29 Best 19th Century Books
19th Century is one of the most popular categories. We’ve curated a list of the top 19th Century audiobooks everyone must read. It’s sure to keep readers engaged and entertained. See the top 29 19th Century audiobooks.
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
- By: Harriet Ann Jacobs
- Narrator: Mia Ellis
- Length: 8 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: January 15, 2019
- Language: English
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5(1 ratings)
5(1 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDHarriet Ann Jacob’s autobiography documents her life as a slave and how she attained freedom for herself and her children. Harrowing in its descriptions of sexual abuse, Jacob’s slave narrative is notable for the appeal it made toHarriet Ann Jacob’s autobiography documents her life as a slave and how she attained freedom for herself and her children. Harrowing in its descriptions of sexual abuse, Jacob’s slave narrative is notable for the appeal it made to abolitionist women to open their eyes to the realities of slavery. Deemed too shocking for reading audiences at the time, the book was shelved before it was published in 1861 near the start of the Civil War.
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Black Reconstruction in America
- By: W. E. B. Du Bois
- Narrator: Mirron Willis
- Length: 37 hours 26 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.48(2481 ratings)
4.48(2481 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDThis 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, BlackThis 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 Guns of John Moses Browning
- By: Nathan Gorenstein
- Narrator: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 9 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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4.38(137 ratings)
4.38(137 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDA “well-researched and very readable new biography” (The Wall Street Journal) of “the Thomas Edison of guns,” a visionary inventor who designed the modern handgun and whose awe-inspiring array of firearms helped ensureA “well-researched and very readable new biography” (The Wall Street Journal) of “the Thomas Edison of guns,” a visionary inventor who designed the modern handgun and whose awe-inspiring array of firearms helped ensure victory in numerous American wars and holds a crucial place in world history.
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Few people are aware that John Moses Browning–a tall, humble, cerebral man born in 1855 and raised as a Mormon in the American West–was the mind behind many of the world-changing firearms that dominated more than a century of conflict. He invented the design used in virtually all modern pistols, created the most popular hunting rifles and shotguns, and conceived the machine guns that proved decisive not just in World Wars I and II but nearly every major military action since. Yet few in America knew his name until he was into his sixties.
Now, author Nathan Gorenstein brings firearms inventor John Moses Browning to vivid life in this riveting and revealing biography. Embodying the tradition of self-made, self-educated geniuses (like Lincoln and Edison), Browning was able to think in three dimensions (he never used blueprints) and his gifted mind produced everything from the famous Winchester “30-30” hunting rifle to the awesomely effective machine guns used by every American aircraft and infantry unit in World War II. The British credited Browning’s guns with helping to win the Battle of Britain.
His inventions illustrate both the good and bad of weapons.
Sweeping, lively, and brilliantly told, this fascinating book that “gun collectors and historians of armaments will cherish” (Kirkus Reviews) introduces a little-known legend whose impact on history ranks with that of the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. -
Make Good the Promises
- By: Kinshasha Holman Conwill
- Narrator: Karen Chilton
- Length: 6 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 14, 2021
- Language: English
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4.38(47 ratings)
4.38(47 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDThe companion volume to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture exhibit, opening in September 2021 With a Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Eric Foner and a preface by veteran museumThe companion volume to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture exhibit, opening in September 2021
With a Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Eric Foner and a preface by veteran museum director and historian Spencer Crew
An incisive and illuminating analysis of the enduring legacy of the post-Civil War period known as Reconstruction–a comprehensive story of Black Americans’ struggle for human rights and dignity and the failure of the nation to fulfill its promises of freedom, citizenship, and justice.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, millions of free and newly freed African Americans were determined to define themselves as equal citizens in a country without slavery–to own land, build secure families, and educate themselves and their children. Seeking to secure safety and justice, they successfully campaigned for civil and political rights, including the right to vote. Across an expanding America, Black politicians were elected to all levels of government, from city halls to state capitals to Washington, DC.
