-
Gateway to Freedom
- The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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 $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. They are little known to history: Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, a furniture polisher; Charles B. Ray, a black minister. At great risk they operated the Underground Railroad in New York, a city whose businesses, banks, and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy.
In secret coordination with black dockworkers who alerted them to the arrival of fugitives and with counterparts in Norfolk, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Albany, and Syracuse, underground-railroad operatives in New York helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Their defiance of the notorious Fugitive Slave Law inflamed the South. White and black, educated and illiterate, they were heroic figures in the ongoing struggle between slavery and freedom. Making brilliant use of fresh evidence - including the meticulous record of slave rescues secretly kept by Gay - Eric Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Reconstruction
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.
-
-
Outdated edition!!
- By Bruce on 11-02-17
By: Eric Foner
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
Frederick Douglass
- Prophet of Freedom
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 36 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The sound of rollerskating in sand
- By Rico X Ludovici on 02-06-19
By: David W. Blight
-
Nothing but Freedom
- Emancipation and Its Legacy
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Daniel Lenard
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing but Freedom examines the aftermath of emancipation in the South and the restructuring of society by which the former slaves gained, beyond their freedom, a new relation to the land they worked on, to the men they worked for, and to the government they lived under. Taking a comparative approach, Eric Foner examines Reconstruction in the southern states against the experience of Haiti, where a violent slave revolt was followed by the establishment of an undemocratic government.
-
-
A classic that deserves a better production
- By Lawrence on 04-25-15
By: Eric Foner
-
The Counter-Revolution of 1776
- Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
- By: Gerald Horne
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.
-
-
A revelation, a paradigm shift and a new view
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-28-18
By: Gerald Horne
-
Reconstruction
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.
-
-
Outdated edition!!
- By Bruce on 11-02-17
By: Eric Foner
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
Frederick Douglass
- Prophet of Freedom
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 36 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
The sound of rollerskating in sand
- By Rico X Ludovici on 02-06-19
By: David W. Blight
-
Nothing but Freedom
- Emancipation and Its Legacy
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Daniel Lenard
- Length: 4 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing but Freedom examines the aftermath of emancipation in the South and the restructuring of society by which the former slaves gained, beyond their freedom, a new relation to the land they worked on, to the men they worked for, and to the government they lived under. Taking a comparative approach, Eric Foner examines Reconstruction in the southern states against the experience of Haiti, where a violent slave revolt was followed by the establishment of an undemocratic government.
-
-
A classic that deserves a better production
- By Lawrence on 04-25-15
By: Eric Foner
-
The Counter-Revolution of 1776
- Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
- By: Gerald Horne
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.
-
-
A revelation, a paradigm shift and a new view
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-28-18
By: Gerald Horne
-
Black Reconstruction in America
- By: W. E. B. Du Bois, David Levering Lewis
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 37 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America has justly been called a classic.
-
-
The textbook you should have had in high school.
- By Saleh on 05-06-18
By: W. E. B. Du Bois, and others
-
How the South Won the Civil War
- Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While the North prevailed in the Civil War, ending slavery and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," Heather Cox Richardson argues in this provocative work that democracy's blood-soaked victory was ephemeral. The system that had sustained the defeated South moved westward and there established a foothold. It was a natural fit. Settlers from the East had for decades been pushing into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies....
-
-
Disappointing book that wasted such potential.
- By Amazon Customer on 08-07-21
-
Separate
- The Story of Plessy V. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation
- By: Steve Luxenberg
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court case synonymous with "separate but equal", created remarkably little stir when the justices announced their near-unanimous decision on May 18, 1896. Yet it is one of the most compelling and dramatic stories of the 19th century, whose outcome embraced and protected segregation, and whose reverberations are still felt into the 21st. Separate spans a striking range of characters and landscapes, bound together by the defining issue of their time and ours - race and equality.
