29 Best 21st Century Books
21st Century is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top 21st Century audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 29 21st Century audiobooks below.
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America and the Art of the Possible
- By: Christopher Buskirk
- Narrator: Alex Boyles
- Length: 6 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2023
- Language: English
Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDBetween 1920 and 1950, America saw an unprecedented expansion of wealth and power underwritten by technological innovation, cultural confidence, and victory in war. American elites won World War II, rebuilt the world order with America at its head,Between 1920 and 1950, America saw an unprecedented expansion of wealth and power underwritten by technological innovation, cultural confidence, and victory in war. American elites won World War II, rebuilt the world order with America at its head, inaugurated the jet age, and put a man on the moon. The boom led to a larger, richer middle class that confirmed America’s best ideals.
By the early 1970s, that ended. American elites have captured a disproportionate share of the social and economic rewards over the last fifty years. Meanwhile, the middle class has shrunk in size and has become economically insecure, owning a smaller share of national wealth than at any time in the nation’s history. This has happened even while most households have two income earners, versus the single-income households that characterized the period of shared prosperity. At the same time, technological innovation that improves people’s standard of living has dramatically slowed.
These trends undermine the basic premise behind the broad acceptance of a meritocratic elite, whose rule is predicated on the belief that if the best rise to the top, their talent and energy will create a rising tide that lifts all boats. We had that once. We can have it again.
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Children Under Fire
- By: John Woodrow Cox
- Narrator: Graham Halstead
- Length: 10 hours 16 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: March 30, 2021
- Language: English
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4.62(617 ratings)
4.62(617 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.99 USDOne of The New York Times‘ 16 New Books to Watch for in March One of Publishers Weekly‘s Most Anticipated Books of the Year One of Newsweek‘s Most Highly Anticipated Books of The Year One of Buzzfeed’s Most Anticipated BooksOne of The New York Times‘ 16 New Books to Watch for in March
One of Publishers Weekly‘s Most Anticipated Books of the Year
One of Newsweek‘s Most Highly Anticipated Books of The Year
One of Buzzfeed’s Most Anticipated Books the Year
Based on the acclaimed series–a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize–an intimate account of the devastating effects of gun violence on our nation’s children, and a call to action for a new way forward
In 2017, seven-year-old Ava in South Carolina wrote a letter to Tyshaun, an eight-year-old boy from Washington, DC. She asked him to be her pen pal; Ava thought they could help each other. The kids had a tragic connection–both were traumatized by gun violence. Ava’s best friend had been killed in a campus shooting at her elementary school, and Tyshaun’s father had been shot to death outside of the boy’s elementary school. Ava’s and Tyshaun’s stories are extraordinary, but not unique. In the past decade, 15,000 children have been killed from gunfire, though that number does not account for the kids who weren’t shot and aren’t considered victims but have nevertheless been irreparably harmed by gun violence.
In Children Under Fire, John Woodrow Cox investigates the effectiveness of gun safety reforms as well as efforts to manage children’s trauma in the wake of neighborhood shootings and campus massacres, from Columbine to Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Through deep reporting, Cox addresses how we can effect change now, and help children like Ava and Tyshaun. He explores their stories and more, including a couple in South Carolina whose eleven-year-old son shot himself, a Republican politician fighting for gun safety laws, and the charlatans infiltrating the school safety business.
In a moment when the country is desperate to better understand and address gun violence, Children Under Fire offers a way to do just that, weaving wrenching personal stories into a critical call for the United States to embrace practical reforms that would save thousands of young lives.
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Grace
- By: Cody Keenan
- Narrator: Cody Keenan
- Length: 8 hours 20 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 04, 2022
- Language: English
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4.6(1344 ratings)
4.6(1344 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDFrom Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter Cody Keenan, a spellbinding account of the ten most dramatic days of the presidency, when a hate-fueled massacre and looming Supreme Court decisions put the character of our country on the line, and aFrom Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter Cody Keenan, a spellbinding account of the ten most dramatic days of the presidency, when a hate-fueled massacre and looming Supreme Court decisions put the character of our country on the line, and a president’s words could bring the nation together or tear it apart.
A white supremacist shooting and an astonishing act of forgiveness. A national reckoning with race and the Confederate flag. The fate of marriage equality and the Affordable Care Act. GRACE is the propulsive story of ten days in June 2015, when Obama and his chief speechwriter Cody Keenan composed a series of high-stakes speeches to meet a succession of stunning developments.
Through behind-the-scenes moments–from Obama’s suggestion that Keenan pour a drink, listen to some Miles Davis, and “find the silences,” to the president’s late-night writing sessions in the First Family’s residence–Keenan takes us inside the craft of speechwriting at the highest level for the most demanding of bosses, the relentlessly poetic and perfectionist Barack Obama. GRACE also delivers a fascinating portrait of White House insiders like Ben Rhodes, Valerie Jarrett, Jen Psaki, and the speechwriting team responsible for pulling it all off during a furious, historic stretch of the Obama presidency–including a gifted fact-checker who took Keenan’s rhetoric to task before taking his hand in marriage. GRACE is the most intimate writing that exists on the rhetorical tightrope our first Black president had to walk, culminating with an unforgettable high point: Obama stunning everybody by taking a deep breath and leading the country in a chorus of “Amazing Grace.”
