How the Other Half Lives
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Narrated by:
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Danny Campbell
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By:
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Jacob Riis
About this listen
How the Other Half Lives was a pioneering work of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. It served as a basis for future muckraking journalism by exposing the slums to New York City's upper and middle class. How The Other Half Lives quickly became a landmark in the annals of social reform. Riis documented the filth, disease, exploitation, and overcrowding that characterized the experience of more than one million immigrants. He helped push tenement reform to the front of New York's political agenda, and prompted then-Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt to close down the police-run poor houses. Roosevelt later called Riis "the most useful citizen of New York". Riis's idea inspired Jack London to write a similar expos on London's East End, called People of the Abyss.
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Narrator Danny Campbell beautifully illustrates this blunt and righteous text. Photojournalist and consciousness objector Jacob Riis unearthed the plight of New York slum dwellers in the 1880s via brutally honest photography. He was a pioneer of art in the cause of social justice. He also wrote singeing indictments of the other half, the people of privilege who are indifferent to and often profit from the misery of the poor. His criticism is specific to the New York of that time, but on a broader note it highlights the legacy of inequity among mankind. Riis is not the dispassionate witness; he is deeply committed to shaming those who pretend ignorance of inequity. Campbell’s quietly angry voice shares Riis’ turbulent emotions, which range from outrage to grief.
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Only Yesterday
- An Informal History of the 1920s
- By: Frederick Lewis Allen
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In this span between armistice and depression, Americans were kicking up their heels, but they were also bringing about major changes in the social and political structure of their country. Only Yesterday is a fond, witty, penetrating biography of this restless decade, a delightful reminiscence for those who can remember and a fascinating firsthand look for those who've only heard.
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Loved this book
- By Matthew M. Kayes on 06-11-07
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Triangle
- The Fire That Changed America
- By: David Von Drehle
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 25, 1911, as workers were getting ready to leave for the day, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York's Greenwich Village. Within minutes it spread to consume the building's upper three stories. Firemen who arrived at the scene were unable to rescue those trapped inside: their ladders simply weren't tall enough. People on the street watched in horror as desperate workers jumped to their deaths. It was the worst disaster in New York City history.
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Interesting but Loong
- By JAS on 04-21-18
By: David Von Drehle
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China in Ten Words
- By: Yu Hua, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of China’s most acclaimed writers, his first work of nonfiction to appear in English: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades, told through personal stories and astute analysis that sharply illuminate the country’s meteoric economic and social transformation. Characterized by Yu Hua’s trademark wit, insight, and courage, China in Ten Words is a refreshingly candid vision of the “Chinese miracle” and all its consequences, from the singularly invaluable perspective of a writer living in China today.
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Best Popular Book on China
- By taylor storey on 09-21-14
By: Yu Hua, and others
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The Sun and the Moon
- Hoaxers, Showmen, and Lunar Man-Bats in 19th-Century New York
- By: Matthew Goodman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sun and the Moon tells the delightful and surprisingly true story of how a series of articles in the Sun newspaper in 1835 convinced the citizens of New York that the moon was inhabited. Purporting to reveal discoveries of a famous British astronomer, the series described such moon life as unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and four-foot-tall flying man-bats. It quickly became the most widely circulated newspaper story of the era.
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some very good some very bad
- By peter on 10-30-10
By: Matthew Goodman
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Empire of Sin
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' 30-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides.
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very interesting
- By Claireoline on 02-20-15
By: Gary Krist
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The Graves Are Walking
- The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People
- By: John Kelly
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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It started in 1845 and lasted six years. Before it was over, more than one million men, women, and children starved to death and another million fled the country. Measured in terms of mortality, the Great Irish Potato Famine was one of the worst disasters in the 19th century-it claimed twice as many lives as the American Civil War. A perfect storm of bacterial infection, political greed, and religious intolerance sparked this catastrophe.
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Unforgettable, Haunting, and a Compelling Warning
- By Carole T. on 08-22-12
By: John Kelly
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City of Dreams
- The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York
- By: Tyler Anbinder
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Tyler Anbinder's story is one of innovators and artists, revolutionaries and rioters, staggering deprivation and soaring triumphs, all playing out against the powerful backdrop of New York City, at once ever changing and profoundly, permanently itself. City of Dreams provides a vivid sense of what New York looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like over the centuries of its development and maturation into the city we know today.
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Even as a history, not engaging
- By Patrick Kelly on 12-03-16
By: Tyler Anbinder
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The Novel of the Century
- The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables
- By: David Bellos
- Narrated by: David Bellos
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Putting a century of scholarship on one of the world's most enduring popular novels into accessible, narrative form, this new approach to a classic of world literature is written for a wide general audience. Packed full of information about the book's origins and later career on stage and screen, The Novel of the Century brings to life the extraordinary story of how Victor Hugo managed to write his novel of the downtrodden despite a revolution, a coup d'etat, and political exile.
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how hard to write a book
- By James Grohs on 08-06-24
By: David Bellos
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Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments
- Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
- By: Saidiya Hartman
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the 20th century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage.
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Utterly beautiful!
- By L.A. on 12-27-19
By: Saidiya Hartman
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The First Kennedys
- The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty
- By: Neal Thompson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly.
