
King Dollar
The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency
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Narrated by:
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David Stifel
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By:
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Paul Blustein
About this listen
An award-winning economic journalist on why the US dollar is positioned to maintain global primacy—and what that means for America and the world
Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world's dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China's renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar's value to the point of irrelevancy.
Contra the doomsayers, Paul Blustein shows that the dollar's standing atop the world's currency pyramid is impregnable, barring catastrophic policy missteps by the US government. Recounting how the United States has wielded the dollar to impose devastating sanctions against adversaries, Blustein explains that although targets such as Russia have found ways to limit the damage, Washington's financial weaponry will retain potency long into the future. His message, however, is that America must not be complacent about the dollar; the great power that its supremacy confers comes with commensurate responsibility.
©2025 Paul Blustein (P)2025 Ascent AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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A hilarious guide to what's real (and what's not) in our vast, beautiful (and terrifying) universe.
By: Chris Ferrie
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Slither
- How Nature's Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World
- By: Stephen S. Hall
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In Slither, Stephen S. Hall presents a naturalistic, cultural, ecological, and scientific meditation on these loathed yet magnetic creatures. In each chapter, he explores a biological aspect of The Snake, such as their cold blooded metabolism and venomous nature, alongside their mythology, artistic depictions, and cultural veneration.
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For Snake Lovers and Haters Both
- By CRK on 04-26-25
By: Stephen S. Hall
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The House Divided
- Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East
- By: Barnaby Rogerson
- Narrated by: Keval Shah
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins—which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632; the accidental coup that set aside the claims of his son Ali; and the slaughter of Ali's own son Husayn at Karbala. These events, known to every Muslim, have created a slender fault line in the Middle East.
By: Barnaby Rogerson
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Beyond Stoicism
- A Guide to the Good Life with Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Other Ancient Philosophers
- By: Gregory Lopez, Massimo Pigliucci, Meredith Alexander Kunz
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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What is a good life? And how can we create that life in a world filled with uncertainty? Beyond Stoicism invites you to find your own answers to these big questions with help from thirteen of the most prominent Greco-Roman philosophers―many of whom inspired, or were inspired by, the Stoics.
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Doubt, Uncertainty and Scepticism
- By Kindle Customer on 02-06-25
By: Gregory Lopez, and others
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The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire
- Why Our Species Is on the Edge of Extinction
- By: Henry Gee
- Narrated by: Henry Gee
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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We are living through a period that is unique in human history. For the first time in more than ten thousand years, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. In the middle of this century population growth will stop, and the number of people on Earth will start to decline—fast. In this provocative book, award-winning science writer Henry Gee offers a concise, brilliantly told history of our species—and argues that we are on a rapid one-way trip to extinction.
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Too many facts..no wisdom
- By Anonymous User on 03-30-25
By: Henry Gee
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Journeys of the Mind
- A Life in History
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 30 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the "neglected half-millennium" now known as late antiquity was crucial to the development of modern Europe and the Middle East. In Journeys of the Mind, Brown recounts his life and work, describing his efforts to recapture the spirit of an age.
By: Peter Brown
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Is Anyone Listening?
- What Animals Are Saying to Each Other and to Us
- By: Denise L. Herzing
- Narrated by: Allyson Ryan
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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If you could pose one question to a dolphin, what would it be? And what might a dolphin ask you? For forty years, researcher and author Denise L. Herzing has investigated these and related questions of marine mammal communication. But the dolphins are not the only ones talking, and in this wide-ranging and accessible book, Herzing explores the astonishing realities of interspecies communication, a skill that humans currently lack.
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Lincoln's Peace
- The Struggle to End the American Civil War
- By: Michael Vorenberg
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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We set out on the James River, March 25, 1865, aboard the paddle steamboat River Queen. President Lincoln is on his way to General Grant’s headquarters at City Point, Virginia, and he’s decided he won’t return to Washington until he’s witnessed, or perhaps even orchestrated, the end of the Civil War. Now, it turns out, more than a century and a half later, historians are still searching for that end.
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Pigeons
- The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird
- By: Andrew D. Blechman
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Domesticated since the dawn of man, pigeons have been used as crucial communicators in war by every major historical superpower from ancient Egypt to the United States and are credited with saving thousands of lives. They have been worshipped as fertility goddesses and revered as symbols of peace. Charles Darwin relied heavily on pigeons to help formulate and support his theory of evolution. Yet today they are reviled as "rats with wings."
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Red Scare
- Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America
- By: Clay Risen
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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An urgent, accessible, and important history, Red Scare reveals an all-too-familiar pattern of illiberal conspiracy-mongering and political and cultural backlash that speaks directly to the antagonism and divisiveness of our contemporary moment. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.
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Very disappointing narrator
- By DB on 04-19-25
By: Clay Risen
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The Last Days of Budapest
- The Destruction of Europe's Most Cosmopolitan Capital in World War II
- By: Adam LeBor
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Budapest, autumn 1943. After four years of war, Hungary was firmly allied with Nazi Germany. Budapest swirled with intrigue and betrayal, home to spies and agents of every kind. But the city remained an oasis in the midst of conflict where Allied POWs and Polish and Jewish refugees found sanctuary. All that came to an end in March 1944 when the Nazis invaded. By the summer Allied bombers were pounding Budapest’s grand boulevards and historic squares.
By: Adam LeBor