An Unnatural Order
The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature (Fully Revised and Updated)
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An Unnatural Order
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Narrated by:
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Shane Freeman
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By:
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Jim Mason
About this listen
In 1993, Jim Mason, journalist, advocate, and pioneering figure in the contemporary animal advocacy movement, published An Unnatural Order - a sweeping overview of the origins of our destruction of the natural world and its creatures, from the dawn of agriculture to the present day. Now fully revised and updated to reflect greater awareness of, and urgency regarding, the climate crisis, An Unnatural Order offers an expansive overview of what has changed (both for good and for ill) and what has unfortunately remained the same. His message is clear: Until we grapple with the question of the animal and our relationship with animality and the natural world, we will not be able to confront the consequences of our perpetuation of environmental destruction, biodiversity collapse, and our alienation from the Earth and one another.
As brilliantly polemical and richly descriptive as it was when it was published almost three decades ago, this new version of An Unnatural Order is sure to excite a passionate debate about our role in either saving the ecosystems upon which all species (including our own) rely, or bringing it all to an end.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,389
A trailblazing account of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the emergence of "the state", political violence, and social inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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exactly what I've been looking for
- By DankTurtle on 11-10-21
By: David Graeber, and others
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Civilized to Death
- The Price of Progress
- By: Christopher Ryan
- Narrated by: Christopher Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,359
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,063
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,060
Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending - balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the "progress" defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Congintive Dissonance
- By Konnor C on 12-06-19
By: Christopher Ryan
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The Human Swarm
- How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall
- By: Mark W. Moffett
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 166
In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Worthless
- By Richard on 11-24-19
By: Mark W. Moffett
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The Faith Instinct
- How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures
- By: Nicholas Wade
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 165
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4 out of 5 stars 92
For at least the last fifty thousand years, and probably much longer, people have practiced religion. Yet little attention has been given, either by believers or atheists, to the question of whether this universal human behavior might have an evolutionary basis. Did religion evolve, in other words, because it helped people in early societies survive?
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4 out of 5 stars
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If you're religious or into religion read this
- By Adam on 08-16-10
By: Nicholas Wade
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Nonzero
- The Logic of Human Destiny
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 414
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 308
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Story4 out of 5 stars 308
At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Non-Zero (but pretty close to zero)
- By Douglas on 02-06-14
By: Robert Wright
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Bronze Age Mindset
- By: Bronze Age Pervert
- Narrated by: Adam Smith
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,013
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 850
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 846
Some say that this work, found in a safe-box in the port area of Kowloon, was dictated because Bronze Age Pervert refuses to learn what he calls "the low and plebeian art of writing". It isn't known how this work was transcribed. The contents are pure dynamite. He explains that you live in ant farm. That you are observed by the lords of lies, ritually probed. Ancient man had something you have lost: confidence in his instincts and strength, knowledge in his blood. BAP shows how the Bronze Age mind-set can set you free from this iron prison and help you embark on the path of power.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mandatory Reading For All Men
- By Anonymous User on 11-20-18
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American Holocaust
- The Conquest of the New World
- By: David E. Stannard
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 199
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 169
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Story5 out of 5 stars 169
For 400 years - from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the US Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s - the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Most important book I never heard of
- By Robert Bourque on 03-16-18
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Work
- A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots
- By: James Suzman
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 330
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 279
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 278
Work defines who we are. It determines our status and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hardwired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are.
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2 out of 5 stars
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if you like Jared Diamond's work, you'll like this
- By Mark on 04-09-22
By: James Suzman
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God
- A Human History
- By: Reza Aslan
- Narrated by: Reza Aslan
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,533
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,340
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,331
In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as one long and remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, "Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless if we are believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves."
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5 out of 5 stars
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His best work yet
- By Jeff M on 11-15-17
By: Reza Aslan
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The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
- The Conflict Between Word and Image
- By: Leonard Shlain
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 24 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 98
Who changed the sex of God? This groundbreaking book proposes that the rise of alphabetic literacy reconfigured the human brain and brought about profound changes in history, religion, and gender relations. Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Can't Even Get Started
- By Marie on 02-08-19
By: Leonard Shlain
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Against the Grain
- A Deep History of the Earliest States
- By: James C. Scott
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 864
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 719
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 714
Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative.
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4 out of 5 stars
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World without Women
- By Paul Richards on 04-28-18
By: James C. Scott
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The Invention of Yesterday
- A 50,000-Year History of Human Culture, Conflict, and Connection
- By: Tamim Ansary
- Narrated by: Tamim Ansary
- Length: 17 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 425
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 370
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Story5 out of 5 stars 367
Traveling across millennia, weaving the experiences and world views of cultures both extinct and extant, The Invention of Yesterday shows that the engine of history is not so much heroic (battles won), geographic (farmers thrive), or anthropogenic (humans change the planet) as it is narrative. Many thousands of years ago, when we existed only as countless small autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers widely distributed through the wilderness, we began inventing stories - to organize for survival, to find purpose and meaning, to explain the unfathomable.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Relaxed but packed with insight
- By Tad Davis on 02-14-20
By: Tamim Ansary
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Transcendence
- How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time
- By: Gaia Vince
- Narrated by: Gaia Vince
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Far too much bias and unsupported conclusions
- By Kurt Leyendecker on 10-01-20
By: Gaia Vince
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Norse Paganism
- A Comprehensive Guide to Viking History and Culture - Gods, Rituals, Runes & Magic, Afterlife, and the Nine Realms of Norse Mythology
- By: Erik Hansen
- Narrated by: Aries Studio
- Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Committed to a life of learning and teaching, author Erik Hansen shares his knowledge and passion in this book. As a recognized expert in Norse history and mythology, his interest in this fascinating culture was sparked by his Norwegian ancestry. If you share that passion for ancient history and religion, this book is for you.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A great introduction to Norse Paganism
- By L.B. on 12-04-22
By: Erik Hansen
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The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Why Violence Has Declined
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,349
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,500
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,453
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I'd kill for another book this good
- By Eric on 11-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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Beasts
- What Animals Can Teach Us About the Origins of Good Evil
- By: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 79
There are two supreme predators on the planet with the most complex brains in nature: humans and orcas. In the 20th century alone, one of these animals killed 200 million members of its own species, the other killed none. Jeffrey Masson’s fascinating new book begins here: There is something different about us. In Beasts he demonstrates that the violence we perceive in the "wild" is mostly a matter of projection. We link the basest human behavior to animals, to "beasts" ("he behaved no better than a beast"), and claim the high ground for our species.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This one is a MUST!!! Thought provoking....
- By kristen on 03-10-14
What listeners say about An Unnatural Order
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Lee Paredes
- 10-21-21
This book provoked me, I thought of the holes in
The holes in his argument. He gets close to an epiphany, but misses the mark.
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