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock
- By: Irene Sankoff
- Narrator: Laurence Maslon
- Length: 3 hours 57 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: September 24, 2019
- Language: English
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4.54(378 ratings)
4.54(378 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.98 USDCome From Away: Welcome to the Rock – a fully illustrated companion volume to the hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, featuring the book and lyrics for the first time in print, backstage stories and the real history behind theCome From Away: Welcome to the Rock – a fully illustrated companion volume to the hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, featuring the book and lyrics for the first time in print, backstage stories and the real history behind the show’s events, character design sketches, and songs that ended up on the cutting room floor.... Read moreThe Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Come From Away tells the remarkable true story of a small town that welcomed the world. On September 11, 2001, 38 planes and 6,579 passengers were forced to land in the provincial town of Gander, Newfoundland. The local residents opened their arms to the displaced visitors, offering food, shelter, and friendship. In the days that followed, cultures clashed and nerves ran high, but uneasiness turned into trust, music soared into the night, and gratitude grew into enduring friendships.
Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock is the ultimate companion piece to Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s smash-hit musical based on that extraordinary experience. Featuring the complete book and lyrics for the first time in print, a foreword by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and exclusive photos of the company and physical production, this essential companion also includes original interviews with passengers, Gander residents, and the actors who portray them. The narrative by theater historian Laurence Maslon details the events of that memorable and challenging week and also traces the musical’s development from the ten-year reunion of residents and airline passengers in Gander, where the idea for the musical was born , to the global phenomenon it is today.Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock gives an unprecedented look behind the curtain and demonstrates why the story has touched so many so deeply: Because we come from everywhere, we all come from away. -
The Chosen Few
- By: Gregg Zoroya
- Narrator: Gregg Zoroya
- Length: 12 hours 15 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.47(307 ratings)
4.47(307 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDThe never-before-told story of one of the most decorated units in the war in Afghanistan and its fifteen-month ordeal that culminated in the 2008 Battle of Wanat, the war’s deadliest A single company of US paratroopers–callingThe never-before-told story of one of the most decorated units in the war in Afghanistan and its fifteen-month ordeal that culminated in the 2008 Battle of Wanat, the war’s deadliest
A single company of US paratroopers–calling themselves the “Chosen Few”–arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government’s reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides.
Month after month, rocket-propelled grenades, rockets, and machine-gun fire poured down on the isolated and exposed paratroopers as America’s focus and military resources shifted to Iraq. Just weeks before the paratroopers were to go home, they faced their last–and toughest–fight. Near the village of Wanat in Nuristan province, an estimated three hundred enemy fighters surrounded about fifty of the Chosen Few and others defending a partially finished combat base. Nine died and more than two dozen were wounded that day in July 2008, making it arguably the bloodiest battle of the war in Afghanistan.
The Chosen Few would return home tempered by war. Two among them would receive the Medal of Honor. All of them would be forever changed.
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White Too Long
- By: Robert P. Jones
- Narrator: Holter Graham
- Length: 9 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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4.43(1669 ratings)
4.43(1669 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USD“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for white Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.
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As the nation grapples with demographic changes and the legacy of racism in America, Christianity’s role as a cornerstone of white supremacy has been largely overlooked. But white Christians–from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the Northeast–have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power, they have constructed and sustained a project of protecting white supremacy and opposing black equality that has framed the entire American story.
With his family’s 1815 Bible in one hand and contemporary public opinion surveys by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in the other, Robert P. Jones delivers “a refreshing blend of historical accounting, soul searching reflection, and analysis” (Publishers Weekly) of the repressed relationship between Christianity and white supremacy. White Too Long is “a marvel” (Booklist, starred review) that demonstrates how deeply racist attitudes have become embedded in the DNA of white Christian identity over time and calls for an honest reckoning with a complicated, painful, and even shameful past. Jones challenges white Christians to acknowledge that public apologies are not enough–accepting responsibility for the past requires work toward repair in the present.
White Too Long is not an appeal to altruism. It is “a powerful and much-needed book” (Eddie S. Glaude Jr, professor at Princeton University and author of Begin Again) drawing on lessons gleaned from case studies of communities beginning to face these challenges. Jones argues that contemporary white Christians must confront these unsettling truths because this is the only way to salvage the integrity of their faith and their own identities. More broadly, it is no exaggeration to say that not just the future of white Christianity, but the outcome of the American experiment is at stake. -
The Cup They Couldn’t Lose
- By: Shane Ryan
- Narrator: Shane Ryan
- Length: 10 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 10, 2022
- Language: English
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4.42(233 ratings)
4.42(233 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDThe definitive story of the Ryder Cup—the event that pits the best golfers from America against the best from Europe—exploring the modern history of the tournament that led to the showdown at Whistling Straits in 2021.The task facing... Read moreThe definitive story of the Ryder Cup—the event that pits the best golfers from America against the best from Europe—exploring the modern history of the tournament that led to the showdown at Whistling Straits in 2021.
