Politics Audiobooks | LoveReading

Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat

Ronnie Archer-Morgan narrates this major new history of how African nations sought to reclaim the art looted by Western colonial powers For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa’s Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. One of the world’s foremost experts on restitution and cultural heritage, Savoy investigates extensive, previously unpublished sources to reveal that the roots of the struggle extend much further back than prominent recent debates indicate, and that these efforts were covered up by myriad opponents. Shortly after 1960, when eighteen former colonies in Africa gained independence, a movement to pursue repatriation was spearheaded by African intellectual and political classes. Savoy looks at pivotal events, including the watershed speech delivered at the UN General Assembly by Zaire’s president, Mobutu Sese Seko, which started the debate regarding restitution of colonial-era assets and resulted in the first UN resolution on the subject. She examines how German museums tried to withhold information about their inventory and how the British Parliament failed to pass a proposed amendment to the British Museum Act, which protected the country's collections. Savoy concludes in the mid-1980s, when African nations enacted the first laws focusing on the protection of their cultural heritage. Making the case for why restitution is essential to any future relationship between African countries and the West, Africa’s Struggle for Its Art will shape conversations around these crucial issues for years to come.

Bénédicte Savoy (Author), Ronnie Archer-Morgan (Narrator)

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Infocracia: La digitalización y la crisis de la democracia

Un análisis sagaz del régimen de la información, el nuevo gobierno al que estamos sometidos, por el filósofo más leído del siglo XXI. La digitalización avanza inexorablemente. Aturdidos por el frenesí de la comunicación y la información, nos sentimos impotentes ante el tsunami de datos que despliega fuerzas destructivas y deformantes. Hoy la digitalización también afecta a la esfera política y provoca graves trastornos en el proceso democrático. Las campañas electorales son guerras de información que se libran con todos los medios técnicos y psicológicos imaginables. Los bots -las cuentas falsas automatizadas en las redes sociales- difunden noticias falsas y discursos de odio e influyen en la formación de la opinión pública. Los ejércitos de trolls intervienen en las campañas apuntalando la desinformación. Las teorías de la conspiración y la propaganda dominan el debate político. Por medio de la psicometría y la psicopolítica digital, se intenta influir en el comportamiento electoral y evitar las decisiones conscientes. El nuevo ensayo de Byung-Chul Han describe la crisis de la democracia y la atribuye al cambio estructural de la esfera pública en el mundo digital. También le da un nombre a este fenómeno: infocracia.

Byung-Chul Han (Author), Eugenio Barona (Narrator)

Audiobook

Las guerras ocultas del narco

Hasta hoy, lo peor de la 'guerra antinarco' ha permanecido casi en el silencio o en el terreno del rumor: el grado real de brutalidad, la lógica de los pactos, la crónica de las masacres, la explicación de los ataques... Mediante una investigación documental profundísima y un reporteo riguroso, Juan Alberto Cedillo ofrece una investigación inaudita que trae luz sobre estos fenómenos y aclara preguntas fundamentales de la lucha que desgarra, con saña particular, el norte de México. La base de estas historias son los propios testimonios de los capos, ofrecidos en México y Estados Unidos. Sus relatos explican una de las mayores heridas del país, al tiempo que desmontan algunos de los mitos más arraigados en torno al narcotráfico y los cárteles. 'Gracias a que no serían juzgados por los asesinatos que cometieron en México, cuando los capos tuvieron la oportunidad de narrar sus andanzas, se explayaron al grado que los fiscales los tenían que callar...'

Juan Alberto Cedillo (Author), Victor Manuel Espinoza (Narrator)

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México a cielo abierto: De cómo el boom minero resquebrajó al país