-
-
Black and White in shades of grey
- By JKC on 03-15-19
By: Steve Luxenberg
-
The Impending Crisis
- America Before the Civil War: 1848-1861
- By: David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David M. Potter's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Impending Crisis is the definitive history of antebellum America. Potter's sweeping epic masterfully charts the chaotic forces that climaxed with the outbreak of the Civil War: westward expansion, the divisive issue of slavery, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's uprising, the ascension of Abraham Lincoln, and the drama of Southern secession.
-
-
A Slog for Sure
- By Brux on 04-13-17
By: David M. Potter, and others
-
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
-
The New Jim Crow
- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition
- By: Michelle Alexander
- Narrated by: Karen Chilton
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.
-
-
Shocking, Important and Brilliant
- By Tim on 10-06-14
-
American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
-
-
Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
-
All That She Carried
- The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of slavery.
-
-
An Astonishing Feat of Scholarship, Imagination and Empathy
- By Cin on 06-30-21
By: Tiya Miles
-
The Color of Law
- A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
- By: Richard Rothstein
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation - that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, he incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation - the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
-
-
Better suited to print than audio
- By ProfGolf on 02-04-18
-
African Founders
- How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals
- By: David Hackett Fischer
- Narrated by: Lamarr Gulley
- Length: 35 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, producing a new distinctly American culture.
-
-
faux vocalizations
- By Porter on 08-19-22
-
The Wars of Reconstruction
- The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.
-
-
Atrocities
- By Tad Davis on 07-05-18
-
Legacy of Violence
- A History of the British Empire
- By: Caroline Elkins
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that probes the country's pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe.
-
-
Great ideas, but very disappointing execution
- By Luc Rey-Bellet on 09-05-22
By: Caroline Elkins
Critic reviews
"JD Jackson offers a solid, easy-on-the-ears narration of this reexamination of the Underground Railroad." (AudioFile)
Related to this topic
-
100 Amazing Facts About the Negro
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With élan and erudition - and with winning enthusiasm - Henry Louis Gates Jr. gives us a corrective yet loving homage to Rogers' work. Relying on the latest scholarship, Gates leads us on a romp through African, diasporic, and African American history in question-and-answer format. Among the 100 questions: Who were Africa's first ambassadors to Europe? Who was the first black president in North America? Did Lincoln really free the slaves? Who was history's wealthiest person? What percentage of white Americans have recent African ancestry?
-
-
great book
- By Anthony Costello on 06-14-18
-
Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
-
-
Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
-
The Wars of Reconstruction
- The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.
-
-
Atrocities
- By Tad Davis on 07-05-18
-
The War Before the War
- Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
- By: Andrew Delbanco
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades after its founding, America was really two nations—one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights.
-
-
Great promise greater disappointment
- By Amazon Customer on 12-09-18
By: Andrew Delbanco
-
Bound for Canaan
- The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrated by: Peter J. Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition.
-
-
The Heroic Missing Piece
- By Paul Frandano on 03-03-17
By: Fergus Bordewich
-
The Slave's Cause
- A History of Abolition
- By: Manisha Sinha
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 30 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved, found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor.
-
-
Thorough, convincing and haunting
- By Roger on 07-23-17
By: Manisha Sinha
-
100 Amazing Facts About the Negro
- By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With élan and erudition - and with winning enthusiasm - Henry Louis Gates Jr. gives us a corrective yet loving homage to Rogers' work. Relying on the latest scholarship, Gates leads us on a romp through African, diasporic, and African American history in question-and-answer format. Among the 100 questions: Who were Africa's first ambassadors to Europe? Who was the first black president in North America? Did Lincoln really free the slaves? Who was history's wealthiest person? What percentage of white Americans have recent African ancestry?
-
-
great book
- By Anthony Costello on 06-14-18
-
Harriet Tubman
- The Road to Freedom
- By: Catherine Clinton
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of 19th-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman?
