Lynne Cheney has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is James Madison.
James Madison
Summary
A major new biography of the fourth president of the United States by New York Times best-selling author Lynne Cheney. This majestic new biography of James Madison explores the astonishing story of a man of vaunted modesty who audaciously changed the world. Among the Founding Fathers, Madison was a true genius of the early republic. Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force behind the Constitution and crucial to its ratification. His visionary political philosophy and rationale for the union of states - so eloquently presented in The Federalist papers - helped shape the country Americans live in today. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Madison would found the first political party in the country’s history - the Democratic Republicans. As Jefferson’s secretary of state, he managed the Louisiana Purchase, doubling the size of the United States. As president, Madison led the country in its first war under the Constitution, the War of 1812. Without precedent to guide him, he would demonstrate that a republic could defend its honor and independence - and remain a republic still.
©2014 Lynne Cheney (P)2014 Penguin Audio
Blue Skies, No Fences
Summary
Utilizing her extensive knowledge and love of American history, and the research skills she honed while acquiring a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Lynne Cheney set out to explore her own and her husband's family trees. After years of research, she uncovered two family histories that spanned almost three centuries and shared common themes of optimism, perseverance, and undaunted courage. Both families moved westwards in a growing nation, seeking lives of greater opportunity. Mrs. Cheney provides information about her family, which originally settled in Pennsylvania, and the vice president's family. He is descended from Puritans who originally settled in New England. She relates true stories about noteworthy and colorful members of both families and each family's progress westward. As the narrative draws closer to to the present day, Mrs. Cheney movingly recounts her life as a small-town girl outside of Casper, Wyoming. The poignant realism with which she depicts mid-20th-century America will remind listeners of Thornton Wilder's classic American drama Our Town. Providing a fresh view of America via generations of two adventurous families, as well as information about conducting genealogical research, Mrs. Cheney entertains and enlightens, and is sure to inspire listeners to explore their own family histories.
©2007 Lynne V. Cheney (P)2007 Simon and Schuster Inc.
The Virginia Dynasty
Summary
A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia presidents - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe - from the best-selling historian and author of James Madison. From a small expanse of land on the North American continent came four of the nation's first five presidents - a geographic dynasty whose members led a revolution, created a nation, and ultimately changed the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were born, grew to manhood, and made their homes within a 60-mile circle east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Friends and rivals, they led in securing independence, hammering out the United States Constitution, and building a working republic. Acting together, they doubled the territory of the United States. From their disputes came American political parties and the weaponizing of newspapers, the media of the day. In this elegantly conceived and insightful new audiobook from best-selling author Lynne Cheney, the four Virginians are not marble icons, but vital figures deeply intent on building a nation where citizens could be free. Focusing on the intersecting roles these men played as warriors, intellectuals, and statesmen, Cheney takes us back to an exhilarating time when the Enlightenment opened new vistas for humankind. But even as the Virginians advanced liberty, equality, and human possibility, they held people in slavery and were slaveholders when they died. Lives built on slavery were incompatible with a free and just society; their actions contradicted the very ideals they espoused. They managed nonetheless to pass down those ideals, and they became powerful weapons for ending slavery. They inspired Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and today undergird the freest nation on earth. Taking full measure of strengths and failures in the personal as well as the political lives of the men at the center of this audiobook, Cheney offers a concise and original exploration of how the United States came to be.
©2020 Lynne Cheney (P)2020 Penguin Audio