The Undiscovered Country
Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pre-order for $24.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
About this listen
From the author of The Apache Wars, the true story of the American West, revealing how American ambition clashed with the realities of violence and exploitation
The epic of the American West became a tale of progress, redemption, and glorious conquest that came to shape the identity of a new nation. Over time a darker story emerged—one of ghastly violence and environmental spoliation that stained this identity.
The Undiscovered Country strips away the layers of myth to reveal the true story of this first epoch of American history. From the forests of Pennsylvania and Kentucky to the snow-crested California Sierras, and from the harsh deserts of the Southwest to the buffalo range of the Great Plains, Paul Andrew Hutton masterfully chronicles a story that defined America and its people. From Braddock’s 1755 defeat to the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, he unfolds a grand narrative steeped in romantic impulses and tragic consequences.
Hutton uses seven main protagonists—Daniel Boone, Red Eagle, Davy Crockett, Mangas Coloradas, Kit Carson, Sitting Bull, and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody—as the biographical threads by which to weave a tapestry across seven generations, revealing a story of heroic conquest and dark tragedy, of sacrifice and greed, and of man-made wonders and environmental ruin.
The American frontier movement has proven eternally fascinating around the world—the subject of countless books, paintings, poems, television shows, and films. The Undiscovered Country reveals the truth behind America’s great creation myth.
Related to this topic
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Jack Weatherford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
-
-
Golden Horde/Platinum Listen
- By Cynthia on 12-11-13
By: Jack Weatherford
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
-
The Man Who Killed Kennedy
- The Case Against LBJ
- By: Roger Stone
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of great ambition and enormous greed, both of which, in 1963, would threaten to destroy him. In the end, President Johnson would use power from his personal connections in Texas and from the underworld and from the government to escape an untimely end in politics and to seize even greater power. President Johnson, the thirty-sixth president of the United States, was the driving force behind a conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In The Man Who Killed Kennedy, you will find out how and why he did it. Political consultant, strategist, and Libertarian Roger Stone has gathered documents and used his firsthand knowledge to construct the ultimate tome to prove that LBJ was not only involved in JFK's assassination, but was in fact the mastermind. With 2013 being the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination, this is the perfect time for The Man Who Killed Kennedy to be available to readers. The research and information in this book is unprecedented, and as Roger Stone lived through it, he's the perfect person to bring it to everyone's attention.
-
-
COMPELLING BOOK - THE CROOKS ARE IN POWER
- By Theo Tsourdalakis on 12-01-13
By: Roger Stone
-
Fingerprints of the Gods
- The Quest Continues
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fingerprints of the Gods is the revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of listeners throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the history behind modern society. An intellectual detective story, this unique history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.
-
-
Classic in Historical Mysteries
- By Kelly on 09-05-19
By: Graham Hancock
-
Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser, Oliver Hunt
- Length: 31 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
-
-
An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
-
The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
-
-
The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
-
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Jack Weatherford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
-
-
Golden Horde/Platinum Listen
- By Cynthia on 12-11-13
By: Jack Weatherford
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
-
The Man Who Killed Kennedy
- The Case Against LBJ
- By: Roger Stone
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of great ambition and enormous greed, both of which, in 1963, would threaten to destroy him. In the end, President Johnson would use power from his personal connections in Texas and from the underworld and from the government to escape an untimely end in politics and to seize even greater power. President Johnson, the thirty-sixth president of the United States, was the driving force behind a conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In The Man Who Killed Kennedy, you will find out how and why he did it. Political consultant, strategist, and Libertarian Roger Stone has gathered documents and used his firsthand knowledge to construct the ultimate tome to prove that LBJ was not only involved in JFK's assassination, but was in fact the mastermind. With 2013 being the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination, this is the perfect time for The Man Who Killed Kennedy to be available to readers. The research and information in this book is unprecedented, and as Roger Stone lived through it, he's the perfect person to bring it to everyone's attention.
-
-
COMPELLING BOOK - THE CROOKS ARE IN POWER
- By Theo Tsourdalakis on 12-01-13
By: Roger Stone
-
Fingerprints of the Gods
- The Quest Continues
- By: Graham Hancock
- Narrated by: Graham Hancock
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fingerprints of the Gods is the revolutionary rewrite of history that has persuaded millions of listeners throughout the world to change their preconceptions about the history behind modern society. An intellectual detective story, this unique history audiobook directs probing questions at orthodox history, presenting disturbing new evidence that historians have tried - but failed - to explain.
-
-
Classic in Historical Mysteries
- By Kelly on 09-05-19
By: Graham Hancock
-
Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser, Oliver Hunt
- Length: 31 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
-
-
An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Southern Fault Line
- How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History
- By: Bryan Jones
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Southern Fault Line explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mindsets were in continual tension from the 1800s to the 1960s, when the adherents of the more democratic side of the struggle capitulated to the oligarchical side in response to the Civil Rights movement. Bryan Jones draws from his own family's centuries-old history in the region to explore the rise and fall of the "two minds" of the South.
