Adrian Wooldridge has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 20 ratings. The most-rated is Capitalism in America.
Capitalism in America
Summary
From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen. From even the start of his fabled career, Alan Greenspan was duly famous for his deep understanding of even the most arcane corners of the American economy and his restless curiosity to know even more. He has made a science of understanding how the US economy works almost as a living organism - how it grows and changes, surges and stalls. He has made a particular study of the question of productivity growth, at the heart of which is the riddle of innovation. Where does innovation come from and how does it spread through a society? And why do some eras see the fruits of innovation spread more democratically and others, including our own, see the opposite? In Capitalism in America, Greenspan distills a lifetime of grappling with these questions into a thrilling and profound master reckoning with the decisive drivers of the US economy over the course of its history. In partnership with the celebrated Economist journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge, he unfolds a tale involving vast landscapes, titanic figures, triumphant breakthroughs, enlightenment ideals, as well as terrible moral failings. Every crucial debate is here - from the role of slavery in the antebellum Southern economy to the real impact of FDR's New Deal to America's violent mood swings in its openness to global trade and its impact. But to listen to this audiobook is above all to be stirred deeply by the extraordinary productive energies unleashed by millions of ordinary Americans that have driven this country to unprecedented heights of power and prosperity. At heart, America's genius has been its unique tolerance for the effects of creative destruction, the ceaseless churn of the old giving way to the new, driven by new people and new ideas. Often messy and painful, creative destruction has also lifted almost all Americans to standards of living unimaginable to even the wealthiest citizens of the world a few generations past. A sense of justice and human decency demands that those who bear the brunt of the pain of change be protected, but America has always accepted more pain for more gain, and its rise cannot otherwise be understood, or its challenges faced, without recognizing this legacy. For now, in our time, productivity growth has stalled again, stirring up the populist furies. There's no better moment to apply the lessons of history to the most pressing question we face, that of whether the US will preserve its preeminence or see its leadership pass to other, inevitably less democratic powers. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2018 Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge (P)2018 Penguin Audio
The Wake-Up Call
Summary
"[An] executive summary of modern political history studded with sweeping assertions and telling anecdotes." (The New York Times Book Review) "Thought-provoking." (Kirkus Reviews) “A shot in the arm...powerful.” (The Financial Times) "The Wake-Up Call, refreshingly concise and eminently readable, highlights how the modern crisis of governance compounded the challenges of the pandemic." (Bloomberg) "The Wake-Up Call argues that Covid-19 has exposed not just one president's shortcomings but a much more profound degeneration of governance dating back long before 2016.... You will read no more interesting book on the political consequences of the pandemic than this." (Niall Ferguson, author of Civilization: The West and the Rest) Named One of the Best Books of 2020 (Bloomberg) An urgent and informed look at the challenges America and world governments will face in a post-COVID-19 world. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that governments matter again, that competent leadership is the difference between living and dying. A few governments proved adept at handling the crisis while many others failed. Are Western governments healthy and strong enough to keep their citizens safe from another virulent virus - and protect their economies from collapse? Is global leadership passing from the United States to Asia - and particularly China? The Wake-Up Call addresses these urgent questions. Journalists and longtime collaborators John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge identify the problems Western leaders face, and outline a detailed plan to help them become more vigilant, better prepared, and responsive to disruptive future events. The problems that face us are enormous; as The Wake-Up Call makes clear, governments around the world must re-engineer the way they operate to successfully meet the challenges ahead.
©2020 John Micklethwait (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
The Company
Summary
In The Company, the largely unknown history of the joint-stock company is presented by the editors of Economist. One of history's greatest catalysts, the joint-stock company has dramatically changed the way human beings live, work, and conduct business. With companies now affecting the world on a global scale, it is more pressing than ever before to understand this driving force. A concise and entertaining Modern Library Classic, The Company is a fascinating listen with a reading from narrator Jonathan Davis.
©2003 John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC
The Fourth Revolution
Summary
From the best-selling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state. Dysfunctional government: It' s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world. The West has led these revolutions, but now we are in the midst of a fourth revolution, and it is Western government that is in danger of being left behind. Now, things really are different. The West's debt load is unsustainable. The developing world has harvested the low-hanging fruits. Industrialization has transformed all the peasant economies it had left to transform, and the toxic side effects of rapid developing world growth are adding to the bill. From Washington to Detroit, from Brasilia to New Delhi, there is a dual crisis of political legitimacy and political effectiveness. The Fourth Revolution crystallizes the scope of the crisis and points forward to our future. The authors enjoy extraordinary access to influential figures and forces the world over, and the book is a global tour of the innovators in how power is to be wielded. The age of big government is over; the age of smart government has begun. Many of the ideas the authors discuss seem outlandish now, but the center of gravity is moving quickly. This tour drives home a powerful argument: that countries' success depends overwhelmingly on their ability to reinvent the state. And that much of the West - and particularly the United States - is failing badly in its task. China is making rapid progress with government reform at the same time as America is falling badly behind. Washington is gridlocked, and America is in danger of squandering its huge advantages from its powerful economy because of failing government. And flailing democracies like India look enviously at China's state-of-the-art airports and expanding universities. The race to get government right is not just a race of efficiency. It is a race to see which political values will triumph in the 21st century - the liberal values of democracy and liberty or the authoritarian values of command and control. The stakes could not be higher.
©2014 John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (P)2014 Recorded Books