-
Political Choice in a Polarized America
- How Elite Polarization Shapes Mass Behavior
- Narrated by: Jonathan Sleep
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
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 $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
What motivates citizens to support one party over the other? Do they carefully weigh all of the relevant issues and assess which party or candidate best matches their own positions? Or do people look at politics as something more akin to a team sport—the specifics do not matter as long as you know what side your team is on? Answering these questions requires us to think about how much the average American knows about politics. Many scholars of public opinion believe that the majority of Americans only pay passing attention to politics. Thus the electorate's apparent lack of political competence presents a direct challenge to normative theories of democracy. How are citizens supposed to exert control over the government if they have no idea what is going on?
In Political Choice in a Polarized America, Joshua N. Zingher argues that these fears are overblown. Not only do individuals have core beliefs about what the government should or should not do, but individuals have become more likely to support the party that best matches their policy attitudes by both identifying as a member of that party and voting for that party in elections. However, as Zingher demonstrates, voters' ability to match their attitudes to a party or candidate varies according to signals sent by elites and increases as parties become more polarized.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Bitter End
- The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy
- By: John Sides, Chris Tusanovitch, Lynn Vavreck
- Narrated by: Alex Knox
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year 2020 was a tumultuous time in American politics. It brought a global pandemic, protests for racial justice, and a razor-thin presidential election outcome. It culminated in an attack on the US Capitol that attempted to deny Joe Biden's victory. The Bitter End explores the long-term trends and short-term shocks that shaped this dramatic year and what these changes could mean for the future. Ultimately, instead of the country coming together to face national challenges—the pandemic, George Floyd's murder, and the Capitol riot—the challenges only reinforced divisions.
By: John Sides, and others
-
Pandemic Politics
- The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID
- By: Shana Kushner Gadarian, Sara Wallace Goodman, Thomas B. Pepinsky
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
COVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics examines how Donald Trump politicized COVID-19, shedding new light on how his administration tied the pandemic to the president’s political fate in an election year and chose partisanship over public health. This book draws on a wealth of new data on public opinion to show how pandemic politics has touched all aspects of our lives, and puts America’s COVID-19 response in global perspective.
By: Shana Kushner Gadarian, and others
-
Strength in Numbers
- How Polls Work and Why We Need Them
- By: G. Elliott Morris
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Public opinion polling is the ultimate democratic process; it gives every person an equal voice in letting elected leaders know what they need and want. But in the eyes of the public, polls today are tarnished. Recent election forecasts have routinely missed the mark and media coverage of polls has focused solely on predicting winners and losers. In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improve democracy, not just predict elections.
-
-
Good Content marred by bad AI reading
- By Josh Sarpen on 09-14-22
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
Foolproof
- Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity
- By: Sander van der Linden
- Narrated by: Sander van der Linden
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being—yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation.
-
-
Useful, but problematic
- By Doug on 06-29-23
-
Degenerations of Democracy
- By: Craig Calhoun, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Democracy is in trouble. Populism is a common scapegoat, but not the root cause. More basic are social and economic transformations eroding the foundations of democracy, ruling elites trying to lock in their own privilege, and cultural perversions like making individualistic freedom the enemy of democracy's other crucial ideals of equality and solidarity. In Degenerations of Democracy, three of our most prominent intellectuals investigate democracy gone awry, locate our points of fracture, and suggest paths to democratic renewal.
By: Craig Calhoun, and others
-
The Bitter End
- The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy
- By: John Sides, Chris Tusanovitch, Lynn Vavreck
- Narrated by: Alex Knox
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The year 2020 was a tumultuous time in American politics. It brought a global pandemic, protests for racial justice, and a razor-thin presidential election outcome. It culminated in an attack on the US Capitol that attempted to deny Joe Biden's victory. The Bitter End explores the long-term trends and short-term shocks that shaped this dramatic year and what these changes could mean for the future. Ultimately, instead of the country coming together to face national challenges—the pandemic, George Floyd's murder, and the Capitol riot—the challenges only reinforced divisions.
By: John Sides, and others
-
Pandemic Politics
- The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID
- By: Shana Kushner Gadarian, Sara Wallace Goodman, Thomas B. Pepinsky
- Narrated by: Katherine Fenton
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
COVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics examines how Donald Trump politicized COVID-19, shedding new light on how his administration tied the pandemic to the president’s political fate in an election year and chose partisanship over public health. This book draws on a wealth of new data on public opinion to show how pandemic politics has touched all aspects of our lives, and puts America’s COVID-19 response in global perspective.
