
Frederick Douglass
Prophet of Freedom
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $29.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Prentice Onayemi
-
By:
-
David W. Blight
About this listen
Pulitzer Prize, History, 2019
The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.
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.
Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, often to large crowds, using his own story to condemn slavery. He broke with Garrison to become a political abolitionist, a Republican, and eventually a Lincoln supporter. By the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Douglass became the most famed and widely traveled orator in the nation. He denounced the premature end of Reconstruction and the emerging Jim Crow era. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the US as well as a radical patriot. He sometimes argued politically with younger African Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of Black civil and political rights.
In this remarkable biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’ newspapers. Blight tells the fascinating story of Douglass’ two marriages and his complex extended family. Douglass was not only an astonishing man of words, but a thinker steeped in Biblical story and theology. There has not been a major biography of Douglass in a quarter century. David Blight’s Frederick Douglass affords this important American the distinguished biography he deserves.
©2018 David W. Blight (P)2018 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This memoir written by writer, orator, and former slave Frederick Douglass describes, in gripping detail, the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom. Written in 1845, this narrative is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement that began in the early 19th century.
-
-
Astounding history, riveting performance
- By Rod Perlmutter on 02-26-19
-
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
- Written by Himself
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was Douglass' third autobiography. In it he was able to go into greater detail about his life as a slave and his escape from slavery, as he and his family were no longer in any danger from the reception of his work. In this engrossing narrative he recounts early years of abuse; his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves.
-
-
Excellent in so many ways...
- By Your Old Pal Sisco on 06-24-14
-
King: A Life
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.
-
-
My Time
- By Susan on 06-18-23
By: Jonathan Eig
-
Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
- An American History
- By: Ada Ferrer
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Ada Ferrer - prologue
- Length: 23 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued—through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country’s future. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation.
-
-
US Bash Job
- By Derek & Amber Witt on 04-14-22
By: Ada Ferrer
-
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
- Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1852, Frederick Douglass, former slave and, by then, a leading figure in the abolitionist movement was asked by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Association to address the group for their July 4th celebration at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. The speech caused an immediate sensation and swiftly became a seminal rallying cry of the abolitionist movement in America. The audience in Rochester included none other than President Millard Fillmore.
-
-
As superior a speech as any made in this land.
- By Sojourner "Tell the Truth" & Marcus Haven on 08-29-20
-
Uncle Tom's Cabin
- By: Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uncle Tom's Cabin opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife, Emily Shelby, believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them - Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby's maid Eliza - to a slave trader.
-
-
More on Richard Allen
- By Steven on 07-12-10
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This memoir written by writer, orator, and former slave Frederick Douglass describes, in gripping detail, the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom. Written in 1845, this narrative is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement that began in the early 19th century.
-
-
Astounding history, riveting performance
- By Rod Perlmutter on 02-26-19
-
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
- Written by Himself
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was Douglass' third autobiography. In it he was able to go into greater detail about his life as a slave and his escape from slavery, as he and his family were no longer in any danger from the reception of his work. In this engrossing narrative he recounts early years of abuse; his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves.
-
-
Excellent in so many ways...
- By Your Old Pal Sisco on 06-24-14
-
King: A Life
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.—and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself.
-
-
My Time
- By Susan on 06-18-23
By: Jonathan Eig
-
Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
- An American History
- By: Ada Ferrer
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo, Ada Ferrer - prologue
- Length: 23 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued—through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country’s future. Spanning more than five centuries, Cuba provides us with a front-row seat as we witness the evolution of the modern nation.
-
-
US Bash Job
- By Derek & Amber Witt on 04-14-22
By: Ada Ferrer
-
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
- Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1852, Frederick Douglass, former slave and, by then, a leading figure in the abolitionist movement was asked by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Association to address the group for their July 4th celebration at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. The speech caused an immediate sensation and swiftly became a seminal rallying cry of the abolitionist movement in America. The audience in Rochester included none other than President Millard Fillmore.
-
-
As superior a speech as any made in this land.
- By Sojourner "Tell the Truth" & Marcus Haven on 08-29-20
-
Uncle Tom's Cabin
- By: Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Uncle Tom's Cabin opens with a Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby facing the loss of his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife, Emily Shelby, believe that they have a benevolent relationship with their slaves, Shelby decides to raise the needed funds by selling two of them - Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of Emily Shelby's maid Eliza - to a slave trader.
-
-
More on Richard Allen
- By Steven on 07-12-10
-
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Jon Meacham
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
-
Slave Narratives Mega Collection: 18 of the Most Moving & Telling Memoirs
- Twelve Years a Slave, Up From Slavery, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The History of Mary Prince, The Life of an American Slave (Fifty Years in Chains), and more
- By: Solomon Northrup, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and others
- Narrated by: Museum Audiobooks cast
- Length: 115 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection contains: Twelve Years a Slave, Up from Slavery, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, The Life of an American Slave (Fifty Years in Chains), The Experience of Rev. Thomas H. Jones, Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave, From Log Cabin to the Pulpit, and many more.
