-
Benjamin Franklin
- The Religious Life of a Founding Father
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $21.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other 18th-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years Franklin had abandoned the exclusive Christian faith of his family and embraced deism. But Franklin, as a man of faith, was far more complex than the "thorough deist" who emerges in his autobiography. As Thomas Kidd reveals, deist writers influenced Franklin's beliefs, to be sure, but devout Christians in his life - including George Whitefield, the era's greatest evangelical preacher; his parents; and his beloved sister Jane - kept him tethered to the Calvinist creed of his Puritan upbringing. Based on rigorous research into Franklin's voluminous correspondence, essays, and almanacs, this fresh assessment of a well-known figure unpacks the contradictions and conundrums faith presented in Franklin's life.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
God of Liberty
- A Religious History of the American Revolution
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Mark Coffin
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before the Revolutionary War, America was a nation divided by different faiths. But when the war for independence sparked in 1776, colonists united under the banner of religious freedom. Evangelical frontiersmen and Deist intellectuals set aside their differences to defend a belief they shared, the right to worship freely. Inspiring an unlikely but powerful alliance, it was the idea of religious liberty that brought the colonists together in the battle against British tyranny.
-
-
The founding has a complicated religious history
- By Adam Shields on 03-24-16
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
Baptists in America
- A History
- By: Thomas S. Kidd, Barry Hankins
- Narrated by: Jonathan Walker
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Baptists in America, Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins explore the long-running tensions between church, state, and culture that Baptists have shaped and navigated. Despite the moment of unity that their early persecution provided, their history has been marked by internal battles and schisms that were microcosms of national events, from the conflict over slavery that divided North from South to the conservative revolution of the 1970s and '80s.
-
-
Baptist critics
- By Paul on 11-27-16
By: Thomas S. Kidd, and others
-
American History, Volume 1
- 1492-1877
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Craig Hinkle
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American History, Volume 1 surveys the broad sweep of American history from the first Native American societies to the end of the Reconstruction period, following the Civil War. Drawing on a deep range of research and years of classroom teaching experience, Thomas S. Kidd offers students an engaging overview of the first half of American history. The volume features illuminating stories of people from well known presidents and generals, to lesser-known men and women who struggled under slavery and other forms of oppression to make their place in American life.
-
-
Too much of an agenda
- By anon on 03-19-23
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
American Colonies: The Settling of North America
- Penguin History of the United States, Book 1
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.
-
-
Excellent ..
- By aintbuyinit on 09-03-18
By: Alan Taylor
-
An Empire on the Edge
- How Britain Came to Fight America
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American Revolution told from the unique perspective of British Parliament and the streets of London, rather than that of the Colonies. Here, Nick Bunker explores and illuminates the dramatic chain of events that led to the outbreak of the war-revealing a tale of muddle, mistakes, and misunderstandings by men in London that led to the Boston tea party and then to the decision to send redcoats into action against the minutemen.
-
-
Hard to put down
- By Mike From Mesa on 03-07-15
By: Nick Bunker
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
God of Liberty
- A Religious History of the American Revolution
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Mark Coffin
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Before the Revolutionary War, America was a nation divided by different faiths. But when the war for independence sparked in 1776, colonists united under the banner of religious freedom. Evangelical frontiersmen and Deist intellectuals set aside their differences to defend a belief they shared, the right to worship freely. Inspiring an unlikely but powerful alliance, it was the idea of religious liberty that brought the colonists together in the battle against British tyranny.
-
-
The founding has a complicated religious history
- By Adam Shields on 03-24-16
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
Baptists in America
- A History
- By: Thomas S. Kidd, Barry Hankins
- Narrated by: Jonathan Walker
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Baptists in America, Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins explore the long-running tensions between church, state, and culture that Baptists have shaped and navigated. Despite the moment of unity that their early persecution provided, their history has been marked by internal battles and schisms that were microcosms of national events, from the conflict over slavery that divided North from South to the conservative revolution of the 1970s and '80s.