By: Shana Kushner Gadarian, and others
-
Strength in Numbers
- How Polls Work and Why We Need Them
- By: G. Elliott Morris
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Public opinion polling is the ultimate democratic process; it gives every person an equal voice in letting elected leaders know what they need and want. But in the eyes of the public, polls today are tarnished. Recent election forecasts have routinely missed the mark and media coverage of polls has focused solely on predicting winners and losers. In Strength in Numbers, data journalist G. Elliott Morris argues that the larger purpose of political polls is to improve democracy, not just predict elections.
-
-
Good Content marred by bad AI reading
- By Josh Sarpen on 09-14-22
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
Foolproof
- Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity
- By: Sander van der Linden
- Narrated by: Sander van der Linden
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being—yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation.
-
-
Useful, but problematic
- By Doug on 06-29-23
-
Degenerations of Democracy
- By: Craig Calhoun, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Democracy is in trouble. Populism is a common scapegoat, but not the root cause. More basic are social and economic transformations eroding the foundations of democracy, ruling elites trying to lock in their own privilege, and cultural perversions like making individualistic freedom the enemy of democracy's other crucial ideals of equality and solidarity. In Degenerations of Democracy, three of our most prominent intellectuals investigate democracy gone awry, locate our points of fracture, and suggest paths to democratic renewal.
By: Craig Calhoun, and others
-
New Democracy
- The Creation of the Modern American State
- By: William J. Novak
- Narrated by: A.W. Miller
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the period between the Civil War and the New Deal, American governance was transformed, with momentous implications for social and economic life. Legal reforms gradually brought an end to traditions of local self-government and associative citizenship, replacing them with positive statecraft: governmental activism intended to change how Americans lived and worked. William J. Novak shows how Americans translated new conceptions of citizenship, social welfare, and economic democracy into demands for law and policy that delivered public services and vindicated people's rights.
By: William J. Novak
-
Active Measures
- The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
- By: Thomas Rid
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We live in the age of disinformation - of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm, even before the 2016 election. But this is not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the clash between communism and capitalism after the Russian Revolution.
-
-
Grounding book for COVID 19 Media
- By fjness on 05-12-20
By: Thomas Rid
-
Partisans
- The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s
- By: Nicole Hemmer
- Narrated by: Nicole Hemmer
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bold new history of modern conservatism that finds its origins in the populist right-wing politics of the 1990s.
-
-
Great history of the fringe elements of the Republican party that led to Donald Trump!
- By John on 01-24-23
By: Nicole Hemmer
-
The Big Sort
- Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart
- By: Bill Bishop, Robert G. Cushing
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2004, journalist Bill Bishop coined the term "the big sort". Armed with startling new demographic data, he made national news in a series of articles showing how Americans have been sorting themselves into alarmingly homogeneous communities - not by region or by state but by city and even neighborhood. Over the past three decades, we have been choosing the neighborhoods (and churches and news shows) compatible with our lifestyles and beliefs.
-
-
Build the Wall?
- By Amazon Customer on 01-23-19
By: Bill Bishop, and others
-
Homegrown
- Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism
- By: Jeffrey Toobin
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Toobin
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement. Speaking to his lawyers days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War veteran expressed no regrets: killing 168 people was his patriotic duty. New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, who once declared, “I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it.” But that doesn’t mean his army wasn’t there. With news-breaking reportage, Toobin details how McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001.
-
-
Not a great book I’m sorry to say
- By H. Winslow on 05-10-23
By: Jeffrey Toobin
-
The Flag and the Cross
- White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy
- By: Samuel L. Perry, Philip S. Gorski, Jemar Tisby - foreword
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capital on January 6th, 2021. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; "Jesus saves" and "Don't Tread on Me;" Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus's name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a confusing jumble, Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry saw a familiar ideology: white Christian nationalism.
-
-
could use an accompanying pdf
- By A W on 08-08-22
By: Samuel L. Perry, and others
-
Unholy
- Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump
- By: Sarah Posner
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this taut inquiry, Posner digs deep into the radical history of the religious right to reveal how issues of race and xenophobia have always been at the movement’s core, and how religion often cloaked anxieties about perceived threats to a white, Christian America. Fueled by an antidemocratic impulse, and united by this narrative of reverse victimization, the religious right and the alt-right support a common agenda.
-
-
How We Got Here
- By D. Sooley on 06-16-20
By: Sarah Posner
-
Recoding America
- Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
- By: Jennifer Pahlka
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pahlka
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bold call to reexamine how our government operates—and sometimes fails to—from President Obama’s former deputy chief technology officer and the founder of Code for America.