-
-
I wish it was authentic
- By Noni on 03-11-22
By: Solomon Northrup, and others
-
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
-
-
it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
-
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution, bringing her masterful skills to Adams’s improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies.
-
-
The revolutionary
- By Charles on 11-02-22
By: Stacy Schiff
-
Grant
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 48 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow reveals in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
-
-
Excellent Book (BUT WHERE IS THE PDF FILES)????
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-17
By: Ron Chernow
-
Washington
- A Life
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 41 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Washington: A Life celebrated biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. This crisply paced narrative carries the reader through his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian War, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention, and his magnificent performance as America's first president.
-
-
A sad day when my book was done!
- By ButterLegume on 12-13-10
By: Ron Chernow
-
And There Was Light
- Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Jon Meacham
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hated and hailed, excoriated and revered, Abraham Lincoln was at the pinnacle of American power when secessionists gave no quarter in a clash of visions bound up with money, race, identity, and faith. In him we can see the possibilities of the presidency as well as its limitations. This book tells the story of Lincoln from his birth on the Kentucky frontier to his leadership during the Civil War to his tragic assassination: his rise, his self-education, his loves, his bouts of depression, his political failures, his deepening faith, and his persistent conviction that slavery must end.
-
-
A Winner
- By Diane Moore on 10-31-22
By: Jon Meacham
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
Alexander Hamilton
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 35 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
An Outstanding & Riveting Book!
- By Kevin on 03-04-05
By: Ron Chernow
-
Churchill
- Walking with Destiny
- By: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 50 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman, and leader can finally be fully understood.
-
-
Superb Biography
- By Jean on 03-03-19
By: Andrew Roberts
-
Team of Rivals
- The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 41 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war.
-
-
Beautiful, Heartbreaking, and Informative
- By JJ on 09-10-12
-
Empire of the Summer Moon
- Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
- By: S. C. Gwynne
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son, Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
-
-
Difficult to endure narrator
- By fowler on 12-21-19
By: S. C. Gwynne
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This memoir written by writer, orator, and former slave Frederick Douglass describes, in gripping detail, the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom. Written in 1845, this narrative is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement that began in the early 19th century.
-
-
Astounding history, riveting performance
- By Rod Perlmutter on 02-26-19
-
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
- Written by Himself
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was Douglass' third autobiography. In it he was able to go into greater detail about his life as a slave and his escape from slavery, as he and his family were no longer in any danger from the reception of his work. In this engrossing narrative he recounts early years of abuse; his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves.
-
-
Excellent in so many ways...
- By Your Old Pal Sisco on 06-24-14
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- An American Slave
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Raymond Hearn
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This classic of American literature, a dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave, was first published in 1845, when its author had just achieved his freedom. It is a story that shocked the world with its first-hand account of the horrors of slavery. The book was an incredible success. It sold over 30,000 copies and was an international best seller.
-
-
Appropriate Audio
- By Gigi P on 05-23-16
-
Yale and Slavery
- A History
- By: David W. Blight, Yale and Slavery Research Project - contributor, Peter Salovey - foreword
- Narrated by: Simon Kerr
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning historian David W. Blight, with the Yale and Slavery Research Project, answers the call to investigate Yale University’s historical involvement with slavery, the slave trade, and abolition. This narrative history demonstrates the importance of slavery in the making of this renowned American institution of higher learning.
-
-
Eye Opening
- By Andre on 09-05-24
By: David W. Blight, and others
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
All Aunt Hagar's Children
- Selected Stories
- By: Edward P. Jones
- Narrated by: James Peter Francis
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.
-
-
I JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS!
- By Mimi Routh on 07-05-15
By: Edward P. Jones
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This memoir written by writer, orator, and former slave Frederick Douglass describes, in gripping detail, the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom. Written in 1845, this narrative is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement that began in the early 19th century.
-
-
Astounding history, riveting performance
- By Rod Perlmutter on 02-26-19
-
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
- Written by Himself
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was Douglass' third autobiography. In it he was able to go into greater detail about his life as a slave and his escape from slavery, as he and his family were no longer in any danger from the reception of his work. In this engrossing narrative he recounts early years of abuse; his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves.
-
-
Excellent in so many ways...
- By Your Old Pal Sisco on 06-24-14
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- An American Slave
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Raymond Hearn
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This classic of American literature, a dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave, was first published in 1845, when its author had just achieved his freedom. It is a story that shocked the world with its first-hand account of the horrors of slavery. The book was an incredible success. It sold over 30,000 copies and was an international best seller.
