The Lives of the Constitution
Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law
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The Lives of the Constitution
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Narrated by:
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Joseph Tartakovsky
About this listen
In a fascinating blend of biography and history, Joseph Tartakovsky tells the epic and unexpected story of our Constitution through the eyes of 10 extraordinary individuals - some renowned, like Alexander Hamilton and Woodrow Wilson, and some forgotten, like James Wilson and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
Tartakovsky brings to life their struggles over our supreme law from its origins in revolutionary America to the era of Obama and Trump. Sweeping from settings as diverse as Gold Rush California to the halls of Congress, and crowded with a vivid Dickensian cast, Tartakovsky shows how America’s unique constitutional culture grapples with questions like democracy, racial and sexual equality, free speech, economic liberty, and the role of government.
Joining the ranks of other great American storytellers, Tartakovsky chronicles how Daniel Webster sought to avert the Civil War; how Alexis de Tocqueville misunderstood America; how Robert Jackson balanced liberty and order in the battle against Nazism and Communism; and how Antonin Scalia died warning Americans about the ever-growing reach of the Supreme Court.
From the 1787 Philadelphia Convention to the clash over gay marriage, this is a grand tour through two centuries of constitutional history as never told before, and an education in the principles that sustain America in the most astonishing experiment in government ever undertaken.
©2018 Joseph Tartakovsky (P)2018 Joseph TartakovskyListeners also enjoyed...
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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
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Abe
- Abraham Lincoln in His Times
- By: David S. Reynolds
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 33 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 212
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 179
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 176
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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5 out of 5 stars
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A Cultural History is not a biography
- By Marc M. Sager on 11-09-20
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The Problem with Lincoln
- By: Thomas J. DiLorenzo
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 236
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 205
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Story4 out of 5 stars 205
So many thousands of books deifying Abraham Lincoln have been published that it is nearly impossible for the average citizen to learn much of anything that is truthful about Lincoln’s presidency. You’ll learn that the real reason why Lincoln launched an invasion of his own country (he never admitted that secession was legal or legitimate) was to destroy the voluntary union of the founders and replace it with a coerced union held together by violence and threats of violence, much more like the old Soviet Union than the original American union.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not sure about this guy
- By Luis Renta on 07-26-20
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,298
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,095
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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4 out of 5 stars
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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Toufah
- The Woman Who Inspired an African #MeToo Movement (Eyewitness Memoirs)
- By: Toufah Jallow, Kim Pittaway - contributor
- Narrated by: Toufah Jallow
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3
Encouraged by her mother to pursue her own ambitions, Toufah entered a presidential competition purportedly designed to identify the country's smart young women and support their educational and career goals. Toufah won. Yahya Jammeh, the dictator who had ruled The Gambia all of Toufah's life, styled himself as a pious yet progressive protector of women. At first he behaved in a fatherly fashion toward Toufah, but then proposed marriage, and she turned him down. On a pretext, his female cousin then lured Toufah to the palace, where he drugged and raped her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful story. Applaud the author.
- By Fourthlake on 01-28-22
By: Toufah Jallow, and others
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The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America
- The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks: What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read to understand why voting is essential.
- By Brandon WIlliams on 10-05-19
By: Thom Hartmann
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The Soul of America
- The Battle for Our Better Angels
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Jon Meacham
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 5,450
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,767
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,734
Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and LBJ, and illuminating the courage of influential citizen activists and civil rights pioneers, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. Each of these dramatic hours have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thanks! I needed this!
- By Kindle Customer on 05-29-18
By: Jon Meacham
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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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Lincoln's Mentors
- The Education of a Leader
- By: Michael J. Gerhardt
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story5 out of 5 stars 33
A novel and brilliant look at how Abraham Lincoln mastered the art of leadership: acclaimed historian Michael J. Gerhardt, who appeared during the impeachment proceedings of President Trump, reveals how a group of five men mentored an obscure lawyer with no executive experience to become American’s greatest leader
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting book
- By Brian on 03-07-21
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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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The Supreme Court
- The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America
- By: Jeffrey Rosen
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 190
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Story4 out of 5 stars 94
A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Overruled!
- By Stephen McLeod on 08-23-08
By: Jeffrey Rosen
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Freedom's Dominion
- A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
- By: Jefferson Cowie
- Narrated by: André Chapoy
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 57
American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. But for centuries, whenever the federal government intervened on behalf of nonwhite people, many white Americans fought back in the name of freedom—their freedom to dominate others. In Freedom’s Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie traces this complex saga by focusing on a quintessentially American place: Barbour County, Alabama, the ancestral home of political firebrand George Wallace.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very easily read and I learned a lot
- By Kev All on 02-05-23
By: Jefferson Cowie
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A History of the American People
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 48 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 698
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 491
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 491
Johnson's monumental history of the United States, from the first settlers to the Clinton administration, covers every aspect of American culture: politics, business, art, literature, science, society and customs, complex traditions, and religious beliefs. The story is told in terms of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A British conservative's view of American history.
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-17-09
By: Paul Johnson
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The American Political Tradition
- And the Men Who Made it
- By: Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch - foreword
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story5 out of 5 stars 28
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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Decision in Philadelphia
- The Constitutional Convention of 1787
- By: James Collier, Christopher Collier
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 308
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 278
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 274
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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5 out of 5 stars
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excellent book
- By Josh on 09-13-12
By: James Collier, and others
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Break It Up
- Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union
- By: Richard Kreitner
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4 out of 5 stars 56
The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: the United States has never lived up to its name - and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn't limited to the South or the 19th century. With a scholar's command and a journalist's curiosity, Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Completely Partisan
- By Patrick Tobin on 11-06-22
By: Richard Kreitner
What listeners say about The Lives of the Constitution
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John
- 12-19-23
Sound quality
Horrible sound quality throughout the book but this was only a distraction because content and performance are both A+
I recommend anyway
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- KR
- 02-08-22
Good Content; Bad Audio
This book was clearly well researched. The content was interesting and insightful. The audio recording; however, was the worst I've heard on Audible. It sounded like it was recorded in a phone booth with 1984 cassette player.
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