But those gains were short-lived. By the mid-1870s, the federal government stopped enforcing civil rights laws, allowing white supremacists to use suppression and violence to regain power in the Southern states. Black men, women, and children suffered racial terror, segregation, and discrimination that confined them to second-class citizenship, a system known as Jim Crow that endured for decades.
More than a century has passed since the revolutionary political, social, and economic movement known as Reconstruction, yet its profound consequences reverberate in our lives today. Make Good the Promises explores five distinct yet intertwined legacies of Reconstruction–Liberation, Violence, Repair, Place, and Belief–to reveal their lasting impact on modern society. It is the story of Frederick Douglass, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Hiram Revels, Ida B. Wells, and scores of other Black men and women who reshaped a nation–and of the persistence of white supremacy and the perpetuation of the injustices of slavery continued by other means and codified in state and federal laws.
With contributions by leading scholars, and illustrated with 80 images from the exhibition, Make Good the Promises shows how Black Lives Matter, #SayHerName, antiracism, and other current movements for repair find inspiration from the lessons of Reconstruction. It touches on questions critical then and now: What is the meaning of freedom and equality? What does it mean to be an American? Powerful and eye-opening, it is a reminder that history is far from past; it lives within each of us and shapes our world and who we are.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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America for Americans
- By: Erika Lee
- Narrator: Shayna Small
- Length: 13 hours 37 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 26, 2019
- Language: English
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4.36(727 ratings)
4.36(727 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.98 USDThis definitive history of American xenophobia is “essential reading for anyone who wants to build a more inclusive society.” (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist).The United States is known as a... Read moreThis definitive history of American xenophobia is “essential reading for anyone who wants to build a more inclusive society.” (Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist).
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. In America for Americans, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their “strange and foreign ways.” Americans’ anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Chinese immigrants were excluded, Japanese incarcerated, and Mexicans deported.
Today, Americans fear Muslims, Latinos, and the so-called browning of America. Forcing us to confront this history, Lee explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America. Now updated with an afterword reflecting on how the coronavirus pandemic turbocharged xenophobia, America for Americans is an urgent spur to action for any concerned citizen. -
Killing Lincoln
- By: Bill O’Reilly
- Narrator: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 7 hours 49 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: September 27, 2011
- Language: English
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4.35(181 ratings)
4.35(181 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDA riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O’Reilly The iconic anchor of The O’Reilly Factor recounts oneA riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O’Reilly
The iconic anchor of The O’Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history–how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America’s Civil War finally comes to an end after a series of increasingly harrowing battles. President Abraham Lincoln’s generous terms for Robert E. Lee’s surrender are devised to fulfill Lincoln’s dream of healing a divided nation, with the former Confederates allowed to reintegrate into American society. But one man and his band of murderous accomplices, perhaps reaching into the highest ranks of the U.S. government, are not appeased.
In the midst of the patriotic celebrations in Washington D.C., John Wilkes Booth–charismatic ladies’ man and impenitent racist–murders Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. A furious manhunt ensues and Booth immediately becomes the country’s most wanted fugitive. Lafayette C. Baker, a smart but shifty New York detective and former Union spy, unravels the string of clues leading to Booth, while federal forces track his accomplices. The thrilling chase ends in a fiery shootout and a series of court-ordered executions–including that of the first woman ever executed by the U.S. government, Mary Surratt. Featuring some of history’s most remarkable figures, vivid detail, and page-turning action, Killing Lincoln is history that reads like a thriller.
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The Earth Is All That Lasts
- By: Mark Lee Gardner
- Narrator: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 12 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 21, 2022
- Language: English
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4.34(126 ratings)
4.34(126 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.99 USDA magisterial dual biography of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders, who triumphed at the Battle of Little Bighorn and led Sioux resistance in the fierce final chapter of the “IndianA magisterial dual biography of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders, who triumphed at the Battle of Little Bighorn and led Sioux resistance in the fierce final chapter of the “Indian Wars.”