-
-
Returning this book
- By KMS on 07-11-18
-
The Wars of Reconstruction
- The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era
- By: Douglas R. Egerton
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A groundbreaking new history, telling the stories of hundreds of African-American activists and officeholders who risked their lives for equality - in the face of murderous violence - in the years after the Civil War. By 1870, just five years after Confederate surrender and 13 years after the Dred Scott decision ruled blacks ineligible for citizenship, Congressional action had ended slavery and given the vote to black men. That same year, Hiram Revels and Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African-American U.S. senator and congressman respectively.
-
-
Atrocities
- By Tad Davis on 07-05-18
-
The War Before the War
- Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War
- By: Andrew Delbanco
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades after its founding, America was really two nations—one slave, one free. There were many reasons why this composite nation ultimately broke apart, but the fact that enslaved black people repeatedly risked their lives to flee their masters in the South in search of freedom in the North proved that the "united" states was actually a lie. Fugitive slaves exposed the contradiction between the myth that slavery was a benign institution and the reality that a nation based on the principle of human equality was in fact a prison-house in which millions of Americans had no rights.
-
-
Great promise greater disappointment
- By Amazon Customer on 12-09-18
By: Andrew Delbanco
-
Bound for Canaan
- The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrated by: Peter J. Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition.
-
-
The Heroic Missing Piece
- By Paul Frandano on 03-03-17
By: Fergus Bordewich
-
The Slave's Cause
- A History of Abolition
- By: Manisha Sinha
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 30 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved, found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor.
-
-
Thorough, convincing and haunting
- By Roger on 07-23-17
By: Manisha Sinha
-
Dawn of Detroit
- A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most Americans believe that slavery was a creature of the South, and that Northern states and territories provided stops on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. In this paradigm-shifting book, celebrated historian Tiya Miles reveals that slavery was at the heart of the Midwest's iconic city: Detroit. In this richly researched and eye-opening book, Miles has pieced together the experience of the unfree - both native and African American - in the frontier outpost of Detroit.
-
-
Great!
- By Melissa Eisner on 05-30-18
By: Tiya Miles
-
Jacksonland
- President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab
- By: Steve Inskeep
- Narrated by: Steve Inskeep
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacksonland is the thrilling narrative history of two men - President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee chief John Ross - who led their respective nations at a crossroads of American history. Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy. Jacksonland is their story.
-
-
Fantastic and Thoughtful
- By Elizabeth Westbrook on 05-05-16
By: Steve Inskeep
-
The Devil's Half Acre
- The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail
- By: Kristen Green
- Narrated by: Deanna Anthony
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre”. When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre”, a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams.
-
-
Preachy
- By Elizabeth Combs on 09-13-22
By: Kristen Green
-
Andrew Jackson, Southerner
- By: Mark R. Cheathem
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many Americans view Andrew Jackson as a frontiersman who fought duels, killed Indians, and stole another man's wife. Historians have traditionally presented Jackson as a man who struggled to overcome the obstacles of his backwoods upbringing and helped create a more democratic United States. In his compelling new biography of Jackson, Mark R. Cheathem argues for a reassessment of these long-held views, suggesting that in fact "Old Hickory" lived as an elite southern gentleman.
-
-
Lesser Work than HW Brands or John Meacham's books
- By Jose on 05-10-17
By: Mark R. Cheathem
-
The Strange Career of William Ellis
- The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire
- By: Karl Jacoby
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To his contemporaries in Gilded Age Manhattan, Guillermo Eliseo was a fantastically wealthy Mexican, the proud owner of a luxury apartment overlooking Central Park, a busy Wall Street office, and scores of mines and haciendas in Mexico. But for all his obvious riches and his elegant appearance, Eliseo was also the possessor of a devastating secret: He was not, in fact, from Mexico at all. Rather, he had begun life as a slave named William Ellis, born on a cotton plantation in Texas during the waning years of King Cotton.