-
-
Very good, minimally partisan.
- By Samuel Mebane on 11-25-23
By: Jennifer Pahlka
-
I Never Thought of It That Way
- How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
- By: Mónica Guzmán
- Narrated by: Mónica Guzmán
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt - broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.
-
-
Good recommendations, bad justification
- By Jesse Hodges on 01-08-23
By: Mónica Guzmán
-
The Struggle for a Decent Politics
- On "Liberal" as an Adjective
- By: Michael Walzer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There was a time when liberalism was an ism like any other, but that time, writes Michael Walzer, is gone. “Liberal” now conveys not a specific ideology but a moral stance, so the word is best conceived not as a noun but as an adjective—one is a “liberal democrat” or a “liberal nationalist.” Walzer itemizes the characteristics described by “liberal” in an inventory of his own deepest political and moral commitments—among other things, to the principle of equality, to the rule of law, and to a pluralism that is both political and cultural.
By: Michael Walzer
-
Liberalism and Its Discontents
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's no secret that liberalism didn't always live up to its own ideals. In America, many people were denied equality before the law. Who counted as full human beings worthy of universal rights was contested for centuries, and only recently has this circle expanded to include women, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people, and others. Conservatives complain that liberalism empties the common life of meaning. As Francis Fukuyama shows in Liberalism and Its Discontents, the principles of liberalism have also, in recent decades, been pushed to new extremes by both the right and the left.
-
-
For those who haven’t given up yet.
- By DMax on 09-29-22
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
The Origins of Woke
- Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics
- By: Richard Hanania
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Hanania has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known writers in the nation in the last few years. In this book, he directs his attention to the culture war that has driven society apart and presents a stunning new theory about what is going on. In a nation nearly evenly split between conservatives and liberals, the left dominates nearly all major institutions, including universities, the government, and corporate America. Hanania argues that this is as much a legal requirement as it is an issue of one side triumphing in the marketplace of ideas.
-
-
New view of Civil Rights law
- By Customer on 11-04-23
By: Richard Hanania
Related to this topic
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
Expert Political Judgment
- How Good is it? How can We Know?
- By: Philip E. Tetlock
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This audiobook fills that need. Here, Philip E. Tetlock explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events, and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future.
-
-
Five-star book, one-star reading
- By Christian Tarsney on 01-23-19
-
They Don't Represent Us
- Reclaiming Our Democracy
- By: Lawrence Lessig
- Narrated by: Lawrence Lessig
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In They Don’t Represent Us, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig charts the way in which the fundamental institutions of our democracy, including our media, respond to narrow interests rather than to the needs and wishes of the nation’s citizenry. But the blame does not only lie with “them” - Washington’s politicians and power brokers, Lessig argues. The problem is also “us.”
-
-
All Americans should read/listen to this.
- By Christopher W Catron on 03-22-20
By: Lawrence Lessig
-
The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today.
-
-
For Progressives only. Won't make sense otherwise
- By Dennis G. on 12-19-20
By: Robert D. Putnam, and others
-
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
- A John Hope Franklin Center Book
- By: Immanuel Wallerstein
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered 30 years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization.
-
-
Uneven, but Ambitious
- By Logical Paradox on 08-27-14
-
Losing Ground
- American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Robert Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.
-
-
A great book ruined by a terrible recording
- By Michael on 04-05-13
By: Charles Murray
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
Expert Political Judgment
- How Good is it? How can We Know?
- By: Philip E. Tetlock
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This audiobook fills that need. Here, Philip E. Tetlock explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events, and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts. Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future.
-
-
Five-star book, one-star reading
- By Christian Tarsney on 01-23-19
-
They Don't Represent Us
- Reclaiming Our Democracy
- By: Lawrence Lessig
- Narrated by: Lawrence Lessig
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In They Don’t Represent Us, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig charts the way in which the fundamental institutions of our democracy, including our media, respond to narrow interests rather than to the needs and wishes of the nation’s citizenry. But the blame does not only lie with “them” - Washington’s politicians and power brokers, Lessig argues. The problem is also “us.”
-
-
All Americans should read/listen to this.
- By Christopher W Catron on 03-22-20
By: Lawrence Lessig
-
The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today.
-
-
For Progressives only. Won't make sense otherwise
- By Dennis G. on 12-19-20
By: Robert D. Putnam, and others
-
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
- A John Hope Franklin Center Book
- By: Immanuel Wallerstein
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered 30 years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization.
-
-
Uneven, but Ambitious
- By Logical Paradox on 08-27-14
-
Losing Ground
- American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Robert Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.
