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Ways and Means
- Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Captivating . . . [Lowenstein] makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House.” —Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal
“Ways and Means, an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives . . . Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book Review
From renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history
Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics. With Lincoln at the helm, the United States would now govern “for” its people: it would enact laws, establish a currency, raise armies, underwrite transportation and higher education, assist farmers, and impose taxes for them. Lincoln believed this agenda would foster the economic opportunity he had always sought for upwardly striving Americans, and which he would seek in particular for enslaved Black Americans.
Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s vanquished rival and his new secretary of the Treasury, waged war on the financial front, levying taxes and marketing bonds while desperately battling to contain wartime inflation. And while the Union and Rebel armies fought increasingly savage battles, the Republican-led Congress enacted a blizzard of legislation that made the government, for the first time, a powerful presence in the lives of ordinary Americans. The impact was revolutionary. The activist 37th Congress legislated for homesteads and a transcontinental railroad and involved the federal government in education, agriculture, and eventually immigration policy. It established a progressive income tax and created the greenback—paper money. While the Union became self-sustaining, the South plunged into financial free fall, having failed to leverage its cotton wealth to finance the war. Founded in a crucible of anticentralism, the Confederacy was trapped in a static (and slave-based) agrarian economy without federal taxing power or other means of government financing, save for its overworked printing presses. This led to an epic collapse. Though Confederate troops continued to hold their own, the North’s financial advantage over the South, where citizens increasingly went hungry, proved decisive; the war was won as much (or more) in the respective treasuries as on the battlefields.
Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency of the Civil War to transform a union of states into a nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and a Congress studded with towering statesmen, changed the direction of the country and established a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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The transcontinental railroads of the late 19th century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating debt sparked devastating panics in the US economy. Their dependence on public largess drew them into the corridors of power, initiating new forms of corruption. Their operations rearranged space and time, and remade the landscape of the West. As wheel and rail, car and coal, they opened new worlds of work and ways of life.
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Correcting the Myth of the Transcontinentals
- By Keith on 06-23-18
By: Richard White
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A History of the American People
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 48 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnson's monumental history of the United States, from the first settlers to the Clinton administration, covers every aspect of American culture: politics, business, art, literature, science, society and customs, complex traditions, and religious beliefs. The story is told in terms of the men and women who shaped and led the nation and the ordinary people who collectively created its unique character.
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A British conservative's view of American history.
- By Mike From Mesa on 06-17-09
By: Paul Johnson
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents, Part 1
- From Washington to Taft
- By: Larry Schweikart
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Back by popular demand, the bestselling Politically Incorrect Guides provide an unvarnished, unapologetic overview of the topics every American needs to know. The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents, Part 1 profiles America’s early presidents, from George Washington to William Howard Taft.
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Ruining History to Own the Libs
- By Dee on 11-11-20
By: Larry Schweikart
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Over Here
- The First World War and American Society
- By: David M. Kennedy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The Great War of 1914-1918 confronted the United States with one of the most wrenching crises in the nation's history. It also left a residue of disruption and disillusion that spawned an even more ruinous conflict scarcely a generation later. Over Here is the single most comprehensive discussion of the impact of World War I on American society.
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Good HISTORY AWFUL READING
- By Magyar on 02-05-20
By: David M. Kennedy
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The First Congress
- How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government
- By: Fergus M. Bordewich
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
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The First Congress was the most important in US history, says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed - as many at the time feared it would - it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today.
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Compelling
- By Jean on 03-05-18
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'Mr. President'
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- By: Harlow Giles Unger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
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Although the framers gave the president little authority, Washington knew whatever he did would set precedents for generations of his successors. To ensure their ability to defend the nation, he simply ignored the Constitution when he thought it necessary and reshaped the presidency into what James Madison called a "monarchical presidency." Modern scholars call it the "imperial presidency."
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A political genius
- By Michael on 03-28-17
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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
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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.
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Excellent ..
- By aintbuyinit on 09-03-18
By: Alan Taylor
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Herbert Hoover
- A Life
- By: Glen Jeansonne
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
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Prize-winning historian Glen Jeansonne delves into the life of our most misunderstood president, offering up a surprising new portrait of Herbert Hoover - dismissing previous assumptions and revealing a political Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and the most resourceful American since Benjamin Franklin.