The task facing Steve Stricker at the 2021 Ryder Cup was enormous. It was his job, as the American captain, to stare down almost 40 years of Ryder Cup history, break a pattern of home losses that had persisted almost as long, and reverse the tide of European dominance in one of golf’s most tense and emotional events. This was the epitome of a must-win, but it was also something more–in the entire 93-year history of the event, no American side had ever faced this kind of pressure. Starting on the morning of September 24, those 12 players competed not just for a Cup, or for pride, but to save the reputation of the U.S. team itself.The great mystery of the Ryder Cup is that America loses despite having superior individual talent. The European renaissance began in the 1980s, led by the brilliant Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros, and since then, the U.S. has suffered a slew of embarrassing defeats abroad and at home. The signs in 2021 weren’t good: Tiger Woods was out after his horrific car crash, Patrick Reed (“Captain America,” to his supporters) was hospitalized with double pneumonia weeks before the event, and America had to rely on its rising stars–including Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, who spent most of the year immersed in an escalating feud–to prove their mettle. Meanwhile, the European team had a few major stars of its own, like Jon Rahm, the world no. 1 and the first Spanish player ever to win the U.S. Open, and Rory McIlroy, the four-time major winner. Throw in the complications of a global pandemic, and the stage was set for one of the strangest Ryder Cups ever.
Following the drama in Wisconsin while deconstructing the rich history of the tournament, The Cup They Couldn’t Lose tells the story of how the U.S. defeated Europe in record fashion, restored their status as golf’s global superpower, and transformed their entire way of thinking in order to truly understand the nature of the Ryder Cup.
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The Winning Ticket
- By: Rob Sand
- Narrator: Alex Boyles
- Length: 8 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.41(27 ratings)
4.41(27 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Winning Ticket is an inside look at one of the most complicated yet seat-of-your-pants financial investigations and prosecutions in recent history. Rob Sand, the youngest attorney in his office, was assigned a new case by his boss, who was daysThe Winning Ticket is an inside look at one of the most complicated yet seat-of-your-pants financial investigations and prosecutions in recent history.
Rob Sand, the youngest attorney in his office, was assigned a new case by his boss, who was days away from retirement. Inside the thin accordion binder that Sand received was meager evidence that had been gathered over the course of two years by Iowa authorities regarding a suspicious lottery ticket. No one expected the case to go anywhere. No dead body, no shots fired, and no money paid out. Why should they care?
There was no certainty that a crime had even been committed. But a mysterious Belizean trust had attempted to claim the $16 million ticket but then decided to forgo the money and maintain anonymity when the State of Iowa demanded to know who had purchased the ticket. Who values anonymity over that much money?
Both a story of small-town America and a true-crime saga about the largest lottery-rigging scheme in American history, The Winning Ticket follows the investigation all the way down the rabbit hole to uncover how Eddie Tipton was able to cheat the system to win jackpots over $16 million and go more than a decade without being caught–until Sand inherited the case.
Just as remarkable as the crime are the real-life characters met along the way: an honest fireworks salesman, a hoodwinked FBI agent, a crooked Texas lawman, a shady attorney representing a Belizean trust, and, Bigfoot hunters. While some of the characters are nearly unbelievable, the everyday themes of integrity and hard work resonate throughout the saga.
As the case builds toward a reckoning, The Winning Ticket demonstrates how a new day has dawned in prosecuting complex technological crimes.
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The Warriors of Anbar
- By: Ed Darack
- Narrator: James Edward Thomas
- Length: 7 hours 40 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 05, 2019
- Language: English
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4.38(50 ratings)
4.38(50 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDA riveting, edge-of-your seat account of how a battalion of Marines faced off against the most brutal of Al Qaeda at its most desperate and vicious moment–and how the Marines decisively crushed the terroristsWhen the 2nd Battalion of the 3rdA riveting, edge-of-your seat account of how a battalion of Marines faced off against the most brutal of Al Qaeda at its most desperate and vicious moment–and how the Marines decisively crushed the terroristsWhen the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment (“2/3”) arrived in the little-known “Haditha Triad” region of western Iraq’s Al Anbar Province in September of 2006, the region exploded in a storm of terrorist violence. The most battle-hardened of Al Qaeda had fled to the Triad, and, taking their last, desperate gasps for survival after years of bloody war, lashed out at the battalion with everything they could muster. The Marines sent into this firestorm of violence immediately lunged into a complex, double-edged mission: crush Al Qaeda and help the locals rebuild their terrorist-smashed lives and homes. After months of grueling, fearsome battle–and the loss of twenty-three of their ranks–the warriors of 2/3 stood tall in victory. This is their incredible story.Warriors of Anbar is one of the greatest untold stories of modern war, one of grit, incredible courage, and utmost sacrifice. It is a story that illustrates the U.S. Marine Corps at its very finest.... Read more -
American Psychosis
- By: David Corn
- Narrator: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 17 hours 32 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: September 13, 2022
- Language: English
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4.38(293 ratings)
4.38(293 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0038.99 USD“[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I’m so glad he’s done a super-readable, modern history of the right…We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right“[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I’m so glad he’s done a super-readable, modern history of the right…We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now…[AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS] is perfectly timed…Relevant history for where we are right now.” –Rachel Maddow, host, The Rachel Maddow Show
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“With AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS, David Corn ‘did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.'” –Lawrence O’Donnell, host, The Last Word
#1 New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and harrowing story of the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry, and paranoia.