By: Bryan Jones
-
Hard Neighbors
- The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hard Neighbors follows the people who came to be known as Scotch-Irish and traces their relations with Native Americans, examines their experiences as marginalized people, and demonstrates their roles as protective and disruptive forces on the edge of colonialism. The Scotch-Irish fought Indian wars and shaped the frontier, and their experiences living near and fighting against Indians shaped their identity and their attitudes towards government. They influenced national attitudes and policies, and they transformed Indian people into racial others as they transformed themselves into Americans.
-
1861
- The Lost Peace
- By: Jay Winik
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
THE LOST PEACE: 1861 is the story of President Lincoln’s far-reaching, difficult, and most courageous decision, a time when the country wrestled with deep moral questions of epic proportions.
By: Jay Winik
-
A Rage to Conquer
- Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History
- By: Michael Walsh
- Narrated by: Michael Walsh
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sequel to Michael Walsh’s Last Stands, his new book A Rage to Conquer is a journey through the twelve of the most important battles in Western history. As Walsh sees it, war is an important facet of every culture—and, for better or worse, our world is unthinkable without it. War has been an essential part of the human condition throughout history, the principal agent of societal change, waged by men on behalf of, and in pursuit of, their gods, women, riches, power, and the sheer joy of combat.
-
-
Not just a Review of 12 Battles
- By David A on 02-03-25
By: Michael Walsh
-
The Road That Made America
- Travels on America's First Frontier Highway
- By: James Dodson
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the bestselling tradition of Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail and Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, The Road That Made America is a lively, epic account of one of the greatest untold stories in our nation’s history—the eight-hundred-mile long Great Wagon Road that 18th-century American settlers forged from Philadelphia to Georgia that expanded the country dramatically in the decades before we ventured west.
By: James Dodson
-
The Mesopotamian Riddle
- An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
- By: Joshua Hammer
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
By: Joshua Hammer
-
The Southern Fault Line
- How Race, Class, and Region Shaped One Family's History
- By: Bryan Jones
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Southern Fault Line explores the under-appreciated division in the South between the oligarchic rule of plantation owners and industrialists on the one hand, and the more democratic mindset of the mountain-dwelling small farmers on the other. These two mindsets were in continual tension from the 1800s to the 1960s, when the adherents of the more democratic side of the struggle capitulated to the oligarchical side in response to the Civil Rights movement. Bryan Jones draws from his own family's centuries-old history in the region to explore the rise and fall of the "two minds" of the South.
By: Bryan Jones
-
Hard Neighbors
- The Scotch-Irish Invasion of Native America and the Making of an American Identity
- By: Colin G. Calloway
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hard Neighbors follows the people who came to be known as Scotch-Irish and traces their relations with Native Americans, examines their experiences as marginalized people, and demonstrates their roles as protective and disruptive forces on the edge of colonialism. The Scotch-Irish fought Indian wars and shaped the frontier, and their experiences living near and fighting against Indians shaped their identity and their attitudes towards government. They influenced national attitudes and policies, and they transformed Indian people into racial others as they transformed themselves into Americans.
-
1861
- The Lost Peace
- By: Jay Winik
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
THE LOST PEACE: 1861 is the story of President Lincoln’s far-reaching, difficult, and most courageous decision, a time when the country wrestled with deep moral questions of epic proportions.
By: Jay Winik
-
A Rage to Conquer
- Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History
- By: Michael Walsh
- Narrated by: Michael Walsh
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sequel to Michael Walsh’s Last Stands, his new book A Rage to Conquer is a journey through the twelve of the most important battles in Western history. As Walsh sees it, war is an important facet of every culture—and, for better or worse, our world is unthinkable without it. War has been an essential part of the human condition throughout history, the principal agent of societal change, waged by men on behalf of, and in pursuit of, their gods, women, riches, power, and the sheer joy of combat.
-
-
Not just a Review of 12 Battles
- By David A on 02-03-25
By: Michael Walsh
-
The Road That Made America
- Travels on America's First Frontier Highway
- By: James Dodson
- Length: 15 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the bestselling tradition of Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail and Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic, The Road That Made America is a lively, epic account of one of the greatest untold stories in our nation’s history—the eight-hundred-mile long Great Wagon Road that 18th-century American settlers forged from Philadelphia to Georgia that expanded the country dramatically in the decades before we ventured west.
