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Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
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Publisher's summary
Average Americans were the true framers of the Constitution.
Woody Holton upends what we think we know of the Constitution's origins by telling the history of the average Americans who challenged the framers of the Constitution and forced on them the revisions that produced the document we now venerate.
The framers who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 were determined to reverse America's post-Revolutionary War slide into democracy. They believed too many middling Americans exercised too much influence over state and national policies. That the framers were only partially successful in curtailing citizen rights is due to the reaction, sometimes violent, of unruly average Americans.
If not to protect civil liberties and the freedom of the people, what motivated the framers? In Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, Holton provides the startling discovery that the primary purpose of the Constitution was, simply put, to make America more attractive to investment. The linchpin to that endeavor was taking power away from the states and ultimately away from the people.
In an eye-opening interpretation of the Constitution, Holton captures how the same class of Americans that produced Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts (and rebellions in damn near every other state) produced the Constitution we now revere.
Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution is a 2007 National Book Award finalist for nonfiction.
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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The Real Lincoln
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- Narrated by: Charles Constant
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Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom. But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in American history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's?
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OpEd Disguised as History
- By John McDowell on 10-30-18
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Decision in Philadelphia
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Fifty-five men met in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a document that would create a country and change a world: the Constitution. Here is a remarkable rendering of that fateful time, told with humanity and humor. Decision in Philadelphia is the best popular history of the Constitutional Convention; in it, the life and times of 18th-century America not only come alive, but the very human qualities of the men who framed the document are brought provocatively into focus - casting many of the Founding Fathers in a new light.
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excellent book
- By Josh on 09-13-12
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A Leap in the Dark
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It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations.
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Loved every minute!
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By: John Ferling
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Without Precedent
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No member of America's founding generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation's founding in 1776 and for the next 40 years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States - the longest-serving in history—he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts.
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Scholarly and Accessible
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-01-18
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Black Reconstruction in America
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This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America has justly been called a classic.
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The textbook you should have had in high school.
- By Saleh on 05-06-18
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American Heritage History of the United States
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Douglas Brinkley takes us on the incredible journey of the United States - a nation formed from a vast countryside on whose fringes 13 small British colonies fought for their freedom, then established a democratic nation that spanned the continent and went on to become a world power. This book will be treasured by anyone interested in the story of America.
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Highly recommended!
- By M. Hu on 08-04-17
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The American Political Tradition
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The American Political Tradition is one of the most influential and widely read historical volumes of our time. First published in 1948, its elegance, passion, and iconoclastic erudition laid the groundwork for a totally new understanding of the American past. By writing a "kind of intellectual history of the assumptions behind American politics", Richard Hofstadter changed the way Americans understand the relationship between power and ideas in their national experience. Hofstadter was able to articulate, in a single work, a historical vision that inspired and shaped an entire generation.
By: Richard Hofstadter, and others
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Liberty is hardly the "natural" order of things. In most places and at most times, the strong have dominated the weak and human freedom has been quashed by force or by customs and norms. Either states have been too weak to protect individuals from these threats or states have been too strong for people to protect themselves from despotism. Liberty emerges only when a delicate and precarious balance is struck between state and society.
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We know - and love - the story of the American Revolution, from the Declaration of Independence to Cornwallis' defeat. But our first government was a disaster, and the country was in a terrible crisis. So when a group of men traveled to Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to save a nation in danger of collapse, they had no great expectations for the meeting that would make history.
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What listeners say about Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
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- wonkavision
- 09-20-19
A different approach
A different look at background and sausage making that led to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. A bit repetitive but still quite informative.
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- Tommy Rodgers
- 12-29-19
Very good book.
A very good book. Well researched and a great read. I have both the hard back and now the audible copy. I have listened to it three times while I travel and require readings from it for my high school students.
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- Cris Pace
- 06-20-23
Lots of data and wrong interpretations.
Excellent research. But left-populist bias permeates every line and offers nothing but straw men as the arguments against his thesis.
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