Unnatural Selection
Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
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Unnatural Selection
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Narrated by:
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Tamara Marston
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By:
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Mara Hvistendahl
About this listen
Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't seem terribly grim, but in 10 years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time these children reach adulthood, their generation will have 24 million more men than women. The prognosis for China's neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females "missing" from its population. Gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia, affecting Georgia, Eastern Europe, and cities in the U.S. where there are significant immigrant populations. The world, therefore, is becoming increasingly male, and this mismatch is likely to create profound social upheaval.
Historically, eras in which there have been an excess of men have produced periods of violent conflict and instability. Mara Hvistendahl has written a stunning, impeccably researched book that does not flinch from examining not only the consequences of the misbegotten policies of sex selection but Western complicity with them.
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- A Journey into the Real Russia
- By: Anne Garrels
- Narrated by: Anne Garrels
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 361
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 314
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 312
In Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia, Garrels crafts an intimate portrait of the nation's heartland. We meet ostentatious mafiosos, upwardly mobile professionals, impassioned activists, scheming taxi drivers with dark secrets, and beleaguered steel workers. We discover surprising subcultures, like the LGBT residents of Chelyablinsk who bravely endure an upsurge in homophobia fueled by Putin's rhetoric of Russian "moral superiority" yet still nurture a vibrant if clandestine community of their own.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Interesting dive into Russia today
- By Keith on 03-25-16
By: Anne Garrels
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Forget "Having It All"
- How America Messed Up Motherhood - and How to Fix It
- By: Amy Westervelt
- Narrated by: Amy Westervelt
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
In Forget "Having It All", Westervelt traces the roots of our modern expectations of mothers and motherhood back to extremist ideas held by the first Puritans who attempted to colonize America and examines how those ideals shifted - or didn't - through every generation since.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Thorough and Well-Researched Book on The "Mom Predicament"
- By Merle B on 04-10-19
By: Amy Westervelt
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The Italians
- By: John Hooper
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4 out of 5 stars 126
John Hooper's marvelously entertaining and perceptive new book is ideal for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Looking at the facts that lie behind and often belie the stereotypes, his revealing book sheds new light on many aspects of Italian life: football and Freemasonry, sex, symbolism, and the reason Italian has twelve words for a coat hanger yet none for a hangover.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mi piace molto!
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-30-16
By: John Hooper
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India
- A Portrait
- By: Patrick French
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4 out of 5 stars 77
Second only to China in the magnitude of its economic miracle and second to none in its potential to shape the new century, India is fast undergoing one of the most momentous transformations the world has ever seen. In this dazzlingly panoramic book, Patrick French chronicles that epic change, telling human stories to explain a larger national narrative. Melding on-the-ground reports with a deep knowledge of history, French exposes the cultural foundations of India’s political, economic and social complexities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Epic Book by Award-Winning Author
- By morton on 10-31-11
By: Patrick French
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This Noble Land
- My Vision For America
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Arthur Addison
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
This Noble Land is Michener's most personal statement about America, an examination of the issues that threaten to fragment and undermine the nation - racial conflict, the widening gulf between rich and poor, the decline of education, the inadequacies of our health care system - as well as a thought-provoking prescription for sustaining our "outstanding success". First published shortly before Michener's death, This Noble Land stands as a wake-up call for a troubled era, infused with the wisdom and passion of a lifetime.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A startling realization
- By Amazon Customer on 08-15-15
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Disintegration
- The Splintering of Black America
- By: Eugene Robinson
- Narrated by: Alan Bomar Jones
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 101
The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a "Black America" with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book Disintegration, longtime Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson argues that, through decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Written for Popular Consumption
- By Catherine S. Read on 06-03-11
By: Eugene Robinson
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The Future Is History
- How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
- By: Masha Gessen
- Narrated by: Masha Gessen
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,061
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 930
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 926
Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The author is an international treasure
- By ThreeGems on 10-16-17
By: Masha Gessen
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All the Single Ladies
- Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation
- By: Rebecca Traister
- Narrated by: Candace Thaxton, Rebecca Traister - introduction
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 987