By: James Dodson
-
The Mesopotamian Riddle
- An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
- By: Joshua Hammer
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
By: Joshua Hammer
-
The Beasts of the East
- The Fall and Rise of America’s Eastern Wilderness
- By: Andrew Moore
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before skyscrapers and smokestacks rose across the eastern U.S., elk, bison, wolves, and cougars roamed. Typically imagined as icons of the West, these large mammals are in fact native to what was once a kind of Eden—towering forests in the Northeast, rolling prairies in the Midwest, and cypress swamps in the Deep South. But, in mere decades, industrialization and unregulated hunting brought these emblems of the East to the precipice of extinction; by the 1950s, squirrels were one of the few wild mammals an easterner was likely to encounter.
By: Andrew Moore
-
The Most Awful Responsibillity
- Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age
- By: Alex Wellerstein
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the eight decades since the United States deployed the most destructive weapon ever used, conventional wisdom has held that American leaders were faced with a difficult choice: Invade Japan, which would have cost millions of Japanese and Allied lives in bloody combat, or use the fearsome atom bomb in the hopes of convincing the Japanese emperor to surrender. President Truman—in what many have come to regard as an immoral decision—ordered the military to drop the bomb. Now, historian Alex Wellerstein offers a revisionist narrative of what happened in the spring of 1945.
By: Alex Wellerstein
-
The Determined Spy
- The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner
- By: Douglas Waller
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An intimate and expertly researched biography of little-known early CIA leader Frank Wisner, whose behind-the-scenes influence on Cold War policy—and hundreds of highly secret anti-Soviet missions—resonates with the international crises we see today.
By: Douglas Waller
-
Lower than the Angels
- A History of Sex and Christianity
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Length: 25 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion.
-
The Killing Season
- The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany a War
- By: Robert Cowley
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An in-depth, authoritative account of the fall of 1914 on the Western Front and the First Battle of Ypres, a true turning point in World War I and in modern warfare—by the founding editor of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History
By: Robert Cowley
-
Lincoln's Peace
- The Struggle to End the American Civil War
- By: Michael Vorenberg
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We set out on the James River, March 25, 1865, aboard the paddle steamboat River Queen. President Lincoln is on his way to General Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, and he’s decided he won’t return to Washington until he’s witnessed, or perhaps even orchestrated, the end of the Civil War. Now, it turns out, more than a century and a half later, historians are still searching for that end.
-
Luckiest Man
- The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lou Gehrig was a baseball legend—the Iron Horse, the stoic New York Yankee who was the greatest first baseman in history, a man whose consecutive-games streak was ended by a horrible disease that now bears his name. But as this definitive new biography makes clear, Gehrig’s life was more complicated—and, perhaps, even more heroic—than anyone really knew.
By: Jonathan Eig
-
The Hemlock Cup
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Hemlock Cup, award-winning historian Bettany Hughes brings to vivid life one of the most influential thinkers the world has ever known: Socrates of Athens. A maverick philosopher who philosophised in squares and public arenas rather than the courts of kings, Socrates left his indelible mark on the entirety of Western civilisation - yet the life of the man himself is shrouded in mystery.
By: Bettany Hughes
-
The People’s War
- Unheard Voices: Life on the Battlefront and at Home in World War II
- By: John Willis
- Length: Not Yet Known
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The People's War, John Willis unearths untold stories of everyday bravery, moments of terror, and tales of life-affirming community, that guide us through the years of the Second World War. From soldiers in North Africa and prisoners of war in East Asia, to evacuees in the British countryside and women in the factories, The People's War is a truly ambitious and comprehensive journey through a devastating and pivotal period of our history, as you've never read before.
By: John Willis
-
The Fate of the Generals
- MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines
- By: Jonathan Horn
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the doomed stand American forces made in the Philippines at the start of World War II, two generals received their country’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor. One was the charismatic and controversial Douglas MacArthur, whose orders forced him to leave his soldiers on the islands to starvation and surrender but whose vow to return echoed around the globe. The other was the gritty Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who became a hero to the troops whose fate he insisted on sharing even when it meant becoming the highest-ranking American prisoner of the Japanese.
By: Jonathan Horn
-
Island at the Edge of the World
- The Forgotten History of Easter Island
- By: Mike Pitts
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of Hampton Sides and Simon Winchester comes a vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archeological scholar Mike Pitts—a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and uses newly unearthed findings and documents to challenge the long-standing historical assumptions about the manmade ecological disaster that caused the island’s collapse.
By: Mike Pitts
-
Disposable
- America's Contempt for the Underclass
- By: Sarah Jones
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of Matthew Desmond’s Evicted and Andrea Elliot’s Invisible Child, Disposable is a poignant exploration of America’s underclass, left vulnerable by systemic racism and capitalism. Here, Sarah Jones delves into the lives of the essential workers, seniors, and people with disabilities who were disproportionately affected by COVID-19—not due to their age or profession, but because of the systemic inequality and poverty that left them exposed.
-
-
Not comparable to Evicted but interesting
- By NMwritergal on 02-27-25
By: Sarah Jones