-
-
Baptist critics
- By Paul on 11-27-16
By: Thomas S. Kidd, and others
-
American History, Volume 1
- 1492-1877
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Craig Hinkle
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American History, Volume 1 surveys the broad sweep of American history from the first Native American societies to the end of the Reconstruction period, following the Civil War. Drawing on a deep range of research and years of classroom teaching experience, Thomas S. Kidd offers students an engaging overview of the first half of American history. The volume features illuminating stories of people from well known presidents and generals, to lesser-known men and women who struggled under slavery and other forms of oppression to make their place in American life.
-
-
Too much of an agenda
- By anon on 03-19-23
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
American Colonies: The Settling of North America
- Penguin History of the United States, Book 1
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.
-
-
Excellent ..
- By aintbuyinit on 09-03-18
By: Alan Taylor
-
An Empire on the Edge
- How Britain Came to Fight America
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American Revolution told from the unique perspective of British Parliament and the streets of London, rather than that of the Colonies. Here, Nick Bunker explores and illuminates the dramatic chain of events that led to the outbreak of the war-revealing a tale of muddle, mistakes, and misunderstandings by men in London that led to the Boston tea party and then to the decision to send redcoats into action against the minutemen.
-
-
Hard to put down
- By Mike From Mesa on 03-07-15
By: Nick Bunker
-
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 24 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Good book, not crazy about the narrator
- By Cathi on 07-20-13
By: Walter Isaacson
-
The Old Religion in a New World
- The History of North American Christianity
- By: Mark A. Noll
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our foremost historians of religion here chronicles the arrival of Christianity in the New World, tracing the turning points in the development of the immigrant church that have led to today's distinctly American faith. Taking a unique approach to this fascinating subject, Noll focuses on what was new about organized Christian religion on the American continent by comparison with European Christianity.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Margaret on 08-24-19
By: Mark A. Noll
-
Into the Bright Sunshine
- Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights (Pivotal Moments in American History Series)
- By: Samuel G. Freedman
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 17 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During one sweltering week in July 1948, the Democratic Party gathered in Philadelphia for its national convention. The most pressing and controversial issue facing the delegates was not whom to nominate for president—the incumbent, Harry Truman, was the presumptive candidate—but whether the Democrats would finally embrace the cause of civil rights and embed it in their official platform. On the convention's final day, Hubert Humphrey, the relatively obscure mayor of the midsized city of Minneapolis, ascended the podium.
-
-
Civil Rights for All not just limited segments of society.
- By Patricia A Gustafson on 06-02-24
-
The Democratization of American Christianity
- By: Nathan O. Hatch
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The half century following the American Revolution witnessed the transformation of American Christianity. The passion for equality, says Hatch, brought about a crisis or religious authority in popular culture, introduced new and popular forms of theology, witnessed the rise of minority religious movements, reshaped preaching, singing, and publishing, and became a scriptural foundation for 19th century American individualism.
-
-
Wow, eye opening
- By Dusty Jackson on 01-06-21
By: Nathan O. Hatch
-
The Crucifixion of the King of Glory: The Amazing History and Sublime Mystery of the Passion
- By: Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou PhD
- Narrated by: Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ are central events in our salvation. Yet few Christians have a good grasp of the first-century historical and religious context in which the crucifixion took place, nor of its true significance for the people of that time - and hence for our time as well. Biblical scholar and attorney Dr. Jeannie Constantinou puts modern listeners in the center of the events of Christ's Passion, bringing the best of modern scholarship to bear while keeping her interpretation faithful in every particular to the Orthodox tradition.
-
-
Might be the best book I've ever heard on audible.
- By Chris Russi on 12-26-22
-
Jamestown, the Buried Truth
- By: William M. Kelso
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What was life really like for the band of adventurers who first set foot on the banks of the James River in 1607? Important as the accomplishments of these men and women were, the written records pertaining to them are scarce, ambiguous, and often conflicting, and those curious about the birthplace of the United States are left to turn to dramatic and often highly fictionalized reports.
-
-
Excellent
- By Kanoa on 05-18-13
By: William M. Kelso
-
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Jon Meacham
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.