A fast-paced, rollicking, behind-the-scenes account of how the GOP since the 1950s has encouraged and exploited extremism, bigotry, and paranoia to gain power, AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS offers readers a brisk, can-you-believe-it journey through the netherworld of far-right irrationality and the Republican Party’s interactions with the darkest forces in America. In a compelling and thoroughly-researched narrative, Corn reveals the hidden history of how the Party of Lincoln forged alliances with extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers and fostered fear, anger, and resentment to win elections–and how this led to Donald Trump’s triumph and the transformation of the GOP into a Trump personality cult that foments and bolsters the crazy and dangerous excesses of the right.
The Trump-incited insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was no aberration. AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS shows it was a continuation of the long and deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the right.
The gripping tale in AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS covers the last seven decades. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society to segregationists to the New Right to the religious right to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to the militia movement to Fox News to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trumpism, the Republican Party has deliberately nurtured and exploited rightwing fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. This powerful and important account explains how one political party has harnessed the worst elements in politics to poison the nation’s discourse and threaten American democracy. -
The Impostors
- By: Steve Benen
- Narrator: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 16, 2020
- Language: English
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4.34(384 ratings)
4.34(384 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDNATIONAL BESTSELLER “This is the definitive account of what has gone wrong in our two-party system, and how our democracy has to adapt to survive it. I can’t say it in strong enough terms: Read. This. Book.” –RACHELNATIONAL BESTSELLER
“This is the definitive account of what has gone wrong in our two-party system, and how our democracy has to adapt to survive it. I can’t say it in strong enough terms: Read. This. Book.” –RACHEL MADDOW
The award-winning producer of The Rachel Maddow Show exposes the Republican Party as a gang of impostors, meticulously documenting how they have abandoned their duty to govern and are gravely endangering America
For decades, American voters innocently assumed the two major political parties were equally mature and responsible governing entities, ideological differences aside. That belief is due for an overhaul: in recent years, the Republican Party has undergone an astonishing metamorphosis, one so baffling and complete that few have fully reckoned with the reality and its consequences.
Republicans, simply put, have quit governing. As MSNBC’s Steve Benen charts in his groundbreaking new book, the contemporary GOP has become a “post-policy party.” Republicans are effectively impostors, presenting themselves as officials who are ready to take seriously the substance of problem solving, but whose sole focus is the pursuit and maintenance of power. Astonishingly, they are winning-at the cost of pushing the political system to the breaking point.
Despite having billed itself as the “party of ideas,” the Republican Party has walked away from the hard but necessary work of policymaking. It is disdainful of expertise and hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented. This policy nihilism dominated the party’s posture throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, which in turn opened the door to Donald Trump — who would cement the GOP’s post-policy status in ways that were difficult to even imagine a few years earlier.
The implications of this approach to governance are all-encompassing. Voters routinely elect Republicans such as Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz to powerful offices, expecting GOP policymakers to have the technocratic wherewithal to identify problems, weigh alternative solutions, forge coalitions, accept compromises, and apply some level of governmental competence, if not expertise. The party has consistently proven those hopes misguided.
The result is an untenable political model that’s undermining the American policymaking process and failing to serve the public’s interests. The vital challenge facing the civil polity is coming to terms with the party’s collapse as a governing entity and considering what the party can do to find its policymaking footing anew.
The Impostors serves as a devastating indictment of the GOP’s breakdown, identifying the culprits, the crisis, and its effects, while challenging Republicans with an imperative question: Are they ready to change direction? As Benen writes, “A great deal is riding on their answer.”
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Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order
- By: Ray Dalio
- Narrator: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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4.34(6770 ratings)
4.34(6770 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USDNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A provocative read…There are few tomes that coherently map such broad economic histories as well as Mr. Dalio’s. Perhaps more unusually, Mr. Dalio has managed to identify metrics from that history thatNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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“A provocative read…There are few tomes that coherently map such broad economic histories as well as Mr. Dalio’s. Perhaps more unusually, Mr. Dalio has managed to identify metrics from that history that can be applied to understand today.” –Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times
From legendary investor Ray Dalio, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Principles, who has spent half a century studying global economies and markets, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order examines history’s most turbulent economic and political periods to reveal why the times ahead will likely be radically different from those we’ve experienced in our lifetimes–and to offer practical advice on how to navigate them well.
A few years ago, Ray Dalio noticed a confluence of political and economic conditions he hadn’t encountered before. They included huge debts and zero or near-zero interest rates that led to massive printing of money in the world’s three major reserve currencies; big political and social conflicts within countries, especially the US, due to the largest wealth, political, and values disparities in more than 100 years; and the rising of a world power (China) to challenge the existing world power (US) and the existing world order. The last time that this confluence occurred was between 1930 and 1945. This realization sent Dalio on a search for the repeating patterns and cause/effect relationships underlying all major changes in wealth and power over the last 500 years.
In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings readers along for his study of the major empires–including the Dutch, the British, and the American–putting into perspective the “Big Cycle” that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead. -
Black Magic
- By: Chad Sanders
- Narrator: Chad Sanders
- Length: 7 hours 41 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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4.34(345 ratings)
4.34(345 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDA “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brene Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists,A “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brene Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists, artists, activists, and champions.
