Identity and Violence
The Illusion of Destiny
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Identity and Violence
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Narrated by:
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Steven Crossley
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By:
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Amartya Sen
About this listen
"One of the few world intellectuals on whom we may rely to make sense out of our existential confusion."—Nadine Gordimer
In this sweeping philosophical work, Amartya Sen proposes that the murderous violence that has riven our society is driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. Challenging the reductionist division of people by race, religion, and class, Sen presents an inspiring vision of a world that can be made to move toward peace as firmly as it has spiraled in recent years toward brutality and war.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades - and he fought with the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important book on political philosophy
- By Wayne on 08-02-19
By: Ryszard Legutko, and others
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The End of History and the Last Man
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 344
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 274
Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An important discussion expertly narrated
- By Kevin Teeple on 06-27-19
By: Francis Fukuyama
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A Time to Build
- From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream
- By: Yuval Levin
- Narrated by: Ford Enlow
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 177
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 145
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 144
Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incisive and Illuminating
- By Jakob on 01-26-23
By: Yuval Levin
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The Great Delusion
- Liberal Dreams and International Realities
- By: John J. Mearsheimer
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 462
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 387
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 382
In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers abroad.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dense, fact filled, sober analysis and prescription
- By John Brynjolfsson on 12-15-18
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Culture and Imperialism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 157
A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism, this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim ( Orientalism).
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5 out of 5 stars
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BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!
- By AnthonyStevens on 02-27-11
By: Edward Said
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World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
- A John Hope Franklin Center Book
- By: Immanuel Wallerstein
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered 30 years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Uneven, but Ambitious
- By Logical Paradox on 08-27-14
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The Light That Failed
- Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy
- By: Ivan Krastev, Stephen Holmes
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great text
- By Safronov on 05-03-21
By: Ivan Krastev, and others
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A Thousand Small Sanities
- The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Erudite and entertaining!
- By D. A. Vail on 05-20-19
By: Adam Gopnik
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Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
- Thinkers of the New Left
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 114
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 113
From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. Scruton delivers a critique of modern left-wing thinking.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deconstructing the New Left
- By Wayne on 01-17-20
By: Roger Scruton
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Why You Think the Way You Do
- The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home
- By: Glenn S. Sunshine
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
Why You Think the Way You Do traces the development of the worldviews that underpin the Western world. Professor and historian Glenn S. Sunshine demonstrates the decisive impact that the growth of Christianity had in transforming the outlook of pagan Roman culture into one that—based on biblical concepts of humanity and its relationship with God—established virtually all the positive aspects of Western civilization.
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2 out of 5 stars
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"Christian's view of the western world"
- By Bradley on 03-21-10
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Propaganda
- The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
- By: Jacques Ellul
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
From one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century comes a seminal study and critique of propaganda. Taking not only a psychological approach but a sociological approach as well, Jacques Ellul outlines the taxonomy for propaganda and, ultimately, its destructive nature towards democracy. Drawing from his own experiences fighting for the French resistance against the Vichy regime, Ellul offers a unique insight into the propaganda machine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent analysis on the dichotomies of propagandize media
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-21
By: Jacques Ellul
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Suicide of the West
- How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,401
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,265
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,243
Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
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A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 260
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 215
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
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White Christian Privilege
- The Illusion of Religious Equality in America
- By: Khyati Y. Joshi
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
The United States is recognized as the most religiously diverse country in the world, and yet its laws and customs, which many have come to see as normal features of American life, actually keep the constitutional ideal of “religious freedom for all” from becoming a reality. Christian beliefs, norms, and practices infuse our society; they are embedded in our institutions, creating the structures and expectations that define the idea of “Americanness.”
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4 out of 5 stars
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Audible needs to allow longer headlines
- By Adam Shields on 07-28-20
By: Khyati Y. Joshi
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Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization
- By: Samuel Gregg
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 140
This sharp commentary on the rise and current decline of Western Civilization touches on historical moments - including the building of early universities in the Middle Ages and the American Revolution - and figures - including Augustine, Acquinas, Edmund Burke, and Adam Smith - that exemplify the faith-reason synthesis at the heart of Western Civilization, as well as the modern villains that threaten to destroy it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent description of the current state of the West
- By Terryn on 10-24-19
By: Samuel Gregg