A Nation So Conceived
Abraham Lincoln and the Paradox of Democratic Sovereignty
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A Nation So Conceived
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Narrated by:
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David Colacci
About this listen
The culmination of years of work on Abraham Lincoln's political thought, Michael Zuckert's A Nation So Conceived argues for a coherent center to Lincoln's political ideology. Zuckert provides invaluable guidance to understanding both Lincoln and the politics of the United States between 1845 and Lincoln's death in 1865 by focusing on roughly a dozen speeches that Lincoln made during his career. This listener-friendly chronological organization is motivated by Zuckert's emphasis on Lincoln as a practical politician who was always fully aware of the political context of the moment.
According to Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, America was new precisely because it was born in dedication to the first premise of the theory of democratic sovereignty: that all men are created equal. Lincoln's thought consisted in an ever-deepening meditation on the grounds and implications of that proposition, both in its constructive and in its destructive potential.
A Nation So Conceived is devoted to exploring the paradoxical duality of "created equal." In a nearly comprehensive study of Lincoln's thought, Zuckert uses lessons he learned from decades of teaching to reveal how Lincoln understood both its truth and its pathological consequences while offering an assessment of his aims and achievements as a statesman.
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- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Americans revere the Constitution even as they argue fiercely over its original toleration of slavery. Some historians have charged that slaveholders actually enshrined human bondage at the nation's founding. The acclaimed political historian Sean Wilentz shares the dismay but sees the Constitution and slavery differently. Although the proslavery side won important concessions, he asserts, antislavery impulses also influenced the framers' work. Far from covering up a crime against humanity, the Constitution restricted slavery's legitimacy under the new national government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent review of Slavery and the Constitution
- By Amazon Customer on 01-01-19
By: Sean Wilentz
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The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 24 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
This classic work explains the evolution of American political thought from the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the Constitution. In so doing, it greatly illuminates the origins of the present American political system.
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1 out of 5 stars
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This Audible book is NOT for a popular audience!
- By BigWally on 11-22-18
By: Gordon S. Wood
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American Dialogue
- The Founders and Us
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 249
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 213
The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue, Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing impasse of today's political conflicts.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A fine work, even with the editorializing
- By Casey Kerrick on 11-24-18
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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The Crooked Path to Abolition
- Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution
- By: James Oakes
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story5 out of 5 stars 44
An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln's antislavery strategies.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Lincoln’s Transformation
- By A View from Greensboro on 12-04-22
By: James Oakes
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The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
- By: Bernard Bailyn
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
To the original text of what has become a classic of American historical literature, Bernard Bailyn adds a substantial essay, "Fulfillment", as a postscript. Here he discusses the intense nationwide debate on the ratification of the Constitution, stressing the continuities between that struggle over the foundations of the national government and the original principles of the Revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Bernard Bailyn is a genius!
- By John M. Crean on 04-21-19
By: Bernard Bailyn
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Fears of a Setting Sun
- The Disillusionment of America's Founders
- By: Dennis C. Rasmussen
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
Americans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created. Strikingly, the founders themselves were far less confident in what they had wrought, particularly by the end of their lives. In fact, most of them - including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson - came to deem America's constitutional experiment an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A different perspective on the founders
- By kpa on 03-04-24
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The Constitution
- An Introduction
- By: Michael Stokes Paulsen, Luke Paulsen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
From war powers to health care, freedom of speech to gun ownership, religious liberty to abortion, practically every aspect of American life is shaped by the Constitution. This vital document, along with its history of political and judicial interpretation, governs our individual lives and the life of our nation. Yet most of us know surprisingly little about the Constitution itself, and are woefully unprepared to think for ourselves about recent developments in its long and storied history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Constitution-A must reading for All Americans
- By Robert on 06-12-15
By: Michael Stokes Paulsen, and others
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The Idea of America
- Reflections on the Birth of the United States
- By: Gordon S Wood
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
The preeminent historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sophisticated analyses
- By Roger on 01-25-12
By: Gordon S Wood
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America's Revolutionary Mind
- A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It
- By: C. Bradley Thompson
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
The purpose of this book is twofold: first, to elucidate the logic, principles, and significance of the Declaration of Independence as the embodiment of the American mind; and, second, to shed light on what John Adams once called the "real American Revolution"; that is, the moral revolution that occurred in the minds of the people in the 15 years before 1776.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent study of Revolutionary Thinking
- By Amazon Customer on 03-24-21
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The Founders' Key
- The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It
- By: Dr. Larry Arnn
- Narrated by: Van Tracy
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Story5 out of 5 stars 23
Dr. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, reveals this integral unity of the Declaration and the Constitution. Together, they form the pillars upon which the liberties and rights of the American people stand. United, they have guided history's first self-governing nation, forming our government under certain universal and eternal principles. Unfortunately, the effort to redefine government to reflect "the changing and growing social order" has gone very far toward success.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Linking Declaration and Constitution.
- By Ed Bethune on 04-26-24
By: Dr. Larry Arnn
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Thaddeus Stevens
- Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice
- By: Bruce Levine
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Thaddeus Stevens was among the first to see the Civil War as an opportunity for a second American revolution - a chance to remake the country as a genuine multiracial democracy. As one of the foremost abolitionists in Congress in the years leading up to the war, he was a leader of the young Republican Party’s radical wing, fighting for anti-slavery and anti-racist policies long before party colleagues like Abraham Lincoln endorsed them. These policies - including welcoming black men into the Union’s armies - would prove crucial to the Union war effort.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent bio of a political hero
- By Anonymous User on 03-11-21
By: Bruce Levine
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Our Republican Constitution
- Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People
- By: Randy E. Barnett
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 147
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 122
The Constitution of the United States begins with the words "we the people". But from the earliest days of the American republic, there have been two competing notions of "the people", which led to two very different visions of the Constitution. Those who view "we the people" collectively think popular sovereignty resides in the people as a group, which leads them to favor a democratic constitution that allows the will of the people to be expressed by majority rule
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3 out of 5 stars
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Read the book, don't listen
- By I Keep AMZN in Business on 06-23-16
By: Randy E. Barnett
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James Madison and the Making of America
- By: Kevin R. C. Gutzman
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4 out of 5 stars 127
In James Madison and the Making of America, historian Kevin Gutzman looks beyond the way James Madison is traditionally seen - as "The Father of the Constitution” - to find a more complex and sometimes contradictory portrait of this influential Founding Father and the ways in which he influenced the spirit of today's United States.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not a traditional biography
- By David on 12-14-12
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James Madison
- America's First Politician
- By: Jay Cost
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist Papers and then helped to found the Republican Party just a few years later. This so-called Madison problem has occupied scholars for ages.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good listen
- By James Shannon on 06-27-22
By: Jay Cost
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The Words That Made Us
- America's Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840
- By: Akhil Reed Amar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 27 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
In The Words That Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document's origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America's Constitution today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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And the words that made Us
- By Anonymous User on 10-17-22
By: Akhil Reed Amar