-
-
Fascinating Tale of Racial Passing
- By Steven Schuster on 06-10-16
By: Karl Jacoby
-
American Slavery: History in an Hour
- By: Kat Smutz
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
>Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. From the first slaves arriving in Jamestown in 1619, the cotton fields in the Southern States, and shipbuilding in New England, to the slaves who laid down their lives in war so that Americans could be free,
American Slavery in an Hour covers the breadth of the subject without sacrificing important historical and cultural details. An important and dark time in Black - and American - history, the era of American slavery is explored in
-
-
American History 101
- By Leslie W. Stewart III on 08-23-16
By: Kat Smutz
-
City of Dreams
- The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York
- By: Tyler Anbinder
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams provides a vivid sense of what New York looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like over the centuries of its development and maturation into the city we know today.
-
-
Even as a history, not engaging
- By Patrick Kelly on 12-03-16
By: Tyler Anbinder
-
The American Slave Coast
- A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry
- By: Ned Sublette, Constance Sublette
- Narrated by: Robin Eller
- Length: 30 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The American Slave Coast tells the horrific story of how the slavery business in the United States made the reproductive labor of "breeding women" essential to the expansion of the nation. The book shows how slaves' children, and their children's children, were human savings accounts that were the basis of money and credit. This was so deeply embedded in the economy of the slave states that it could be decommissioned only by emancipation, achieved through the bloodiest war in the history of the United States.
-
-
Get "The Half Has Never Been Told" instead!
- By Ary Shalizi on 11-28-16
By: Ned Sublette, and others
-
Toussaint Louverture
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Philippe Girard
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Philippe Girard shows how Toussaint Louverture transformed himself from lowly freedman into revolutionary hero as the mastermind of the bloody slave revolt of 1791. By 1801, Louverture was governor of the colony where he had once been a slave. But his lifelong quest to be accepted as a member of the colonial elite ended in despair: he spent the last year of his life in a French prison cell. His example nevertheless inspired anticolonial and Black nationalist movements well into the 20th century.
-
-
very powerful story
- By jim on 01-06-17
By: Philippe Girard
-
Patrick Henry
- Champion of Liberty
- By: Jon Kukla
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1736, Patrick Henry was an attorney and a planter and an outstanding orator in the movement for independence. A contemporary of Washington, Henry stood with John and Samuel Adams among the leaders of the colonial resistance to Great Britain that ultimately created the United States. The first governor of Virginia after independence, he was reelected several times. After declining to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Henry opposed the Constitution, arguing that it granted too much power to the central government.
-
-
Long awaited biography of Patrick Henry
- By GallowsJudge on 11-18-17
By: Jon Kukla
-
Mr. Jefferson's Hammer
- William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy
- By: Robert M. Owens
- Narrated by: Doug McDonald
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest.
-
-
Title = Truth in Advertising
- By William Jenks on 06-18-19
By: Robert M. Owens
-
Without Precedent
- Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times
- By: Joel Richard Paul
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No member of America's founding generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation's founding in 1776 and for the next 40 years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States - the longest-serving in history—he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts.
-
-
Scholarly and Accessible
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-01-18
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
Forever Free
- The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Joshua Brown - commentator
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.
-
-
Excellent
- By eric lewis on 07-31-23
By: Eric Foner
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
Reconstruction
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.
-
-
Outdated edition!!
- By Bruce on 11-02-17
By: Eric Foner
-
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
-
Dawn of Detroit
- A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most Americans believe that slavery was a creature of the South, and that Northern states and territories provided stops on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. In this paradigm-shifting book, celebrated historian Tiya Miles reveals that slavery was at the heart of the Midwest's iconic city: Detroit. In this richly researched and eye-opening book, Miles has pieced together the experience of the unfree - both native and African American - in the frontier outpost of Detroit.
-
-
Great!
- By Melissa Eisner on 05-30-18
By: Tiya Miles
-
The Fiery Trial
- Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.