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“I remember the day I realized I couldn’t play a white guy as well as a white guy. It felt like a death sentence for my career.”
When Chad Sanders landed his first job in lily-white Silicon Valley, he quickly concluded that to be successful at work meant playing a certain social game. Each meeting was drenched in white slang and the privileged talk of international travel or folk concerts in San Francisco, which led Chad to believe he needed to emulate whiteness to be successful. So Chad changed. He changed his wardrobe, his behavior, his speech–everything that connected him with his Black identity.
And while he finally felt included, he felt awful. So he decided to give up the charade. He reverted to the methods he learned at the dinner table, or at the Black Baptist church where he’d been raised, or at the concrete basketball courts, barbershops, and summertime cookouts. And it paid off. Chad began to land more exciting projects. He earned the respect of his colleagues. Accounting for this turnaround, Chad believes, was something he calls Black Magic, namely resilience, creativity, and confidence forged in his experience navigating America as a Black man. Black Magic has emboldened his every step since, leading him to wonder: Was he alone in this discovery? Were there others who felt the same?
In “pulverizing, educational, and inspirational” (Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Basketball (And Other Things)) essays, Chad dives into his formative experiences to see if they might offer the possibility of discovering or honing this skill. He tests his theory by interviewing Black leaders across industries to get their take on Black Magic. The result is a revelatory and essential book. Black Magic explores Black experiences in predominantly white environments and demonstrates the risks of self-betrayal and the value of being yourself. -
The Number Ones
- By: Tom Breihan
- Narrator: Ray Stoney
- Length: 11 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 15, 2022
- Language: English
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4.3(243 ratings)
4.3(243 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDBeloved music critic Tom Breihan’s fascinating narrative of the history of popular music through the lens of game-changing #1 singles from the Billboard Hot 100. When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The NumberBeloved music critic Tom Breihan’s fascinating narrative of the history of popular music through the lens of game-changing #1 singles from the Billboard Hot 100.
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When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones”–a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order–he figured he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more to uncover. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats.
The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture. In The Number Ones, Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.
The Numbers Ones features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys; from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey; and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades–including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more–leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next. -
Everybody
- By: Olivia Laing
- Length: 9 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: May 04, 2021
- Language: English
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4.3(1395 ratings)
4.3(1395 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USD“Astute and consistently surprising critic” (NPR) Olivia Laing investigates the body and its discontents through the great freedom movements of the twentieth century. The body is a source of pleasure and of pain, at once hopelessly“Astute and consistently surprising critic” (NPR) Olivia Laing investigates the body and its discontents through the great freedom movements of the twentieth century.
The body is a source of pleasure and of pain, at once hopelessly vulnerable and radiant with power. In her ambitious, brilliant sixth book, Olivia Laing charts an electrifying course through the long struggle for bodily freedom, using the life of the renegade psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to explore gay rights and sexual liberation, feminism, and the civil rights movement.
Drawing on her own experiences in protest and alternative medicine, and traveling from Weimar Berlin to the prisons of McCarthy-era America, Laing grapples with some of the most significant and complicated figures of the past century ? among them Nina Simone, Christopher Isherwood, Andrea Dworkin, Sigmund Freud, Susan Sontag, and Malcolm X.
Despite its many burdens, the body remains a source of power, even in an era as technologized and automated as our own. Arriving at a moment in which basic bodily rights are once again imperiled, Everybody is an investigation into the forces arranged against freedom and a celebration of how ordinary human bodies can resist oppression and reshape the world.
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Unchecked
- By: Rachael Bade
- Narrator: Courtney Patterson
- Length: 17 hours 36 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: October 18, 2022
- Language: English
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4.29(89 ratings)
4.29(89 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0038.99 USDA revealing, behind-the-scenes examination of how Congress twice fumbled its best chance to hold accountable a president many considered one of the most dangerous in American history. The definitive–and only–insider account of both TrumpA revealing, behind-the-scenes examination of how Congress twice fumbled its best chance to hold accountable a president many considered one of the most dangerous in American history. The definitive–and only–insider account of both Trump impeachments, as told by the two reporters on the front lines covering them for The Washington Post and Politico.
In a riveting account that flips the script on what readers think they know about the two impeachments of Donald Trump, Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian reveal how–and why–congressional oversight failed when it was needed most.
Unchecked weaves a vivid narrative of how House Democrats under the lead of a cautious speaker, Nancy Pelosi, hesitated for months to stand up to Trump–and then pulled punches in their effort to oust him in a misguided effort to protect themselves politically. What they left on the cutting room floor would come back to haunt them, as Republicans seized on their missteps to whip an uneasy GOP rank-and-file into line behind Donald Trump, abandoning their scruples to defend a president who some privately believed had indeed abused his power.
Even after Trump incited a mob to violently attack the Capitol–a day the authors recount in minute-by-minute, stunning detail — Democrats pressured their own investigators to forego a thorough investigation in the name of safeguarding the Biden agenda. And Republicans, fearful of repelling a base they needed for re-election, missed their best moment to turn their backs on a leader they secretly agreed was destructive to democracy.
