Waking Giant
America in the Age of Jackson
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Narrated by:
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Arthur Morey
About this listen
Waking Giant captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the slavery controversy, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. Reynolds reveals unknown dimensions of the Second Great Awakening with its sects, cults, and self-styled prophets. He brings alive the reformers, abolitionists, and prohibitionists who struggled to correct America's worst social ills. He uncovers the political roots of some of America's greatest authors and artists, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe to Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand, and he re-creates the shocking phenomena that marked the age: bloody duels and violent mobs; Barnum's freaks and all-seeing mesmerists; polygamous prophets and wealthy prostitutes; table-lifting spiritualists and rabble-rousing feminists. All were crucial to the political and social ferment that led to the Civil War. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America's vibrant and tumultuous rise.
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Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
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This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
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Don't Know Much About the American Presidents
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kirby Heyborne, Mark Bramhall, and others
- Length: 23 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than 20 years since his New York Times best seller Don't Know Much About History first appeared, Davis has shown that Americans don't hate history, just the dull version dished out in school. Now Davis turns his attention to what is arguably the most important and most fascinating subject in American history: our presidents. From the heated debates over executive powers through the curious election of George Washington in 1789 and, for more than 200 years, up through the meteoric rise of Barack Obama, the presidency has been at the heart of American history.
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Too Biased
- By Justin Swihart on 05-29-13
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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A People's History of the United States
- By: Howard Zinn
- Narrated by: Jeff Zinn
- Length: 34 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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For much of his life, historian Howard Zinn chronicled American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version taught in schools - with its emphasis on great men in high places - to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of - and in the words of - America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers.
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Amateur hour in the production booth
- By Thomas on 11-09-10
By: Howard Zinn
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The Slave's Cause
- A History of Abolition
- By: Manisha Sinha
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 30 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved, found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor.
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Thorough, convincing and haunting
- By Roger on 07-23-17
By: Manisha Sinha
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Founders' Son
- A Life of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Richard Brookhiser
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Following Lincoln from his humble origins in Kentucky to his assassination in Washington, D.C., Brookhiser shows us every side of the man: laborer, lawyer, congressman, president; storyteller, wit, lover of ribald jokes; depressive, poet, friend, visionary. And he shows that despite his many roles and his varied life, Lincoln returned time and time again to the Founders.
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Excellent Research and Evenhanded Work
- By Amazon Customer on 09-26-15
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Frederick Douglass
- Prophet of Freedom
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 36 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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As a young man, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of his lifetime and published his own newspaper. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence, he bore witness to the brutality of slavery.
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The sound of rollerskating in sand
- By Rico X Ludovici on 02-06-19
By: David W. Blight
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Jacksonland
- President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab
- By: Steve Inskeep
- Narrated by: Steve Inskeep
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Jacksonland is the thrilling narrative history of two men - President Andrew Jackson and Cherokee chief John Ross - who led their respective nations at a crossroads of American history. Five decades after the Revolutionary War, the United States approached a constitutional crisis. At its center stood two former military comrades locked in a struggle that tested the boundaries of our fledgling democracy. Jacksonland is their story.
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Fantastic and Thoughtful
- By Elizabeth Westbrook on 05-05-16
By: Steve Inskeep
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Thomas Jefferson
- By: R. B. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone, describing himself simply as "Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia". It is in this simple epitaph that R. B. Bernstein finds the key to this enigmatic Founder - not as a great political figure, but as leader of "a revolution of ideas that would make the world over again". In Thomas Jefferson, Bernstein offers the definitive short biography of this revered American - the first concise life in six decades. Bernstein deftly synthesizes the massive scholarship on his subject into a swift, insightful, evenhanded account.
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In-Depth and Interesting
- By Sarahi Nieves on 04-24-19
By: R. B. Bernstein
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The New York Times: Disunion
- Modern Historians Revisit and Reconsider the Civil War from Lincoln's Election to the Emancipation Proclamation
- By: Ted Widmer - editor
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck, Mark Boyett, Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A major new collection of modern commentary - from scholars, historians, and Civil War buffs - on the significant events of the Civil War, culled from The New York Times' popular Disunion online journal.
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Excellent audiobook! Love this format!
- By BVerité on 03-17-15
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KNOW YOUR HISTORY!
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The Invention of Science
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A Good Read Spoiled
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Walt Whitman’s America
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In his poetry, Walt Whitman set out to encompass all of America, and in so doing, heal its deepening divisions. This magisterial biography demonstrates the epic scale of his achievement, as well as the dreams and anxieties that impelled it, for it places the poet securely within the political and cultural context of his age.
