
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Britain and the American Dream
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
3 months free
Buy for $25.79
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
John Lee
-
By:
-
Peter Moore
The most famous phrase in American history once looked quite different. "The preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness" was how Thomas Jefferson put it in the first draft of the Declaration, before the first ampersand was scratched out, along with "the preservation of." The precise contours of these three rights have never been pinned down—and yet in making these words into rights, Jefferson reified the hopes (and debates) not only of a group of rebel-statesmen but also of an earlier generation of British thinkers who could barely imagine a country like the United States of America.
Peter Moore's Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness tells the true story of what may be the most successful import in US history: the "American dream." Centered on the friendship between Benjamin Franklin and the British publisher William Strahan, and featuring figures including the cultural giant Samuel Johnson, the ground-breaking historian Catharine Macaulay, the firebrand politician John Wilkes, and revolutionary activist Thomas Paine, this book looks at the generation that preceded the Declaration in 1776. Everyone, it seemed, had "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" on their minds; Moore shows why, and reveals how these still-nascent ideals made their way across an ocean and started a revolution.
©2023 Peter Moore (P)2023 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















People who viewed this also viewed...

Engaging story-telling
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Fascinating story gets lost a bit in the details
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The untold story. Of the american revolution
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Story enlarged understanding of events of that time
Review
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.