Preview
  • Give Me Liberty

  • A History of America's Exceptional Idea
  • By: Richard Brookhiser
  • Narrated by: Tony Messano
  • Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (34 ratings)

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Give Me Liberty

By: Richard Brookhiser
Narrated by: Tony Messano
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Publisher's summary

An award-winning historian recounts the history of American liberty through the stories of 13 essential documents

Nationalism is inevitable: It supplies feelings of belonging, identity, and recognition. It binds us to our neighbors and tells us who we are. But increasingly - from the United States to India, from Russia to Burma - nationalism is being invoked for unworthy ends: to disdain minorities or to support despots. As a result, nationalism has become to many a dirty word.

In Give Me Liberty, award-winning historian and biographer Richard Brookhiser offers up a truer and more inspiring story of American nationalism as it has evolved over 400 years. He examines America's history through 13 documents that made the United States a new country in a new world: a free country. We are what we are because of them; we stay true to what we are by staying true to them.

Americans have always sought liberty, asked for it, fought for it; every victory has been the fulfillment of old hopes and promises. This is our nationalism, and we should be proud of it.

©2019 Richard Brookhiser (P)2019 Basic Books
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Critic reviews

"In our deeply divided America, Richard Brookhiser goes back in search of our roots, and finds them in that many-headed idea called 'liberty'. In his signature style, he wastes no words, defies the conventional political categories, and invites us to join him in recovering a series of inspirational moments when we all felt the same future in our hearts and minds. (Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Dialogue: The Founders and Us)

"Brookhiser grounds his spirited argument for American exceptionalism in the idea of liberty.... An engaging history of admirable episodes from America's past." (Kirkus)

"With his characteristic combination of elegance and shrewdness, Richard Brookhiser gives us another insightful account of what makes us the nation we are. Give Me Liberty is intellectual history at its riveting best." (H.W. Brands, author of Heirs of the Founders and Dreams of El Dorado)

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A great summary tied together

Many threads of history tied together very well. A rebuttal of sorts to both sides of the current political morass.

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Extraordinary!

I'm so grateful that this book was made available via Audible. I do love to read, but some books strike me as special when read aloud or performed. This is one of them!

I listen when walking the pasture, tending animals, doing laundry and other household chores. I savored it -- for the stories and speeches about our history and ideals, for the hooks it dropped into my education in history (I'm a physicist and lawyer, not a historian) from many years gone by. I highly recommend this book -- whether in print or via audio edition -- as a very useful reacquainting with an interesting range of American events, persons, ideals, and history.

Thumbs up to the narrator -- the pace, the intonation, the familiarity with the subject that permitted correct phrasing, pauses and the like, well, just perfect.

Thank you.

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3 people found this helpful