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull: Their names are iconic, their significance in American history undeniable. Together, these two Lakota chiefs, one a fabled warrior and the other a revered holy man, crushed George Armstrong Custer’s vaunted Seventh Cavalry. Yet their legendary victory at the Little Big Horn has overshadowed the rest of their rich and complex lives. Now, based on years of research and drawing on a wealth of previously ignored primary sources, award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner delivers the definitive chronicle, thrillingly told, of these extraordinary Indigenous leaders.
Both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were born and grew to manhood on the High Plains of the American West, in an era when vast herds of buffalo covered the earth, and when their nomadic people could move freely, following the buffalo and lording their fighting prowess over rival Indian nations. But as idyllic as this life seemed to be, neither man had known a time without whites. Fur traders and government explorers were the first to penetrate Sioux lands, but they were soon followed by a flood of white intruders: Oregon-California Trail travelers, gold seek – ers, railroad men, settlers, town builders–and Bluecoats. The buffalo population plummeted, disease spread by the white man decimated villages, and conflicts with the interlopers increased.
On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the warriors who were inspired to follow them, fought the last stand of the Sioux, a fierce and proud nation that had ruled the Great Plains for decades. It was their greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end for their treasured and sacred way of life. And in the years to come, both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defiant to the end, would meet violent–and eerily similar–fates.
An essential new addition to the canon of Indigenous American history and literature of the West, The Earth Is All That Lasts is a grand saga, both triumphant and tragic, of two fascinating and heroic leaders struggling to maintain the freedom of their people against impossible odds.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Lifting as We Climb
- By: Evette Dionne
- Length: 4 hours 51 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: April 21, 2020
- Language: English
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4.34(495 ratings)
4.34(495 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0012.99 USDFor African American women, the fight for the right to vote was only one battle. An eye-opening book that tells the important, overlooked story of black women as a force in the suffrage movement–when fellow suffragists did not accept them asFor African American women, the fight for the right to vote was only one battle.
An eye-opening book that tells the important, overlooked story of black women as a force in the suffrage movement–when fellow suffragists did not accept them as equal partners in the struggle.
Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Alice Paul. The Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. The 1913 Women’s March in D.C. When the epic story of the suffrage movement in the United States is told, the most familiar leaders, speakers at meetings, and participants in marches written about or pictured are generally white.
That’s not the real story.
Women of color, especially African American women, were fighting for their right to vote and to be treated as full, equal citizens of the United States. Their battlefront wasn’t just about gender. African American women had to deal with white abolitionist-suffragists who drew the line at sharing power with their black sisters. They had to overcome deep, exclusionary racial prejudices that were rife in the American suffrage movement. And they had to maintain their dignity–and safety–in a society that tried to keep them in its bottom ranks.
Lifting as We Climb is the empowering story of African American women who refused to accept all this. Women in black church groups, black female sororities, black women’s improvement societies and social clubs. Women who formed their own black suffrage associations when white-dominated national suffrage groups rejected them. Women like Mary Church Terrell, a founder of the National Association of Colored Women and of the NAACP; or educator-activist Anna Julia Cooper who championed women getting the vote and a college education; or the crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, a leader in both the suffrage and anti-lynching movements.
Author Evette Dionne, a feminist culture writer and the editor-in-chief of Bitch Media, has uncovered an extraordinary and underrepresented history of black women. In her powerful book, she draws an important historical line from abolition to suffrage to civil rights to contemporary young activists–filling in the blanks of the American suffrage story.
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Hymns of the Republic
- By: S. C. Gwynne
- Narrator: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 14 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.32(848 ratings)
4.32(848 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDFrom the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes “a masterwork of history” (Lawrence Wright, author of God Save Texas), the spellbinding, epic account of the last year of theFrom the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell comes “a masterwork of history” (Lawrence Wright, author of God Save Texas), the spellbinding, epic account of the last year of the Civil War.