-
-
A great book ruined by a terrible recording
- By Michael on 04-05-13
By: Charles Murray
-
Enlightened Democracy
- The Case for the Electoral College, 2nd Edition
- By: Tara Ross
- Narrated by: Tara Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Enlightened Democracy traces the history of the Electoral College from the Constitutional Convention to the present. The Electoral College protects our republic and promotes our liberty. Americans should defend their unique presidential election system at all costs.
-
-
Hold your breath
- By Ein on 03-13-20
By: Tara Ross
-
Dog Whistle Politics
- How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class
- By: Ian Haney López
- Narrated by: Eric Yves Garcia
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Dog Whistle Politics, Ian Haney Lopez offers a sweeping account of how politicians and plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog-whistle appeals generate middle-class enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration, and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes for the rich.
-
-
Narration like verbal water boarding
- By Mark Andreadis on 08-31-15
By: Ian Haney López
-
The People vs. Democracy
- Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
- By: Yascha Mounk
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is in turmoil. From India to Turkey and from Poland to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power. As a result democracy itself may now be at risk. Two core components of liberal democracy - individual rights and the popular will - are at war with each other. As the role of money in politics soared and important issues were taken out of public contestation, a system of "rights without democracy" took hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people. But in practice they create a system of "democracy without rights."
-
-
Not worth it
- By DailyShopper on 06-07-18
By: Yascha Mounk
-
The Decline and Rise of Democracy
- A Global History from Antiquity to Today
- By: David Stastavage
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer - democratic practices were present in many places at many other times. David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished - and when and why they declined - can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.
-
-
Informative
- By Frank on 12-22-20
By: David Stastavage
-
The Conscience of a Liberal
- By: Paul Krugman
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. Now, the tide may be turning, and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world's most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.
-
-
Great Book!!!
- By carl801 on 12-04-07
By: Paul Krugman
-
The Myth of the Rational Voter
- Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
- By: Bryan Caplan
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.
-
-
Refreshing
- By Lyle Wincentsen on 05-12-11
By: Bryan Caplan
-
Native American DNA
- Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science
- By: Kim TallBear
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Native American DNA, Kim TallBear shows how DNA testing is a powerful - and problematic - scientific process that is useful in determining close biological relatives. But tribal membership is a legal category that has developed in dependence on certain social understandings and historical contexts, a set of concepts that entangles genetic information in a web of family relations, reservation histories, tribal rules, and government regulations.
-
-
Intelligent, thought provoking
- By k g on 05-24-24
By: Kim TallBear
-
Right Here, Right Now
- Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption
- By: Stephen J. Harper
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Harper
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is in flux. Disruptive technologies, ideas, and politicians are challenging business models, norms, and political conventions everywhere. How we, as leaders in business and politics, choose to respond matters greatly. Right Here, Right Now sets out a pragmatic, forward-looking vision for leaders in business and politics by analyzing how economic, social, and public policy trends - including globalized movements of capital, goods, and services, and labor - have affected our economies, communities, and governments.
-
-
Excellent book on Politics for Canadians AND Americans
- By John Fernandes on 10-19-18
-
Big Gods
- How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict
- By: Ara Norenzayan
- Narrated by: Paul Nixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.
-
-
Great read
- By paro on 02-27-24
By: Ara Norenzayan
-
Temptations of Power
- Islamists & Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East
- By: Shadi Hamid
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama famously announced the "end of history." The Berlin Wall had fallen; liberal democracy had won out. But what of illiberal democracy - the idea that popular majorities, working through the democratic process, might reject gender equality, religious freedoms, and other norms that Western democracies take for granted? Nowhere have such considerations become more relevant than in the Middle East, where the uprisings of 2011 swept the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups to power.
-
-
A new perspective
- By Dave114 on 08-06-18
By: Shadi Hamid
-
In Defense of Troublemakers
- The Power of Dissent in Life and Business
- By: Charlan Nemeth
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making.
-
-
A Good Review of Group Thinking
- By J. Justice on 03-20-24
By: Charlan Nemeth
-
Why Trust Science?
- The University Center for Human Values, Book 1
- By: Naomi Oreskes
- Narrated by: John Chancer, Kelly Burke, Kerry Shale, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do doctors really know what they are talking about when they tell us vaccines are safe? Should we take climate experts at their word when they warn us about the perils of global warming? Why should we trust science when our own politicians don't? In this landmark book, Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength - and the greatest reason we can trust it.
-
-
Perfect Production of an Excellent Work
- By Andrew Mazibrada on 01-15-20
By: Naomi Oreskes