John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873) was a great liberal thinker of the nineteenth century, a noted philosopher, political theorist, and Member of Parliament. Mill was given a disciplined upbringing, his father deliberately shielding him from other children with the express aim of creating a philosophical genius to carry the mantle of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham and in which Mill went on to develop his own conception.

Bring history back to life through Jim Hodges' historically accurate, exciting and edifying audio recordings.

Enter the world of a slave, with all the pathos, brutal honesty, and striving of the heart to breathe free. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. During service to masters cruel and kind, he nevertheless learned to read and write. After suffering whippings, hunger, heat, cold, and grueling labor, he

Abraham Lincoln trusted and confided in his law partner William "Billy" Herndon, but his still-influential 1889 biography was censored by his collaborator and publisher. In Lincoln's Billy, Tom LeClair imagines Herndon's deathbed autobiography and the "real life" of his partner, revealing secrets about a randy and "rasslin'" Lincoln on his youthful trips to New Orleans, the hidden sources of his depression, and the untold cause of his hatred