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The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of the most compelling narratives and one of history’s great turning points. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist S.C. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln.
“A must-read for Civil War enthusiasts” (Publishers Weekly), Hymns of the Republic offers many surprising angles and insights. Robert E. Lee, known as a great general and Southern hero, is presented here as a man dealing with frustration, failure, and loss. Ulysses S. Grant is known for his prowess as a field commander, but in the final year of the war he largely fails at that. His most amazing accomplishments actually began the moment he stopped fighting. William Tecumseh Sherman, Gwynne argues, was a lousy general, but probably the single most brilliant man in the war. We also meet a different Clara Barton, one of the greatest and most compelling characters, who redefined the idea of medical care in wartime. And proper attention is paid to the role played by large numbers of black union soldiers–most of them former slaves.
Popular history at its best, Hymns of the Republic reveals the creation that arose from destruction in this “engrossing…riveting” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) read. -
The Cause of All Nations
- By: Don H. Doyle
- Narrator: Don H. Doyle
- Length: 14 hours 3 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: December 30, 2014
- Language: English
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4.3(334 ratings)
4.3(334 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDWhen Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, he realized that the Civil War had taken on a wider significance-that in Europe and Latin America people were watching to see whether the democratic experiment in “government by theWhen Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, he realized that the Civil War had taken on a wider significance-that in Europe and Latin America people were watching to see whether the democratic experiment in “government by the people” would “perish from the earth.” In The Cause of All Nations, distinguished historian Don H. Doyle explains that the Civil War was more than an internal American conflict; it was a struggle that spanned the Atlantic Ocean. This book follows the agents of the North and South who went abroad to tell the world what they were fighting for, and the foreign politicians, journalists, and intellectuals who told America and the world what they thought this war was really about-or ought to be about. Foreigners looked upon the American contest as an epic battle in a grand historic struggle that would decide the fate of democracy as well as slavery for generations to come. A bold account of the international dimensions of America’s defining conflict, The Cause of All Nations frames the Civil War as a crucial turning point in the global struggle over the future of democracy.
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Star-Spangled
- By: Tim Grove
- Narrator: Nathan Agin
- Length: 2 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.3(27 ratings)
4.3(27 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDThe little-known and inspiring story behind the national anthem and the stars and stripes “O say can you see” begins one of the most recognizable songs in the US. Originally a poem by Francis Scott Key, the national anthem tells theThe little-known and inspiring story behind the national anthem and the stars and stripes
“O say can you see” begins one of the most recognizable songs in the US. Originally a poem by Francis Scott Key, the national anthem tells the story of the American flag rising high above a fort after a night of intense battle during the War of 1812. But there is much more to the story than what is sung at ball games. What was this battle about? Whose bombs were bursting, and why were rockets glaring? Who sewed those broad stripes and bright stars? Why were free Black soldiers fighting on both sides? Who was Francis Scott Key anyway, and how did he end up with such a close view? Star-Spangled tells the whole story from the perspectives of different real players–both American and British–of this obscure but important battle from American history.
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Jefferson
- By: John B. Boles
- Narrator: Michael Johnson
- Length: 24 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: April 25, 2017
- Language: English
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4.28(416 ratings)
4.28(416 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.98 USDFrom 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 theFrom 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. We witness him drafting of the Declaration of Independence, negotiating the Louisiana Purchase, and inventing a politics that emphasized the states over the federal government — a political philosophy that shapes our national life to this day.
Boles offers new insight into Jefferson’s actions and thinking on race. His Jefferson is not a hypocrite, but a tragic figure — a man who could not hold simultaneously to his views on abolition, democracy, and patriarchal responsibility. Yet despite his flaws, Jefferson’s ideas would outlive him and make him into nothing less than the architect of American liberty.
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The Life of William Apess, Pequot
- By: Philip F. Gura
- Narrator: Traber Burns
- Length: 7 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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4.23(12 ratings)
4.23(12 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess’ fascinating and consequentialThe Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess’ fascinating and consequential life.
