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The Calculus of Violence
- How Americans Fought the Civil War
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
At least three-quarters of a million lives were lost during the American Civil War. Given its seemingly indiscriminate mass destruction, this conflict is often thought of as the first "total war." But Aaron Sheehan-Dean argues for another interpretation.
The Calculus of Violence demonstrates that this notoriously bloody war could have been much worse. Military forces on both sides sought to contain casualties inflicted on soldiers and civilians. In Congress, in church pews, and in letters home, Americans debated the conditions under which lethal violence was legitimate, and their arguments differentiated carefully among victims - women and men, black and white, enslaved and free. Sometimes, as Sheehan-Dean shows, these well-meaning restraints led to more carnage by implicitly justifying the killing of people who were not protected by the laws of war.
As the Civil War raged on, the Union's confrontations with guerrillas and the Confederacy's confrontations with black soldiers forced a new reckoning with traditional categories of lawful combatants and raised legal disputes that still hang over military operations around the world today.
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Story
The former Confederate states have continually mythologized the South's defeat to the North, depicting the Civil War as unnecessary, or as a fight over states' Constitutional rights, or as a David v. Goliath struggle in which the North waged "total war" over an underdog South. In The Myth of the Lost Cause, historian Edward Bonekemper deconstructs this multi-faceted myth, revealing the truth about the war that nearly tore the nation apart 150 years ago.
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The Civil War was about Slavery. Period.
- By Reg on 02-07-17
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The Philippine-American War
- A Captivating Guide to the Philippine Insurrection That Started When the United States of America Claimed Possession of the Philippines After the Spanish-American War
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Philippine-American War of 1899-1902 was a dramatic, world-changing conflict that shaped the century to come and revealed the early stirrings of America’s drive for global power. The conflict and its aftershocks continue to influence the Philippines and the wider region to this day, leaving a legacy of governance, society, and economic organization.
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America is a racist country....blah blah blah....
- By jabba53e on 02-01-23
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Scars of Independence
- America's Violent Birth
- By: Holger Hoock
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The American Revolution is often portrayed as an orderly, restrained rebellion, with brave patriots defending their noble ideals against an oppressive empire. It's a stirring narrative, and one the founders did their best to encourage after the war. But as historian Holger Hoock shows in this deeply researched and elegantly written account of America’s founding, the Revolution was not only a high-minded battle over principles, but also a profoundly violent civil war—one that shaped the nation, and the British Empire, in ways we have only begun to understand.
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very biased.
- By Andy T on 07-20-17
By: Holger Hoock
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Russia in Flames
- War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914 - 1921
- By: Laura Engelstein
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 31 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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October 1917, heralded as the culmination of the Russian Revolution, remains a defining moment in world history. Even a hundred years after the events that led to the emergence of the world's first self-proclaimed socialist state, debate continues over whether, as historian E. H. Carr put it decades ago, these earth-shaking days were a "landmark in the emancipation of mankind from past oppression" or "a crime and a disaster."
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Solid overview of events
- By Anonymous User on 06-27-19
By: Laura Engelstein
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Force and Freedom
- Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence
- By: Kellie Carter Jackson
- Narrated by: Machelle Williams
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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From its origins in the 1750s, the White-led American abolitionist movement adhered to principles of "moral suasion" and nonviolent resistance as both religious tenet and political strategy. Through tactical violence, argues Carter Jackson, Black abolitionist leaders accomplished what White nonviolent abolitionists could not: creating the conditions that necessitated the Civil War.
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My ancestors were active in their freedom
- By Amazon Customer on 09-24-24
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They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else
- A History of the Armenian Genocide
- By: Ronald Grigor Suny
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Starting in early 1915, the Ottoman Turks began deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the first major genocide of the 20th century. By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent - more than 1,000,000 people. A century later, the Armenian genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian versions of events.
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Great book, unbiased view finally
- By Raffy Afarian on 10-30-15
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The Fall of the House of Dixie
- The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South
- By: Bruce Levine
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The J. G. Randall Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Illinois and associate editor of North and South magazine, Bruce Levine presents a gripping chronicle of the cultural and economic upheaval the South experienced during and after the Civil War. Drawing upon a treasure trove of diaries, letters, newspaper articles, and government documents, Levine offers a unique perspective on the old South's demise through the voices of those who lived through the conflict.
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Merely ok. . .
- By Steve E. on 03-19-13
By: Bruce Levine
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Nonviolence
- The History of a Dangerous Idea
- By: Mark Kurlansky
- Narrated by: Richard Dreyfuss
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In this timely, highly original, and controversial narrative, New York Times best-selling author Mark Kurlansky discusses nonviolence as a distinct entity, a course of action, rather than a mere state of mind. Nonviolence can and should be a technique for overcoming social injustice and ending wars, he asserts, which is why it is the preferred method of those who speak truth to power.
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A brief, necessary account of the history of nonviolence
- By Real Talk on 07-29-20
By: Mark Kurlansky
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American History, Volume 1
- 1492-1877
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Craig Hinkle
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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American History, Volume 1 surveys the broad sweep of American history from the first Native American societies to the end of the Reconstruction period, following the Civil War. Drawing on a deep range of research and years of classroom teaching experience, Thomas S. Kidd offers students an engaging overview of the first half of American history. The volume features illuminating stories of people from well known presidents and generals, to lesser-known men and women who struggled under slavery and other forms of oppression to make their place in American life.
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Too much of an agenda
- By anon on 03-19-23
By: Thomas S. Kidd
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America Aflame
- How the Civil War Created a Nation
- By: David Goldfield
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 27 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In this spellbinding new history, David Goldfield offers the first major new interpretation of the Civil War era since James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. Where past scholars have interpreted the war as a triumph of freedom, Goldfield sees it as America's greatest failure: the result of a breakdown caused by the infusion of evangelical religion into the public sphere.
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Great and indepth
- By Kindle Customer on 06-02-14
By: David Goldfield
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Revolutionary Summer
- The Birth of American Independence
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The summer months of 1776 witnessed the most consequential events in the story of our country’s founding. While the thirteen colonies came together and agreed to secede from the British Empire, the British were dispatching the largest armada ever to cross the Atlantic to crush the rebellion in the cradle. The Continental Congress and the Continental Army were forced to make decisions on the run, improvising as history congealed around them. In a brilliant and seamless narrative, Ellis meticulously examines the most influential figures in this propitious moment, including George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Britain’s Admiral Lord Richard and General William Howe. He weaves together the political and military experiences as two sides of a single story, and shows how events on one front influenced outcomes on the other.
Revolutionary Summer tells an old story in a new way, with a freshness at once colorful and compelling.
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Excellent
- By Andrew on 12-18-18
By: Joseph J. Ellis