The Future of Decline
Anglo-American Culture at Its Limits
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The Future of Decline
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Narrated by:
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Ian Putnam
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By:
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Jed Esty
About this listen
The debate over the US's fading hegemony has raged and sputtered for 50 years, glutting the market with prophecies about American decline. Media experts ask how fast we will fall and how much we will lose, but generally ignore the fundamental question: What does decline mean? What is the significance, in experiential and everyday terms, in feelings and fantasies, of living in a country past its prime?
Drawing on the example of post-WWII Britain and looking ahead at America in the 2020s, Jed Esty suggests that becoming a second-place nation is neither disastrous, as alarmists claim, nor avoidable, as optimists insist. Contemporary declinism often masks white nostalgia and perpetuates a conservative longing for Cold War certainty. But the narcissistic lure of "lost greatness" appeals across the political spectrum. As Esty argues, it resonates so widely in mainstream media because Americans have lost access to a language of national purpose beyond global supremacy. It is time to shelve the shopworn fables of endless US dominance, to face the multipolar world of the future, and to tell new American stories. The Future of Decline is a guide to finding them.
The book is published by Stanford University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
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Historical Liberalism on deathbed
- By Mehran Asdigha on 11-13-20
By: Pankaj Mishra
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Fascism: The Career of a Concept
- By: Paul Gottfried
- Narrated by: Kevin Moriarty
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story5 out of 5 stars 41
What does it mean to label someone a fascist? Today, it is equated with denouncing him or her as a Nazi. But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term's meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces the word's polemical function within the context of present ideological struggles.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Refreshing scholarly treatment of a widely misused concept
- By Minister of the Posterior on 01-15-24
By: Paul Gottfried
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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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Age of Anger
- A History of the Present
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 287
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 259
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Story4 out of 5 stars 252
How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world - from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the 18th century before leading us to the present.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By AR on 04-28-17
By: Pankaj Mishra
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Strategic Vision
- America and the Crisis of Global Power
- By: Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 185
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Story4 out of 5 stars 157
In 1991, the United States was the only global superpower. It seemed that the 21st century, like the 20th, would belong to America. Then came the stock market bubble, the costly foreign unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency, and the financial catastrophe of 2008. Meanwhile, China was rising and the Middle East was awakening politically. Today it is clear that America is vulnerable - to domestic and international decline and unregulated greed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightfull and imforming
- By Roy on 02-15-12
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Identity
- The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 753
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 642
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 630
In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Robotic narrator
- By Shahin on 09-19-18
By: Francis Fukuyama
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Ill Fares the Land
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 92
In Ill Fares The Land, Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment. Judt masterfully crystallizes what we've all been feeling into a way to think our way into, and thus out of, our great collective dis-ease about the current state of things.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Blah, Blah, Blah.
- By Michael on 07-15-10
By: Tony Judt
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When China Rules the World
- The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order
- By: Martin Jacques
- Narrated by: Scott Peterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 223
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 148
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Story4 out of 5 stars 148
According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lucid explanation of global economic trends
- By David Blake on 01-04-10
By: Martin Jacques
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When the Facts Change
- Essays, 1995-2010
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
In When the Facts Change, Tony Judt's widow and fellow historian Jennifer Homans has assembled an essential collection of the most important and influential pieces written in the last 15 years of Judt's life, the years in which he found his voice in the public sphere. Included are seminal essays on the full range of Judt's concerns, including Europe as an idea and in reality, before 1989 and thereafter; Israel, the Holocaust and the Jews; American hyperpower and the world after 9/11.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential
- By Herman Utik on 09-19-16
By: Tony Judt
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Democracy Incorporated
- Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
- By: Sheldon S. Wolin
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 261
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 217
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 213
Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive - and where elites are eager to keep them that way.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential listening....
- By M. Levine on 02-25-11
By: Sheldon S. Wolin
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The Upswing
- How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
- By: Robert D. Putnam, Shaylyn Romney Garrett - contributor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism — Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times. But we’ve been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today.
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2 out of 5 stars
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For Progressives only. Won't make sense otherwise
- By Dennis G. on 12-19-20
By: Robert D. Putnam, and others
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The Sovereign Individual
- Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
- By: James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface, William Rees-Mogg
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,395
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,124
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,119
Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Unfortunately distopian for mosty of humanity
- By Phil on 09-29-20
By: James Dale Davidson, and others
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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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The Revenge of Geography
- What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 748
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 649
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Story4 out of 5 stars 648
In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Painful to listen to
- By Bookworm on 12-27-13
By: Robert D. Kaplan
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The Age of Illusions
- How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
- By: Andrew Bacevich
- Narrated by: Andrew Bacevich, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 108
When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation”, its “sole superpower”, the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Needs an update
- By Scott Burton on 05-24-20
By: Andrew Bacevich
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Lee Kuan Yew
- The Grand Master’s Insights on China, United States, and the World
- By: Graham Allison, Robert D. Blackwill, Ali Wyne
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie, Francis Chau
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,020
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 858
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 854
Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thought-provoking
- By Jean on 12-11-14
By: Graham Allison, and others
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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