Politics Audiobooks | LoveReading

Los de adelante corren mucho: Desigualdad, privilegios y democracia

¿Por qué América es la región más desigual del mundo? ¿Qué explica esta injusta realidad? Todos somos iguales, ¿pero por qué algunos son más iguales que otros? En México -y de hecho en todo el continente americano- la desigualdad ha permitido a unos pocos miles de hombres (rara vez son mujeres) dominar las decisiones políticas y económicas. Las élites han modelado la historia para asegurarse el poder, el dinero y, con frecuencia, la impunidad. Hay momentos históricos en los que cambian las élites. La desigualdad permanece. ¿Cómo se conforman las clases dominantes y qué principios las rigen? ¿Cuáles son sus contradicciones? ¿Por qué se pelean y de qué modo se intercambian favores? ¿Cuándo se les imponen límites y cómo se relacionan con el resto de la sociedad? El examen profundo de las oligarquías exige poner bajo la lupa la idea misma de igualdad, para descubrir que es un concepto más problemático de lo que parece a primera vista. Definirla ya es un reto; determinar sus alcances, una labor con hondas implicaciones éticas y políticas. Esta obra acepta el desafío y explica por qué los de adelante corren mucho, y los de atrás...

Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra (Author), Daniel Cubillo (Narrator)

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Pandemic Perspectives: A filmmaker's journey in 10 essays

Directly inspired by award-winning author, physician and self-professed “biology watcher” Lewis Thomas, Howard Burton takes us on a thought-provoking tour of a wide range of social and scientific issues which he encountered through the process of making the documentary film, Pandemic Perspectives. Howard provides unique and fresh insights into a wide range of issues ranging from biology to politics to contemporary morality weaving together his interaction with a diverse array of international experts who participated in his film and his personal experiences as a physicist-turned-filmmaker.

Howard Burton (Author), Howard Burton (Narrator)

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Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vlad

Following his explosive #1 New York Times bestseller, Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he exposed Vladmir Putin's campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars from Russia-and how Putin is willing to kill anyone who stands in his way. When Browder's young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life's mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia-through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas-they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime. After Western law-enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set honey traps for Browder, hired agents to chase him around the globe, murdered more of Browder's Russian allies, and enlisted some of the West's top lawyers and politicians in an attempt to bring Browder down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his wealth and power. As Freezing Order reveals, Browder's campaign was a main impetus for Putin's intervention in the 2016 US presidential election. At once a financial caper, an international adventure, and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is a stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one of the most dangerous and ruthless villains in the world.

Bill Browder (Author), Adam Grupper (Narrator)

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War Without Rules: China's Playbook for Global Domination

In its fight for global dominance, Communist China has thrown out the old rules of war. China expert General Robert Spalding walks us through their new playbook. Many Americans are finally waking up to the alarming reality of China's stealth war on the United States and puzzling over how to push back against its insidious infiltration. What few realize is that we have one real advantage in this war: the Chinese Communist Party strategy for total war has been written out in Unrestricted Warfare, the Chinese book, well known there, that has become their new Art of War. In War Without Rules, retired Air Force Brigadier General Rob Spalding takes Americans inside Unrestricted Warfare. He walks readers through the principles of this book, revealing the Chinese belief that there is no sector of life outside the realm of war. He shows how the CCP itself has promised to use corporate espionage, global pandemics, and trade violations to achieve dominance. Most importantly, he provides insight into how, once Americans are aware of the tactics, we can fight back against CCP's creeping influence. More than a vital read for those interested in China, War Without Rules is essential reading for anyone-from policymakers and diplomats to businessmen and investors-finally waking up to the stealth war. Knowledge is power, and it's time to arm yourself.

Robert Spalding (Author), Brett Boles, David Bryson (Narrator)

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Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World Wa

Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the 'New World.' Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the 'dark' continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not-as we are so often told, even today-Europe's yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa.

Howard W. French (Author), James Fouhey (Narrator)

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A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics

A lively, accessible, and timely guide to Marxist economics for those who want to understand and dismantle the world of the 1%. Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the 'experts.' Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory.

Hadas Thier (Author), Jo Anna Perrin (Narrator)

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Africa Is Not a Country: Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa

Brought to you by Penguin. Africa Is Not A Country is a kaleidoscopic portrait of modern Africa, that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story. You already know these stereotypes. So often Africa is depicted simplistically as an arid red landscape of famines and safaris, uniquely plagued by poverty and strife. In this funny and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, creating a fresh and multifaceted view of this vast continent. To unspool this inaccurate narrative, Africa Is Not A Country looks to a wide range of subjects, from chronicling urban life in Lagos and the lively West African rivalry over who makes the best Jollof rice, to the story of democracy in seven dictatorships and the dangers of white saviourism and harmful stereotypes in popular culture. It examines how each African country was formed, by white European explorers who turned up with loose maps and even looser morals, and how 90% of Africa's material cultural legacy was stolen during the colonial era, and the fight to get those artefacts back. By turns intimate and political, Africa Is Not A Country brings the story of the continent towards reality, celebrating the energy and fabric of its different cultures and communities in a way that has never been done before. © Dipo Faloyin 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Dipo Faloyin (Author), Dipo Faloyin (Narrator)

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Fire and Flood: A People's History of Climate Change, from 1979 to the Present

Brought to you by Penguin. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter was presented with the findings of scientists who had been investigating whether human activities might change the climate in harmful ways. 'A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late,' their report said. They were right -- but no one was listening. Four decades later, we are haunted by the consequences of this inattention, and the years of complacency, obfuscation and denialism that followed. Today, the staggering scale and scope of what we have done to the planet is impossible to ignore: the seasons of fire and flood have crossed into plain view. Fire and Flood is a comprehensive, compulsively readable history of climate change from veteran environmental journalist Eugene Linden. Linden retells the story of the modern climate change era decade by decade, tracking the progress of four ticking clocks: first, the reality of climate change itself; second, advances in scientific understanding; third, the spread of public awareness; and fourth, the business and finance response. Like no previous writer, Linden has drawn together the elements of the biggest story in the world, in a book that it is gripping as history, as economic investigation, and as scientific thriller. © Eugene Linden 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Eugene Linden (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

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Fixing Social Security: The Politics of Reform in a Polarized Age

Since its establishment, Social Security has become the financial linchpin of American retirement. Yet demographic trends-longer lifespans and declining birthrates-mean that this popular program now pays more in benefits than it collects in revenue. Without reforms, eighty-three million Americans will face an immediate benefit cut of twenty percent in 2034. How did we get here and what is the solution? In Fixing Social Security, R. Douglas Arnold explores the historical role that Social Security has played in American politics, why Congress has done nothing to fix its insolvency problem for three decades, and what legislators can do to save it. What options do legislators have as the program nears the precipice? They can raise taxes, as they did in 1977, cut benefits, as they did in 1983, or reinvent the program, as they attempted in 2005. Unfortunately, every option would impose costs, and legislators are reluctant to act, fearing electoral retribution. Arnold investigates why politicians designed the system as they did and how between 1935 and 1983 they allocated-and reallocated-costs and benefits among workers, employers, and beneficiaries. He also examines public support for the program, and why Democratic and Republican representatives, once political allies in expanding Social Security, have become so deeply polarized about fixing it.

R. Douglas Arnold (Author), Graham Rowat (Narrator)

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It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom

How far does the idea of academic freedom extend to professors in an era of racial reckoning? The protests of summer 2020, which were ignited by the murder of George Floyd, led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors? It's Not Free Speech considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy-theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles-one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion-they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses. Faculty across the nation can develop protocols that account for both the new realities-from the rise of social media to the decline of tenure-and the old realities of long-standing inequities and abuses that the classic liberal conception of academic freedom did nothing to address. This book will resonate for anyone who has followed debates over #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, and 'cancel culture'; more specifically, it should have a major impact on many facets of academic life, from the classroom to faculty senates to the office of the general counsel.

Jennifer Ruth, Michael Bérubé (Author), David Chandler (Narrator)

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Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism

The modern white power movement is now a global, transnational phenomenon. In this sweeping, authoritative account, Daniel Byman traces the key moments in the white power movement's evolution in the United States and around the world and then details its many facets today. Using a wide range of sources, Byman explodes several myths about white power terrorism and identifies dangerous gaps in current policies. For almost two decades since 9/11, white supremacist terrorism has been relegated to a secondary concern in the US and Europe despite shocking episodes of violence from New Zealand to Norway to South Carolina. Because white power terrorists' grievances echo mainstream debates and their violence often exacerbates polarization, their political impact can be inordinately high even if the body count is low. As Byman stresses, they are not a hidebound movement seeking to turn back the clock, but are dynamic, drawing on ideas from around the world and exploiting the most cutting-edge technologies, especially social media. White power terrorists, however, have many weaknesses. They are divided, with poor leadership, and often attract the incompetent and the criminal as well as the dangerous and deluded. If governments act decisively and treat white power terrorism with the same urgency they use to manage jihadist violence, then the threat can be reduced. This will require aggressive law enforcement, international intelligence cooperation, crackdowns by technology companies, and other forceful steps. Spreading Hate will be essential reading for anyone worried about this increasingly networked movement that threatens to grow more dangerous in the years to come.

Daniel Byman (Author), James Lurie (Narrator)

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The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today

A leading historian's guide to great-power competition, as told through America's successes and failures in the Cold War The United States is entering an era of great-power competition with China and Russia. Such global struggles happen in a geopolitical twilight, between the sunshine of peace and the darkness of war. In this innovative and illuminating book, Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons in how to succeed in great-power rivalry today. Although the threat posed by authoritarian powers is growing, America's muscle memory for dealing with dangerous foes has atrophied in the thirty years since the Cold War ended. In long-term competitions where the diplomatic jockeying is intense and the threat of violence is omnipresent, the United States will need all the historical insight it can get. Exploring how America won a previous twilight struggle is the starting point for determining how America can successfully prosecute another high-stakes rivalry today.

Hal Brands (Author), Tom Parks (Narrator)

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