After an impoverished childhood marked by abuse, Apess soldiered with American troops during the War of 1812, converted to Methodism, and rose to fame as a lecturer who lifted a powerful voice of protest against the plight of Native Americans in New England and beyond. His 1829 autobiography, A Son of the Forest, stands as the first published by a Native American writer.
Placing Apess’ activism on behalf of Native American people in the context of the era’s rising tide of abolitionism, Gura argues that this founding figure of Native intellectual history deserves greater recognition in the pantheon of antebellum reformers.
Following Apess from his early life through the development of his political radicalism to his tragic early death and enduring legacy, this much-needed biography showcases the accomplishments of an extraordinary Native American.
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
- By: Dee Brown
- Narrator: Grover Gardner
- Length: 14 hours 21 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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4.23(76643 ratings)
4.23(76643 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.95 USDImmediately recognized as a revelatory and enormously controversial book since its first publication in 1971, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is universally recognized as one of those rare books that forever changes the way its subject isImmediately recognized as a revelatory and enormously controversial book since its first publication in 1971, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is universally recognized as one of those rare books that forever changes the way its subject is perceived.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown’s classic, eloquent, meticulously documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the series of battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them and their people demoralized and decimated.
A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was won–and lost. It tells a story that should not be forgotten and so must be retold from time to time.
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Sing Down the Moon
- By: Scott O’Dell
- Narrator: Scott O'Dell
- Length: 2 hours 56 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: July 18, 2014
- Language: English
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4.22(9 ratings)
4.22(9 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0010.99 USDThe Navajo tribe’s forced march from their homeland to Fort Sumner by white soldiers and settlers is dramatically and courageously told by young Bright Morning. Bright Morning was happy as she gazed across the beautiful valley that was theThe Navajo tribe’s forced march from their homeland to Fort Sumner by white soldiers and settlers is dramatically and courageously told by young Bright Morning. Bright Morning was happy as she gazed across the beautiful valley that was the home of her tribe. She turned when Black Dog barked, and it was then that she saw the Spanish slavers riding straight toward her.
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Empire of the Summer Moon
- By: S. C. Gwynne
- Narrator: David Drummond
- Length: 15 hours 9 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.21(38418 ratings)
4.21(38418 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USD*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award*
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*A New York Times Notable Book*
*Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award*
This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review).
Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands.
The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah–a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.
Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history. -
American Republics
- By: Alan Taylor
- Length: 14 hours 46 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: May 18, 2021
- Language: English
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4.21(388 ratings)
4.21(388 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDFrom a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent. In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional storyFrom a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent.
In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers through strategic alliances with the other continental powers. The system of American slavery grew increasingly powerful and expansive, its vigorous internal trade in Black Americans separating parents and children, husbands and wives. Bitter party divisions pitted elites favoring strong government against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men. Violence was both routine and organized: the United States invaded Canada, Florida, Texas, and much of Mexico, and forcibly removed most of the Native peoples living east of the Mississippi. At the end of the period the United States, its conquered territory reaching the Pacific, remained internally divided, with sectional animosities over slavery growing more intense.
Taylor’s elegant history of this tumultuous period offers indelible miniatures of key characters from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. It captures the high-stakes political drama as Jackson and Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster contend over slavery, the economy, Indian removal, and national expansion. A ground-level account of American industrialization conveys the everyday lives of factory workers and immigrant families. And the immersive narrative puts us on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Mexico City, Quebec, and the Cherokee capital, New Echota.
Absorbing and chilling, American Republics illuminates the continuities between our own social and political divisions and the events of this formative period.