Sourced from hundreds of interviews with all the key players, the authors of Unchecked pull back the curtain on how both parties pursued political expediency over fact-finding. The end result not only emboldened Trump, giving him room for a political comeback, but also undermined Congress by rendering toothless their most powerful check on a president: the power of impeachment. A dramatic and at times crushing work of investigative reporting, Unchecked is both a gripping page-turner of political intrigue and a detailed case study for historians and political scientists searching for answers about the unravelling of checks and balances that have governed American democracy for centuries.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Assad or We Burn the Country
- By: Sam Dagher
- Narrator: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 19 hours 52 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 28, 2019
- Language: English
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4.29(741 ratings)
4.29(741 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster. In spring 2011, Syrian PresidentFrom a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster.... Read moreIn spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising — an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis.
Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria’s tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar’s bloody quest to preserve his father’s inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region.
Dagher shows how one of the world’s most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years.
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Wildland
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrator: Evan Osnos
- Length: 17 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: September 14, 2021
- Language: English
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4.27(1033 ratings)
4.27(1033 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0032.99 USDThis program is read by the author. “Evan Osnos compassionately shares his extensive research on the crumbling of American democracy, civility, and equality. Listeners join him as he visits three diverse places he has lived: wealthy Greenwich,This program is read by the author.
“Evan Osnos compassionately shares his extensive research on the crumbling of American democracy, civility, and equality. Listeners join him as he visits three diverse places he has lived: wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut; segregated Chicago; and coal-mining Clarksburg, West Virginia.” —AudioFile
“One of the books of the year . . . Wildland by The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos draws the backstory to America’s rage through deep reporting and ‘thousands of hours of conversations’ in three places he lived before D.C.” —Axios
After a decade abroad, the National Book Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Evan Osnos returns to three places he has lived in the United States–Greenwich, CT; Clarksburg, WV; and Chicago, IL–to illuminate the origins of America’s political fury.Evan Osnos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first reporting from the Middle East before becoming the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then the China correspondent for The New Yorker. While abroad, he often found himself making a case for America, urging the citizens of Egypt, Iraq, or China to trust that even though America had made grave mistakes throughout its history, it aspired to some foundational moral commitments: the rule of law, the power of truth, the right of equal opportunity for all. But when he returned to the United States, he found each of these principles under assault.
In search of an explanation for the crisis that reached an unsettling crescendo in 2020–a year of pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil–he focused on three places he knew firsthand: Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois. Reported over the course of six years, Wildland follows ordinary individuals as they navigate the varied landscapes of twenty-first-century America. Through their powerful, often poignant stories, Osnos traces the sources of America’s political dissolution. He finds answers in the rightward shift of the financial elite in Greenwich, in the collapse of social infrastructure and possibility in Clarksburg, and in the compounded effects of segregation and violence in Chicago. The truth about the state of the nation may be found not in the slogans of political leaders but in the intricate details of individual lives, and in the hidden connections between them. As Wildland weaves in and out of these personal stories, events in Washington occasionally intrude, like flames licking up on the horizon.
A dramatic, prescient examination of seismic changes in American politics and culture, Wildland is the story of a crucible, a period bounded by two shocks to America’s psyche, two assaults on the country’s sense of itself: the attacks of September 11th in 2001 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans, in three cities, across two decades, Osnos illuminates the country in a startling light. revealing how we lost the moral confidence to see ourselves as larger than the sum of our parts.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Unmaking the Presidency
- By: Susan Hennessey
- Narrator: Benjamin Wittes
- Length: 12 hours 8 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: January 21, 2020
- Language: English
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4.27(195 ratings)
4.27(195 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.99 USDThis program is read by the authors. The definitive account of how Donald Trump has wielded the powers of the American presidency. The extraordinary authority of the U.S. presidency has no parallel in the democratic world. Today that authorityThis program is read by the authors.
The definitive account of how Donald Trump has wielded the powers of the American presidency.
The extraordinary authority of the U.S. presidency has no parallel in the democratic world. Today that authority resides in the hands of one man, Donald J. Trump. But rarely if ever has the nature of a president clashed more profoundly with the nature of the office. Unmaking the Presidency tells the story of the confrontation between a person and the institution he almost wholly embodies.
From the moment of his inauguration, Trump has challenged our deepest expectations of the presidency. But what are those expectations, where did they come from, and how great is the damage? As editors of the “invaluable” (The New York Times) Lawfare website, Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes have attracted a large audience to their hard-hitting and highly informed commentary on the controversies surrounding the Trump administration. In this audiobook, they situate Trump-era scandals and outrages in the deeper context of the presidency itself. How should we understand the oath of office when it is taken by a man who may not know what it means to preserve, protect, and defend something other than himself? What aspects of Trump are radically different from past presidents and what aspects have historical antecedents? When has he simply built on his predecessors’ misdeeds, and when has he invented categories of misrule entirely his own?
By setting Trump in the light of history, Hennessey and Wittes provide a crucial and durable account of a presidency like no other.
