originated, how it performs its miracles of science, and what its revolutionary images are revealing. Pillars of Creation tells the story of one of the greatest scientific achievements in the history of civilization, a $10 billion instrument with a staggeringly ambitious goal: unlocking the secrets of the cosmos.
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The sheer scope of unknowns probably dwarfs what we already grasp.
- By EZ Flyer on 01-02-25
By: Richard Panek
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The Great Gatsby at 100
- By: Sheila Liming, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Sheila Liming
- Length: 2 hrs and 48 mins
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In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.
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Warning: A Woke Perspective
- By P. Steele on 04-23-25
By: Sheila Liming, and others
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Bloodlands
- Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
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a warning for the future
- By judith on 11-06-19
By: Timothy Snyder