
The Broken Heart of America
St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States
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Narrated by:
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Jamie Renell
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By:
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Walter Johnson
About this listen
A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis.
From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past.
St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor Black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures.
A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.
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Critic reviews
"Although focused primarily on the history of St. Louis and surrounding areas, this well researched and thoroughly documented work is too important to be dismissed as a strictly regional history. Highly recommended for all readers interested in American history."—Los Angeles Review of Books
"When it comes to the history of racism and exclusion in the United States, St. Louis wasn't unique...what it was, Johnson says, was more extreme.... Johnson is a spirited and skillful rhetorician, juggling a slew of historical facts while never allowing the flame of his anger to dim.... As he ably shows, so much exploitation lies in the details."—New York Times
"The Broken Heart of America is an outraged dissection of a malignant pattern Johnson discerns in the way white St. Louis treated Native Americans and then Blacks.... Comprehensive and convincing in its particulars."—Boston Globe
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Mengele
- The Complete Story
- By: Gerald Posner, John Ware, Michael Berenbaum - introduction
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on exclusive and unrestricted access to more than 5,000 pages of personal writings and family photos, this definitive biography of German physician and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Mengele (1911-1979) probes the personality and motivations of Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". From May 1943 through January 1945, Mengele selected who would be gassed immediately, who would be worked to death, and who would serve as involuntary guinea pigs for his spurious and ghastly human experiments (twins were Mengele's particular obsession).
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ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ
- By PAUL on 08-02-20
By: Gerald Posner, and others
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White Rage
- The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
- By: Carol Anderson
- Narrated by: Pamela Gibson
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'
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Good History, Was Hoping For More Insight
- By Mike on 09-08-16
By: Carol Anderson
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When the Clock Broke
- Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
- By: John Ganz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents.
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Amazing history of the early 90s
- By Aaron R. Isaacson on 06-25-24
By: John Ganz
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The Delectable Negro
- Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture
- By: Vincent Woodard, E. Patrick Johnson - foreword, Justin A. Joyce - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Stan Brown
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Scholars of US and transatlantic slavery have largely ignored or dismissed accusations that Black Americans were cannibalized. Vincent Woodard takes the enslaved person's claims of human consumption seriously, focusing on both the starvation of the slave and the tropes of cannibalism on the part of the slaveholder, and further draws attention to the ways in which Blacks experienced their consumption as a fundamentally homoerotic occurrence.
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Necessary Reading
- By Airborne Infantry on 05-04-23
By: Vincent Woodard, and others
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The 1619 Project
- A New Origin Story
- By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones, Full Cast
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
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Comprehensive and Cutting
- By Thomas Ray on 12-30-21
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others
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Black AF History
- The Un-Whitewashed Story of America
- By: Michael Harriot
- Narrated by: Michael Harriot
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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America’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written by white men with their perspectives at the forefront. It could even be said that the devaluation and erasure of the Black experience is as American as apple pie. In Black AF History, Michael Harriot presents a more accurate version of American history.
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LOVE It!
- By KMB on 09-29-23
By: Michael Harriot
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The Fire Next Time
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Jesse L. Martin
- Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.
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Sad and moving and powerful and beautiful
- By Darwin8u on 09-17-15
By: James Baldwin
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
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My Name Is Lucy Barton (Dramatic Production)
- By: Elizabeth Strout, Rona Munro
- Narrated by: Laura Linney
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Praised as "deeply affecting" and "heartbreaking" by The Guardian (UK), this is a faithful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout's best-selling novel of the same name. Unsteady after an operation, Lucy Barton wakes to find her mother sitting at the foot of her bed. She hasn't seen her in years, and her visit brings back to Lucy her desperate rural childhood, and her escape to New York. As she begins to find herself as a writer, she is still gripped by the urgent complexities of family life.
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Great actress- No story
- By Richard M. on 04-02-21
By: Elizabeth Strout, and others
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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
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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.
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Better suited to print than audio
- By ProfGolf on 02-04-18
What listeners say about The Broken Heart of America
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- Ron G
- 04-26-20
Sad & True,With Fascinating Facts of St.Louis Past
Particularly in first five Chapters, there are relatively unknown facts from 19th Century that amazed me. Those points also provided a continuation of the negative racial justice thread in history, backwards, from which most St. Louisans are already aware.