Entre 2001 y 2017 las mineras extrajeron de México una cantidad equivalente al doble del oro y la mitad de la plata que los españoles se llevaron en los 300 años que duró la Colonia. La minería es uno de los negocios más jugosos del país... pero no para los trabajadores o las comunidades donde se desarrolla. Deja una utilidad anual de $200,000 millones de dólares, de los cuales muy pocos se ven reflejados en la calidad de vida de la sociedad mexicana, que en cambio sí sufre los estragos de la explotación desmesurada. Solapadas por el gobierno desde hace al menos veinticinco años, cuando se firmó el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, cerca de 267 compañías -principalmente canadienses y estadounidenses- operan en México sin escrúpulos ni restricciones. Lo peor de todo es que a su alrededor convergen los peores males que aquejan a nuestro país: corrupción, desgobierno, narcotráfico, violencia, pobreza y desplazamiento. Esta investigación, que el reportero J. Jesús Lemus realizó por los cuatro rincones del país, revela por primera vez las operaciones ilegales de la industria minera que, por increíble que parezca, opacan la brutalidad del narcotráfico, y lanza una alerta urgente sobre los peligros que representan para la soberanía y la supervivencia de nuestro país. Parte del acervo real y existente, que por límite de espacio y secrecía profesional no se agregó al mismo: https://randomhouse.box.com/s/h0f9nbst7vejrwrekkcm0rp43wrwj9g4 https://randomhouse.box.com/s/2kmkguft16z75z6hq35nkxdfrvt51vsg

J. Jesús Lemus (Author), Rafa Serrano (Narrator)

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Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul

Inside Hollywood’s descent into dreary, dull, leftist groupthink Hollywood’s Dream Factory is now a nightmare of woke restrictions, Identity Politics run amok, and freedom-snuffing rules and regulations. The Oscars are unwatchable, as are many films and television shows thanks to the woke revolution. Virtue Bombs breaks down where Hollywood went so wrong, illustrates the slow-motion disaster infiltrating the industry, and offers a glimmer of hope for a woke-free tomorrow. Award-winning film critic Christian Toto has all the receipts, showcasing Hollywood’s virtue-signaling follies and how it could get much, much worse before it gets better.

Christian Toto (Author), Chris Abell (Narrator)

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Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy

For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking-an 'economic style of reasoning'-became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today. Introduced by liberal technocrats who hoped to improve government, this way of thinking was grounded in economics. At its core was an economic understanding of efficiency, and its advocates often found themselves allied with Republicans and in conflict with liberal Democrats who argued for rights, equality, and limits on corporate power. By the Carter administration, economic reasoning had spread throughout government policy and laws affecting poverty, healthcare, antitrust, transportation, and the environment. Thinking like an Economist offers critical lessons for the future. With the political left resurgent today, Democrats seem poised to break with the past-but doing so will require abandoning the shibboleth of economic efficiency and successfully advocating new ways of thinking about policy.

Elizabeth Popp Berman (Author), Suzie Althens (Narrator)

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Is Science Enough?: Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice

Why social, racial, and economic justice are just as crucial as science in determining how humans can reverse climate catastrophe We are facing a climate catastrophe. A plethora of studies describe the damage we've already done, the droughts, the wildfires, the super-storms, the melting glaciers, the heat waves, and the displaced people fleeing lands that are becoming uninhabitable. Many people understand that we are facing a climate emergency, but may be fuzzy on technical, policy, and social justice aspects. In Is Science Enough?, Aviva Chomsky breaks down the concepts, terminology, and debates for activists, students, and anyone concerned about climate change. She argues that science is not enough to change course: we need put social, racial, and economic justice front and center and overhaul the global growth economy. Chomsky's accessible primer focuses on 5 key issues: 1.) Technical questions: What exactly are "clean," "renewable," and "zero-emission" energy sources? How much do different sectors (power generation, transportation, agriculture, industry, etc.) contribute to climate change? Can forests serve as a carbon sink? 2.) Policy questions: What is the Green New Deal? How does a cap-and-trade system work? How does the United States subsidize the fossil fuel industry? 3.) What can I do as an individual?: Do we need to consume less? What kinds of individual actions can make the most difference? Should we all be vegetarians? 4.) Social, racial, and economic justice: What's the relationship of inequality to climate change? What do race and racism have to do with climate change? How are pandemics related to climate change? 5.) Broadening the lens: What is economic growth? How important is it, and how does it affect the environment? What is degrowth?

Aviva Chomsky (Author), Moe Egan (Narrator)

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Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning authoritarian rule for a more sophisticated, globally connected world. In place of overt, mass repression, rulers such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Viktor Orbán control their citizens by distorting information and simulating democratic procedures. Like spin doctors in democracies, they spin the news to engineer support. Uncovering this new brand of authoritarianism, Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman explain the rise of such 'spin dictators,' describing how they emerge and operate, the new threats they pose, and how democracies should respond. Spin Dictators traces how leaders such as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Peru's Alberto Fujimori pioneered less violent, more covert, and more effective methods of monopolizing power. They cultivated an image of competence, concealed censorship, and used democratic institutions to undermine democracy, all while increasing international engagement for financial and reputational benefits. The book reveals why most of today's authoritarians are spin dictators-and how they differ from the remaining 'fear dictators' such as Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad, as well as from masters of high-tech repression like Xi Jinping.