-
-
A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
-
Destiny of the Republic
- A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil.
-
-
Marvelous, Magnificent, Millard
- By Mel on 02-08-12
By: Candice Millard
-
C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity
- A Biography
- By: George M. Marsden
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Marsden describes how Lewis gradually went from being an atheist to a committed Anglican - famously converting to Christianity in 1931 after conversing into the night with his friends, J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugh Dyson - and how Lewis delivered his wartime talks to a traumatized British nation in the midst of an all-out war for survival.
-
-
THIS is NOT Mere Christianity, but a book about it
- By David on 10-10-17
-
Hidden But Now Revealed
- A Biblical Theology of Mystery
- By: G. K. Beale, Benjamin L. Gladd
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook explores the biblical conception of mystery as an initial, partially hidden revelation that is subsequently more fully revealed, shedding light not only on the richness of the concept itself, but also on the broader relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Exploring all the occurrences of the term mystery in the New Testament and the topics found in conjunction with them, this work unpacks how the New Testament writers understood the issue of continuity and discontinuity.
-
-
Disappointing!
- By Paul F. Evans on 11-14-15
By: G. K. Beale, and others
-
A Short History of Ethics
- By: Alasdair MacIntyre
- Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Short History of Ethics is a significant contribution written by one of the most important living philosophers. It remains an important work, ideal for all students interested in ethics and morality.
-
-
Great philosopher made ridiculous by accents
- By Olivia Walling on 10-04-17
-
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Stacy Schiff returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd and eloquent man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution, bringing her masterful skills to Adams’s improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies.
-
-
The revolutionary
- By Charles on 11-02-22
By: Stacy Schiff
Related to this topic
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
The Fearless Benjamin Lay
- The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist
- By: Marcus Rediker
- Narrated by: Cornell Womack
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man - a Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theater to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity.
-
-
stunning story
- By Austin Choi-Fitz on 10-05-17
By: Marcus Rediker
-
American Gospel
- God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.
-
-
what you weren't taught in school
- By Stanley on 06-12-06
By: Jon Meacham
-
Augustine
- Conversions to Confessions
- By: Robin Lane Fox
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saint Augustine is one of the most influential figures in all of Christianity, yet his path to sainthood was by no means assured. Born in AD 354 to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Augustine spent the first 30 years of his life struggling to understand the nature of God and his world. He learned about Christianity as a child but was never baptized, choosing instead to immerse himself in the study of rhetoric, Manicheanism, and then Neoplatonism - all the while indulging in a life of lust and greed.
-
-
Excellent
- By Chelsie P. on 12-06-16
By: Robin Lane Fox
-
Martin Luther
- Renegade and Prophet
- By: Lyndal Roper
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 31, 1517, an unknown monk nailed a theological pamphlet to a church door in a small university town and set in motion a process that helped usher in the modern world. Within a few years, Luther's ideas had spread like wildfire. His attempts to reform Christianity by returning it to its biblical roots split the Western Church, divided Europe, and polarized people's beliefs.
-
-
The purpose of this book is not to be a biography
- By LionsCalling09 on 01-25-18
By: Lyndal Roper
-
Fatal Discord
- Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
- By: Michael Massing
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 34 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.
-
-
Excellent work - up until the discussion of America
- By Michele Esposito on 08-24-19
By: Michael Massing
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
The Fearless Benjamin Lay
- The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist
- By: Marcus Rediker
- Narrated by: Cornell Womack
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man - a Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theater to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity.
-
-
stunning story
- By Austin Choi-Fitz on 10-05-17
By: Marcus Rediker
-
American Gospel
- God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In American Gospel (literally meaning the "good news about America"), New York Times best-selling author Jon Meacham sets the record straight on the history of religion in American public life. As Meacham shows, faith, meaning a belief in a higher power, and the sense that we are God's chosen, has always been at the heart of our national experience, from Jamestown to the Constitutional Convention to the Civil Rights Movement to September 11th.