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Helps the listener to understand Leaves of Grass
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Beneath the American Renaissance
- The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville
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The award-winning Beneath the American Renaissance is a classic work on American literature. It immeasurably broadens our knowledge of our most important literary period, as first identified by F.O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which David Reynolds is known. Here the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and others receive striking, original readings set against the rich backdrop of contemporary popular writing.
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Brilliant history of 19th C American literature and its milieu
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Abraham Lincoln did not come out of nowhere. But if he was shaped by his times, he also managed at his life's fateful hour to shape them to an extent few could have foreseen. Ultimately, this is the great drama that astonishes us still, and that Abe brings to fresh and vivid life. The measure of that life will always be part of our American education.
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In The Age of Reagan, Sean Wilentz offers a fresh, brilliant chronicle of America's political history since the fall of Nixon. The past 35 years have marked an era of conservatism. Although briefly interrupted in the late 1970s and temporarily reversed in the 1990s, a powerful surge from the Right has dominated American politics and government.
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A Good Read Spoiled
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The award-winning Beneath the American Renaissance is a classic work on American literature. It immeasurably broadens our knowledge of our most important literary period, as first identified by F.O. Matthiessen’s American Renaissance. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which David Reynolds is known. Here the major works of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and others receive striking, original readings set against the rich backdrop of contemporary popular writing.
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What listeners say about Waking Giant
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Flylikeabug
- 07-26-24
Great political and cultural history!
The author is much more pro-Jackson, van Buren, and Tyler than I had before seen, and it provided an interesting alternative perspective. Multiple chapters are dedicated to cultural history, from Melville to minstrel shows.
In multiple places, there’s a mistake in the recording, so that the same phrase repeats several times.
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Overall
- P. R. Proud
- 04-24-09
Interested in American History?
If you are interested in U. S. history this is a must book for you. Details and insights without judgment or an agenda. A terrific volume about a part of American history that is generally ignored. I couldn't stop listening.
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Overall
- Howard
- 01-27-09
Waking Giant - US History
Of the many excellent historical books now available on Audible, this is one of the best. Reynolds provides a panoramic view of life in the first half of the 19th century. His account weaves together the politics, mores, religious ferment, medical and cultural aspects of life in this era. The medical details were of particular interest to this 88 year old listener. During the 20s my mother used the practice of "blistering" - mustard plasters - for chest colds and anything else. Calomel - a poisonous mercury purgative was still employed. Medicine really didn't change much until the first real antibiotic, sulfanilamide, was developed in the 1940s. A fascinating and meticulously researched book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tad Davis
- 12-09-08
Lucid narration
I knew almost nothing about the Jacksonian era in American history before listening to this. Reynolds is mostly positive about Jackson's influence on democratic politics (small “d”) while deploring his attitudes toward slavery and his ethnic cleansing of Native Americans. The political campaigns are all here, but even more than that, Reynolds gives a fascinating overview of cultural trends: the new religions, the new novelists and poets and philosophers (Hawthorne, Emerson, Melville), and the painters; and the new technology (telegraph, railroad, the Erie Canal). There is more than a dash of “spice” here as well, with discussions of hucksters, showmen, alcohol consumption, and sexual practices.
As a novice in the period, I don't have any opinion about how complete Reynolds' account is. What I CAN say is that it's very well written, competently narrated, and absorbing throughout. The book covers the same period as the Oxford volume “What Hath God Wrought.” While there is certainly more detail in the Oxford volume, I’m not sure there’s significantly more insight. One issue Reynolds addresses head-on and with greater forthrightness is slavery, a subject “What Hath God Wrought” handles, by comparison, almost shyly.
And as always, I love Arthur Morey’s narration.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Karl
- 10-21-20
Quality of recording
There were several places in last third of book where the recording repeated and would not move forward. Forced to fast forward and missed a bit of book.
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- rob
- 05-31-12
Informative
I read mostly fiction, but I enjoy history. I was expecting a political history but I was pleasantly surprised that it also covered religion, science and medicine, technological advances, entertainment and even art (painters and authors). It was a very thorough look at life in the early 1800's. What I took away most was the mood of the country leading up to the civil war. You could see that early on in our country's history, slavery was going to a huge issue for us to deal with. You could also see how our founding fathers laid the groundwork for the next generation to deal with it. Would make a good reference book.
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Overall
- Joseph
- 02-18-09
Waking Giant
Really an exceptional volume. Reynolds weaves together political and cultural history in one of the most enjoyable history books I have read (listened to) in years. You will set this book (your Ipod) down and marvel at how little we have changed in almost 200 years.
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