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    America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation
    Unavailable
    America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation
    Unavailable
    America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation
    Audiobook7 hours

    America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    Narrated by Sam Freed

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Kenneth C. Davis presents a collection of extraordinary stories, each detailing an overlooked episode that shaped the nation's destiny and character. Davis's dramatic narratives set the record straight, busting myths and bringing to light little-known but fascinating facts from a time when the nation's fate hung in the balance.

    Spanning a period from the Spanish arrival in America to George Washington's inauguration in 1789, America's Hidden History explores these episodes, among others:

    • The story of the first real Pilgrims in America, who were wine-making French Huguenots, not dour English Separatists
    • The coming-of-age story of Queen Isabella, who suggested that Columbus pack the moving mess hall of pigs, which may have spread disease to many Native Americans
    • The long, bloody relationship between the Puritans and Indians that runs counter to the idyllic scene of the Thanksgiving feast
    • The little-known story of George Washington as a headstrong young soldier who committed a war crime, signed a confession, and started a war!

    Full of color, intrigue, and human interest, America's Hidden History proves why Davis is truly America's teacher.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 22, 2008
    ISBN9780739334461
    Unavailable
    America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation

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    Reviews for America's Hidden History

    3.5/5

    99 ratings19 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Some stories from American history, from the earliest colonial days through George Washington's first term. I knew a lot of the tales already, but it was fun to come across some new-to-me anecdotes. Probably best for people with a casual interest in colonial America; it's not a good book to entice the uninitiated to learn more about the period, and enthusiasts will have already heard it all.
    • 5/5
      I found myself telling my friends and family members tidbits from this book. Very interesting read, & well-written. I wasn't surprised to learn that George Washington wasn't quite the perfect human being he's been held out to be. Interesting supplement to traditional historical studies.
    • 3/5
      Don't Know Much About...lesser known passages in early American history... A paragraph at most some texts, if that much at all, Davis packages a few off-the-beaten-path footnotes into a nice little (and nicely sourced) narrative. Good airplane read.
    • 5/5
      I learned so much about America's history that even I didn't know. It's all about Revolutionary War and before so don't expect recent history to be in here. Totally fascinating.
    • 3/5
      Readers who "don't know much about history" might get more out of this than I did. None of the chapters are really "untold tales" as the subtitle states. However, a few probably have less familiarity, such as that of Hannah Dustan. Kenneth Davis does have a knack for presenting history from a multitude of secondary sources in a readable manner. Some information acted as a refresher for me.I read this because it was on the National Daughters of the American Revolution Library's Book Club 2021-2022 reading list.
    • 3/5
      An interesting book and well worth the read, but although I am interested in history, especially what doesn't make it into history books, or is barely glossed over, this didn't quite measure up. Worth a read though.
    • 4/5
      Admittedly, none of the tales are groundbreaking. Nonetheless, the author did an outstanding job of seamlessly transitioning from the earliest colonial period through the Revolutionary War and formation of the constitution. This is a highly informative and insightful book that is very user friendly, hence will have appeal both to the novice and history buff. I highly recommend this work.
    • 3/5
      An interesting book and well worth the read, but although I am interested in history, especially what doesn't make it into history books, or is barely glossed over, this didn't quite measure up. Worth a read though.
    • 3/5
      Short, digressive synopses of various moments in early American history, nearly all drawn from other recent secondary sources (hardly "hidden" in any real sense at all). Sometimes maddeningly tangential, too, as the narrative rockets from topic to topic. Entirely skippable.
    • 2/5
      There wasn't anything in this that was really hidden or untold or secret. I don't think it's just my undergrad history major either; these instances in American history are covered in depth in many other sources. Perhaps this should just be "lesser taught history" instead.
    • 4/5