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 979
In a provocative, groundbreaking work, National Magazine Award finalist Rebecca Traister, "the most brilliant voice on feminism in this country" (Anne Lamott), traces the history of unmarried women in America who, through social, political, and economic means, have radically shaped our nation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book, destroyed by narration
- By Theresa Holleran on 03-06-16
By: Rebecca Traister
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The End of Men
- And the Rise of Women
- By: Hanna Rosin
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 135
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Story4 out of 5 stars 132
Men have been the dominant sex since - well, the dawn of mankind. And yet, as journalist Hanna Rosin discovered, that long-held truth is no longer true. At this unprecedented moment, women are no longer merely gaining on men; they have pulled decisively ahead by almost every measure. Already "the end of men" - the phrase Rosin coined - has entered the lexicon as indelibly as Simone de Beauvoir’s "second sex", Betty Friedan’s "feminine mystique", Susan Faludi’s "backlash", and Naomi Wolf’s "beauty myth" have.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, don't care for the reader's style
- By Darren on 12-05-12
By: Hanna Rosin
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Korea
- The Impossible Country
- By: Daniel Tudor
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 112
Long overshadowed by Japan and China, South Korea is a small country that happens to be one of the great national success stories of the postwar period. From a failed state with no democratic tradition, ruined and partitioned by war, and sapped by a half-century of colonial rule, South Korea transformed itself in just 50 years into an economic powerhouse and a democracy that serves as a model for other countries. With no natural resources and a tradition of authoritarian rule, Korea managed to accomplish a second Asian miracle.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing book
- By Antoine on 12-14-18
By: Daniel Tudor
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Epic Measures
- One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients.
- By: Jeremy N. Smith
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time - the groundbreaking program to answer the most essential question for humanity: How do we live and die? - and the visionary mastermind behind it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fabulously insightful read!
- By Dr. Jack E. Fincham on 10-08-15
By: Jeremy N. Smith
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A Nation of Nations
- A Story of America After the 1965 Immigration Law
- By: Tom Gjelten
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
In 1950, Fairfax County, Virginia, was 90 percent white, 10 percent African American, with a little more than 100 families who were "other". Currently the African American percentage of the population is about the same, but the Anglo white population is less than 50 percent, and there are families of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American origin living all over the county. A Nation of Nations follows the lives of a few immigrants to Fairfax County over recent decades as they gradually "Americanize".
By: Tom Gjelten
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A Strange Stirring
- 'The Feminine Mystique' and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s
- By: Stephanie Coontz
- Narrated by: Diane Cardea
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Based on exhaustive research and interviews, and challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Friedan, A Strange Stirring brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn’t reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good histroy and well written
- By Hannah Lasher on 06-18-16
By: Stephanie Coontz
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Excellent Daughters
- The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World
- By: Katherine Zoepf
- Narrated by: Katherine Zoepf
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
For more than a decade, Katherine Zoepf has lived in or traveled throughout the Arab world, reporting on the lives of women, whose role in the region has never been more in flux. Only a generation ago, female adolescence as we know it in the West did not exist in the Middle East. There were only children and married women. Today, young Arab women outnumber men in universities, and a few are beginning to face down religious and social tradition in order to live independently, to delay marriage, and to pursue professional goals.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best book on Middle East written this decade
- By Zuzana B on 07-02-17
By: Katherine Zoepf
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Angry White Men
- American Masculinity at the End of an Era
- By: Michael Kimmel
- Narrated by: Aaron Williamson
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
One of the enduring legacies of the 2012 Presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O'Reilly lamented that he didn't live in "a traditional America anymore". He was joined by others who bellowed their grief on the talk radio airwaves, the traditional redoubt of angry white men. Why were they so angry?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting book; Wrong reader
- By Carolina A. Miranda on 05-02-18
By: Michael Kimmel
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No Escape
- The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs
- By: Nury Turkel
- Narrated by: Stewart Lang
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 49
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Story5 out of 5 stars 49
A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerfully Provocative
- By Amazon Customer on 06-01-22
By: Nury Turkel
What listeners say about Unnatural Selection
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David Graham
- 01-17-20
my next toastmasters speech!
this has really opened my eyes to a different perspective on abortion and I'll use it as my next Toastmasters speech topic
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Seth P Dow
- 07-30-15
Interesting idea but...
Overall a great insight into the complex topic of gender imbalance. Some parts of the book end up feeling like long lists of the same phenomenon, asia has a problem, Vietnam
Has a problem, India has a problem... The books ends well in a summary of the issues that are a result of gender selection.
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1 person found this helpful