-
-
Appropriate Audio
- By Gigi P on 05-23-16
-
Yale and Slavery
- A History
- By: David W. Blight, Yale and Slavery Research Project - contributor, Peter Salovey - foreword
- Narrated by: Simon Kerr
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning historian David W. Blight, with the Yale and Slavery Research Project, answers the call to investigate Yale University’s historical involvement with slavery, the slave trade, and abolition. This narrative history demonstrates the importance of slavery in the making of this renowned American institution of higher learning.
-
-
Eye Opening
- By Andre on 09-05-24
By: David W. Blight, and others
-
Race and Reunion
- The Civil War in American Memory
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers' reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.
-
-
How we remember matters
- By Adam Shields on 04-03-19
By: David W. Blight
-
All Aunt Hagar's Children
- Selected Stories
- By: Edward P. Jones
- Narrated by: James Peter Francis
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.
-
-
I JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS!
- By Mimi Routh on 07-05-15
By: Edward P. Jones
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- An American Slave
- By: Frederick Douglass
- Narrated by: Jonathan Reese
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Douglass spent his first 20 years in slavery, before escaping to the North. As a slave, he experienced both the kindness of his master's wife, who taught him to read, as well as the cruelty of sadistic overseers. This powerful story helped recruit many to the abolitionist cause.
-
-
Perhaps it's better than nothing...
- By Asha Ember on 09-12-08
-
Veronica
- By: Mary Gaitskill
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a teenager on the streets of San Francisco, Alison is discovered by a photographer and swept into the world of fashion-modeling in Paris and Rome. When her career crashes and a love affair ends disastrously, she moves to New York City to build a new life. There she meets Veronica: an older wisecracking eccentric with her own ideas about style, a proofreader who comes to work with a personal "office kit" and a plaque that reads "Still Anal After All These Years".
-
-
Everything is baroque-en
- By Eric on 12-14-06
By: Mary Gaitskill
-
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
- Complete Collection
- By: Lydia Davis
- Narrated by: Mia Barron, Thérèse Plummer, Jonathan Davis
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" ( Salon.com ) and "one of the quiet giants... of American fiction" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed "Break It Down" (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee "Varieties of Disturbance".
-
-
Intro & Outro’s Ruin It
- By Amazon Customer on 09-06-20
By: Lydia Davis
-
The Path to Power
- The Years of Lyndon Johnson
- By: Robert A. Caro
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 40 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered.
-
-
The Best of all Biographies
- By David C. Daggett on 12-14-13
By: Robert A. Caro
-
Lincoln
- By: David Herbert Donald
- Narrated by: Dick Estell
- Length: 30 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling tradition of Truman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald offers a new classic in American history and biography - a masterly account of how one man's extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality.
-
-
Lincoln not honest when it comes to his faith?
- By Carpe Diem on 07-19-19
-
A Manual for Cleaning Women
- Selected Stories
- By: Lucia Berlin
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Dawn Harvey, Carol Monda, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers, and bad Christians.
-
-
Exquisite writing, lopsided performances
- By Sazafrass on 03-02-16
By: Lucia Berlin
-
Pulphead
- Essays
- By: John Jeremiah Sullivan
- Narrated by: John Jeremiah Sullivan
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us - with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own - how we really (no, really) live now.
-
-
Interesting Perspectives
- By Nancy on 09-05-24
-
How to Be Both
- A Novel
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: John Banks
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving, genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths, and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real--and all life’s givens get given a second chance.
-
-
Incompetent Foreign Pronunciation
- By J. Kahn on 06-28-15
By: Ali Smith
-
Pastoralia
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this best-selling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
-
-
Greatest living short story author reads own work.
- By Spam on 08-25-19
By: George Saunders
-
10:04
- By: Ben Lerner
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water.
-
-
A novel worth reading
- By Bradley Paul Valentine on 01-29-15
By: Ben Lerner
-
Gilead
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Otto Mellies
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Auf dem Sterbebett schreibt John Ames einen Brief an seinen siebenjährigen Sohn. Dem Kind will er alles erklären: Die Einsicht, mit der man das eigene Leben auf einen Schlag begreift, den Trost, der in einer einzelnen Berührung liegen kann, und den Ort, der sein Ende beschließt: Gilead, die kleine Stadt unter dem unermesslichen Himmel des Westens, leicht wie Staub und so schwer wie die Welt.
