The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century, credited to Francis Parkman, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Centuy, by Francis Parkman. Parkman has been hailed as one of America's first great historians and as a master of narrative history. Numerous translations have spread the books around the world. The American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) in his book "O Canada" (1965), described Parkman’s France and England in North America in these terms: "The clarity, the momentum and the color of the first volumes of Parkman’s narrative are among the most brilliant achievements of the writing of history as an art." Parkman's biases, particularly his attitudes about nationality, race, and especially Native Americans, has generated criticism. The Canadian historian W. J. Eccles harshly criticized what he perceived as Parkman's bias against France and Roman Catholic policies, as well as what he considered Parkman's misuse of French language sources. However, Parkman's most severe detractor was the American historian Francis Jennings, an outspoken and controversial critic of the European colonization of North America, who went so far as to characterize Parkman's work as "fiction" and Parkman himself as a "liar". Unlike Jennings and Eccles, many modern historians have found much to praise in Parkman's work even while recognizing his limitations. Calling Jennings' critique "vitriolic and unfair," the historian Robert S. Allen has said that Parkman's history of France and England in North America "remains a rich mixture of history and literature which few contemporary scholars can hope to emulate". The historian Michael N. McConnell, while acknowledging the historical errors and racial prejudice in Parkman's book The Conspiracy of Pontiac, has said: ...it would be easy to dismiss Pontiac as a curious perhaps embarrassing artifact of another time and place. Yet Parkman's work represents a pioneering effort; in several ways he anticipated the kind of frontier history now taken for granted.... Parkman's masterful and evocative use of language remains his most enduring and instructive legacy. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia by Karen Merline)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Jesuits in North America in the 17th Century
• Author credits: Francis Parkman
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 40
• Listed recording duration: 12:00:52

Catalogue topics

• Jesuits
• Huons
• Iriquois
• Canada

Opening tracks: first 24 of 40

1. 01 - Intro. pt 01: Native Tribes: Divisions — 9:33
2. 02 - Intro. pt 02: The Hurons — 30:23
3. 03 - Intro. pt 03: The Huron-Iroquois Family — 15:17
4. 04 - Intro. pt 04: The Iroquois — 20:36
5. 05 - Intro. pt 05: Religion and Superstitions — 56:30
6. 06 - Ch01: 1634, Notre Dame des Anges — 9:20
7. 07 - Ch 02: Loyola and the Jesuits — 8:15
8. 08 - Ch 03: 1632-1633, Paul le Jeune — 14:00
9. 09 - Ch 04: 1633-1634, Le Jeune and the Hunters — 27:18
10. 10 - Ch 05: 1633-1634, The Huron Mission — 21:17
11. 11 - Ch 06: 1634-1635, Brebeuf and his Associates — 15:11
12. 12 - Ch 07: 1636-1637, The Feast of the Dead — 14:11
13. 13 - Ch 08: 1636-1637, The Huron and the Jesuit — 19:37
14. 14 - Ch 09: 1637, Character of the Canadian Jesuits — 13:54
15. 15 - Ch 10: 1637-1640, Persecution — 21:22
16. 16 - Ch 11: 1638-1640, Priest and Pagan — 13:45
17. 17 - Ch 12: 1639-1640, The Tobacco Nation--the Neutrals — 13:42
18. 18 - Ch 13: 1636-1646, Quebec and its Tenants — 25:19
19. 19 - Ch 14: 1636-1652, Devotees and Nuns — 27:04
20. 20 - Ch 15: 1637-1640, Persecution — 29:50
21. 21 - Ch 16 pt 1: 1641-1644, Isaac Jogues — 19:56
22. 22 - Ch 16 pt 2: 1641-1644, Isaac Jogues — 19:09
23. 23 - Ch 17: 1641-1646, The Iroguois--Bressani--de Noue — 27:04
24. 24 - Ch 18: 1642-1644, Villemarie — 18:57

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.