American Liberalism
An Interpretation for Our Time
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Narrated by:
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David Lawrence
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By:
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John McGowan
About this listen
Americans live in a liberal democracy. Yet, although democracy is widely touted today, liberalism is scorned by both the right and the left. The United States stands poised between its liberal democratic tradition and the illiberal alternatives of liberalism's critics. John McGowan argues that Americans should think twice before jettisoning the liberalism that guided American politics from James Madison to the New Deal and the Great Society.
In an engaging and informative discussion, McGowan offers a ringing endorsement of American liberalism's basic principles, values, and commitments. He identifies five tenets of liberalism: a commitment to liberty and equality, trust in a constitutionally established rule of law, a conviction that modern societies are irreducibly plural, the promotion of a diverse civil society, and a reliance on public debate and deliberation to influence others' opinions and actions.
McGowan explains how America's founders rejected the simplistic notion that government or society is necessarily oppressive. They were, however, acutely aware of the danger of tyranny. The liberalism of the founders distributed power widely in order to limit the power any one entity could exercise over others. Their aim was to provide for all an effective freedom that combined the right to self-determination with the ability to achieve one's self-chosen goals. In tracing this history, McGowan offers a clear vision of liberalism's foundational values as America's best guarantee today of liberty and the peace in which to exercise it.
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-
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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-
-
An important discussion expertly narrated
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- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
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-
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In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
-
-
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By: Francis Fukuyama
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- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
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Story
The foundations of capitalism are being battered by a flood of altruism, which is the cause of the modern world's collapse. This was the view of Ayn Rand, a view so radically opposed to prevailing attitudes that it constituted a major philosophic revolution. In this series of essays, she presented her stand on the persecution of big business, the causes of war, the default of conservatism, and the evils of altruism.
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Ashame this is not taught in our
- By Karen on 08-18-07
By: Ayn Rand
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A New Textbook of Americanism
- By: Jonathan Hoenig - editor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hoenig
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people have no idea what the United States represents. Ayn Rand did grasp America's political essence down to its roots. Seventy-two years in the making, this book illuminates why the United States is "the only moral country in the history of the world" and features never-before-published discussions with Ayn Rand, plus work from Leonard Peikoff and the New Intellectuals.
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A Great Introduction to Objectionism
- By Lester C Liby on 06-27-19
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The Nation That Never Was
- Reconstructing America's Story
- By: Kermit Roosevelt
- Narrated by: Kermit Roosevelt III
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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We face a dilemma these days. We want to be honest about our history and the racism and oppression that Americans have both inflicted and endured. But we want to be proud of our country, too. In The Nation That Never Was, Roosevelt shows how we can do both those things by realizing we’re not the country we thought we were. Reconstruction, Roosevelt argues, was not a fulfillment of the ideals of the Founding but rather a repudiation: we modern Americans are not the heirs of the Founders but of the people who overthrew and destroyed that political order.
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A Necessary Book.
- By Jason Baumbach on 01-30-24
By: Kermit Roosevelt
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Active Liberty
- Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution
- By: Stephen Breyer
- Narrated by: Stephen Breyer
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in September 2005 and based on a series of lectures delivered at Harvard, Active Liberty is a tight, extremely readable, almost memoir-like guide to interpreting the Constitution. Written by a justice of the Supreme Court, it focuses on a pragmatic approach to this great document that may become crucial as the Supreme Court faces deeply divisive decisions.
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Engaging, If Somewhat Dense
- By Maki on 09-04-07
By: Stephen Breyer
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American Dialogue
- The Founders and Us
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in American Dialogue, Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing impasse of today's political conflicts.
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A fine work, even with the editorializing
- By Casey Kerrick on 11-24-18
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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Of Paradise and Power
- America and Europe in the New World Order
- By: Robert Kagan
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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When historians want to find out about the ideas that motivated American foreign policy in the early years of the twenty-first century, they would do well to read this book. Robert Kagan has formally set out a case for unilateralism on the part of the United States, as opposed to the multilateralism now characteristic of Europe. Kagan believes that the United States can disregard a weak Europe, and have a free hand in pursuing its global interests.
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Quick and pithy listen
- By Erik Fosshage on 01-14-04
By: Robert Kagan
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The Constitution of Liberty
- The Definitive Edition
- By: Ronald Hamowy - Edited by, F. A. Hayek
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The Constitution of Liberty is considered Hayek's classic statement on the ideals of freedom and liberty, ideals that he believes have guided - and must continue to guide - the growth of Western civilization. Here, Hayek defends the principles of a free society, casting a skeptical eye on the growth of the welfare state and examining the challenges to freedom posed by an ever-expanding government.
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very detailed and important
- By Big Kyle 570 on 06-17-20
By: Ronald Hamowy - Edited by, and others
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The Conscience of the Constitution
- The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty
- By: Timothy Sandefur
- Narrated by: James Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Timothy Sandefur's insightful book provides a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law and argues a vital truth: our Constitution was written not to empower democracy, but to secure liberty. Yet the overemphasis on democracy by today's legal community - rather than the primacy of liberty, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence - has helped expand the scope of government power at the expense of individual rights.
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Liberty!
- By David W. Norman on 05-03-15
By: Timothy Sandefur
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The Original Argument
- The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century
- By: Glenn Beck, Pat Gray
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Glenn Beck revisited Thomas Paine’s famous pre-Revolutionary War call to action in his #1 New York Times bestseller Glenn Beck’s Common Sense. Now he brings his historical acumen and political savvy to this fresh, new interpretation of The Federalist Papers.
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A must for Freedom lovers
- By Danny on 06-16-11
By: Glenn Beck, and others
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The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
- By: Gordon S. Wood
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 24 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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This classic work explains the evolution of American political thought from the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the Constitution. In so doing, it greatly illuminates the origins of the present American political system.
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This Audible book is NOT for a popular audience!
- By BigWally on 11-22-18
By: Gordon S. Wood