
American Phoenix
John Quincy and Louisa Adams, the War of 1812, and the Exile That Saved American Independence
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $35.09
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Kate Wisniewski
About this listen
John Quincy and Louisa Adams’s unexpected journey that changed everything.
American Phoenix is the sweeping, riveting tale of a grand historic adventure across forbidding oceans and frozen tundra—from the bustling ports and towering birches of Boston to the remote reaches of pre-Soviet Russia, from an exile in arctic St. Petersburg to resurrection and reunion among the gardens of Paris. Upon these varied landscapes this Adams and his Eve must find a way to transform their banishment into America’s salvation.
Author, historian, and national media commentator Jane Hampton Cook breathes life into once-obscure history, weaving a meticulously researched biographical tapestry that comes across like a gripping novel. With the arc and intrigue of Shakespearean drama in a Jane Austen era, American Phoenix is a timely yet timeless addition to the recent renaissance of works on the founding Adams family, from patriarchs John and Abigail to the second-generation of John Quincy and Louisa and beyond.
Cook has crafted not only a riveting narrative but also an easy-to-understand history filled with fly-on-the-wall vignettes from 1812 and its hardscrabble, freedom-hungry people. While unveiling vivid portrayals of each character—a colorful assortment of heroes and villains, patriots and pirates, rogues and rabble-rousers—she paints equally fresh, intimate portraits of both John Quincy and Louisa Adams. Cook artfully reveals John Quincy’s devastation after losing the job of his dreams, battle for America’s need to thrive economically, and sojourn to secure his homeland’s survival as a sovereign nation. She reserves her most detailed brushstrokes for the inner struggles of Louisa, using this quietly inspirational woman’s own words to amplify her fears, faith, and fortitude along a deeply personal, often heart-rending journey. Cook’s close-up perspective shows how this American couple’s Russian destination changed US destiny.
©2013 Jane Hampton Cook (P)2023 Thomas NelsonListeners also enjoyed...
-
John Adams
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 29 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
-
-
An outstanding biography
- By Davis on 07-10-06
By: David McCullough
-
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 24 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
-
-
Good book, not crazy about the narrator
- By Cathi on 07-20-13
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Letter to the American Church
- By: Eric Metaxas
- Narrated by: Eric Metaxas
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turning the other cheek does not mean standing by while the enemies of God dismantle Christian civilization and brainwash our children. Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle. An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity.
-
-
Buy a physical copy of this book
- By Kaitlin Kalkwarf on 10-05-22
By: Eric Metaxas
-
The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
-
-
Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
-
Vanderbilt
- The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.
-
-
Interesting Approach to a Well Known History
- By HistoryNerd on 09-24-21
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
-
Henry Knox's Noble Train
- The Story of a Boston Bookseller's Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution
- By: William Hazelgrove
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling 60 tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some 300 miles south and east over frozen, often treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army.
-
-
Unsung heroes
- By Piet Lammert on 04-23-25
-
John Adams
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 29 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale, an audiobook about politics, war, and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, it is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.
-
-
An outstanding biography
- By Davis on 07-10-06
By: David McCullough
-
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 24 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
-
-
Good book, not crazy about the narrator
- By Cathi on 07-20-13
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Letter to the American Church
- By: Eric Metaxas
- Narrated by: Eric Metaxas
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turning the other cheek does not mean standing by while the enemies of God dismantle Christian civilization and brainwash our children. Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle. An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity.
-
-
Buy a physical copy of this book
- By Kaitlin Kalkwarf on 10-05-22
By: Eric Metaxas
-
The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
-
-
Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
-
Vanderbilt
- The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
- By: Anderson Cooper, Katherine Howe
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.
-
-
Interesting Approach to a Well Known History
- By HistoryNerd on 09-24-21
By: Anderson Cooper, and others
-
Henry Knox's Noble Train
- The Story of a Boston Bookseller's Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution
- By: William Hazelgrove
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling 60 tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some 300 miles south and east over frozen, often treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army.
-
-
Unsung heroes
- By Piet Lammert on 04-23-25
-
Cornwallis
- Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World
- By: Richard Middleton
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles, first marquis of Cornwallis (1738-1805), was a leading figure in late 18th-century Britain. His career spanned the American War of Independence, Irish Union, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the building of the Second British Empire in India - and he has long been associated with the unacceptable face of Britain's colonial past. In this vivid new biography, Richard Middleton shows that this portrait is far from accurate. Cornwallis emerges as a reformer who had deep empathy for those under his authority and was clear about his obligation to govern justly.
-
-
Good, insightful biography
- By Desert Shopper on 02-04-25
-
John Quincy Adams
- Militant Spirit
- By: James Traub
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 25 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Quincy Adams was the last of his kind - a Puritan from the age of the Founders who despised party and compromise yet dedicated himself to politics and government. The son of John Adams, he was a brilliant ambassador and secretary of state, a frustrated president at a historic turning point in American politics, and a dedicated congressman who literally died in office - at the age of 80, in the House of Representatives, in the midst of an impassioned political debate.
