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Opium’s Orphans
- The 200-Year History of the War on Drugs
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
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Opium’s Orphans
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Publisher's summary
Upending all we know about the war on drugs, a history of the anti-narcotics movement's origins, evolution, and questionable effectiveness.
Opium's Orphans is the first full history of drug prohibition and the "war on drugs." A no-holds-barred but balanced account, it shows that drug suppression was born of historical accident, not rational design. The war on drugs did not originate in Europe or the United States, and even less with President Nixon, but in China. Two Opium Wars followed by Western attempts to atone for them gave birth to an anti-narcotics order that has come to span the globe. But has the war on drugs succeeded?
As opioid deaths and cartel violence run rampant, contestation becomes more vocal, and marijuana is slated for legalization, Opium's Orphans proposes that it is time to go back to the drawing board.
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Flowers in the Blood
- The Story of Opium
- By: Jeff Goldberg, Dean Latimer, William Burroughs - introduction
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4 out of 5 stars 58
Opium has played a dramatic and varied role in human history, inspiring religious veneration, scientific exploration, the bitterest rancor, and the most fanciful ecstasy. Now, authors Jeff Goldberg and Dean Latimer have provided a complete, insightful history of opium. Flowers in the Blood lifts the veil of mystery that has surrounded opium down through the ages.
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4 out of 5 stars
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OPIATE DECRIMINALIZATION
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 06-18-14
By: Jeff Goldberg, and others
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Narconomics
- How to Run a Drug Cartel
- By: Tom Wainwright
- Narrated by: Brian Hutchison
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,756
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,310
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,290
What drug lords learned from big business. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Worthy book in the "economics explains X" genre
- By A reader on 04-11-16
By: Tom Wainwright
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A Narco History
- How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”
- By: Carmen Boullosa, Mike Wallace
- Narrated by: James Conlan
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 381
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 336
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 337
The term Mexican Drug War misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the US role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from and sell weapons to Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the US prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer - with increasingly deadly consequences.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting book, tricky pronunciation
- By Enrique on 12-24-18
By: Carmen Boullosa, and others
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Opium
- How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World
- By: John H. Halpern, David Blistein
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Opium tells the extraordinary and at times harrowing tale of how we arrived at today's crisis, "mak[ing] timely and startling connections among painkillers, politics, finance, and society" (Laurence Bergreen). The story begins with the discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia, and goes on to explore how Greek physicians and obscure chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial empires marketed it around the world, and eventually how international drug companies developed a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an addiction epidemic.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Opium a poor excuse for a better history.
- By Jeffrey Olsen on 09-12-19
By: John H. Halpern, and others
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Shooting Up
- A Short History of Drugs and War
- By: Lukasz Kamienski
- Narrated by: Ricco Fajardo
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War examines how intoxicants have been put to the service of states, empires, and their armies throughout history. Since the beginning of organized combat, armed forces have prescribed drugs to their members for two general purposes: to enhance performance during combat and to counter the trauma of killing and witnessing violence after it is over.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Its certainly not a brief history.
- By Alexander Romanovich on 10-19-22
By: Lukasz Kamienski
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Reefer Madness
- Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Eric Schlosser
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 396
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4 out of 5 stars 105
In Reefer Madness, the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation investigates America's black market and its far-reaching influence on our society through three of its mainstays - pot, porn, and illegal immigrants.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Investigative Journalism
- By Boulderite on 06-25-03
By: Eric Schlosser
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American Overdose
- The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Chris McGreal
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 125
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Story5 out of 5 stars 124
The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An important read
- By Macmom4 on 02-18-19
By: Chris McGreal
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Tobacco
- A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization
- By: Iain Gately
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 267
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 230
Tobacco was first cultivated and enjoyed by the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, who used it for medicinal, religious, and social purposes long before the arrival of Columbus. But when Europeans began to colonize the American continents, it became something else entirely - a cultural touchstone of pleasure and success and a coveted commodity that would transform the world economy forever.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting until a pro-smoking ending
- By Kelli on 12-25-20
By: Iain Gately
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McMafia
- A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
- By: Misha Glenny
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 263
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 205
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 204
Misha Glenny's groundbreaking study of global organized crime is now the inspiration for an eight-part AMC crime drama starring James Norton (War and Peace), Juliet Rylance, and David Strathairn. In this fearless and wholly authoritative investigation of the seemingly insatiable demand for illegal wares, veteran reporter Misha Glenny travels across five continents to speak with participants from every level of the global underworld. What follows is a groundbreaking, propulsive look at an unprecedented phenomenon from a savvy, street-wise guide.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Worthwhile Overview
- By Roy on 05-14-10
By: Misha Glenny
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Milk of Paradise
- A History of Opium
- By: Lucy Inglis
- Narrated by: Colleen Prendergast
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
Poppy tears, opium, heroin, fentanyl: humankind has been in thrall to the ‘Milk of Paradise’ for millennia. The latex of papaver somniferum is a bringer of sleep, of pleasurable lethargy, of relief from pain - and hugely addictive. A commodity without rival, it is renewable, easy to extract, transport and refine, and subject to an insatiable global demand. No other substance in the world is as simple to produce or as profitable. It is the basis of a gargantuan industry built upon a shady underworld, but ultimately it is a farm-gate material that lives many lives ....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Historical gold mine....
- By Alednam A Uonopk on 01-29-20
By: Lucy Inglis
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The Internationalists
- How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World
- By: Oona A. Hathaway, Scott J. Shapiro
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 19 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
On a hot summer afternoon in 1928, the leaders of the world assembled in Paris to outlaw war. Within the year, the treaty signed that day, known as the Peace Pact, had been ratified by nearly every state in the world. War, for the first time in history, had become illegal the world over. But the promise of that summer day was fleeting. Within a decade of its signing, each state that had gathered in Paris to renounce war was at war. And in the century that followed, the Peace Pact was dismissed as an act of folly and an unmistakable failure.
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2 out of 5 stars
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cart before horse
- By Coffin Family on 12-02-22
By: Oona A. Hathaway, and others
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The Third Reich in Power
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 31 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,251
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,000
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,003
The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great book, annoying narrator
- By Maria on 08-14-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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Why?
- Explaining the Holocaust
- By: Peter Hayes
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 123
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Story5 out of 5 stars 121
Despite the outpouring of books, movies, museums, memorials, and courses devoted to the Holocaust, a coherent explanation of why such ghastly carnage erupted from the heart of civilized Europe in the 20th century still seems elusive even 70 years later. Numerous theories have sprouted in an attempt to console ourselves and to point the blame in emotionally satisfying directions - yet none of them are fully convincing.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding book! A must read
- By Pierre on 11-13-21
By: Peter Hayes
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48 Liberal Lies About American History
- (That You Probably Learned in School)
- By: Larry Schweikart
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 165
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
The problem isn’t that liberal authors present their opinions or interpretations of history from an obvious left-wing bias. Students learn, for example, that the Founding Fathers were elitists who drafted the Constitution in order to protect their own economic interests; that Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation only because he needed black soldiers; that racist groups such as the KKK represented our society in the early twentieth century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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amazingly accurate...
- By Anthony on 01-23-16
By: Larry Schweikart