Tom Chaffin has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is The H. L. Hunley.
Pathfinder: John Charles Fremont and the Course of American Empire
Summary
The career of John Charles Frémont (1813-90) ties together the full breadth of American expansionism from its 18th-century origins through its culmination in the Gilded Age. Tom Chaffin's biography demonstrates Frémont's vital importance to the history of American empire and illuminates his role in shattering long-held myths about the ecology and habitability of the American West. As the most celebrated American explorer and mapper of his time, Frémont stood at the center of the vast federal project of Western exploration and conquest. His expeditions between 1838 and 1854 captured the public's imagination, inspired Americans to accept their nation's destiny as a vast continental empire, and earned him his enduring sobriquet, the Pathfinder. But Frémont was more than an explorer. Chaffin's dramatic narrative includes Frémont's varied experiences as an entrepreneur, abolitionist, Civil War general, husband to the remarkable Jessie Benton Frémont, two-time Republican presidential candidate, and Gilded Age aristocrat. “Pathfinder is the most eloquent, understanding, and yet very candid biography of Frémont that has appeared to date. A major contribution to American historical writing.” (Howard R. Lamar, Yale University) “In his mesmerizing biography, Tom Chaffin brings to life not only Frémont but the amazing personalities who populated his world.” (Landon Jones, former managing editor, People magazine) “In clear and vivid language, Tom Chaffin's Pathfinder re-creates the life of John C. Frémont...” (Elliott J. Gorn, Purdue University)
©2002 Tom Chaffin (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks
Revolutionary Brothers
Summary
“...a gripping narrative that offers a revelatory perspective on the combined origins of two nations...compelling drama and instructive history.” (Wall Street Journal) In a narrative both panoramic and intimate, Tom Chaffin captures the four-decade friendship of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette. Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette shared a singularly extraordinary friendship, one involved in the making of two revolutions - and two nations. Jefferson first met Lafayette in 1781, when the young French-born general was dispatched to Virginia to assist Jefferson, then the state’s governor, in fighting off the British. The charismatic Lafayette, hungry for glory, could not have seemed more different from Jefferson, the reserved statesman. But when Jefferson, a newly-appointed diplomat, moved to Paris three years later, speaking little French and in need of a partner, their friendship began in earnest. As Lafayette opened doors in Paris and Versailles for Jefferson, so, too, did the Virginian stand by Lafayette as the Frenchman became inexorably drawn into the maelstrom of his country's revolution. Jefferson counseled Lafayette as he drafted The Declaration of the Rights of Man and remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution, even after he returned to America in 1789. By 1792, however, the upheaval had rendered Lafayette a man without a country, locked away in a succession of Austrian and Prussian prisons. The burden fell on Jefferson and Lafayette's other friends to win his release. The two would not see each other again until 1824, in a powerful and emotional reunion at Jefferson’s Monticello. Steeped in primary sources, Revolutionary Brothers casts fresh light on this remarkable, often complicated, friendship of two extraordinary men. "Revolutionary Brothers is a compelling narrative of an epic - and unlikely - friendship from the Enlightenment era, enlivened by bracing plot-turns and vividly-drawn characters." (Walter S. Isaacson, best-selling author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life)
©2019 Tom Chaffin (P)2019 Macmillan Audio
The H. L. Hunley
Summary
On the evening of February 17, 1864, the Confederacy's H. L. Hunley sank the Union's formidable sloop-of-war, the USS Housatonic - to her own demise. For generations, searchers prowled Charleston's harbor for the sunken boat, while legends surrounding the Hunley and its fate continued to grow. Even after the submarine was located in 1995 and recovered five years later, those legends have only multiplied. Now, in a tour-de-force of document sleuthing and insights gleaned from the excavation of this remarkable vessel, distinguished Civil War-era historian Tom Chaffin presents the most thorough telling of the Hunley's story possible. Of panoramic breadth, this Civil War saga begins long before the submarine was even assembled and follows the tale into the boat's final hours and through its recovery in 2000.
©2008 Tom Chaffin (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.