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Fascinating and inspiring
- By tejanomusic on 04-03-22
By: Neal Thompson
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The Famine Plot
- England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy
- By: Tim Pat Coogan
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sweeping history, Ireland's best-known historian, Tim Pat Coogan, tackles the dark history of the Irish Famine and argues that it constituted one of the first acts of genocide. In what the Boston Globe calls "his greatest achievement", Coogan shows how the British government hid behind the smoke screen of laissez faire economics, the invocation of divine providence, and a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign, allowing more than a million people to die agonizing deaths and driving a further million into emigration.
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Atrocities abound.
- By GMJ on 06-05-18
By: Tim Pat Coogan
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Damnation Island
- Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York
- By: Stacy Horn
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Today it is known as Roosevelt Island. In 1828, when New York City purchased this narrow, two-mile-long island in the East River, it was called Blackwell's Island. There, over the next hundred years, the city would build a lunatic asylum, prison, hospital, workhouse, and almshouse. Stacy Horn has crafted a compelling and chilling narrative told through the stories of the poor souls sent to Blackwell's, as well as the period's city officials, reformers, and journalists (including the famous Nellie Bly). Damnation Island re-creates what daily life was like on the island....
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Fascinating!
- By tamborine on 08-06-18
By: Stacy Horn
What listeners say about How the Other Half Lives
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Vincent Labowicz
- 12-31-19
Early Muckraking to a Fault
A title from 1890 is sure to fall on deaf ears for most listeners. Riis has a way to bring out the most lurid facets of poverty stricken NYC which personally I find very interesting. His own stereotypes and racism will sure rub a contingent of people the wrong way but it is best to hear it in the way he intended. The narrator did a great job at capturing that with the absolutely non-PC accents. A quicker listen than most that can take you back to a time most would probably rather sweep under the rug.
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- Matthew P Wood
- 02-07-24
Mini series please
I would love to see this book, turned into a miniseries much in the way that masters of the air has been turned.
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- Brandon
- 06-16-17
Great trip back in time
A look into history from when it was happening. The narrator fits this book perfectly.
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- Piper
- 01-15-23
Of Historical Interest
Writing style is very “wordy“. Could have benefited from a better narrator. This particular man reads forcefully; in a raspy voice. He adds nothing to interpretation and mispronounces too many words for my taste.
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- DEKEY
- 10-10-18
great history
found the book to be a great history lesson on the late 19th century U.S
. the similarities of the lower middle and upper class to today's political and class issues are astounding and I opening.
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- Ya'at'eeh
- 04-24-23
Good information
Informative, detailed, profound. Not edge-of-your-seat kind of story but does provide great imagery of the era and peoples of which it writes.
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- Alednam A Uonopk
- 11-04-21
Classic... Brings one into the depths of Poverty..
America has much history just sitting on shelves and an even more amount swept under the rug. Worth listening to thrice, possibly even worth having in physical form.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Nelson Alexander
- 01-16-10
A Masterpiece Recovered
I am, perhaps unwisely, writing this review before finishing the book, but I felt eager to proclaim it a revelation. I've read Riis before, but found it quite spellbinding to listen to the work, which is one of the great portraits of the city. Riis gives the sort of memorable character to New York's buildings and streets that Dickens gave to the residents of London. By today's standards his work is an odd blend of journalism, lore, data mining, and Victorian anthropology. Neither sociology nor maudlin reformism. The stereotypes may offend the sensitive, but are equitably distributed. While any graduate student can easily critique, deconstruct, or even psychoanalyze him, Riis truly stands on his own. While he is not Engels, the facts and descriptions make a vivid account of the problems that gave rise to the American Progressive Movement, and I would grant them a certain status as literature or art, especially if you look at his entire body of work along with the innovation of the flash photographs. What is surprising is how well the audio version stands up here without the photographs. Indeed, the famous images have had the effect of burying the writing. The reader does a good job, but his rough American drawl has a character of its own and may not be to everyone's taste. I might have preferred some attempt to replicate Riis's own voice, which I have always imagined as clipped, ironic, and heavily Danish. Though I have not yet finished as of this review, I can see that the book might drag without an overarching theme or natural narrative. Still, I would highly recommend it as a vital work of American journalism, history, and literature. And it a surprisingly colorful, interesting listen minus its celebrated photos. Actually, if might be nice to add the photos for an accompanying iPod slideshow.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Brittany Bobbitt
- 08-14-21
Great book! Terrible narration
What a fascinating look into life in the slums of NYC at the beginning of the 20th century. The narrator, however, is awful. He puts emphasis on the wrong parts of sentences and continuously mis-pronounces words. It is distracting.
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- Patricia
- 12-17-22
Pure History
What Jacob Riis does here is illuminate the reader as to conditions suffered by New York's poor population. From photographs, Riis constructs a narrative of New York's most hellish areas and at once, reveals the motivation for its inhabitants (mostly new immigrants) to improve themselves, their condition, and their place in America by moving up and out into mainstream America. Acknowledging the dichotomy between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, more than a few widows, fatherless boys, and orphans succumb to the mean streets of Lower Manhattan, while others are packed away on trains to be whisked to the safety of the West.
Riis takes notice of both the people of New York, as well as the built environment showing how community (Chinatown, Jewtown, Little Italy, and Bohemia) and structure (the Tenements, Cheap Lodging-houses, and the Bend) combine to produce an environment that motivates idealist dreamers, imprisons those that capitulate to its horrors, and crushes the weak and weary.
This is the story of American immigrants. Hard working, oppressed, abused, and ill-treated, but determined to make life a better place for their children, if not themselves. Riis pulls no punches when discussing ethnic groups, their behavior, and the vices that correlate with their condition.
Highly recommended.
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