      I was less impressed with this book than I had expected to be; while Kenneth C. Davis' scholarship is appreciated, any groundbreaking knowledge was miniscule at best.Save for the first two chapters, the topics he covers are really some of the better known events - he simply adds information which could be considered "tidbits" at best. Considering the chapter titles, they are made to be more provocative than illustrative of what the chapter is actually about. Deep inside each chapter is an informative morsel, made up of two sentences - at best - which explains or links the generalized topic of discussion to the title of said chapter. Maybe this book was written for the complete novice of American history, or someone needing to refresh their memory of famous people like Benedict Arnold or events such as the Shay's Rebellion. Despite my negativity, I did find much of the first two chapters unknown territory for me. Mr. Davis covers the sixteenth-century American continent in chapter one back when it was barely occupied by small contingents of British Protestants and French Catholics. Much of the material the author promotes regards the religious warfare and bigotry between the two European, imperialistic superpowers. The first chapter is entitled 'Isabella's Pigs'. All we learn about the Queen's porcine is they were convenient food sources for the trans-Atlantic explorers and that wild pigs in Florida may be descendants of the imported animals.Easy to read and informative (however, less so to well read history buffs). Nonetheless, the book's title and cover description mislead the potential reader, not about what topics are discussed, but how hidden the "untold tales" actually are in history.
    • 2/5
      There are definitely interesting parts of the book such as the account of a young George Washington and the defeated life of Benedict Arnold. But, as a whole, I thought the book was short on inspiration and didn't project a strong passion for the topics, like Davis' other books in the "Don't Know Much About" series do. Overall, this was a bit of a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      Informative, well-written. I like Mr. Davis' books. It's good to read about your country, finding out things you don't get in history class.
    • 4/5
      I read this book as part of my research on the history of New England for a book that I am working on. I just love these types of history books that tell stories not normally covered in other history books. I reminded me of the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me.” The writing was excellent and the stories were intriguing, giving me another look at the people and events you think that you already know but you do not! I recommend this book and books like this that tell the true stories not the watered down version so often recorded in school textbooks.
    • 5/5
      Excellent stories that give authentic insights into the time period and motivations that led to our colonies to become a nation. Not your sugar coated high school history book version. Great book!
    • 4/5
      I'm convinced that if history teachers would assign Ken Davis' books to read instead of our current text books, we'd have a generation of students who might once again be interested in how their country started. I especially like the way he takes each section or subject, presents a time line and then fleshes out the timeline. Then he presents an 'afterward' so we aren't just left hanging, we find out for instance what consequences George Washington suffered (or didn't suffer- no spoilers here!) when he 'spun' his report about a skirmish with the french in his early days of soldiering.This book is a little drier, and not quite as exciting as some of his others, but still quite worth suggesting to someone who thinks he/she doesn't like history. 3 1/2 stars.
    • 3/5
      I've enjoyed Kenneth Davis work in the past, but this one's disappointing. Disjointed and actually pretty dull. Many of the "untold tales" are readily available in dozens of books. (Pick up almost any book on George Washington and you'll find the story of his "Jumonville confession" in one form or another.) Not entirely awful, but not the power packed book I was hoping for.
    • 4/5
      I much prefer this history lesson to the ones currently taught in school. More realistic, guts and glory, and some not so honorable events. By whitewashing these events, or even ignoring them, we fail to learn from history and from others mistakes. I rather have a leader with flaws that I can relate to than one who "never told a lie" and had no flaws. Definitely a good read.
    • 4/5
      Untold tales are interesting, but the real value to me was what these tales revealed about the characters in them. Kenneth Davis did a great job of putting their lives and actions in a meaningful context.Living not far from the Hutchinson River Parkway, I was fascinated by his take on the tale of Anne Hutchinson. I'd heard it before, of course, and knew the basics. What Davis told me, though, was that she had advised some of her male disciples not to join a militia at war with local Indians, making her an organizer of some of America's earliest conscientious objectors. He also pointed out that it was after her trial that the Puritans in Boston banned Roman Catholics, Quakers, and other sects. Her younger sister, who became a Quaker, was whipped for blasphemy. Another of her followers who joined the Quakers, Mary Dyer, was arrested, stripped in public, and lashed. Later, the defiant Dyer returned to Boston, refused to leave and was executed.Davis gives us equally illuminating tales of George Washington as a headstrong and ambitious young man who committed a war crime, what Paul Revere really did during the Revolution, and how Daniel Shay stood up for his rights only to be crushed like a bug--making American stronger in the process.America's Hidden History reads as if it were told from the inside, full of first-person accounts and other source material that give us a clear, relatively objective view of what our founding fathers (and mothers) were like.