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12 Years a Slave
- By: Solomon Northup
- Narrator: Richard Allen
- Length: 8 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Public Domain
- Publish date: January 22, 2013
- Language: English
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4.21(260 ratings)
4.21(260 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.007.99 USD12 Years a Slave is the harrowing account of a black man, born free in New York State, who was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in 1841. Having no way to contact his family, and fearing for his life if he told the truth, Solomon Northup was12 Years a Slave is the harrowing account of a black man, born free in New York State, who was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in 1841. Having no way to contact his family, and fearing for his life if he told the truth, Solomon Northup was sold from plantation to plantation in Louisiana, toiling under cruel masters for twelve years before meeting Samuel Bass, a Canadian who finally put him in touch with his family, and helped start the process to regain his freedom. This extraordinary text is the basis for the major motion picture starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.
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Bound for Canaan
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrator: Fergus Bordewich
- Length: 5 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: August 09, 2005
- Language: English
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4.19(656 ratings)
4.19(656 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDAn important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for change. The true story of the Underground Railroad is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest.An important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for change.
The true story of the Underground Railroad is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest. Against a backdrop of the country’s westward expansion arose a clash of values that evolved into a fierce fight for nothing less than the country’s soul. Beginning six decades before the Civil War, freedom-seeking blacks and courageous whites worked together to save tens of thousands of lives, often at the risk of great physical danger to themselves. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only challenged prevailing mores but also subverted federal law.
Meticulously researched and uncommonly engaging, Bound for Canaan shows why it was the Underground Railroad and not the civil rights movement that gave birth to this country’s first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for social change.
Written and read by Fergus M. Bordewic
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Killing Crazy Horse
- By: Bill O’Reilly
- Narrator: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 9 hours 27 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: September 08, 2020
- Language: English
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4.17(4754 ratings)
4.17(4754 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.99 USDThis program includes a prologue read by Bill O’Reilly The latest installment of the multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans and settlers. The bloodyThis program includes a prologue read by Bill O’Reilly
The latest installment of the multimillion-selling Killing series is a gripping journey through the American West and the historic clashes between Native Americans and settlers.
The bloody Battle of Tippecanoe was only the beginning. It’s 1811 and President James Madison has ordered the destruction of Shawnee warrior chief Tecumseh’s alliance of tribes in the Great Lakes region. But while General William Henry Harrison would win this fight, the armed conflict between Native Americans and the newly formed United States would rage on for decades.
In Killing Crazy Horse bestselling authors Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard venture through the fraught history of our country’s founding on already occupied lands, from General Andrew Jackson’s brutal battles with the Creek Nation to President James Monroe’s epic “sea to shining sea” policy, to President Martin Van Buren’s cruel enforcement of a “treaty” that forced the Cherokee Nation out of their homelands along what would be called the Trail of Tears. O’Reilly and Dugard take listeners behind the legends to reveal never-before-told historical moments in the fascinating creation story of America.
This fast-paced, wild ride through the American frontier will shock listeners and impart unexpected lessons that reverberate to this day.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
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The Boer War
- By: Martin Bossenbroek
- Narrator: Martin Bossenbroek
- Length: 19 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: January 09, 2018
- Language: English
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4.16(50 ratings)
4.16(50 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USDThe Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) is one of the most intriguing conflicts of modern history. It has been labeled many things: the first media war, a precursor of the First and Second World Wars, the originator of apartheid. The difference in status andThe Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) is one of the most intriguing conflicts of modern history. It has been labeled many things: the first media war, a precursor of the First and Second World Wars, the originator of apartheid. The difference in status and resources between the superpower Great Britain and two insignificant Boer republics in southern Africa was enormous. But, against all expectation, it took the British every effort and a huge sum of money to win the war, not least by unleashing a campaign of systematic terror against the civilian population. In The Boer War, winner of the Netherland’s 2013 Libris History Prize and shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, the author brings a completely new perspective to this chapter of South African history, critically examining the involvement of the Netherlands in the war. Furthermore, unlike other accounts, Martin Bossenbroek explores the war primarily through the experiences of three men uniquely active during the bloody conflict. They are Willem Leyds, the Dutch lawyer who was to become South African Republic state secretary and eventual European envoy; Winston Churchill, then a British war reporter; and Deneys Reitz, a young Boer commando. The vivid and engaging experiences of these three men enable a more personal and nuanced story of the war to be told, and at the same time offer a fresh approach to a conflict that shaped the nation state of South Africa.
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Strong Boy
- By: Christopher Klein
- Narrator: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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4.16(106 ratings)
4.16(106 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USD“I can lick any son-of-a-bitch in the world.” So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn“I can lick any son-of-a-bitch in the world.”
So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, a big mouth, and even bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston’s Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. In the process, the “Boston Strong Boy” transformed boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today.
Strong Boy tells the story of America’s first sports superstar, a self-made man who personified the power and excesses of the Gilded Age. Everywhere John L. Sullivan went, his fists backed up his bravado. Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his seventy-five-round bout against Jake Kilrain, and his cross-country barnstorming tour in which he literally challenged all of America to a fight are recounted in vivid detail, as are his battles outside the ring with a troubled marriage, wild weight and fitness fluctuations, and raging alcoholism. Strong Boy gives readers ringside seats to the colorful tale of one of the country’s first Irish American heroes and the birth of the American sports media and the country’s celebrity obsession with athletes.
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Abraham Lincoln
- By: Allen C. Guelzo
- Narrator: Edward Lewis
- Length: 18 hours 26 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2011
- Language: English
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4.16(315 ratings)
4.16(315 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.95 USDDespite tremendous interest in Abraham Lincoln and his place in one of America’s most tumultuous historical periods, little has been written about his religious life. This truly fresh look at the nation’s sixteenth president relates theDespite tremendous interest in Abraham Lincoln and his place in one of America’s most tumultuous historical periods, little has been written about his religious life. This truly fresh look at the nation’s sixteenth president relates the outward events of Lincoln’s life to his inner spiritual struggles and sets them both against the intellectual backdrop of his age.
This unique intellectual portrait explores the role of ideas in Lincoln’s life. Guelzo presents Lincoln as a serious thinker deeply involved in the problems of nineteenth-century thought, including those of classical liberalism, the Lockean enlightenment, Victorian unbelief, and Calvinist spirituality. Lincoln emerges as a philosophical man who appropriates certain religious values without adhering to any religion, who insists on the pre-eminence of self-interest in spite of becoming the Great Emancipator, and who appeals to natural law and natural theology in politics while remaining a classical nineteenth-century liberal in principle. Based on primary materials from a wide variety of archives, this insightful work sheds light on the intellectual conflicts that led to civil war and that still influence today’s “culture wars.”
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The Edge of Anarchy
- By: Jack Kelly
- Narrator: Traber Burns
- Length: 11 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.15(230 ratings)
4.15(230 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe dramatic story of the explosive 1894 clash of industry, labor, and government that shook the nation and marked a turning point for America The Edge of Anarchy offers a vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history.The dramatic story of the explosive 1894 clash of industry, labor, and government that shook the nation and marked a turning point for America
The Edge of Anarchy offers a vivid account of the greatest uprising of working people in American history. At the pinnacle of the Gilded Age, a boycott of Pullman sleeping cars by hundreds of thousands of railroad employees brought commerce to a standstill across much of the country. Famine threatened, riots broke out along the rail lines. Soon the US Army was on the march and gunfire rang from the streets of major cities.
This epochal tale offers fascinating portraits of two iconic characters of the age. George Pullman, who amassed a fortune by making train travel a pleasure, thought the model town that he built for his workers would erase urban squalor. Eugene Debs, founder of the nation’s first industrial union, was determined to wrench power away from the reigning plutocrats. The clash between the two men’s conflicting ideals pushed the country to what the US attorney general called “the ragged edge of anarchy.”
Many of the themes of The Edge of Anarchy could be taken from today’s headlines–upheaval in America’s industrial heartland, wage stagnation, breakneck technological change, and festering conflict over race, immigration, and inequality. With the country now in a New Gilded Age, this look back at the violent conflict of an earlier era offers illuminating perspectives along with a breathtaking story of a nation on the edge.