-
-
what you weren't taught in school
- By Stanley on 06-12-06
By: Jon Meacham
-
Augustine
- Conversions to Confessions
- By: Robin Lane Fox
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saint Augustine is one of the most influential figures in all of Christianity, yet his path to sainthood was by no means assured. Born in AD 354 to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Augustine spent the first 30 years of his life struggling to understand the nature of God and his world. He learned about Christianity as a child but was never baptized, choosing instead to immerse himself in the study of rhetoric, Manicheanism, and then Neoplatonism - all the while indulging in a life of lust and greed.
-
-
Excellent
- By Chelsie P. on 12-06-16
By: Robin Lane Fox
-
Martin Luther
- Renegade and Prophet
- By: Lyndal Roper
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On October 31, 1517, an unknown monk nailed a theological pamphlet to a church door in a small university town and set in motion a process that helped usher in the modern world. Within a few years, Luther's ideas had spread like wildfire. His attempts to reform Christianity by returning it to its biblical roots split the Western Church, divided Europe, and polarized people's beliefs.
-
-
The purpose of this book is not to be a biography
- By LionsCalling09 on 01-25-18
By: Lyndal Roper
-
Fatal Discord
- Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
- By: Michael Massing
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 34 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This deeply textured dual biography and fascinating intellectual history examines two of the greatest minds of European history - Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther - whose heated rivalry gave rise to two enduring, fundamental, and often colliding traditions of philosophical and religious thought.
-
-
Excellent work - up until the discussion of America
- By Michele Esposito on 08-24-19
By: Michael Massing
-
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 24 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Good book, not crazy about the narrator
- By Cathi on 07-20-13
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Strange Gods
- A Secular History of Conversion
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 19 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this original and riveting exploration, Susan Jacoby argues that conversion - especially in the free American "religious marketplace" - is too often viewed only within the conventional and simplistic narrative of personal reinvention and divine grace. Instead, the author places conversions within a secular social context that has, at various times, included the force of a unified church and state, desire for upward economic mobility, and interreligious marriage.
-
-
Our own fabrications
- By David E. Felker on 01-03-17
By: Susan Jacoby
-
The Faiths of the Founding Fathers
- By: David L. Holmes
- Narrated by: C. James Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this compact audiobook, David L. Holmes offers a clear, concise and illuminating look at the spiritual beliefs of our founding fathers. He begins with an informative account of the religious culture of the late colonial era, surveying the religious groups in each colony. In particular, he sheds light on the various forms of deism that flourished in America, highlighting the profound influence this intellectual movement had on the founding generation.
-
-
Compelling but deism oversold
- By Thomas Gordon on 06-23-19
By: David L. Holmes
-
One Nation, Under Gods
- A New American History
- By: Peter Manseau
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian vantage point, Peter Manseau proves that what really happened is worth a close, fresh look.
-
-
Tapestry of different pieces makes for a whole
- By Gary on 03-23-15
By: Peter Manseau
-
Founding Faith
- Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
- By: Steven Waldman
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The culture wars have distorted the dramatic story of how Americans came to worship freely. Many activists on the right maintain that the United States was founded as a "Christian nation". Many on the left contend that the Founders were secular or Deist and that the First Amendment was designed to boldly separate church and state throughout the land. None of these claims are true, argues Beliefnet.com editor in chief Steven Waldman.
-
-
Eye-opening
- By Michael on 06-28-08
By: Steven Waldman
-
Lincoln's Battle with God
- A President's Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America
- By: Stephen Mansfield
- Narrated by: Stephen Mansfield
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abraham Lincoln is the most beloved of all US presidents. He freed the slaves, gave the world some of its most beautiful phrases, and redefined the meaning of America. He did all of this with wisdom, compassion, and wit. Yet, throughout his life, Lincoln fought with God. In his early years in Illinois, he rejected even the existence of God and became the village atheist. In time, this changed but still he wrestled with the truth of the Bible, preachers, doctrines, the will of God, the providence of God, and then, finally, God’s purposes in the Civil War.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Thomas Streveler on 07-23-21
-
Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
-
-
Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
-
Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
-
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
-
-
Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
-
The Year of Our Lord 1943
- Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis
- By: Alan Jacobs
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear the Allies would win the Second World War. Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic thought the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. These Christian intellectuals - Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others - sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world.