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Partisans
- By: Nicole Hemmer
- Narrator: Nicole Hemmer
- Length: 10 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: August 30, 2022
- Language: English
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4.27(154 ratings)
4.27(154 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDA bold new history of modern conservatism that finds its origins in the populist right-wing politics of the 1990s Ronald Reagan has long been lionized for building a conservative coalition sustained by an optimistic vision of AmericanA bold new history of modern conservatism that finds its origins in the populist right-wing politics of the 1990s
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Ronald Reagan has long been lionized for building a conservative coalition sustained by an optimistic vision of American exceptionalism, small government, and free markets. But as historian Nicole Hemmer reveals, the Reagan coalition was short-lived; it fell apart as soon as its charismatic leader left office. In the 1990s — a decade that has yet to be recognized as the breeding ground for today’s polarizing politics — changing demographics and the emergence of a new political-entertainment media fueled the rise of combative far-right politicians and pundits. These partisans, from Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, forged a new American right that emphasized anti-globalism, appeals to white resentment, and skepticism about democracy itself.
Partisans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the crisis of American politics today. -
Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn
- By: Gary M. Pomerantz
- Narrator: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 25 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.26(282 ratings)
4.26(282 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0034.99 USD“A magnificent piece of writing, a beautiful tapestry of prose in which the stories of two of Atlanta‘s most celebrated families have been woven densely into the history of the city itself.” —The New York TimesThe“A magnificent piece of writing, a beautiful tapestry of prose in which the stories of two of Atlanta‘s most celebrated families have been woven densely into the history of the city itself.” —The New York Times
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The Intersection of Peachtree Street, historically the residential and commercial street of Atlanta’s white elite, and Sweet Auburn Avenue, the spiritual main street of Atlanta’s community, mirrors the often separate but mutually dependent worlds of whites and blacks in this Southern city. In Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn, Gary M. Pomerantz traces five generations of two families–the Allens, descended from slave owners, and the Dobbses, from slaves. These families produced the two most influential mayors of the modern South, Ivan Allen Jr., and Maynard Jackson Jr.
Through hundreds of interviews and five years of painstaking research, Pomerantz shows how the families rose to social, economic, and political prominence. But he also demonstrates how their interesting lives paralleled the shifting relations between Atlanta’s blacks and whites as the city grew to become the capital of the New South. It is a representative story of the transformation of a city and the entire south. -
Surprise, Kill, Vanish
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrator: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 19 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 14, 2019
- Language: English
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4.26(2076 ratings)
4.26(2076 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.98 USDFrom Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA’s secret paramilitary units.Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is... Read moreFrom Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA’s secret paramilitary units.Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace.When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA’s Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world.Originally known as the president’s guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination.With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils — like never before — a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs.Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine.Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen’s exclusive interviews — with members of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon’s generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division’s Ground Branch operators who conduct today’s close-quarters killing operations around the world — reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA’s paramilitary army America’s weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal. -
Fascism: A Warning
- By: Madeleine Albright
- Narrator: Madeleine Albright
- Length: 9 hours 53 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: April 10, 2018
- Language: English
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4.26(12017 ratings)
4.26(12017 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDFrom one of the most admired international leaders, comes a timely, considered, and personal look at the history and current resurgence of fascism today and the virulent threat it poses to international freedom, prosperity, and peace. At the end ofFrom one of the most admired international leaders, comes a timely, considered, and personal look at the history and current resurgence of fascism today and the virulent threat it poses to international freedom, prosperity, and peace.
At the end of the 1980s, when the Cold War ended, many, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, believed that democracy had triumphed politically once and for all. Yet nearly thirty years later, the direction of history no longer seems certain. A repressive and destructive force has begun to re-emerge on the global stage–sweeping across Europe, parts of Asia, and the United States–that to Albright, looks very much like fascism.
Based on her personal experience growing up in Hungary under Hitler and the Communist regime that followed World War II, as well as knowledge gleaned from her distinguished diplomatic career and insights from colleagues around the globe, Albright paints a clear picture of how fascism flourishes and explains why it is once again taking hold worldwide, identifying the factors contributing to its rise. Most importantly, she makes clear what could happen if we fail to act against rising fascist forces today and in the near future, including the potential for economic catastrophe, a lasting spike in terrorist activity, increased sectarian violence, a rash of large-scale humanitarian emergencies, massive human rights violations, a breakdown in multilateral cooperation, and nearly irreparable self-inflicted damage to America’s reputation and capacity to lead.
Albright also offers clear solutions, including adjusting to the ubiquity of social media and the changing nature of the workplace, and understanding ordinary citizens’ universal desire for sources of constancy and morality in their lives. She contends that we must stimulate economic growth and narrow the gap between the rich and poor, urban and rural, women and men, and skilled and unskilled; work across borders to respond to transnational challenges; and ultimately recognize that democracy’s unique virtue is its ability–through reason and open debate–to find remedies for its own shortcomings.
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The Black Banners (Declassified)
- By: Ali H. Soufan
- Narrator: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 19 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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4.25(62 ratings)
4.25(62 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDThe definitive account of an FBI special agent’s al-Qaeda story, unredacted for the first time. Widely heralded on publication as a “must-read” (Military Review) and “important window on America’s battle withThe definitive account of an FBI special agent’s al-Qaeda story, unredacted for the first time.
Widely heralded on publication as a “must-read” (Military Review) and “important window on America’s battle with al-Qaeda” (Washington Post), Ali Soufan’s revelatory account of the war on terror as seen from its front lines changed the way we understand al-Qaeda and how the United States prosecuted the war–and led to hard questions being asked of our leaders.
