The Most Popular Book in History You’ve Never Heard Of: The Story of Pilgrim’s Progress

Our American Stories

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 737 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of Our American Stories, The Pilgrim’s Progress is the second most popular book in world history, after the Bible. Its author, John Bunyan, was a preacher in Bedford, England, who wrote the book in 1676 while imprisoned for “preaching without a license.” The book quickly made its way onto ships bound for the New World. In America, it became so popular that familiarity with it was said to be “the mark of being a good American.”

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0:22.5	happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chaston. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to
0:28.9	everybody's business on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:34.7	I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Gleod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs Podcast.
0:38.9	Yes, sir.
0:39.5	Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war this year, a lot of the biggest
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0:46.0	This kind of starts that it a little bit, man.
0:48.2	We met them at their homes.
0:49.6	We met them at their recording studios.
0:51.8	Stories matter and it brings a face to it.
0:53.9	It makes it real.
0:54.7	It really does.
0:55.8	It makes it real.
0:56.9	Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
1:05.5	Why is a soap opera Western like Yellowstone so wildly successful?
1:10.6	The American West with Dan Flores
	...

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