American Schism

How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation

By: Seth David Radwell

Narrated by: Mike Lenz

Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

The political dialogue in America has collapsed. Raw and bitter emotions such as anger and resentment have crowded out any logical debate. In this investigative tracing of our nation's divergent roots, author Seth David Radwell explains that only reasoned analysis and historical perspective can act as salves for the irrational political discourse that is raging at present.

Two disparate Americas have always coexisted, and Radwell discovered that the surprising origin of these dual Americas was not an Enlightenment, but two distinct Enlightenments that have been fiercely competing since the founding of our country. Radwell argues that it is only by embracing Enlightenment principles that we can build a civilized, progressive, and tolerant society.

American Schism reveals the roots of the rifts in America since its founding and what is really dividing red and blue America; the core issues that underlie all of today's bickering; and a detailed, effective plan to move forward, commencing what will be a long process of repair and reconciliation. Radwell changes the nature of the political debate by fighting unreason with reason, allowing Americans to firmly ground their differing points of view in rationality.

©2021 Seth David Radwell (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Hope for national head/heart ache!

American Schism is brilliantly written. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having my thinking poked at, focused, expanded, challenged, and confirmed. I yearn for a more civil country. I hold out hope as long as there are people willing to intelligently converse rather than blindly contend.

Greatest hopes, but disappointed

The first part of the book was objective, Although, I agree with the author on Trump, the book turned silly when “suggestions” were finally offered.

As a (dying breed) fiscal conservative and social liberal, the book initially promised ways to converse with my far left friends and my MAGA intolerants. How to get past the volcanic vitriol of each side is yet to be discovered. hard. I gave up with 22 minutes left.

In retrospect, I feel I lost about 5-6 hours of good reading. Your experience may be different…

Biased

Biased left leaning opinion throughout what could've been a very useful read. Very long anti Trump hit piece

The Analysis in the Last Chapters Make it Worth the Listen

I only wish the narrator, who is on the whole pretty good, knew how to pronounce French, which is so important to the early part of this narrative.

A sorely needed optimistic view at our situation and the path forward

Radwell plainly lays out the diversity of ideas that founded the USA, traces these ideas through the evolution of our nation and its discourse, and finally sheds a quite revealing light at how these ideas explain our current sociopolitical agitation.

This book may be a bit heavy on history for those looking for a light political read - but this is precisely what allows it to present such an apolitical yet normative and compelling case for the path forward that preserves all of America’s uniquely powerful founding ideals, without letting our country stagnate in political decay. I highly recommend this read - and thanks to an excellent and engaging narrator, I highly recommended this listen, too.

A more mature, viable structure for making sense

Seth’s opening question in his prologue, “How had it come to be that over the last four years my entire conception of the American credo had crumbled?” So spoke to me and the angst I have been experiencing as my lifelong image of my country was dissolving before my very eyes. Seeking answers to his questions, Seth has written an almost 500-page book of which I relished every word as I felt my own perspective expanding.

I’ve learned so much and now have such a broader sense of the history and evolution of America and a richer context for understanding the current dynamics around me. There is a comfort in having a more mature, viable structure for making sense of the world I live in.

Could have been great

Excellent work tying the establishment and evolution of our country to the enlightenment.
Weak when it comes to diagnosing the root cause of the issues of today he chose to focus on. Hence, his remedies are superficial and are to agree with because the issues were not thoroughly diagnosed or supported with solid data and analysis.
He also seems clearly biased against certain people without a solid, fact based case. In fact, some assertions and accusations have been show to be absolutely unfounded or even contrary to facts we know today.

Nevertheless, even with those unfavorable comments considered, I strongly recommend reading this book. Maybe even more so because of those comments.

A must read on the Enlightenment for America today

A reverential yet unsentimental tone to the history of our country is felt and heard in American Schism, Seth David Radwell’s timely and revealing book. His focus on the influence of Enlightenment thinkers e.g., Descartes, Kant, Hume and Locke to name a few, on our founding father’s authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the growing strife brought on by the Louisiana Purchase, the travesty of the Jim Crow laws are thoroughly and eloquently examined.

Radwell succeeds in presenting the historical facts in a scholastic manner, yet attainable, language to a mainstream audience without ever sacrificing the poignant analysis of the question he grapples with in the book’s introduction; What happen in America? How can a country that elected the first African American president with the least presidential name in U.S. history, Barack Hussein Obama, then elect, Donald J. Trump, self-aggrandizing businessman whose neoconservative rhetoric resonated with so many Americans.

Unlike his predecessors that have taken on this subject, he does not propose that the American Civil War never ended, or that our political strife is too steep to climb out of or even suggest that our current cultural divide can be resolved after one or two election cycles. He poses the question back to us, his reader and fellow American, to seek an understanding beyond tribal thinking to a humanist approach where the American Schism is healed, and the rights of all individuals are respected and celebrated to truly embody American freedom, and ideals that our country was founded on.

A must read for every serious politician.

At a minimum, read the last chapter.

Deeply researched suggestions, masterfully presented.
I loved it.

Excellent and valuable.

A well written history that offers a well argued framework (and one I've not seen before) describing how we've found ourselves in the current political predicament.