The narrator, though excellent in reading skills, unfotunately did not do his due diligence on St. Louis street, town and people pronunciations. For someone from St. louis, it is a distraction to wince with each new wrongly rer ad proper noun. To prepare a potential reader, here are attempts at a phonetic few: St. LooEEzans, Mayor Vincent SHOWmul, FloriSAHNT LinDELL and CarondeLAY.
The book itself was a very thorough coverage of major racial events over St. Louis history. Many readers from the region will recognize most of those but also be greatly surprised by others. Excellent research on even the most minor details. This includes Kirkwood's astonishing reduction of the number of streets leading out ofthe Meacham Park community. The pre-annex number of exits/entries was nine. The nine were reduced to a single legal entry/exit for the past 29 years.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Darin E.
- 07-21-20
Who was St. Louise?
I found the format of this book to be exceptional, the way the author tied the past to the present using St. Louis as an example of what has occurred in numerous cities across this country. I grew up in the suburbs, not far from Kirkwood and Webster Groves yet still learned quite a bit about my hometown which caused me to reconsider some of the events that transpired during my childhood. Yes, the narrator's (not the author's!) pronunciation is comical, but don't let that detract from the message. While he stumbles badly on Carondelet, Florissant, Laclede, Sauget, Schoemehl, St. Louisan and Vashon, at least give him credit for getting Cairo and Gravois right.
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- TheFilterSaturation
- 07-06-20
Should be required listening in St Louis
Fantastic book. I learned so much about my city. As a white person, it has me reevaluating a lot of my values. The only criticism I have is the reader mispronounces a lot of (admittedly bastardized) St Louis names. He has a great voice though and is really easy to listen to.
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3 people found this helpful
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- David
- 01-01-22
Listen: ONLY IF YOU WANT CHANGE AND TRUTH
The author, Walter Johnson, has a unique way of building the historical policy/prejudiced based narrative of policy creation, historic grievances, and such while leading the reader to an catharsis of previously known information that is newly discovered at the same time. As a black resident of the city of East St Louis, I can undoubtedly affirm all this states.
ONLY READ THIS is your sensitivity can be set aside for reformation. ONLY READ THIS, if you want change for what could be a great region. ONLY READ this if you have the grit to digest truth and the willingness to be silent, grieve inwardly, and reflect without accusation.
If you can qualify your heart per the above qualifiers, then read away, change the narrative and help divert the black exodus of St. Louis along with the exportation of its business leaders, ideas etc!
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- eric lewis
- 09-16-23
Outstanding!
A fantastic telling of an American City. It filled in a lot gaps in my knowledge of the Midwest. The story & performance were both excellent!
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- R. S. Hawley
- 12-17-20
Great book but terrible audiobook
This is a really interesting book that anyone could enjoy but especially if you’re from St. Louis or Southern Illinois. however, if you are from within a 3 Hour Dr. of St. Louis do not listen to the audiobook as the narrator does not know how to pronounce anything correctly! It is truly an exercise in repeated frustration for hours! Sometimes it would take me chapters to figure out that when he’s talking about Soggit he really means Sauget. Somehow he pronounces Creve Coeur correctly though! It’s a wonder! And I want to pull my hair out every time he says St. Louisan. It’s dreadful.
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2 people found this helpful
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- yuki21
- 01-12-22
heartbreakingly terribly wonderful
must read for people trying to understand the importance of the social movements throughout history highly recommended
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- visionaryprism2
- 04-14-22
A timely and probing history
A timely and probing sociological history of a region that was key to the expansion and rule of white capitalism. The author exposes corruption on a monumental scale in the region using well researched data.
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- Rossi
- 12-29-22
National and Local History
The book was well done and provided so much history. It encouraged and prompted me to do more research on several historical events. Now, I am able to connect the what is with the why.
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- Erika
- 01-12-23
A Wide Eye Tale of Missouri's History
As a Millennial born and raised in Missouri, this opened my eyes and fanned the flames of activism within me.
Who knew this rich yet rugged history laid within our state - and why was it not taught?
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