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The Devil’s Pleasure Palace
- The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West
- Narrated by: Michael Walsh
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world's premier military power. Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority. Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, burgeoning transnational elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war's refugees but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of "critical theory". At once overly intellectualized and emotionally juvenile, critical theory - like Pandora's box - released a horde of demons into the American psyche. When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a Central European nihilism celebrated on college campuses across the United States. In The Devil's Pleasure Palace, Michael Walsh looks at how critical theory took root in America and came to affect nearly every aspect of American life and society - and what can be done to stop it.
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- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Western civilization is under attack. At universities and in the media, professors and pundits decry Western civilization as exploitative, destructive, and without value. But fear not: coming to its defense is this "P.I." guide to Western civilization.
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Holy Neo-Nazism Batman!
- By Douglas on 12-03-11
By: Anthony Esolen
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The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History
- By: Jeffrey Burton Russell
- Narrated by: Gordon Greenhill
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles - throughout history the Prince of Darkness, the Western world's most powerful symbol of evil, has taken many names and shapes. Jeffrey Burton Russell here chronicles the remarkable story of the Devil from antiquity to the present. While recounting how past generations have personified evil, he deepens our understanding of the ways in which people have dealt with the enduring problem of radical evil. Russell uncovers the origins of the concept of the Devil in various early cultures and then traces its evolution in Western thought from the time of the ancient Hebrews through the first centuries of the Christian era. Next he turns to the medieval view of the Devil, focusing on images found in folklore, scholastic thought, art, literature, mysticism, and witchcraft.
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Wonderfully engaging
- By Anonymous User on 04-26-23
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Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
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Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
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Stay
- A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It
- By: Jennifer Michael Hecht
- Narrated by: Jennifer Michael Hecht
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve. Despite distressing statistics that show suicide rates rising, the subject, long a taboo, is infrequently talked about. In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht channels her grief for two friends lost to suicide into a search for history’s most persuasive arguments against the irretrievable act, arguments she hopes to bring back into public consciousness.
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Informative but oddly dispassionate
- By Scott on 01-07-14
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The Story Paradox
- How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down
- By: Jonathan Gottschall
- Narrated by: Joshua Kane
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Humans are storytelling animals. Stories are what make our societies possible. Countless books celebrate their virtues. But Jonathan Gottschall, an expert on the science of stories, argues that there is a dark side to storytelling we can no longer ignore. Storytelling, the very tradition that built human civilization, may be the thing that destroys it.
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A bit of a mixed bag with some amazing discussion
- By Justin on 04-27-22
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The Tyranny of Clichés
- How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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According to Goldberg, if the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, the greatest trick liberals ever pulled was convincing themselves they’re not ideological. Today “objective” journalists and academics and “moderate” politicians peddle some of the most radical arguments by hiding them in homespun aphorisms.
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I enjoyed it...and I'm a Democrat!!
- By Private. on 05-14-12
By: Jonah Goldberg
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The Rebel
- By: Albert Camus
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he reveals how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny.
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This book is amazing
- By Amazon Customer on 10-06-19
By: Albert Camus
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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Looking for the Good War
- American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Elizabeth D. Samet
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans - all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States' "exceptional" history and destiny.
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Essential reading for military officers and political decision makers.
- By Arlene S. Burke on 02-23-22
What listeners say about The Devil’s Pleasure Palace
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Erika
- 01-03-20
Excellent, provocative and informative.
I was hoping to find a book like this that took an art critics approach to critical theory and it’s dogma giving us a primer for dismantling it. Excellent read with plenty of references that just added to my reading list.
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- Shamgar
- 09-10-21
Should be read by everyone!
This would have 5 stars if it weren't for the knee-jerk reaction of trolls who rate it low without reading it simply because it doesn't appear to align with their worldview. It's tough to argue with the facts and history presented here--no, it's impossible--because they're facts. If you are at all interested in how America got itself into such a cultural quagmire--read this. But only if you're willing to see just how far down the rabbit hole goes!
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- Christopher S. Hamilton
- 04-06-23
Wordy, but worthy
It was a book that one can get lost in the weeds as it jumps around from everything from Milton, to movies, to opera, and everything in-between. However, the content is more relevant than ever and the overall themes and message is very good.
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- Mac
- 11-17-16
Great book on why the left always want to destroy
Think of the weird relationship between Islam and the political left. Ever wonder why? This book takes you to the root of the problem.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-25-16
good prose with narration by author.
author fails to delve, but by way of offhand references, into the Jewish question. also be prepared for a lot of classical especially Christian citations and allusions. author also forgoes chronological or linear systematic descriptions of the various Frankfurt intellectuals, in contradistinction to e.g. <<intellectuals>> by p. Johnson, in favor of a more freeform essay-like approach, which actually works better in this case.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-02-17
A technical read, rich in history!!
I cannot recommend this book enough! rich in history, and eye opening. Prepare to think!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bin
- 11-07-23
America in cold civil war
This book gave a deep analysis on the true nature of the ‘progressives’. It pointed out, in 2015, America is in cold civil war, fighting on the ideas this time.
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- Alexander
- 06-14-16
Sweeping analysis of academic and cultural decay
Walsh has done an important service to the Western world through this wide-ranging work. Surveying the influence of the Frankfurt school on Western culture through academia, politics, literature, and music, one sees a deep, multi-generational movement aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of liberty and virtue. In some ways, Walsh didn't tell me anything I didn't know - at least in pieces. But he puts everything together by connecting it to the "unholy left's" obsession with Eros and Thanatos.
If you've gotten to the point of reading reviews on this book, stop what you're doing and get it. It will easily be the most significant book you'll read this year.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Daniel Powell
- 10-04-16
Very well done
An essential read for everyone in Western culture. This book clearly leads one to question the origins and implications of the social justice movement, and provides an extremely well developed examination of its birth from nihilism and dialectical materialism. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking an intellectual and rational approach to the subject, as opposed to an emotional one.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 10-21-15
The Most Intelligent Book You'll Hear This Year
Brilliant! The writing, history, and artistic structure are masterful; the thesis is spot on; and the performance is pitch perfect. Mr. Walsh has written a robust defense of Western Culture and supported it with art, music, history, and philosophy. Structuring the defense around Faust is masterful in itself and the performance just rounds out that mastery. Having thus far listened just once, but planning to begin a second listen on tomorrow's morning commute, I can only imagine this will be one of those staples one returns to; like The Lessons of History, A Christmas Carol, Good Omens, or The Everlasting Man. Thank you, Mr. Walsh, for gloriously defending our culture and being willing to identify the logical, nihilistic end of today's post-modern cynicism that masquerades as culture... (from an admitted Kahaniac).
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11 people found this helpful