When The Black Banners was published in 2011, significant portions of the text were redacted. After subsequent review by the Central Intelligence Agency, those redactions have been lifted. Their removal corrects the record on how vital intelligence was obtained from al-Qaeda suspects and brings forth important new details on the controversial use of enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) to extract information from terror suspects. For many years, proponents of the use of these techniques have argued that they produced actionable intelligence in the war on terror. This edition of The Black Banners explodes this myth; it shows Soufan at work using guile and intelligent questioning–not force or violence–to extract some of the most important confessions in the war, and it vividly recounts the failures of the government’s torture program. Drawing on Soufan’s experiences as a lead operative for the FBI and declassified government records, The Black Banners (Declassified) documents the intelligence failures that lead to the tragic attacks on New York and Washington, DC, and subsequently how torture derailed the fight against al-Qaeda. With this edition, eighteen years on from the first sanctioned enhanced interrogation technique, the public can finally read the complete story of what happened in their name after the events of 9/11.
The Black Banners (Declassified) includes a new foreword from Ali Soufan that addresses the significance of the CIA’s decision to lift the redactions.
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Why We’re Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrator: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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4.24(9408 ratings)
4.24(9408 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. TheONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022
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One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us–and how we are polarizing it–with disastrous results.
“The American political system–which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president–is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.”
“A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized 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. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together.
Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis.
“Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics–and perhaps at yourself. -
Dominion
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrator: Tom Holland
- Length: 22 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 29, 2019
- Language: English
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4.24(3039 ratings)
4.24(3039 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDA “marvelous” (Economist) account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination. Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, thatA “marvelous” (Economist) account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination.Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world. -
A Time to Die
- By: Robert Moore
- Narrator: Pete Cross
- Length: 10 hours 3 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: July 26, 2016
- Language: English
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4.24(535 ratings)
4.24(535 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDOn a quiet Saturday morning in August 2000, two explosions–one so massive it was detected by seismologists around the world–shot through the shallow Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. Russia’s prized submarine, the Kursk, began herOn a quiet Saturday morning in August 2000, two explosions–one so massive it was detected by seismologists around the world–shot through the shallow Arctic waters of the Barents Sea. Russia’s prized submarine, the Kursk, began her fatal plunge to the ocean floor. Award-winning journalist Robert Moore presents a riveting, brilliantly researched account of the deadliest submarine disaster in history. Journey down into the heart of the Kursk to witness the last hours of the twenty-three young men who survived the initial blasts. Visit the highly restricted Arctic submarine base to which Moore obtained secret admission, where the families of the crew clamored for news of their loved ones.
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The Fight of Our Lives
- By: Iuliia Mendel
- Narrator: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 7 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.23(138 ratings)
4.23(138 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USD“Moving.” —The Washington Post When Ukrainian journalist Iuliia Mendel got the call she had been hired to work for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she had no idea what was to come.In this frank and moving inside account,“Moving.” —The Washington Post
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When Ukrainian journalist Iuliia Mendel got the call she had been hired to work for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she had no idea what was to come.
In this frank and moving inside account, Zelenskyy’s former press secretary tells the story of his improbable rise from popular comedian to the president of Ukraine. Mendel had a front row seat to many of the key events preceding the 2022 Russian invasion. From attending meetings between Zelenskyy and Putin and other European leaders, visiting the front lines in Donbas, to fielding press inquiries after the infamous phone calls between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy that led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Mendel saw firsthand Zelenskyy’s efforts to transform his country from a poor, backward Soviet state into a vibrant, prosperous European democracy. Mendel sheds light on the massive economic problems facing Ukraine and the entrenched corrupt oligarchs in league with Russia. She witnessed the Kremlin’s repeated attacks to discredit Zelenskyy through disinformation and an army of bots and trolls.
Woven into her account are details about her own life as a member of Zelenskyy’s new Ukraine. Written with the sound of Russian bombs and exploding shells in the background, Mendel details life lived under Russian siege in 2022. She says goodbye to her fiance who joins the front lines, like so many other Ukrainian men. Throughout this story of Zelenskyy, Ukraine, and its extraordinary people, Iuliia Mendel reminds us of the paramount importance of truth and human values, especially in these darkest of times. -
The Day the World Came to Town
- By: Jim DeFede
- Narrator: Ray Porter
- Length: 6 hours 28 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 27, 2017
- Language: English
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4.23(29779 ratings)
4.23(29779 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0021.99 USDPerfect for fans of the musical Come From Away! When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town onPerfect for fans of the musical Come From Away!
When 38 jetliners bound for the United States were forced to land at Gander International Airport in Canada by the closing of U.S. airspace on September 11, the population of this small town on Newfoundland Island swelled from 10,300 to nearly 17,000. The citizens of Gander met the stranded passengers with an overwhelming display of friendship and goodwill. As the passengers stepped from the airplanes, exhausted, hungry and distraught after being held on board for nearly 24 hours while security checked all of the baggage, they were greeted with a feast prepared by the townspeople. Local bus drivers who had been on strike came off the picket lines to transport the passengers to the various shelters set up in local schools and churches. Linens and toiletries were bought and donated. A middle school provided showers, as well as access to computers, email, and televisions, allowing the passengers to stay in touch with family and follow the news.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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