-
-
Great Book about a Monstrous Injustice
- By Cynthia on 07-29-13
By: Eric Foner
-
Forever Free
- The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Joshua Brown - commentator
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on a wide range of long-neglected documents, Eric Foner places a new emphasis on the centrality of the Black experience to an understanding of the era. We see African Americans as active agents in overthrowing slavery, in helping win the Civil War, and - even more actively - in shaping Reconstruction and creating a legacy long obscured and misunderstood. Foner makes clear how, by war's end, freed slaves in the South built on networks of church and family in order to exercise their right of suffrage as well as gain access to education, land, and employment.
-
-
Excellent
- By eric lewis on 07-31-23
By: Eric Foner
-
The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
-
-
Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
-
Reconstruction
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 30 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.
-
-
Outdated edition!!
- By Bruce on 11-02-17
By: Eric Foner
-
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
-
Dawn of Detroit
- A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits
- By: Tiya Miles
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most Americans believe that slavery was a creature of the South, and that Northern states and territories provided stops on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. In this paradigm-shifting book, celebrated historian Tiya Miles reveals that slavery was at the heart of the Midwest's iconic city: Detroit. In this richly researched and eye-opening book, Miles has pieced together the experience of the unfree - both native and African American - in the frontier outpost of Detroit.
-
-
Great!
- By Melissa Eisner on 05-30-18
By: Tiya Miles
-
Be Free or Die
- The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
- By: Cate Lineberry
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a mild May morning in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1862, the second year of the Civil War, when a 23-year-old slave named Robert Smalls did the unthinkable and boldly seized a Confederate steamer. With his wife and two young children hidden on board, Smalls and a small crew ran a gauntlet of heavily armed fortifications in Charleston Harbor and delivered the valuable vessel and the massive guns it carried to nearby Union forces.
-
-
Great Book about a Great man
- By Evan on 02-19-18
By: Cate Lineberry
-
Soul by Soul
- Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market
- By: Walter Johnson
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soul by Soul tells the story of slavery in antebellum America by moving away from the cotton plantations and into the slave market itself, the heart of the domestic slave trade. Taking us inside the New Orleans slave market, the largest in the nation, where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold, Walter Johnson transforms the statistics of this chilling trade into the human drama of traders, buyers, and slaves, negotiating sales that would alter the life of each.
-
-
Heartbreaking
- By Cathy Bown on 07-30-21
By: Walter Johnson
-
Reconstruction (Updated Edition)
- America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 31 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed.
By: Eric Foner
-
The Kidnapping Club
- Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War
- By: Jonathan Daniel Wells
- Narrated by: Devante Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive.
-
-
we don't know american history
- By cosbyfan24 on 02-13-24
-
New York Burning
- Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan
- By: Jill Lepore
- Narrated by: Beth McDonald
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over a few weeks in 1741, 10 fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. Tried and convicted before the colony's Supreme Court, 13 black men were burned at the stake and 17 were hanged. Four whites, the alleged ringleaders of the plot, were also hanged, and seven more were pardoned on condition that they never set foot in New York again.
-
-
Interesting
- By Phillip Goodson on 05-15-09
By: Jill Lepore
-
The War for the Common Soldier
- How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies
- By: Peter S. Carmichael
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did Civil War soldiers endure the brutal and unpredictable existence of army life during the conflict? This question is at the heart of Peter S. Carmichael's sweeping new study of men at war.
-
-
A flowing historical narrative
- By Rick Lynch on 08-17-24
-
Bound for Canaan
- The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrated by: Peter J. Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Civil War brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition.
-
-
The Heroic Missing Piece
- By Paul Frandano on 03-03-17
By: Fergus Bordewich
-
This Hallowed Ground
- A History of the Civil War
- By: Bruce Catton
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 18 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is the classic one-volume history of the American Civil War by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. Covering events from the prelude of the conflict to the death of Lincoln, Catton blends a gripping narrative with deep, yet unassuming, scholarship to bring the war alive in an almost novelistic way. It is this gift for narrative that led contemporary critics to compare this book to War and Peace, and call it a "modern Iliad." Now over 50 years old, This Hallowed Ground remains one of the best-loved and admired general Civil War books.
