
James Madison
A Biography
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Narrated by:
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Bill Burrows
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By:
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Ralph Ketcham
About this listen
The best one-volume biography of Madison’s life, Ketcham’s biography not only traces Madison’s career, it gives listeners a sense of the man. As Madison said of his early years in Virginia under the study of Donald Robertson, who introduced him to thinkers like Montaigne and Montesquieu, "all that I have been in life I owe largely to that man." It also captures a side of Madison that is less rarely on display.
"Madison's personality comes alive in these pages, his strengths and weaknesses of mind and character clearly outlined. His great services in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 are graphically portrayed. The analysis of his political theory, and of the way in which he sought to apply it to the establishment of of government under the Constitution, is excellent. The depiction of Jeffersonian and Madisonian foreign policy up to the outbreak of the War of 1812 is clear and succinct. This is an excellent biography." (American Historical Review)
"Utilizing the vast amount of source material made available in the last 30 years, Ketcham has captured the essential man in his times and in doing so has made him understandable for us in our own day." (Los Angeles Times)
"This single volume has provided a penetrating and highly readable biography which merits distinction as the best one-volume life of Madison yet written." (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography)
©1990 The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (P)2021 Upfront BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
This new biography of Van Buren—the first full-scale portrait in four decades—charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.
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Excellent
- By Joseph T. Hobson on 05-19-25
By: James M. Bradley
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Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Jon Meacham
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
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The Quartet
- Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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From Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian Joseph J. Ellis, the unexpected story of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew.
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bias is not good history
- By Craig on 01-24-18
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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John Quincy Adams
- By: Harlow Giles Unger
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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He fought for Washington, served with Lincoln, witnessed Bunker Hill, and sounded the clarion against slavery on the eve of the Civil War. He negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of La Amistad. He served his nation as minister to six countries, secretary of state, senator, congressman, and president. John Quincy Adams was all of these things and more. In this masterful biography, award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals Adams as a towering figure in the nation’s formative years.
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Informative and well written.
- By Gotta Tellya on 08-20-14
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Martin Van Buren
- A Fascinating Biography of the 8th United States President
- By: Steven Wallace
- Narrated by: Thomas Rode
- Length: 1 hr and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Born just six years after the founding of the United States, Martin Van Buren seemed destined for politics. Known throughout his career as “Little Van” for his short stature, his impact on America was certainly not minimal. From the age of 14, the democratic Van Buren began a political career as an apprentice. He would later go on to fulfill several positions including senator for New York state, a brief stint as governor, Andrew Jackson’s secretary of state, and eventually president.
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Rating primarily based upon length.
- By BC on 02-05-25
By: Steven Wallace
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Pershing
- The Great Generals Series
- By: Jim Lacey
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In this persuasive biography, Jim Lacey sheds light on General Pershing's legacy as the nation's first modern combat commander, setting the standard for today's four-star officers. When the U.S. entered into World War I in 1917, they did so with inadequate forces. In just over a year, Pershing built and hurled a one-million-man army against 40 battle-hardened German divisions.
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Very Listenable
- By D. Martin on 04-20-13
By: Jim Lacey
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Andrew Jackson
- His Life and Times
- By: H.W. Brands
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary story of Andrew Jackson—the colorful, dynamic, and forceful president who ushered in the Age of Democracy and set a still young America on its path to greatness—told by the bestselling author of The First American.
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Very Thorough
- By Eric on 02-07-06
By: H.W. Brands
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Founding Partisans
- Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a fatal threat to republican virtues. They had suffered the consequences of partisan politics in Britain before the American Revolution, and they wanted nothing similar for America. Yet parties emerged even before the Constitution was ratified, and they took firmer root in the following decade. In Founding Partisans, master historian H. W. Brands has crafted a fresh and lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be.
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Very educational
- By Mark Mears on 02-21-24
By: H. W. Brands
A comprehensive biography
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Detailed but not edited
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excellent single volume biography of Madison
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The author himself writes quite academically, which was standard in the 60s & 70s for biographies, but feels outdated today. Combined with the narrator's poor reading, this book is difficult to listen to all the way through.
Moreover, Ketchum is often sidetracked by Jefferson and frequently justifies Madison's more reproachable actions poorly.
Academic & Apologist, Read by a Robot
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A great Book
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Narrator Too Robotic
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The real short coming in this audiobook is the performance of the narrator. To say it is subpar is generous. There are multiple instances where the narrator starts reading a passage, messes up and then restarts. It makes you wonder whether anyone edited or reviewed it before it was released because repeated starts and stops, especially in the chapter where we first come across Dolly Madison make it sound rather amateurish.
Interesting, in-depth and informative
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long and informative
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Plenty of good and interesting info in here, but not my favorite biography. The material felt very dry; an issue exacerbated by the aforementioned narration.
Not my favorite
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Boring narration of dry content
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