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A Child of Fortune by Jeffrey St. John
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A Child of Fortune

A Correspondent’s Report on the Ratification of the U.S. Constitution and Battle for a Bill of Rights

$17.96

Retail price: $19.95

Discount: 9%

This title is not eligible for purchase with membership credits. Why?

Narrator Jeff Riggenbach

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

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Length 10 hours 33 minutes
Language English
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In this exciting audio production, prize-winning journalist and historian Jeffrey St. John simulates day-by-day reportage to make you a firsthand witness to the 1787–1788 political battle to ratify the US Constitution. Discover how close both sides of the debate came to resorting to violence and rigged elections and witness Patrick Henry’s challenge to a pistol duel at the Virginia convention. Observe the Constitution’s sanction of slavery and the delegate revolts it produced, Massachusetts Governor John Hancock’s secret deal to deliver his state in return for support of his candidacy for the presidency, and how the soft-voiced James Madison defeated America’s greatest orator.

Vastly entertaining, this book is both a popular history and an important contribution to the study of the founding of the American Republic.

Jeffrey St. John is the author of six books, and has written extensively for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. He won the National Press Foundation award for writing on the Constitution, and his work in television has received two Emmys.

Jeff Riggenbach has narrated numerous titles for Blackstone Audio and won an AudioFile Earphones Award. An author, contributing editor, and producer, he has worked in radio in San Francisco for the last thirty years, earning a Golden Mike Award for journalistic excellence.

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Reviews

“This book and its companion Constitutional Journal should be required reading to graduate from high school.”

“The ratification of the American Constitution…was an exciting occurrence that still reverberates throughout our world and that will continue to do so throughout the new century and beyond.”

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Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale