Freethinkers
A History of American Secularism
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Narrated by:
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Rich Miller
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By:
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Susan Jacoby
About this listen
At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby traces more than 200 years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from 19th-century abolitionism and suffragism through the 20th century's civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected achievements of secularists who, allied with tolerant believers, have led the battle for reform in the past and today.
Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Paine, and the once-famous Robert Green Ingersoll, Freethinkers restores to history the passionate humanists who struggled against those who would undermine the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.
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By: Thomas S. Kidd, and others
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It's Dangerous to Believe
- Religious Freedom and Its Enemies
- By: Mary Eberstadt
- Narrated by: Margaret Winston
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In It's Dangerous to Believe, Mary Eberstadt documents how people of faith - especially Christians who adhere to traditional religious beliefs - face widespread discrimination in today's increasingly secular society. Eberstadt details how recent laws, court decisions, and intimidation on campuses and elsewhere threaten believers who fear losing their jobs, their communities, and their basic freedoms solely because of their convictions.
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Not about Freedom of Religion
- By A. A. Gunnarsdóttir on 01-29-19
By: Mary Eberstadt
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The Lost History of Liberalism
- From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century
- By: Helena Rosenblatt
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry - and a term of derision - in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking listeners from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism", revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. In this timely and provocative book, Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights.
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Educative and informative
- By Amazon Customer on 06-05-19
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Apologetics at the Cross: Audio Lectures
- By: Joshua D. Chatraw, Mark D. Allen
- Narrated by: Joshua D. Chatraw, Mark D. Allen
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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These audio lectures are a unique learning experience. Unlike a traditional audiobook's direct narration of a book's text, Apologetics at the Cross: Audio Lectures includes high quality live-recordings of college-level lectures that cover the important points from each subject as well as relevant material from other sources.
By: Joshua D. Chatraw, and others
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The Supreme Court
- The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America
- By: Jeffrey Rosen
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
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Overruled!
- By Stephen McLeod on 08-23-08
By: Jeffrey Rosen
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The Age of American Unreason
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought".
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Interesting, but explanation by redescription
- By T. Andrew Poehlman on 07-15-08
By: Susan Jacoby
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Stamped from the Beginning
- The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
- By: Ibram X. Kendi
- Narrated by: Christopher Dontrell Piper
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in America - more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society.
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Fabulous book, poor reader
- By EBMason on 11-15-17
By: Ibram X. Kendi
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Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
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This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
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Free Speech
- A History from Socrates to Social Media
- By: Jacob Mchangama
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed as the “first freedom”, free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea.
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Great review of free speech and history
- By Anonymous User on 02-22-22
By: Jacob Mchangama
What listeners say about Freethinkers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CL
- 03-16-19
A very non-biased history lesson
Moderately dry, but ultimately an outstanding history lesson and outlook on America and how religions has impacted our culture.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tim Patrick Grunkemeyer
- 07-20-21
Important Book
A great book relating the important but sometimes forgotten history of Freethought in the United States.
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- Wayne Wilson
- 09-26-19
Must read for freethinkers of all flavors
USA was founded to be a secular government. Not everyone has agreed with this plan but it has held since our beginnings. That said, this perspective seems to be at an all-time high now.
Major players include Jefferson, Maddison, Paine, Robert Ingersoll, women's rights advocates, abolitionists, etc
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- Clark Savage
- 11-27-17
Essential history of free thought in America
An interesting overview of the free thought movement and key ieaders and instigators. Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Robert Green Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln and more. An essential history to better understand how unique and lucky we are to have a secular based government that theoretically serves the interests all creeds, philosophies, religions and disciplines.
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- David Carter
- 07-12-21
Great Book! Well enjoyed.
This audiobook presents a great deal of interesting information and is delivered in a delightful way Hats off!
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- Ben Dover
- 06-17-19
Very good history
The tone of the story is excellent, and the narrator has a clear easily understood voice. The story explains the history of the back-and-forth between different religions and freethinkers throughout the past two centuries in the United States. Very interesting, very well told.
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- Montcalm
- 08-28-23
an adequate counternarrative
what's missing from this book? a writing is OK, but essentially pedestrian. The subject is interesting but it's made less interesting in the telling somehow.
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