-
-
The Audible is a Train Wreck
- By John on 09-04-18
By: Alan Jacobs
-
The Mormon People
- The Making of an American Faith
- By: Matthew Bowman
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1830, a young seer and sometime treasure hunter named Joseph Smith began organizing adherents into a new religious community that would come to be called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and known informally as the Mormons). One of the nascent faith’s early initiates was a twenty-three-year-old Ohio farmer named Parley Pratt, the distant grandfather of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In The Mormon People, religious historian Matthew Bowman peels back the curtain on more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine.
-
-
Nice overview of the history of the LDS church.
- By Daniel on 02-07-12
By: Matthew Bowman
-
Rescuing the Gospel
- The Story and Significance of the Reformation
- By: Erwin W. Lutzer
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Reformation unfolded in the cathedrals and town squares of Europe - in Wittenberg, Worms, Rome, Geneva, and Zurich - and it is a stirring story of courage and cowardice, of betrayal and faith. The story begins with the Catholic Church and its desperate need for reform. The dramatic events that followed are traced from John Wycliffe in England, to the burning of John Hus at the stake in Prague, to the rampant sale of indulgences in the cities and towns of Germany.
-
-
Great book for Protestants & Catholics
- By Michael Novak on 09-23-18
By: Erwin W. Lutzer
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
Benjamin Franklin
- Cultural Protestant (Spiritual Lives)
- By: D.G. Hart
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant follows Franklin's remarkable career through the lens of the trends and innovations that the Protestant Reformation started (both directly and indirectly) almost two centuries earlier. His work as a printer, civic reformer, institution builder, scientist, inventor, writer, self-help dispenser, politician, and statesmen was deeply rooted in the culture and outlook that Protestantism nurtured.
By: D.G. Hart
-
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
I have good news and bad news
- By Ernie on 07-22-04
By: Gordon S. Wood
-
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two
- By: Michael Burlingame
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 53 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's presidency and the trials of the Civil War. He supplies fascinating details on the crisis over Fort Sumter and the relentless office seekers who plagued Lincoln. He introduces listeners to the president's battles with hostile newspaper editors and his quarrels with incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also interprets Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son, Willie, to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.
-
-
A Magnificent and Important Book
- By G. Green on 03-03-16
-
A Great Improvisation
- Franklin, France, and the Birth of America
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling account of how Benjamin Franklin - 70 years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French - convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues....
-
-
Exquisite book
- By Jose Antonio Gonzalez on 11-01-18
By: Stacy Schiff
-
The Ascent of George Washington
- The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon
- By: John Ferling
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics but a canny infighter---a master of persuasion, manipulation, and deniability.
-
-
A very Honest look at George Washington
- By DM on 03-24-22
By: John Ferling
-
Thomas Jefferson
- A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- By: Thomas S. Kidd
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Jefferson was arguably the most brilliant and inspiring political writer in American history. But the ethical realities of his personal life and political career did not live up to his soaring rhetoric. Indeed, three tensions defined Jefferson’s moral life: democracy versus slavery, republican virtue versus dissolute consumption, and veneration for Jesus versus skepticism about Christianity. In this book, Thomas S. Kidd tells the story of Jefferson’s ethical life through the lens of these tensions.
-
-
This version is the standard non in depth bio
- By Fred F on 03-28-24
By: Thomas S. Kidd
-
Benjamin Franklin
- Cultural Protestant (Spiritual Lives)
- By: D.G. Hart
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant follows Franklin's remarkable career through the lens of the trends and innovations that the Protestant Reformation started (both directly and indirectly) almost two centuries earlier. His work as a printer, civic reformer, institution builder, scientist, inventor, writer, self-help dispenser, politician, and statesmen was deeply rooted in the culture and outlook that Protestantism nurtured.
By: D.G. Hart
-
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
I have good news and bad news
- By Ernie on 07-22-04
By: Gordon S. Wood
-
Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two
- By: Michael Burlingame
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 53 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's presidency and the trials of the Civil War. He supplies fascinating details on the crisis over Fort Sumter and the relentless office seekers who plagued Lincoln. He introduces listeners to the president's battles with hostile newspaper editors and his quarrels with incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also interprets Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son, Willie, to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.
-
-
A Magnificent and Important Book
- By G. Green on 03-03-16
-
A Great Improvisation
- Franklin, France, and the Birth of America
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling account of how Benjamin Franklin - 70 years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French - convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues....
-
-
Exquisite book
- By Jose Antonio Gonzalez on 11-01-18
By: Stacy Schiff
-
The Ascent of George Washington
- The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon
- By: John Ferling
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics but a canny infighter---a master of persuasion, manipulation, and deniability.
-
-
A very Honest look at George Washington
- By DM on 03-24-22
By: John Ferling
-
Nimitz at War
- Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay
- By: Craig L. Symonds
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Only days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped Chester W. Nimitz to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz transformed the devastated and dispirited Pacific fleet into the most powerful and commanding naval force in history. Facing demands from Washington to mount an early offensive, he had first to revive the depressed morale of the thousands of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who served under him. And of course, he also confronted a formidable and implacable enemy in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
-
-
Great
- By Jean on 12-14-22
By: Craig L. Symonds
-
The Swamp Fox
- How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution
- By: John Oller
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the darkest days of the American Revolution, Francis Marion and his band of militia freedom fighters kept hope alive for the patriot cause during the critical British southern campaign. Like the Robin Hood of legend, Marion and his men attacked from secret hideaways before melting back into the forest or swamp. Employing insurgent tactics that became commonplace in later centuries, Marion and his brigade inflicted losses on the enemy that were individually small but cumulatively a large drain on British resources and morale.
-
-
The Swamp Fox - Francis Marion
- By Stephen on 06-07-17
By: John Oller
-
The Cause
- The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the “American Revolution”: Former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radical change without their colonists’ consent. With The Cause, Ellis takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783.
-
-
Modest history primer, wished for more substance
- By Buretto on 10-21-21
By: Joseph J. Ellis
-
John Adams: A Life
- By: John Ferling
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 20 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In John Adams: A Life, Ferling offers a compelling portrait of one of the giants of the Revolutionary era. Drawing on extensive research, Ferling depicts a reluctant revolutionary, a leader who was deeply troubled by the warfare that he helped to make, and a fiercely independent statesman. Bringing to life an exciting time, an age in which Adams played an important political and intellectual role. this book is a singular biography of the man who succeeded George Washington in the presidency and shepherded the fragile new nation through the most dangerous of times.
-
-
Excellent story, the narration ruined it for me
- By Benjamin on 04-09-19
By: John Ferling
-
Indigenous Continent
- The Epic Contest for North America
- By: Pekka Hamalainen
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Indigenous Continent, acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Revolution, and other well-trodden episodes on the conventional timeline, he depicts a sovereign world of Native nations whose members, far from helpless victims of colonial violence, dominated the continent for centuries after the first European arrivals.
-
-
indigenous Continent
- By katherine on 07-09-23
By: Pekka Hamalainen
-
Democracy
- A User's Guide
- By: Joss Sheldon
- Narrated by: Ian Pringle
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They say we live in a democracy. We are free, and we should be grateful. But just how “free” are we? How democratic are our so-called “democracies”? Is it enough to simply elect our leaders and sit back, helpless, as they rule over us like dictators? What good is selecting our politicians, if we cannot control our media, police, or soldiers?
-
-
A Schizophrenic's Romp
- By mike s. on 01-18-21
By: Joss Sheldon
What listeners say about Benjamin Franklin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Keith Beutler
- 06-10-17
Masterful!
Thomas Kidd has done it again--writing a thoroughly-researched, compelling, authoritative historical biography! The narration too is excellent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful