Animal Factory
The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.69
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
William Hughes
-
By:
-
David Kirby
About this listen
Swine flu. Bird flu. Unusual concentrations of cancer and other diseases. Massive fish kills from flesh-eating parasites. Recalls of meats, vegetables, and fruits because of deadly E. coli bacterial contamination.
Recent public-health crises raise urgent questions about how our animal-derived food is raised and brought to market. In Animal Factory, best-selling author and investigative journalist David Kirby exposes the powerful business and political interests behind large-scale factory farms and tracks the far-reaching fallout that contaminates our air, land, water, and food.
In this thoroughly researched book, Kirby follows three families and communities whose lives are utterly changed by immense neighboring animal farms. These farms (known as “Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations,” or CAFOs), confine thousands of pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry in small spaces, often under horrifying conditions, and generate enormous volumes of fecal and biological waste as well as other toxins. Weaving together science, politics, law, big business, and everyday life, Kirby accompanies these families in their struggles against animal factories. A North Carolina fisherman takes on pig farms upstream to preserve his river, his family’s life, and his home. A mother in a small Illinois town pushes back against an outsized dairy farm and its devastating impact. And, a Washington state grandmother becomes an unlikely activist when her home is covered with soot and her water supply is compromised by runoff from leaking lagoons of cattle waste.
Animal Factory is an important book about our American food system gone terribly wrong—and the people who are fighting to restore sustainable farming practices and save our limited natural resources.
©2010 David Kirby (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Folks, This Ain't Normal
- A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World
- By: Joel Salatin
- Narrated by: Joel Salatin
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From farmer Joel Salatin's point of view, life in the 21st century just ain't normal. In Folks, This Ain't Normal, he discusses how far removed we are from the simple, sustainable joy that comes from living close to the land and the people we love.
-
-
Awakened me from my ingnorance
- By matthew on 05-27-12
By: Joel Salatin
-
The Chain
- Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food
- By: Ted Genoways
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Interviewing scores of line workers, union leaders, hog farmers, and local politicians and activists, Genoways reveals an industry pushed to its breaking point. Along the way, he exposes alarming new trends: sick or permanently disabled workers, abused animals, water and soil pollution, and mounting conflict between small towns and immigrant labor.
-
-
Great Writing, Performance and Content
- By Kevin S. Grail on 09-29-19
By: Ted Genoways
-
The Fifth Risk
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when the President of the United States governs one Tweet at a time? When the elected leader of the free world may not have a firm grasp on the names of government agencies, much less an understanding of their intricate inner-workings? In the days following the 2016 inauguration, government personnel searched for answers that didn’t exist, while White House staff scoured halls for employees who would never be appointed.
-
-
Awkward and Disappointing
- By Amit M on 10-04-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Next Pandemic
- On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers
- By: Ali Khan, William Patrick
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases - and the panic and corruption that make them worse. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others - and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
-
-
Many Outstanding Stories about Many Scary Microbes
- By aaron on 01-24-17
By: Ali Khan, and others
-
Fast Food Nation
- The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Fast Food Nation is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.
-
-
Uncritical alarmist rant
- By Mark Freeman on 12-23-03
By: Eric Schlosser
-
Exposure
- Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
- By: Robert Bilott
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Mark Ruffalo - Introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Silent Spring meets Erin Brockovich in this eye-opening, riveting true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous, unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the heartless behavior that kept it a secret for 60 years.
-
-
Tenacious
- By Gary S. on 01-02-20
By: Robert Bilott
-
Folks, This Ain't Normal
- A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World
- By: Joel Salatin
- Narrated by: Joel Salatin
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From farmer Joel Salatin's point of view, life in the 21st century just ain't normal. In Folks, This Ain't Normal, he discusses how far removed we are from the simple, sustainable joy that comes from living close to the land and the people we love.
-
-
Awakened me from my ingnorance
- By matthew on 05-27-12
By: Joel Salatin
-
The Chain
- Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food
- By: Ted Genoways
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Interviewing scores of line workers, union leaders, hog farmers, and local politicians and activists, Genoways reveals an industry pushed to its breaking point. Along the way, he exposes alarming new trends: sick or permanently disabled workers, abused animals, water and soil pollution, and mounting conflict between small towns and immigrant labor.
-
-
Great Writing, Performance and Content
- By Kevin S. Grail on 09-29-19
By: Ted Genoways
-
The Fifth Risk
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happens when the President of the United States governs one Tweet at a time? When the elected leader of the free world may not have a firm grasp on the names of government agencies, much less an understanding of their intricate inner-workings? In the days following the 2016 inauguration, government personnel searched for answers that didn’t exist, while White House staff scoured halls for employees who would never be appointed.
-
-
Awkward and Disappointing
- By Amit M on 10-04-18
By: Michael Lewis
-
The Next Pandemic
- On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Dangers
- By: Ali Khan, William Patrick
- Narrated by: Ben Sullivan
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases - and the panic and corruption that make them worse. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others - and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
-
-
Many Outstanding Stories about Many Scary Microbes
- By aaron on 01-24-17
By: Ali Khan, and others
-
Fast Food Nation
- The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Fast Food Nation is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.
-
-
Uncritical alarmist rant
- By Mark Freeman on 12-23-03
By: Eric Schlosser
-
Exposure
- Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont
- By: Robert Bilott
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Mark Ruffalo - Introduction
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Silent Spring meets Erin Brockovich in this eye-opening, riveting true story of the lawyer who spent two decades building a case against DuPont for its use of the hazardous, unregulated chemical PFOA, uncovering a history of environmental contamination that affects virtually every person on the planet, and the heartless behavior that kept it a secret for 60 years.
-
-
Tenacious
- By Gary S. on 01-02-20
By: Robert Bilott
-
Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
-
-
Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
-
The Wizard and the Prophet
- Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World
- By: Charles C. Mann
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 40 years, Earth's population will reach 10 billion. Can our world support that? What kind of world will it be? Those answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups - Wizards and Prophets, as Charles Mann calls them in this balanced, authoritative, nonpolemical new book. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding environmentalist who believed that in using more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin.
-
-
Fantastic
- By BKATX on 01-26-18
By: Charles C. Mann
-
Eating Animals
- By: Jonathan Safran Foer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood - facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child's behalf - his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong.
-
-
Surprisingly Even-Handed
- By Natalie on 10-27-11
-
The Beekeeper's Lament
- How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America
- By: Hannah Nordhaus
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus tells the remarkable story of John Miller, one of America's foremost migratory beekeepers, and the myriad and mysterious epidemics threatening American honeybee populations.
-
-
From a beekeeper
- By Argos on 06-14-17
By: Hannah Nordhaus
-
Farm Sanctuary
- Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food
- By: Gene Baur
- Narrated by: Gene Baur
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leading animal rights activist Gene Baur examines the real cost of the meat on our plates - for both humans and animals alike - in this provocative and thorough examination of the modern farm industry.
-
-
Listen with your heart
- By amanda on 01-13-17
By: Gene Baur
-
Pig Tales
- An Omnivore's Quest for Sustainable Meat
- By: Barry Estabrook
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barry Estabrook, author of the New York Times bestseller Tomatoland, now explores the dark side of the American pork industry. Drawing on his personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative instincts, he covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of the country's biggest pork producers.
-
-
Nary a Squeal About This Book
- By Devlin Faust on 09-30-15
By: Barry Estabrook
-
Amity and Prosperity
- One Family and the Fracturing of America
- By: Eliza Griswold
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Prize-winning poet and journalist Eliza Griswold’s Amity and Prosperity is an expose on how fracking shattered a rural Pennsylvania town, and how one lifelong resident brought the story into the national spotlight. This is an incredible true account of investigative journalism and a devastating indictment of energy politics in America.
-
-
touching and poignant
- By Mother of Chickens on 06-28-18
By: Eliza Griswold
-
Lab 257
- The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory
- By: Michael Christopher Carroll
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Strictly off limits to the public, Plum Island is home to virginal beaches, cliffs, forests, ponds - and the deadliest germs that have ever roamed the planet. Lab 257 blows the lid off the stunning true nature and checkered history of Plum Island. It shows that the seemingly bucolic island in the shadow of New York City is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us can safely ignore.
-
-
More Politics Than Science
- By A Customer on 05-26-17
-
Mercy for Animals
- One Man's Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals
- By: Gene Stone, Nathan Runkle
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Runkle would have been a fifth-generation farmer in his small Midwestern town. Instead, he founded our nation's leading nonprofit organization for protecting factory farmed animals. In Mercy for Animals, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization's work; from MFA's early days in grassroots activism, to dangerous and dramatic experiences doing undercover investigations, to the organization's current large-scale efforts at making sweeping legislative change to protect factory farmed animals and encourage compassionate food choices.
-
-
Powerful, emotional and inspiring
- By Keegan on 10-27-17
By: Gene Stone, and others
-
Tomatoland
- How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit
- By: Barry Estabrook
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Supermarket produce sections bulging with a year-round supply of perfectly round, bright red-orange tomatoes have become all but a national birthright. But in Tomatoland, which is based on his James Beard Award-winning article, The Price of Tomatoes, investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue.
-
-
Neat Book
- By Ray on 08-04-12
By: Barry Estabrook
-
Farmageddon
- The True Cost of Cheap Meat
- By: Philip Lymbery, Isabel Oakeshott
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as the production of food has become a global industry. We no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain and what we are eating - as the UK horsemeat scandal demonstrated. We are reaching a tipping point as the farming revolution threatens our countryside, health, and the quality of our food wherever we live in the world.
-
-
Excellent insight of industrial farming
- By Grazyna on 04-19-14
By: Philip Lymbery, and others
-
Poison Spring
- The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA
- By: E. G. Vallianatos, McKay Jenkins
- Narrated by: Michael McConnahie
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine walking into a restaurant and finding chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, or neonicotinoid insecticides listed in the description of your entree. They may not be printed in the menu, but many are in your food.These are a few of the literally millions of pounds of approved synthetic substances dumped into the environment every day, not just in the US but around the world.
-
-
A Frightening Wake Up Call!
- By Exec. Chef 'Special K' on 07-02-14
By: E. G. Vallianatos, and others
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
The Chain
- Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food
- By: Ted Genoways
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Interviewing scores of line workers, union leaders, hog farmers, and local politicians and activists, Genoways reveals an industry pushed to its breaking point. Along the way, he exposes alarming new trends: sick or permanently disabled workers, abused animals, water and soil pollution, and mounting conflict between small towns and immigrant labor.
-
-
Great Writing, Performance and Content
- By Kevin S. Grail on 09-29-19
By: Ted Genoways
-
Lab 257
- The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory
- By: Michael Christopher Carroll
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Strictly off limits to the public, Plum Island is home to virginal beaches, cliffs, forests, ponds - and the deadliest germs that have ever roamed the planet. Lab 257 blows the lid off the stunning true nature and checkered history of Plum Island. It shows that the seemingly bucolic island in the shadow of New York City is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us can safely ignore.
-
-
More Politics Than Science
- By A Customer on 05-26-17
-
Mercy for Animals
- One Man's Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals
- By: Gene Stone, Nathan Runkle
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Runkle would have been a fifth-generation farmer in his small Midwestern town. Instead, he founded our nation's leading nonprofit organization for protecting factory farmed animals. In Mercy for Animals, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization's work; from MFA's early days in grassroots activism, to dangerous and dramatic experiences doing undercover investigations, to the organization's current large-scale efforts at making sweeping legislative change to protect factory farmed animals and encourage compassionate food choices.
-
-
Powerful, emotional and inspiring
- By Keegan on 10-27-17
By: Gene Stone, and others
-
Farmageddon
- The True Cost of Cheap Meat
- By: Philip Lymbery, Isabel Oakeshott
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as the production of food has become a global industry. We no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain and what we are eating - as the UK horsemeat scandal demonstrated. We are reaching a tipping point as the farming revolution threatens our countryside, health, and the quality of our food wherever we live in the world.
-
-
Excellent insight of industrial farming
- By Grazyna on 04-19-14
By: Philip Lymbery, and others
-
Poison Spring
- The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA
- By: E. G. Vallianatos, McKay Jenkins
- Narrated by: Michael McConnahie
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine walking into a restaurant and finding chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, or neonicotinoid insecticides listed in the description of your entree. They may not be printed in the menu, but many are in your food.These are a few of the literally millions of pounds of approved synthetic substances dumped into the environment every day, not just in the US but around the world.
-
-
A Frightening Wake Up Call!
- By Exec. Chef 'Special K' on 07-02-14
By: E. G. Vallianatos, and others
-
Fast Food Nation
- The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Fast Food Nation is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.
-
-
Uncritical alarmist rant
- By Mark Freeman on 12-23-03
By: Eric Schlosser
-
The Chain
- Farm, Factory, and the Fate of Our Food
- By: Ted Genoways
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Interviewing scores of line workers, union leaders, hog farmers, and local politicians and activists, Genoways reveals an industry pushed to its breaking point. Along the way, he exposes alarming new trends: sick or permanently disabled workers, abused animals, water and soil pollution, and mounting conflict between small towns and immigrant labor.
-
-
Great Writing, Performance and Content
- By Kevin S. Grail on 09-29-19
By: Ted Genoways
-
Lab 257
- The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Germ Laboratory
- By: Michael Christopher Carroll
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Strictly off limits to the public, Plum Island is home to virginal beaches, cliffs, forests, ponds - and the deadliest germs that have ever roamed the planet. Lab 257 blows the lid off the stunning true nature and checkered history of Plum Island. It shows that the seemingly bucolic island in the shadow of New York City is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us can safely ignore.
-
-
More Politics Than Science
- By A Customer on 05-26-17
-
Mercy for Animals
- One Man's Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals
- By: Gene Stone, Nathan Runkle
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nathan Runkle would have been a fifth-generation farmer in his small Midwestern town. Instead, he founded our nation's leading nonprofit organization for protecting factory farmed animals. In Mercy for Animals, Nathan brings us into the trenches of his organization's work; from MFA's early days in grassroots activism, to dangerous and dramatic experiences doing undercover investigations, to the organization's current large-scale efforts at making sweeping legislative change to protect factory farmed animals and encourage compassionate food choices.
-
-
Powerful, emotional and inspiring
- By Keegan on 10-27-17
By: Gene Stone, and others
-
Farmageddon
- The True Cost of Cheap Meat
- By: Philip Lymbery, Isabel Oakeshott
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Farm animals have been disappearing from our fields as the production of food has become a global industry. We no longer know for certain what is entering the food chain and what we are eating - as the UK horsemeat scandal demonstrated. We are reaching a tipping point as the farming revolution threatens our countryside, health, and the quality of our food wherever we live in the world.
-
-
Excellent insight of industrial farming
- By Grazyna on 04-19-14
By: Philip Lymbery, and others
-
Poison Spring
- The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA
- By: E. G. Vallianatos, McKay Jenkins
- Narrated by: Michael McConnahie
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Imagine walking into a restaurant and finding chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, or neonicotinoid insecticides listed in the description of your entree. They may not be printed in the menu, but many are in your food.These are a few of the literally millions of pounds of approved synthetic substances dumped into the environment every day, not just in the US but around the world.
-
-
A Frightening Wake Up Call!
- By Exec. Chef 'Special K' on 07-02-14
By: E. G. Vallianatos, and others
-
Fast Food Nation
- The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To a degree both engrossing and alarming, the story of fast food is the story of postwar America. Fast Food Nation is a groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that may change the way America thinks about the way it eats.
-
-
Uncritical alarmist rant
- By Mark Freeman on 12-23-03
By: Eric Schlosser
-
Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
- The American West and Its Disappearing Water
- By: Marc Reisner
- Narrated by: Joe Spieler, Kate Udall
- Length: 27 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants to transform the West.
-
-
Too much mouth noise in narration
- By AES on 07-23-19
By: Marc Reisner
-
Yellow Dirt
- An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed
- By: Judy Pasternak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people. The Navajo worked unprotected in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Long after these mines were abandoned, Navajos in all four corners of the Reservation (which borders Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) continued grazing their animals on sagebrush flats riddled with uranium that had been blasted from the ground.
-
-
Dirty little secret of nuclear development
- By Buretto on 08-13-20
By: Judy Pasternak
-
The Big Necessity
- The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
- By: Rose George
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We prefer not to talk about it, but we should. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable. Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do - and don't - deal with their own waste.
-
-
Utterly fascinating
- By Clayton on 03-31-19
By: Rose George
-
Lentil Underground
- Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America
- By: Liz Carlisle
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of the "Lentil Underground" begins on a 280-acre homestead rooted in America's Great Plains: the Oien family farm. Forty years ago, corporate agribusiness told small farmers like the Oiens to "get big or get out." But 27-year-old David Oien decided to take a stand, becoming the first in his conservative Montana county to plant a radically different crop: organic lentils. Unlike the chemically dependent grains American farmers had been told to grow, lentils make their own fertilizer and tolerate variable climates, so their farmers aren't beholden to industrial methods.
-
-
Fingers on the pulse of sustainable ag
- By shakinfist on 06-30-20
By: Liz Carlisle
-
The Meat Racket
- The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business
- By: Christopher Leonard
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How much do you know about the meat on your dinner plate? Journalist Christopher Leonard spent more than a decade covering the country's biggest meat companies, including four years as the national agribusiness reporter for the Associated Press. Now he delivers the first comprehensive look inside the industrial meat system, exposing how a handful of companies executed an audacious corporate takeover of the nation's meat supply.
-
-
Hits the nail on the head.
- By Anonymous 8888 on 02-04-15
-
The King of California
- J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire
- By: Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.
-
-
Interesting story of California Ag history
- By Jean on 08-11-14
By: Mark Arax, and others
-
The Soil Will Save Us
- How Scientists, Farmers, and Ranchers Are Tending the Soil to Reverse Global Warming
- By: Kristin Ohlson
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.
-
-
Rambling, mile wide, inch deep treatment of a subject
- By Charles Phillips on 10-17-18
By: Kristin Ohlson
-
Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman
- Conservation Heroes of the American Heartland
- By: Miriam Horn
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Many of the men and women doing today's most consequential environmental work - restoring America's grasslands, wildlife, soil, rivers, wetlands, and oceans - would not call themselves environmentalists; they would be too uneasy with the connotations of that word. What drives them is their deep love of the land - the iconic terrain where explorers and cowboys, pioneers, and riverboat captains forged the American identity. They feel a moral responsibility to preserve this heritage and natural wealth.
-
-
great stories
- By GMMT on 05-15-18
By: Miriam Horn
-
The Boom
- How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World
- By: Russell Gold
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russell Gold, a brilliant and dogged investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, has spent more than a decade reporting on one of the biggest stories of our time: the spectacular, world-changing rise of "fracking". Recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a recipient of the Gerald Loeb Award for his work, Gold has traveled along the pipelines and into the hubs of this country’s energy infrastructure; he has visited frack sites from Texas to North Dakota; and he has conducted thousands of interviews with engineers and wildcatters, CEOs and roughnecks, environmentalists and politicians.
-
-
Somehow the author manages to stay balanced
- By Emily C on 05-28-14
By: Russell Gold
-
Bushwhacked
- Life in George W. Bush's America
- By: Molly Ivins, Lou Dubose
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In their second book on our current White House occupant, Ivins and Dubose take the wire brush to the Bush presidency and show how he has applied the same flawed strategies he used in governing Texas to running the largest superpower in the world.
-
-
Richly informative & entertaining...
- By Native Texan on 10-29-03
By: Molly Ivins, and others
-
The Idealist
- Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty
- By: Nina Munk
- Narrated by: Susan Nezami
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeffrey Sachs - celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential best seller The End of Poverty - disagrees. In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about ending extreme poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development."
-
-
Sachs tries hard but the system is not there
- By Amazon Customer on 11-13-15
By: Nina Munk
-
The Swamp
- The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise
- By: Michael Grunwald
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Everglades was America's last frontier, a wild country long after the West was won. In this book Michael Grunwald chronicles how a series of visionaries tried to drain and "reclaim" it and how Mother Nature refused to bend to their will; in the most harrowing tale, a 1928 hurricane drowned 2,500 people in the Everglades. But the Army Corps of Engineers finally tamed the beast with levees and canals, converting half the Everglades into sprawling suburbs and sugar plantations.
-
-
This is not Jiminy Cricket's river
- By Robert R. on 09-02-18
By: Michael Grunwald
What listeners say about Animal Factory
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Glenda
- 03-29-11
Excellent
I would highly recommend this book to anyone concerned about the food we buy in the stores. Easy to listen to and I now look at meat in the stores in a whole different light.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael M.
- 04-30-12
Balanced view, until the end...
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
The author presented a very non-partisan critique of the indistrial food system throughout the book, until the end. The lack of "change" and the maintenance of the status quo in the current administration is excused, citing 2 wars and the economy.
Regrettably, every administration in the past 20 years has worsened this condition. For me, this detracted from the credibility of the entire book at the end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tim
- 07-19-12
Another Erin Brockovich
If Erin Brockovich wasn't became so mainstream in Hollywood, I can see the studio writing a screenplay for "Animal Factory" and Julia Roberts being the lead activist taking charge. The material that is presented is good, but after a while, it became too much, where I lost interest in listening another tragic stories about water pollution, cancer, animal waste, chicken farms, pig farms, and especially the court system and politics. The book looses its focal point when it goes on and on with the White House and politics with the entire food industry. Instead of reading about the animals, you are about to read the legal system. If you are looking for a straight read on what we consume, read "Eating Animals" or the classic "Fast Food Nation". They are much more linear to the subject.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anthony
- 12-17-11
Same ol'story
What would have made Animal Factory better?
The text needs far more diversity in subject matter and far more depth in exploration.
Would you ever listen to anything by David Kirby again?
Yes, the narration is very good,
Which character – as performed by William Hughes – was your favorite?
NA
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Not much of anything. I am most devoted to humane treatment of animals but this book took us nowhere new. It's the kind of book that people who rant rather than think use to defend their position. Animals need to be properly raised and the environment needs to be cared for. But this book just contributes to the notion that animal wellfare is extremist, tree hugger nonesense.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Art
- 10-21-12
Too long, too anecdotal, & too much heat with too
What disappointed you about Animal Factory?
I was disappointed with the lack of science in the discussion of health concerns. For example, historically most cancer clusters have been a recognized statistical artifact (i.e. a sampling issue, not a health issue) in public health for many years. However, the author devotes many sentences itemizing these anecdotes and only a relatively brief allusion to the lack of causal association with CAFOs.
There is a legitimate argument to be made regarding pollution and the cost to society, but it is obscured by many pages of health effects innuendo.
What didn’t you like about William Hughes’s performance?
He did not pronounce scientific names correctly.
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Animal Factory?
Shorten family anecdotes in favor of a more thoughtful discussion of lack of health evidence, and legitimate debate on pollution, costs to society, and farm subsidies.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Demi
- 04-30-19
great topic but very boring and too long...
To be fair I thought this was a book about the animal factories other than a book about "the fight against animal factories". If that is what you are looking for (ie. a detailed account of how cow poop smelled so bad that people living on the farm can't stand it anymore and the organization and drama it took to join forces...and how a middle ages men volunteers to be the river inspector and spent a few years figuring out where the algae bloom came from...) then this is a good book. It is just way too boring for me. While I feel bad for the struggle of people in the book, that really wasn't what I am looking for,
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!