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Title: Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights

Author: The Great Courses

Narrator: Professor John E. Finn

Format: Original Recording

Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 140 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

The civil liberties and constitutional rights possessed by our nation's citizens - not only in theory, but in the courtroom, where the state can be forced to honor those liberties - are a uniquely American invention.

And when we were taught history and learned about the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, we were always made aware of that uniqueness, of the extraordinary experiment that gave to every citizen of this new nation a gift possessed by no others.

Now you can learn exactly what that gift was - in a series of 36 lectures based on Supreme Court opinions from dozens of the Court's most important landmark decisions, presented by an award-winning teacher who is also an internationally recognized expert in constitutional law.

You'll learn just what liberties and rights the Founders wanted the new government to protect, as well as how we get from what Professor Finn calls the Constitution's "wonderfully elastic and vague" language to the finely tuned specifics of the Supreme Court's opinions about speech, abortion, and religion, and so much more. And you'll grasp the hard truth that no matter how unwavering the Constitution's language on any subject may appear, things are almost invariably more complicated than it would seem at first reading.

The result is a legacy of questions that multiplies with each passing decade, and explains why generations of jurists and legal scholars, not to mention legislators, presidents, and citizens, have argued so long and hard about the meaning of what often appears to be unambiguous phrasing.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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Title: Privacy, Property, and Free Speech: Law and the Constitution in the 21st Century

Author: The Great Courses, Jeffrey Rosen

Narrator: Professor Jeffrey Rosen

Format: Original Recording

Length: 12 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 422 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Although the courts have struggled to balance the interests of individuals, businesses, and law enforcement, the proliferation of intrusive new technologies puts many of our presumed freedoms in legal limbo. For instance, it's not hard to envision a day when websites such as Facebook or Google Maps introduce a feature that allows real-time tracking of anyone you want, based on face-recognition software and ubiquitous live video feeds.

Does this scenario sound like an unconstitutional invasion of privacy? These 24 eye-opening lectures immerse you in the Constitution, the courts, and the post-9/11 Internet era that the designers of our legal system could scarcely have imagined. Professor Rosen explains the most pressing legal issues of the modern day and asks how the framers of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights would have reacted to aspects of the modern life such as full-body scans, cell phone surveillance, and privacy in cloud servers.

Called "the nation's most widely read and influential legal commentator" by the Los Angeles Times, Professor Rosen is renowned for his ability to bring legal issues alive - to put real faces and human drama behind the technical issues that cloud many legal discussions. Here he asks how you would decide particular cases about liberty and privacy. You'll come away with a more informed opinion about whether modern life gives even the most innocent among us reason to worry.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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Title: The History of the United States, 2nd Edition

Author: The Great Courses, Professor Allen C. Guelzo, Professor Gary W. Gallagher, Professor Patrick N. Allitt

Narrator: Professor Allen C. Guelzo, Professor Gary W. Gallagher, Professor Patrick N. Allitt

Format: Original Recording

Length: 43 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 1562 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

This comprehensive series of 84 lectures features three award-winning historians sharing their insights into this nation's past - from the European settlement and the Revolutionary War through the Civil War, 19th-century industrialization, two world wars, and the present day.

While American history spans not much more than two centuries, it is filled with a wealth of leaders, wars, movements, inventions, and ideas - each of which contributed in its own unique way to America's transformation from 13 disparate colonies on the east coast of North America into a global superpower.

These lectures give you the opportunity to grasp the different aspects of our past that combine to make us distinctly American, and to gain the knowledge so essential to recognizing not only what makes this country such a noteworthy part of world history, but the varying degrees to which it has lived up to its ideals.

The lectures chart the five predominant themes that run throughout the chronicle of U.S. history:

Placing familiar historical events in the context of these overarching themes will help you see American history less as a series of separate events and more as a mosaic in which everything is interconnected.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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Title: The American Civil War

Author: The Great Courses, Gary W. Gallagher

Narrator: Professor Gary W. Gallagher

Format: Original Recording

Length: 24 hrs and 36 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 1323 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood - and the United States was truly born.

If you've ever wanted to understand the Civil War, this series of 48 startlingly evocative lectures by a leading Civil War historian can serve as both an ideal single course or a solid starting point for further exploration - a richly detailed examination of how this great conflict affected every person in America. For you'll gain not only a deep knowledge of what happened, but new insights into why.

You'll learn how both sides' armies were recruited, equipped, and trained, and about the hard lot of those they took prisoner. You'll hear how soldiers on each of those sides dealt with the rigors of camp life, campaigns, and the terror of combat. And you'll understand how slaves and their falling masters responded to the advancing war, as well as the desperate price paid by the families so many left behind.

Though this series of lectures goes far beyond a simple examination of battles and generals, it also offers detailed analyses of the strategic and tactical dimensions of the Civil War's most important campaigns. At the same time, it never forgets that the conflict involved far more than pins on a map - and indeed claimed a greater cost in human lives than all other American wars combined.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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Title: The American Revolution

Author: The Great Courses

Narrator: Professor Allen C. Guelzo

Format: Original Recording

Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 363 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Why did 13 colonies believe they could defeat the most powerful nation on the planet? And how did they eventually manage such an impressive feat? Get the real story on the battle for American independence with Professor Guelzo's 24 gripping lectures.