-
-
Best narrator of all the audio books I've listened
- By grimm79 on 12-12-17
By: James Traub
-
Franklin & Washington
- The Founding Partnership
- By: Edward J. Larson
- Narrated by: Andrew Tell
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today the United States is the world’s great superpower, and yet we also wrestle with the government Franklin and Washington created more than two centuries ago - the power of the executive branch, the principle of checks and balances, the electoral college - as well as the wounds of their compromise over slavery. Now, as the founding institutions appear under new stress, it is time to understand their origins through the fresh lens of Larson’s Franklin & Washington, a major addition to the literature of the founding era.
-
-
Two together, written about at same time
- By fair & balanced on 03-28-21
By: Edward J. Larson
-
Hero of Two Worlds
- The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution
- By: Mike Duncan
- Narrated by: Mike Duncan
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the massively popular podcaster and New York Times best-selling author comes the story of the Marquis de Lafayette's lifelong quest to protect the principles of democracy, told through the lens of the three revolutions he participated in: the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Revolution of 1830.
-
-
Thrillingly storytelling — brilliant narration
- By Byron on 08-24-21
By: Mike Duncan
-
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
- By: Jon Meacham
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Jon Meacham
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.
-
-
A Man and Biography Relevant to Our Day
- By Darwin8u on 11-14-12
By: Jon Meacham
-
John Quincy Adams
- By: Harlow Giles Unger
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He fought for Washington, served with Lincoln, witnessed Bunker Hill, and sounded the clarion against slavery on the eve of the Civil War. He negotiated an end to the War of 1812, engineered the annexation of Florida, and won the Supreme Court decision that freed the African captives of La Amistad. He served his nation as minister to six countries, secretary of state, senator, congressman, and president. John Quincy Adams was all of these things and more. In this masterful biography, award-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals Adams as a towering figure in the nation’s formative years.
-
-
Informative and well written.
- By Gotta Tellya on 08-20-14
-
Princess Ka'iulani
- Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People
- By: Sharon Linnea
- Narrated by: Jessica Schell
- Length: 5 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On March 1, 1893, Princess Ka’iulani, the 17-year-old crown princess of Hawaii, stepped onto the pier at New York City. She was greeted by a crowd of reporters and onlookers who knew that, in many ways, she stood at a crossroads in history. Fully aware of the significance of her visit, she prayed that she could help persuade the American government to return her beautiful islands to the Hawaiian people.
-
-
Excellent!
- By MolllyT on 10-30-19
By: Sharon Linnea
-
King's Counsellor
- Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles
- By: Sir Alan Lascelles, Duff Hart-Davis
- Narrated by: Pip Torrens
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Assistant Private Secretary to four monarchs, 'Tommy' Lascelles had a ringside seat from which to observe the workings of the royal household and Downing Street during the first half of the 20th century. These fascinating diaries begin with Edward VIII's abdication and end with George VI's death and his daughter Elizabeth's Coronation. In between we see George VI at work and play, a portrait more intimate than any other previously published.
-
-
One of the most enjoyable audiobooks I've heard.
- By Elizabeth on 04-14-21
By: Sir Alan Lascelles, and others
-
Revolutionary Brothers
- Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship That Helped Forge Two Nations
- By: Tom Chaffin
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Great story!
- By B Lawrence on 07-11-20
By: Tom Chaffin
-
Prince of Pleasure
- The Prince of Wales and the Making of the Regency
- By: Saul David
- Narrated by: Sam Devereaux
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Described by the Duke of Wellington as "the most extraordinary compound of talent, wit, buffoonery, obstinacy and good feeling that I ever saw in one character in my life", George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, later George IV, was a highly controversial figure. He courted both Whigs and Tories in his attempts to establish the Regency during the "madness" of his father, George III.
-
-
George IV in all his "glory"!
- By TemperPolk on 08-25-16
By: Saul David
-
A Perfect Union
- Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation
- By: Catherine Allgor
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An extraordinary American comes to life in this vivid, incisive portrait of the early days of the republic—and the birth of modern politics hen the roar of the Revolution had finally died down, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to the Potomac to assemble the nation's newly minted capital. Into that unsteady atmosphere which would soon enough erupt into another conflict with Britain in 1812, Dolley Madison arrived, alongside her husband James.
-
-
A great first lady!
- By Anna Walker on 04-04-11
By: Catherine Allgor
-
American Rebels
- How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution
- By: Nina Sankovitch
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nina Sankovitch’s American Rebels explores, for the first time, the intertwined lives of the Hancock, Quincy, and Adams families, and the role each person played in sparking the American Revolution. American Rebels explores how the desire for independence cut across class lines, binding people together as well as dividing them -rebels versus loyalists - as they pursued commonly held goals of opportunity, liberty, and stability. Nina Sankovitch's new audiobook is a fresh history of our revolution that makes listeners look more closely at Massachusetts.
-
-
I loved this book!
- By John H on 06-22-20
By: Nina Sankovitch