Daniel Treisman, Sergei Guriev (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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A Brief History of Equality

The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books. It is easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations. No one has done more to reveal the problem than Thomas Piketty. Now, in this surprising and powerful new work, Piketty reminds us that the grand sweep of history gives us reasons to be optimistic. Over the centuries, he shows, we have been moving toward greater equality. Piketty guides us with elegance and concision through the great movements that have made the modern world for better and worse: the growth of capitalism, revolutions, imperialism, slavery, wars, and the building of the welfare state. It's a history of violence and social struggle, punctuated by regression and disaster. But through it all, Piketty shows, human societies have moved fitfully toward a more just distribution of income and assets, a reduction of racial and gender inequalities, and greater access to health care, education, and the rights of citizenship. Our rough march forward is political and ideological, an endless fight against injustice. To keep moving, Piketty argues, we need to learn and commit to what works, to institutional, legal, social, fiscal, and educational systems that can make equality a lasting reality. At the same time, we need to resist historical amnesia and the temptations of cultural separatism and intellectual compartmentalization. At stake is the quality of life for billions of people. We know we can do better, Piketty concludes. The past shows us how. The future is up to us.

Thomas Piketty (Author), Fred Sanders (Narrator)

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Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Brought to you by Penguin. In this New York Times bestseller, Cathy O'Neil, one of the first champions of algorithmic accountability, sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life -- and threaten to rip apart our social fabric. We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives - where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance - are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated. And yet, as Cathy O'Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and incontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination. Tracing the arc of a person's life, O'Neil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These 'weapons of math destruction' score teachers and students, sort CVs, grant or deny loans, evaluate workers, target voters, and monitor our health. O'Neil calls on modellers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, it's up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change. 'A manual for the 21st-century citizen... accessible, refreshingly critical, relevant and urgent' - Financial Times 'Fascinating and deeply disturbing' - Yuval Noah Harari, Guardian Books of the Year © Cathy O'Neil 2016 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Cathy O'neil (Author), Cathy O'neil (Narrator)

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Die Macherinnen: So geht Unternehmen!

Miriam Wohlfarth hat geschafft, was in der Fintech-Branche nur ganz Wenigen gelingt: Sie ist eine der ersten Fintech-Gründerinnen in Deutschland, und eine sehr erfolgreiche noch dazu. Gemeinsam mit Ratepay CEO Nina Pütz hat sie ein sehr persönliches Buch geschrieben, wie Unternehmensführung und -gründung heute funktioniert, welche Unternehmer-Skills dafür benötigt werden und was das für das Recruiting und den Teamaufbau bedeutet. Dabei gewähren beide Einblicke in ihre eigenen Erfahrungen - mit all ihren Höhen und Tiefen - und ergänzen ihre Learnings durch zahlreiche Anekdoten.

Miriam Wohlfarth, Nina Pütz (Author), Viola Müller (Narrator)

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Talentmanagement 5.0: Wie Sie die klügsten Köpfe finden und halten

Die voranschreitende Digitalisierung bietet enormes Potenzial für die Personalentwicklung in Unternehmen. Online-Vorstellungsgespräche, digitale Auswahlverfahren der passenden Kandidat_innen und pdf-Bewerbungsunterlagen sind nur die Spitze des Eisbergs. Viele weitere Möglichkeiten bleiben bisher ungenutzt und werfen Fragen auf: Wie kann KI die Bewerber_innenauswahl unterstützen? Wie lassen sich Algorithmen bei der Suche nach Fachkräften nutzen? Kann das Tinder-Prinzip auch in Unternehmen zum Einsatz kommen? Aus Interviews mit HR-Expert_innen (aus Konzernen, Mittelstand, Start-ups und der Forschung) entwickeln Isabell Welpe und Nicholas Folger Best-Practices für zukunftsweisendes Talentmanagement.

Isabell Welpe, Nicolas Folger (Author), Michael J. Diekmann (Narrator)

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