THE GREAT UPHEAVAL America and the Birth of the Modern World 1788-1800

Jay Winik's stirring narrative is filled with high drama and strong verbs--it's a tale whose telling requires the steadiness of an accomplished narrator. Sam Tsoutsouvas's mellow, assured tone establishes the thread of a narrative that roams from the American frontier to the farthest reaches of the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great. The drama of those pivotal final years of the eighteenth century--which embraced the American Revolution and Constitution, the French Revolution, and the rise of Napoleon--is heightened by Winik's sense of the momentous, a word he himself frequently employs. Tsoutsouvas maintains the necessary pace and consistency to modulate the intensity (and frequent ferocity) of this narrative's many scenes of action. An excellent popular history, this is a perfect match of book and narrator. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 08]