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Thought provoking
- By Jean on 10-26-16
By: Glen Jeansonne
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Madison's Gift
- Five Partnerships That Built America
- By: David Stewart
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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Short, plain, balding, neither soldier nor orator, low on charisma and high on intelligence, Madison cared more about achieving results than taking the credit. To reach his lifelong goal of a self-governing constitutional republic, he blended his talents with those of key partners. It was Madison who led the drive for the Constitutional Convention and pressed for an effective new government as his patron George Washington lent the effort legitimacy.
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Excellent history of our nation's founding
- By JJay on 02-23-15
By: David Stewart
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A Leap in the Dark
- The Struggle to Create the American Republic
- By: John Ferling
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It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations.
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Loved every minute!
- By Richard on 03-03-15
By: John Ferling
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The New Deal
- A Modern History
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
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As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.
In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.
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Another Excellent New Deal History
- By R.S. on 12-19-11
By: Michael Hiltzik
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The American Experiment
- By: James MacGregor Burns
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
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James MacGregor Burns’s stunning trilogy of American history, spanning the birth of the Constitution to the final days of the Cold War. In these three volumes, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner James MacGregor Burns chronicles with depth and narrative panache the most significant cultural, economic, and political events of American history.
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American History ABCs
- By Michael on 06-16-15
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The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small....
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On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
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What listeners say about Ways and Means
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robert Kittel
- 04-10-22
If you're a civil war buff.
If you're a civil War buff it's and interesting view of how the war was won.
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- Nick G.
- 03-19-22
A Facinating and Insightful History!
This book is a fascinating and insightfuil history into so much I really didn't know. The book is well presented, very chronological, accurate and detailed. It might bore some but not me. WOW! Any modern person that thinks FDR was the purveyer of big government has no idea what the Civl War and LIncoln and the Republican/National Union party did. Folks, it was for the better! Excellent!
As for the Audible rendition. It was wonderful too. Excellent.
Thank you!
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- Timothy
- 04-06-22
Good book, great narration.
A good addition to tge overall story of our civil war. Somethings missing in my opinion, specifically more in depth writing on the mistakes of the southern economy, though much of this is addressed culturally at the end.
Takes the veil off the idea that the Unions victory was inevitable.
A little too much ink spent on Chase.
All in all, a good story, wonderfully narrated, and a good addition of information on the a different aspect of the Civil War.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Philo
- 03-20-22
Very pleased, after waiting years for this info
This is Roger Lowenstein's masterpiece. The facts are here, and the drama, in a fantastic weaving.
This is such crucial US history, right at a vast turning point, yet solid explanations from a financial and economic perspective are rare (or found in huge books). If you like serious economic, financial, and business history, look no further. It is strong on substance, and well-paced. I was long curious about the nuts and bolts of these times, from this perspective. There is much insight into the individuals as well. The renderings of personalities, ideas, and events are exceptional. This book makes the whole panoramic story open to understanding.
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- Louise Beecher
- 02-12-23
Terrific popular history
This is a must read for history buffs and anyone who wants to understand the financial foundations of the modern era.
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- scott ross
- 12-10-22
great economic story
enjoyable presentation. A history of the Civil War which discusses how many economic changes and innovation created the modern America we know.
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- reball01
- 02-25-24
Well....I liked it!
There are better critique's than mine but I really enjoyed the book. Well written and researched, thanks! I'd really like to see this kind of analysis done on other wars involving the United States. My best to the author.
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- cha
- 04-24-22
outstanding
Recommend to every student of American history., finance, sociology, government and anyone who wants to know.
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- Michael Travis
- 07-13-23
The financial view of Lincoln and the Civil War
Great detailed history of Lincoln and his influence on the increasingly expanded national government. A great contrast to the usual political and military histories of the time period. Great detail.
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- Anonymous User
- 12-19-22
Revealing
This book establishes the underpinnings of our financial and federal governmental systems of today through the scholarly and digestible story of the financing of the civil war. Worth the listen.
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