Ronald Tadena

Very Entertaining

Revisado: 02-15-24

The narrator is absolutely perfect for this book. She captures the tone and the style of the author in a way that few other narrators ever do. Even if you may not fine the story itself overly engaging, the performance of the reader will likely keep you coming back. Wholeheartedly recommended!

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Great Book for a new Texan

Revisado: 10-04-23

My family and I recently moved to Texas from Washington State. When we started asking about good books about Texas history, the locals kept pointing us to this book, even though it’s fiction. After having listened to the entire book, I now know why. Though it may be a work of historical fiction, with all the limitations inherent to the genre, it still felt extremely informative. You get to “see” Texas through the eyes of those who settled it and contributed to its character. I thought the author, through the stories and characters he created, was extremely balanced in his handling of the history of the state, highlighting proud moments of the past, without sugarcoating some of the darker parts. But through the good and the bad, what shines through is palpable sense of the worldview and way of life that seems to me, as a new comer anyway, uniquely Texan. Really made me respect the amazing history of my new home and challenged me to see myself as a part of it too. Such and amazing book! Wholeheartedly Recommended!!

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Far too polemical (Even for a committed Catholic)

Revisado: 04-22-21

I consider myself a fairly conservative or right leaning Catholic, I have a fondness for the Latin Mass, though I’ve only attended sporadically since the Latin Mass parish is a little too far away, and I’ve been very interested in Catholic concepts like Distributism, Intergalism, and Catholic Monarchy. I say all this so the reader will have some sense where I’m coming from when I say that with a background like that, even I found the polemical tone of this book fairly obnoxious.

First off the reader seems as though he’s never heard terms like sola scriptura (which he pronounced as solara scriptura) as one example of many terms that he repeatedly mispronounced. He also rushed though some sentences with such a monotonous tone that I sometimes had difficulty understanding where one sentence ended and another began.

The content isn’t much better. The author has an interesting main thesis, namely that the American founders where heavily, but unconsciously, influenced by the Catholic natural law tradition, and that it was anti-Catholics bias that played a big role in why they either didn’t realize this or were reluctant to acknowledge it openly. But he for some reason seems to feel the need to repeat that over and over again “America is a country that was wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and governed secularly.” Between that and his attempt to create a shorthand for the influence of Protestantism and the Enlightenment (Which he attempts to shorten to something that sounds in the audiobook like Protenlight or Prot & Enlight) makes the book nearly intolerable.

And like I said, I feel like I’m someone who’s primed to generally be receptive to this authors position, but the way he tries to boil even his good ideas down into sound bitey catch phrases is beyond irritating. To say nothing of being persuasive to anyone else.

I can’t imagine recommending this book to a non-Catholic, which I think means the book fails in what should be its main purpose, trying to create space in the American consciousness about its Catholic roots. I don’t think even the most charitable non-Catholic reader would be able to get beyond the first 30 pages of this book. Which means what it really becomes is pandering literary pacifier for anxious Catholics who want to congratulate themselves for being wise enough to be American Catholics, and shake their heads (figuratively or literally) at their poor benighted non-Catholic neighbors and friends who just don’t “get it” like they do.

This book is awful and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

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Get ready to hear a lot about case law!

Revisado: 03-04-21

Overall I think this was an informative and interesting audiobook that I’m glad I got to listen to, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

I had anticipated that this would be more of an historical overview of how the US Constitution came to be, and there is a robust discussion of that in the beginning. Eventually however, the book pivots to discussion of important legal cases and how their precedence began to change how the constitution was understood and applied (and ultimately ignored). Once this turn happens, the book never really looks back. This does fit with the author’s apparent thesis that the constitution has been more or less hijacked by an out of control federal judiciary, and so I suppose an in-depth discussion of case law is appropriate, it just isn’t what I was expecting, which again, is perhaps a further support to the authors main point, most Americans, especially of a more conservative leaning, don’t realize that this is how the constitution is understood today.

I will say that I feel like there was a missed opportunity here to be a little more open to inviting thoughtful reflection on this issue for readers (listeners) who may not initially have shared the authors preconceived notions of limited government. The author addresses the fact that the Supreme Court has seemed to usurp authority in the cause of advancing liberal political agendas, and so has claimed a sort of PR high ground, like how if you question the supreme court’s overreach your likely to run into the spurious objection that you support segregation and Jim Crow laws. The author vaguely gestures towards a response in quick throw away line about how southern legislators and electorates were already being to move away from these things, but the discussion is too brief and makes me wonder how robustly the author could actually support that bald assertion in an extended discussion. I would have like to have seen a more complex examination of how an overreaching Supreme Court is potentially bad for everyone, I mean just because the court supports liberal causes now doesn’t mean it always will, and what defense would liberal groups have against an all powerful Supreme Court after they’ve handed it all the power.

Instead the author seems more interested in mocking the high court’s hypocrisy and overinflated sense of self importance and ridiculing the apparently clueless liberal elites who enable this attitude. It doesn’t seem like this book would have much appeal outside of readers who are already primed to agree with the author. Perhaps that is the point of this book series, but I feel like other books in this series weren’t quite so seemly deaf to concerns of the other side.

Again, the book was entertaining and enlightening overall, but it did come off as a bit off putting at points.

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You need a spiritual director, apparently....

Revisado: 02-24-21

There was a lot of great content in this book, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to others, with one caveat.

The book spends well over half of its length discussing the value of spiritual direction, I assume to convince the reader (listener) of the need for a spiritual director. The problem is that it becomes fairly repetitive on this point, and as any Catholic who’s attempted to find a good orthodox spiritual director knows, it’s not very easy to find a good spiritual director, so sometimes the message of this book can be somewhat discouraging. There’s some much good spirituality discussed here that is accompanied with something like the phrase “but this should (or can) only be done with a good spiritual director.” It’s like dangling a juicy steak in front of someone, discussing all of its delicious qualities, getting the person to really appreciate and value the streak and desire it, and then snatch it away at the last second.

I suppose this book could have a lot of value to those who have already engaged a good spiritual director, or who perhaps may not yet realize the great good of spiritual direction and need someone to explain to them why spiritual direction is desirable.

But if you’re like me and you already recognize the value of spiritual direction, the book can feel like a bit of a tease. That being said the last half of the book or so does have some very interesting discussion of what you can do to prepare yourself for spiritual direction, so that even if you don’t have one yet, you can still do something to get yourself ready for when you do find a good one.

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Great Book! Terrible Narration!

Revisado: 12-14-20

The material in this book is great, I really appreciate this refreshing and non-cynical look at a very important and misunderstood point in history.

The narration, though, is very difficult to get used to. There were several points in the first 2-3 hours of the book where I seriously considered returning just because of the very strange vocal cadence and tone of the narrator. He sounds weirdly robotic, with an almost sarcastic tone at times, but he also seems to take a very odd care to pronounce names of people and places with a hyper stress on pronouncing these names with the proper accent from the original language the name comes from. So the narration switches back and forth from weird robotic to very carefully annunciated Spanish/German/Italian/French/Arabian names and places. Its incredibly jarring and very nearly ruins the book.

I promise, eventually the compelling nature of the material itself helps to overcome this strangeness, but this book really deserves better narration, honestly any book deserves better narration than this.

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Entertaining Reading of the epic, essay awful

Revisado: 05-03-16

The epic is highly entertaining, the translators bias against Christianity in his essay is sickening.

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