With a focus on the war's strategy, military tactics, logistics, and most fascinating people, these lectures are a must own for anyone curious about the origins of the greatest nation in modern history. Told from the perspective of both sides in an intense, almost novelistic style that recreates the experience of the war's key battles and decisions, the lectures introduce you to an array of vivid personalities, including George Washington, Lord George Sackville-Germaine, Henry Knox, Sir William Howe, and Thomas Paine.

Professor Guelzo's approach gives the forces at work in the palace and in Parliament equal weight with those in play at the Continental Congress and among George Washington's inner circle. It's a perspective that reveals the very different ways in which the two nations saw both their economic relationship and the philosophical underpinnings of a government's relationship to its citizens. You'll learn what it was like to serve on either side of the conflict, how those sides were trained, and about the terrors of the battlefield.Rich in dramatic moments like this, these lectures offer a fresh appraisal of this seminal event in American history, offering the diverging views of two sides whose common heritage had yielded two very different outlooks.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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Title: Before 1776: Life in the American Colonies

Author: The Great Courses, Robert Allison

Narrator: Professor Robert J. Allison

Format: Original Recording

Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-08-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 415 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

The history of colonial America is a story of extraordinary scope, with Europeans, Africans, and the native peoples of North America interacting in a drama of settlement and conflict that lasted nearly three centuries. Go back in time and relive this epic story in 36 spellbinding lectures.

While concentrating on British North America, Professor Allison also covers developments in the colonial outposts of Spain, France, the Netherlands, and the all-important British possessions in the West Indies, which were the source of the most lucrative crop in the New World - sugar - and the reason for the enormous growth in the slave trade.

As you'll discover, the colonies were often turbulent, dangerous places. You'll learn about Indian wars, slave revolts, witch persecutions, rampant piracy, and other upheavals, as well as the gradual cementing of social order and the development of customs that made the colonies distinct - and difficult for the British government to rule.

These lectures build toward a discussion of the roots of the rebellion that succeeded in toppling the colonial system - the American Revolution - covering its long gestation and closing with an examination of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence.

In fundamental ways, the world we know today emerged from the tempestuous and eventful history of colonial America. Deepen your appreciation for this formative era with these historically rich, captivating, and highly informative lectures.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

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Title: Thirteen Days

Subtitle: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Author: Robert F. Kennedy

Narrator: Kurt Elftmann

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-11-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 77 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In October 1962, when the United States confronted the Soviet Union over its installation of missiles in Cuba, few people shared the behind-the-scenes story as it is told here by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In this unique account, he describes the hour-by-hour negotiations, with particular attention to the actions and views of his brother, President John F. Kennedy.

In a foreword to this edition, the distinguished historian and Kennedy adviser Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., discusses the book's enduring importance and the significance of new information about the crisis that has come to light from the former Soviet Union.

Critic Reviews:

"A minor classic in its laconic, spare, compelling evocation by a participant of the shifting moods and maneuvers of the most dangerous moment in human history." (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)

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Title: Colonial Cookery in North America

Author: Ken Albala

Narrator: Ken Albala

Format: Unabridged

Length: 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-03-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Eating habits in the American colonies incorporated a wide variety of cultural influences. Contrast the culinary fashions of Virginia, modeled on the English gentry, with the mercantile, Puritan ethic of New England; the varied foodways of the Dutch settlers, Germans, Quakers, and Quebecois; and the unique cuisine of Louisiana.

©2013 The Great Courses (P)2013 The Great Courses

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Title: Aztecs and the Roots of Mexican Cooking

Author: Ken Albala

Narrator: Ken Albala

Format: Unabridged

Length: 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-03-13

Publisher: The Great Courses

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Contemporary with the European Renaissance, Aztec culture produced a unique food tradition that survives today in Mexican cuisine. Learn first about Aztec society, its indigenous foodstuffs, and distinctive diet. Also study descriptions of lavish Aztec banquets; signature foods, from avocados, beans, and chilies to chocolate and maize; and the Aztec philosophy of balance and moderation in eating.

©2013 The Great Courses (P)2013 The Great Courses

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Title: Bunker Hill

Subtitle: A City, a Siege, a Revolution

Author: Nathaniel Philbrick

Narrator: Chris Sorensen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-30-13

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1099 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Nathaniel Philbrick, the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, brings his prodigious talents to the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution.

Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord. In June, however, with the city cut off from supplies by a British blockade and Patriot militia poised in siege, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.

Philbrick brings a fresh perspective to every aspect of the story. He finds new characters, and new facets to familiar ones. The real work of choreographing rebellion falls to a thirty-three year old physician named Joseph Warren who emerges as the on-the-ground leader of the Patriot cause and is fated to die at Bunker Hill. Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren's fiancee, the poet Mercy Scollay, a newly recruited George Washington, the reluctant British combatant General Thomas Gage and his more bellicose successor William Howe, who leads the three charges at Bunker Hill and presides over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city under siege as both sides play a nervy game of brinkmanship for control.

With passion and insight, Philbrick reconstructs the revolutionary landscape - geographic and ideological - in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America.

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