
The Small and the Mighty
Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement
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Narrated by:
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Sharon McMahon
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By:
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Sharon McMahon
About this listen
A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From America’s favorite government teacher, a “fascinating and fun” (Adam Grant) portrait of twelve ordinary Americans whose courage formed the character of our country.
In The Small and the Mighty, Sharon McMahon proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks. Not the presidents, but the telephone operators. Not the aristocrats, but the schoolteachers. Through meticulous research, she discovers history’s unsung characters and brings their rich, riveting stories to light for the first time.
You’ll meet a woman astride a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Ave, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train, and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies. More than one thing is bombed, and multiple people surprisingly become rich. Some rich with money, and some wealthy with things that matter more.
This is a book about what really made America – and Americans – great. McMahon’s cast of improbable champions will become familiar friends, lighting the path we journey in our quest to make the world more just, peaceful, good, and free.
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Critic reviews
“With shimmering research, an observant eye, and a bright moral compass, Sharon McMahon leads us through the thickets of the past until we can see where we came from and where we are going.”―David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon
“Sharon McMahon is a national treasure and a one-woman cavalry for truth, saving our republic one loving and clear-eyed lesson at a time. She and this book are a gift to our country.”—Isabel Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Caste and The Warmth of Other Suns
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- By: Christa Brown
- Narrated by: Soren McKay
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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When Christa Brown first spoke out about the sexual abuse she endured in her Texas childhood church, she never imagined it would expose the ethical chasm at the core of the Southern Baptist Convention: male religious leaders so focused on institutional protection that they sacrifice the safety of children. A book about speaking out and speaking up, Baptistland weaves together Christa’s revealing story of hope amid Southern patriarchy and religious fundamentalism.
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It was very boring.
- By Randall Sink on 07-24-24
By: Christa Brown
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The Demon of Unrest
- A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
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Vividly Told History of the Start of the Civil War
- By WLC on 05-01-24
By: Erik Larson
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When the World Tips Over
- By: Jandy Nelson
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Alex McKenna, Briggon Snow, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fall siblings live in hot Northern California wine country, where the sun pours out of the sky, and the devil winds blow so hard they whip the sense right out of your head. Years ago, the Fall kids’ father mysteriously disappeared, cracking the family into pieces.
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Just a great book!!
- By denise chaney on 11-12-24
By: Jandy Nelson
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To Make Men Free
- A History of the Republican Party
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Republican Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession. While progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln’s vision and expanded the government, their opponents appealed to Americans’ latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. In the modern era, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles.
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Fascinating read!
- By Marsha on 12-27-21
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Prequel
- An American Fight Against Fascism
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it.
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The fight to keep democracy alive
- By Rex on 10-19-23
By: Rachel Maddow
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On Tyranny
- Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
- By: Timothy Snyder
- Narrated by: Timothy Snyder
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
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History does not repeat, but it does instruct.
- By Darwin8u on 11-19-18
By: Timothy Snyder
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200 Dangerous Truths About Project 2025
- Exposing the Real Threat to America’s Freedom and Democracy
- By: J. E. Fowlers
- Narrated by: Sharman Beth
- Length: 1 hr and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From J.E. Fowlers, best-selling author of Democracy at Risk, comes a groundbreaking exposé that uncovers the chilling truths behind Project 2025, a carefully orchestrated conservative blueprint threatening to reshape America’s democracy. 200 Dangerous Truths About Project 2025 tears apart the mystery, revealing 200 alarming facts straight from the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership, organized into 20 powerful chapters.
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Terrible. Just terrible.
- By Ian Dolby on 02-24-25
By: J. E. Fowlers
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James
- A Novel
- By: Percival Everett
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers/listeners of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
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This is the real story of Huck…
- By Poor Fisherman on 04-07-24
By: Percival Everett
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One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
- By: Omar El Akkad
- Narrated by: Omar El Akkad
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege.
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Outstanding - Should be required reading
- By Steve Siegmund on 03-19-25
By: Omar El Akkad
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An Unfinished Love Story
- A Personal History of the 1960s
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bryan Cranston
- Length: 17 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America’s most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life.
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A Great Listen
- By Bill on 04-20-24
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Everything Is Tuberculosis
- The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: John Green
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story.
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Powerful, Heartbreaking, Informative, Inspiring, Hopeful.
- By Kendall R. Genier on 03-25-25
By: John Green
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How to Human
- Three Ways to Share Life Beyond What Distracts, Divides, and Disconnects Us
- By: Carlos Whittaker, Sharon McMahon - foreword
- Narrated by: Carlos Whittaker, Sharon McMahon
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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These are crazy times, people. We are more agitated than ever. We’re fighting. Wrestling with big issues. Less connected than ever to one another and to God. It’s a perfect storm: debilitating anxiety, crashing relationships, and forgetting what it feels like to, well, be human. In How to Human, author, speaker, and social-media personality Carlos Whittaker offers a fresh vision for becoming the best versions of ourselves. We can refuse to let disagreements define us. We can say no to becoming upset, rage-filled humans and say yes to fuller, happier lives.
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Positive and Uplifting Message
- By JRindal on 05-18-25
By: Carlos Whittaker, and others
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The Facemaker
- A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Daniel Gillies
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies.
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My favorite author
- By Dani on 06-07-22
I was so eager to listen to this book. And the stories are worth hearing. But as the author and narrator of this Audible, I struggled to listen. She tries to make an impact with her voice and it was ultimately too distracting for me to continue. This is not a criticism of her work as her book is thoroughly researched and put together in a way the reader or listener can follow along. This is a critique of the way it was read which (for me) had me turning the Audible off. I look forward to reading the physical book.
Conflicted
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Good stories, but hard to follow
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Masterpiece
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Absolutely Beautiful!
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Informative, Moving and Riveting
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This is the book we all need, written by the only person who could have given it to us. Sharon McMahon is a national treasure and should be protected at all costs. She has single-handedly taken me from feeling shame over America and our current political landscape, to instead feeling an overwhelming sense of pride in my country and her people.
As she says, “And it is us, the small and the mighty, who make America great. Not again, but always.”
A National Treasure
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Courage and compassion of the 12 people.
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The book doesn't just teach us history in an engaging way. The book is a call to action. "America at her best is just. She is peaceful. She is good. And she she is free. And it is us [yes, I know, Mrs Hawkes, my 8th grade grammar teacher... it probably should say 'it is we'], the small and the mighty, who make America great." "None of us can do it all. But all of us can do something. And it might as well be the next needed thing." "The character you've been cultivating will be called upon, and when that moment comes, whenever it is, I hope you'll rise to it." "Hope is a choice that we make each morning, and we do not have the luxury of hopelessness if we want to see progress."
Sharon narrates the audiobook and it sounds like she is just talking to you and telling you a story on IG or her podcast ("Here's Where It Gets Interesting"). I have to look at the print version to see if she is inserting into the audio version some of the funny things that she says. Also, there are plenty of inside jokes for long-time governerds (the "ho" is silent, for example.).
I am planning to read it again.
A call to action and a call to hope
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Remember that your little part matters
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Wonderful!!!!
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