-
-
Still one of the best!
- By Homer on 04-21-19
By: Bruce Catton
-
A Short History of Reconstruction (Updated Edition)
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the quest of emancipated slaves’ searching for economic autonomy and equal citizenship, and describes the remodeling of Southern society; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and one committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans.
-
-
Educational
- By Michael G Morgan on 08-31-24
By: Eric Foner
-
Arc of Justice
- A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
- By: Kevin Boyle
- Narrated by: Lizan Mitchell
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The grandson of a slave, Dr. Ossian Sweet moved his family to an all-white Detroit neighborhood in 1925. When his neighbors attempted to drive him out, Sweet defended himself, resulting in the death of a white man and a murder trial for Sweet. There followed one of the most important (and shockingly unknown) cases in Civil Rights history. Also caught up in the intense courtroom drama were legal giant Clarence Darrow and the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
-
-
Gripping narrative
- By Chris on 04-13-09
By: Kevin Boyle
-
Confederate Reckoning
- Power and Politics in the Civil War South
- By: Stephanie McCurry
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. Confederate Reckoning is the startling story of this epic political battle in which women and slaves helped to decide the fate of the Confederacy and the outcome of the Civil War.
-
-
Good view of the confederate inner workings.
- By Amazonian on 08-10-22
-
Reconstruction
- A Concise History
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Conflict shifted from the battlefield to the Capitol as Congress warred with President Andrew Johnson over just what to do with the South. Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction, which was sympathetic to the former Confederacy, would ultimately lead to his impeachment and the institution of Radical Reconstruction.
-
-
Very Well Done
- By Rob Welch on 08-20-21
By: Allen C. Guelzo
What listeners say about Gateway to Freedom
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Courtney Emerson
- 12-05-17
its good if youre into that.
I fell asleep a lot to it and had to re-listen to it twice. The guys voice isnt boring, the writing is though.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brandon C
- 07-01-16
Good but narrow focus
The book is about the Underground Rail Road in NYC specifically, not the rail road as a whole. extremely informational and the reading was very nice. just not what I had originally expected.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AJ
- 06-26-16
Required Reading at its Best!
Would you consider the audio edition of Gateway to Freedom to be better than the print version?
An excellent compendium
What did you like best about this story?
It is required reading; This is one of the most well-done historical accounts I've been assignmed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- D. Littman
- 02-05-16
fascinating book
This book by Eric Foner is full of surprises & revelations, it took the scales off my eyes regarding the underground railroad, on the one hand how small & balkanized it was, on the other how many dedicated, brave, money-starved idealists were involved in the work. It shows how few, when compared to the millions of slaves, were the successful escapes from the south, and how concentrated the escapes were in border states (and the rescues in the adjacent border states of the north. His focus on primary materials centered in New York City gives the whole thing an evidence that is not common in the usual, HS level treatments of the underground railroad. The book does get bogged down in a few spots by too much detail, but it is well-narrated & a good read for most of the way. Highly recommended (as are all of the Foner books available on Audible).
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Shields
- 05-02-23
Could be a bit more focused
Slightly longer summary: A history of the loosely defined movement known as the Underground Railroad in and around New York City.
Eric Foner is one of the preeminent historians of the Reconstruction era. His book on Reconstruction and his book on the Constitutional Amendments passed during Reconstruction are both well worth reading. I would classify Gateway to Freedom as a less critical but still helpful book. There is a lot of mythology around the Underground Railroad. Gateway to Freedom is working to demythologize how organized it was (it wasn't very organized) while maintaining that the work that was done was dangerous, especially for Black people (whether free or formerly enslaved).
Gateway to Freedom concentrates on New York City. It may not be well known, but New York City broadly supported slavery. The mayor of NYC at the start of the Civil War floated the idea of joining the Confederacy, mainly because so much of the economy of NYC was centered on slavery or products derived from slavery. According to another book I am currently reading, while there were many Black residents of NYC, Philadelphia had the largest Black population of any city in the US until well after the Civil War.
Several books I have read this year overlap with Gateway to Freedom in part. A new biography of Sojourner Truth has a lot of overlap because Sojourner Truth was a slave in New York until she left her enslaver and she sued for the freedom of her child. And she remained in New York for years later. Christian Slavery discusses several of the exact same events, most importantly, a slave rebellion in NYC and the movement of Christians to evangelize those who were enslaved, especially through educational outreach in NYC. Until Justice Be Done is about the movement for civil rights between the US Revolution and the start of Reconstruction, which is precisely the same period as Gateway to Freedom. Both books touch on issues of transportation, fugitive slave laws, and citizenship rights. And the biography of Thaddeus Stevens, even though he was not ever a resident of NYC, his biography also touches on similar issues. The ability to get different nuances of overlapping issues is very helpful.
Similar to one of my observations from reading fairly widely about the 20th-century civil rights movement, many of the important figures are fairly unknown. Many people know at least the names of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. But names like William Still and Sydney Gay are unknown to almost anyone. Trying to help free the enslaved was dangerous, but part of the story is the investment of their own time and financial resources, which meant they could not use that time or resources for other purposes. Those who worked with the Underground Railroad were often on the edge of poverty (if not in significant poverty themselves) because they gave their time and money to those needing help instead of keeping it for themselves.
Another point that keeps coming up in histories of this era is that while many white figures did give time and money, they often still did not face the same potential for physical violence. Legal processes were just different between racial groups. Also, many abolitionists opposed slavery but not white superiority. Few wanted to mix socially, for instance. A final brief point is that legal representation matters. One of the problems of the fugitive slave laws was that there were no due process rules in many cases. This allowed many people to be kidnapped into slavery because the assumption was that all Black people were presumed to be former slaves, and the courts, especially after the Dred Scott decision, did not accept any testimony of Black people. That being said, white lawyers like the Jay family, who did represent those that were being accused of being runaway slaves or those that were being discriminated against on public transportation, were significantly crucial to changing laws and public opinion. The law has always been both important to maintaining slavery, segregation, and discrimination as well as important to bringing an end to them.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tammantha
- 09-27-24
Excellent book,loved it
Love to listen to the narrative, explain the book,And really made it clear understanding about the condition of slavery and the times of that era.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mohamed
- 02-21-15
Lincoln Rocky
Very informative and interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone I know who might be interested in the history of the United States.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JKJ
- 09-26-15
Superb history
Excellent history that filled in many gaps in my knowledge. Superbly written, beautifully read. As more and more detailed information is assembled and published about the history of slavery in this country, American history itself comes into greater focus. I would know like to learn more about how the Underground Railroad functioned here in the Midwest.
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
- JCM
- 08-31-15
A great look at an important period
Would you listen to Gateway to Freedom again? Why?
Yes. I think there were a lot of details that I'd like to know more about.
What did you like best about this story?
I had accepted the conventional wisdom which said that the Underground Railroad was really a white-run charity project. Foner reverses that point of view and clearly shows how much of liberation was run by black Americans. And of course he DESTROYS the myth of "states rights" as the causus belli for the Civil War. The South in fact wanted a strong federal government to enforce fugitive slave laws to stop Northern attempts to deprive them of their so-called property.
Which scene was your favorite?
I think all of the stories about the incredible lengths to which the black anti-slavery societies went to free individual slaves, from hiding them, to raising money to purchase their freedom, to the vast communication network that kept them in the know about the movements of fugitives.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Peter Riley
- 11-07-19
Good but limited history
This is a history of the Underground Railroad and it’s relationship to NYC, thus it is not a general history. That being said it is excellent, as are all of Mr. Foner’s books and well read.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!