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What Hath God Wrought
- By: Daniel Walker Howe
- Narrator: John Lescault
- Length: 32 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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4.14(7443 ratings)
4.14(7443 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0041.95 USDIn this addition to the esteemed Oxford history series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era of revolutionary improvements in transportation andIn this addition to the esteemed Oxford history series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era of revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. He examines the era’s politics but contends that John Quincy Adams and other advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African Americans were the true prophets of America’s future. He reveals the power of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women’s rights, and other reform movements. Howe’s panoramic narrative—weaving social, economic, and cultural history together with political and military events—culminates in the bitterly controversial but brilliantly executed war against Mexico that gained California and Texas for the United States.
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Sailing Alone Around the World
- By: Joshua Slocum
- Narrator: Joshua Slocum
- Length: 6 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: February 04, 2008
- Language: English
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4.14(7536 ratings)
4.14(7536 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDJoshua Slocum was the first man ever to sail around the world single-handedly. He completed his voyage in 1895, without radio and modern technology, when native pirates roamed the seas. It makes for an exciting tale-all 46,000 miles and three yearsJoshua Slocum was the first man ever to sail around the world single-handedly. He completed his voyage in 1895, without radio and modern technology, when native pirates roamed the seas. It makes for an exciting tale-all 46,000 miles and three years of it.
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Son of the Morning Star
- By: Evan S. Connell
- Narrator: Evan S. Connell
- Length: 20 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: October 21, 2011
- Language: English
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4.13(2379 ratings)
4.13(2379 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USDThis national best-seller vividly reconstructs one of the most unbelievable and controversial battles in American military history-General Custer’s Last Stand in 1876. Why would a seasoned leader like Custer lead 200 U.S. Army soldiers intoThis national best-seller vividly reconstructs one of the most unbelievable and controversial battles in American military history-General Custer’s Last Stand in 1876. Why would a seasoned leader like Custer lead 200 U.S. Army soldiers into battle against 2,000 Native American warriors? The answer lies in this book, which captures in stunning detail the heroism, foolishness, and brutality that led to this legendary battle.
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The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
- By: Olive Gilbert
- Narrator: Bobbie Frohman
- Length: 3 hours 49 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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4.12(229 ratings)
4.12(229 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.007.99 USDThe Narrative of Sojourner Truth is a poignant biography as told to Olive Gilbert by Isabella Bomefree–a slave born at the end of the eighteenth century who later took the name of Sojourner Truth. She recounts the harshness of life underThe Narrative of Sojourner Truth is a poignant biography as told to Olive Gilbert by Isabella Bomefree–a slave born at the end of the eighteenth century who later took the name of Sojourner Truth. She recounts the harshness of life under slavery, as well as what transpired after she won her freedom, when she became a vociferous abolitionist, a role for which she has been long remembered and revered.
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Frederick Douglass
- By: David W. Blight
- Narrator: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 36 hours 57 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.12(9467 ratings)
4.12(9467 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0039.99 USD**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History** “Extraordinary…a great American biography” (The New Yorker) of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History**
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“Extraordinary…a great American biography” (The New Yorker) of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era.
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. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery.
Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, using his own story to condemn slavery. By the Civil War, Douglass had become the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. After the war he sometimes argued politically with younger African Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of black civil and political rights.
In this “cinematic and deeply engaging” (The New York Times Book Review) biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers. “Absorbing and even moving…a brilliant book that speaks to our own time as well as Douglass’s” (The Wall Street Journal), Blight’s biography tells the fascinating story of Douglass’s two marriages and his complex extended family. “David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass…a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the nineteenth century” (The Boston Globe).
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Frederick Douglass won the Bancroft, Parkman, Los Angeles Times (biography), Lincoln, Plutarch, and Christopher awards and was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Time.
Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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