-
Persepolis
- The History and Legacy of the Ancient Persian Empire's Capital City
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Scott Clem
- Length: 1 hr and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lying in the middle of a plain in modern-day Iran is a forgotten ancient city, Persepolis. Built two and a half thousand years ago, it was known in its day as the richest city under the sun. Persepolis was the capital of Persia, the largest empire the world had ever seen, but after its destruction, it was largely forgotten for nearly 2,000 years, and the lives and achievements of those who built it were almost entirely erased from history.
What listeners say about Frederick Douglass
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Paul Richards
- 12-19-18
A Life Well Lived...A Story for the Ages
As a reasonably well informed reader of history and admirer of Frederick Douglass, I found this book immensely informative and enjoyable. The author, David W. Blight, is eloquent and measured in presenting the story. The narrator, Prentice Onayemi, is smooth and insightful in his reading. I knew about Frederick Douglass for many years but had never really comprehended the true nature of his contribution to the abolition of slavery. Nor was I aware of his vast popularity as an orator, a real live superstar of the 19th century, perhaps the best known man in the country. While I always strove to get behind the mainstream narrative of the civil war, which I understood to be tainted with racism from decades of Jim Crow laws and tolerance for injustice against black people, I never before read such a comprehensive account of the anti-slavery movement that Douglass spear headed. I found it remarkable that the militant voice of an escaped slave achieved great popularity in a vastly racist society. I marveled at his courage in confronting and even fist fighting hostile mobs all over the country during the pre war years. Then, once the war was over and slavery abolished, I was fascinated by the limbo Douglass endured trying to find a new purpose once his fight against slavery was victorious. It was painful to follow his life through the years when Jim Crow arose in the South and his Republican Party lost its way. Douglass fell into a limbo we see running throughout the 20th century. I experienced it directly in the mid 1960s when civil rights militancy gave way to pro war support for the war in Vietnam, when the loud cries for justice were drowned out by greed and the quest for empire. On the personal side, I found the story of Douglass' family, his wife Anna, mother of his five children, and then his second wife Helen, to be a compelling story of transformation of life that could only have happened once slavery was abolished. For those of us who understand that the civil war was all about slavery and slavery alone, this book will provide a deep glimpse into a century of history that gave birth to the modern world we all live in today.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Douglas Humphreys
- 06-22-20
Don’t give up at chapter 1
Oh my word, what a pompous introduction that is Chapter 1. Even as he says Douglas’ viewpoints are not aligned with either party or political viewpoint alone, when he references GOP admiration of Douglas, he essentially chuckles and calls them stupid, and that those who are better schooled and learned obviously don’t agree with them.
After chapter 1 the book shifts to narrative and loses a good deal of its pomposity and is quite enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- EH
- 09-28-21
informative but not strictly biographical
was LONG... author injects a LOT of opinion, about Douglass and others. Narrator was at times a bit annoying.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Terrence Franklin
- 03-23-21
Great Biography of A Great Man
An epic telling of an epic life. Masterful weaving of facts with historical context. Filling in gaps of internal psychology with plausible speculation. Beautiful writing that moved me to tears more than once.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- mom10
- 02-07-19
Compelling but very detailed
Very very long book, comprising the 3 Douglass autobiographies and just about every shred of historical data relevant to his life...every letter to and from him, every speech he gave, every reference to him in all speeches and journalism here and abroad. It often feels like too much detail , but it does give a great historical sweep of the horrific racial crimes that have taken place alongside our“One nation with freedom and justice for all” mythology. I don’t think I could have made it through a print version, but the reader’s mellifluous voice kept me going. I do feel more deeply informed and more saddened about humanity’s struggle with otherness having listened to this admittedly impressive, in-depth study of the span of Douglass’s life and the historical, social and political times he lived through.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 01-05-19
Simply Excellent
One of the Best Books of the year. The prophetic Douglass, and her oratory lives on in this scholarly work!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A Reader in the Southeast
- 03-28-19
The Beautiful Needful Thing
This audio book is uncommonly good. The performance is worthy of the orator, and as for the writing of Blight: the research and passion of the scholarship does Douglass and America justice.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M. Rebus
- 11-11-19
excellent bio and excellent narrator
I will seek out this narrator in the future. great to listen to. David blight writes good books but they're a tad long, like this one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Boyo
- 05-13-21
Incredible Life Trajectory
What an amazing life FD lived.
To read this book is to learn the sweep of US History from the 1820s to the 1890s.
The level of detail is facinating but at times a little too much especially for eras when FD wasn’t at the forefront of history eg after Reconstruction.
The performance, at 1.2x, was exceptional.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Catherine Baldwin
- 10-12-19
Excellent biography and narration of Douglass
Frederick Doglass is one of my HEROS. He was a brilliant, convinced, and commited man, and courageous!!!! The author was an excellent writer in my opinion. The narrator and the author allowed me the thoughts/feelings of what it might be like to be a slave.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!