The Society for Useful Knowledge
How Benjamin Franklin and Friends Brought the Enlightenment to America
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The Society for Useful Knowledge
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Narrated by:
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Eric Jason Martin
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By:
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Jonathan Lyons
About this listen
With the "first Drudgery" of settling the American colonies now well and truly past, Benjamin Franklin announced in 1743, it was high time that the colonists set about improving the lot of humankind through collaborative inquiry. From Franklin's idea emerged the American Philosophical Society, an association hosted in Philadelphia and dedicated to the harnessing of man's intellectual and creative powers for the common good. The animus behind the Society was and is a disarmingly simple one - that the value of knowledge is directly proportional to its utility. This straightforward idea has left a profound mark on American society and culture and on the very idea of America itself - and through America, on the world as a whole.
From celebrated historian of knowledge Jonathan Lyons comes The Society for Useful Knowledge, telling the story of America's coming-of-age through its historic love affair with practical invention, applied science, and self-reliance. Lyons illustrates how a social movement in support of useful knowledge is key to understanding the flow of American history and the development of our society and culture from colonial times to our digital present.
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 171
Best-selling author Steven Johnson recounts - in dazzling, multidisciplinary fashion - the story of the brilliant man who embodied the relationship between science, religion, and politics for America's Founding Fathers. The Invention of Air is a title of world-changing ideas wrapped around a compelling narrative, a story of genius and violence and friendship in the midst of sweeping historical change that provokes us to recast our understanding of the Founding Fathers.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good scientific history
- By Roger on 05-03-10
By: Steven Johnson
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Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life
- By: Jonathan Sperber
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 22 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 161
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 161
Returning Marx to the Victorian confines of the 19th century, Jonathan Sperber, one of the United States' leading European historians, challenges many of our misconceptions of this political firebrand turned London journalist. In this deeply humanizing portrait, Marx no longer is the Olympian soothsayer, divining the dialectical imperatives of human history, but a scholar-activist whose revolutionary Weltanschauung was closer to Robespierre's than to those of 20th-century Marxists.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Informative intellectual biography, poor reading
- By anonymous on 10-25-13
By: Jonathan Sperber
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The Most Productive People in History: 18 Extraordinarily Prolific Inventors, Artists, and Entrepreneurs, from Archimedes to Elon Musk
- By: Michael Rank
- Narrated by: Kevin Meyer
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
They never knew how he did it. Few composers write more than one or two symphonies in their lifetimes. Beethoven spent a year on his shorter symphonies but more than six years on his 9th Symphony. The prodigy Mozart finished his last three symphonies (39, 40, and 41) in the span of a few weeks. His 25th Symphony took only two days.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Extremely good. It can save you from burnout.
- By Peter on 02-14-21
By: Michael Rank
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Brand Luther
- How an Unheralded Young Minister Turned His Small German Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe - and Started the Protestant Reformation
- By: Andrew Pettegree
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
When an obscure monk named Martin Luther tacked his theses on the door of the Wittenberg church in 1517, protesting corrupt practices, he was virtually unknown. Within months his ideas spread across Germany then all of Europe; within years their author was not just famous but infamous, responsible for catalyzing the violent wave of religious reform that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation and engulfing Europe in decades of bloody war.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Informed, Impacting
- By Bill Martin on 01-14-16
By: Andrew Pettegree
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The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 166
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
Central to America's idea of itself is the character of Benjamin Franklin. We all know him, or think we do: In recent works and in our inherited conventional wisdom, he remains fixed in place as a genial polymath and self-improver who was so very American that he is known by us all as the first American.
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2 out of 5 stars
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I have good news and bad news
- By Ernie on 07-22-04
By: Gordon S. Wood
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Tesla vs Edison
- A Captivating Guide to the War of the Currents and the Life of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4 out of 5 stars 28
Human history has seen many surprising and profound turning points. The ways that humans learned to use raw materials to create activity and resources set the stage for the most compelling and life-altering phase of the modern era, the Industrial Revolution. Born during this time on different continents but connected by similar interests, two men indelibly marked their generation and those that followed with their genius and foresight. This audiobook covers the war of currents and the individual lives of Tesla and Edison.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Arduous
- By Hasbro on 10-22-18
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Taking on the Trust
- The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller
- By: Steve Weinberg
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Long before the rise of mega-corporations like Wal-Mart and Microsoft, Standard Oil controlled the oil industry with a monopolistic force unprecedented in American business history. Undaunted by the ruthless power of its owner, John D. Rockefeller, a fearless and ambitious reporter named Ida Minerva Tarbell confronted the company known simply as "The Trust".
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4 out of 5 stars
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Annoying Narrator
- By Nate on 04-03-15
By: Steve Weinberg
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 24 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,819
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,738
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,704
Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book, not crazy about the narrator
- By Cathi on 07-20-13
By: Walter Isaacson
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Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
- By: Richard Hofstadter
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 157
This book throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Still Current, Without Opening Recent Wounds
- By wbiro on 11-09-17
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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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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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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5 out of 5 stars
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In-Depth and Interesting
- By Sarahi Nieves on 04-24-19
By: R. B. Bernstein
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Young Benjamin Franklin
- The Birth of Ingenuity
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth, he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of 41, when he made his first electrical discoveries, Bunker goes behind the legend to reveal the sources of his passion for knowledge.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Book but LOTS of Names
- By Tim on 10-31-19
By: Nick Bunker
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Benjamin Franklin: A Captivating Guide to an American Polymath and a Founding Father of the United States of America
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Desmond Manny
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story5 out of 5 stars 32
Benjamin Franklin was a Founding Father of America and had an enormous impact on America as it is today. In addition to that, there are many little-known facts about the man who is Benjamin Franklin. Unlike many of the other Founding Fathers, he started out in humble circumstances. From a young age, Benjamin Franklin fought for the rights of America at home and abroad. Yet, he bore the burdens of leadership and never shirked nor faltered in his mission. His greatest asset was his charm and friendliness, but he had his detractors as well and felt the emotional impact of that.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent Audiobook
- By Jaxon Jordon on 02-10-19
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The Austrian School of Economics
- A History of Its Ideas, Ambassadors, & Institutions
- By: Eugen Maria Schulak, Herbert Unterköfler
- Narrated by: Paul Strikwerda
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
The Austrian School is in the news as never before. It is discussed on business pages, in academic journals, and in speeches by public figures. At long last, there is a brilliant and engaging guide to the history, ideas, and institutions of the Austrian School of economics. It is written by two Austrian intellectuals who have gone to the sources themselves to provide a completely new look at the tradition and what it means for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good book about Austrian Economics and it's histor
- By Kyle and Dawn Christerson on 04-30-19
By: Eugen Maria Schulak, and others
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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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Jefferson
- Architect of American Liberty
- By: John B. Boles
- Narrated by: Michael Johnson
- Length: 24 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 258
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 227
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 227
From an eminent scholar of the American South, the first full-scale biography of Thomas Jefferson since 1970. Not since Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation has a scholar attempted to write a comprehensive biography of the most complex Founding Father. In Jefferson, John B. Boles plumbs every facet of Thomas Jefferson's life, all while situating him amid the sweeping upheaval of his times. We meet Jefferson the politician and political thinker - as well as Jefferson the architect, scientist, bibliophile, paleontologist, musician, and gourmet.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Makes Jefferson Human
- By MichaelBuffalo on 06-23-20
By: John B. Boles