The Politics & Government category has 4,793 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 40,708 ratings. The most-rated is A Promised Land.
In Putin's Footsteps
Summary
In Putin’s Footsteps is Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler’s unique combination of travelogue, current affairs, and history, showing how Russia’s dimensions have shaped its identity and culture through the decades. With exclusive insider status as Nikita Khrushchev’s great grand-daughter, and an ex-pat living and reporting on Russia and the Soviet Union since 1993, Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler offer a poignant exploration of the largest country on Earth through their recreation of Vladimir Putin’s fabled New Year’s Eve speech planned across all 11 time zones. After taking over from Yeltsin in 1999, and then being elected president in a landslide, Putin traveled to almost two dozen countries and a quarter of Russia’s 89 regions to connect with ordinary Russians. His travels inspired the idea of a rousing New Year’s Eve address delivered every hour at midnight throughout Russia’s eleven time zones. The idea was beautiful, but quickly abandoned as an impossible feat. He correctly intuited, however, that the success of his presidency would rest on how the country’s outback citizens viewed their place on the world stage. Today more than ever, Putin is even more determined to present Russia as a formidable nation. We need to understand why Russia has for centuries been an adversary of the West. Its size, nuclear arsenal, arms industry, and scientific community (including cyber-experts), guarantees its influence.
©2019 Nina Khrushcheva and Jeffrey Tayler (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Song lyrics from “Land of Bones and Ice” in chapter 11 © Vladimir Vysotsky, reprinted by permission of the Estate of V. Vysotsky (translated 2019 by Nina Khrushcheva).
Head Shot
Summary
Paul St. Pierre was an alcoholic driven by an urge to kill all the time. He bullied his younger brother, Chris, into committing unspeakable acts. His childhood friend, Andrew Webb, took drugs, talked to skulls, and dreamed about eating human flesh. It was only a matter of time before the trio terrorized a quiet neighborhood near Tacoma, Washington, with the brutal murders of innocent victims caught in a storm of senseless rage. Then the twisted triad turned on each other - over money. Paul shot Andrew in the stomach. Chris called the cops. But with tortured individuals like these, justice opened the doors to more surprising revelations.
©2012 Burl Barer (P)2018 ListenUp Audiobooks
Every Human Intention
Summary
A thoughtful, illuminating exploration of modern Japanese politics and culture through the eyes of an investigative reporter Dreux Richard presents post-Fukushima Japan in three illustrative parts. He follows members of Japan’s Nigerian community, whose struggles with a hostile immigration system lead to the death of a Nigerian immigrant in a Japanese detention center, investigated here for the first time. In Japan’s northernmost city, Richard goes door to door with the region’s youngest census employee, meeting the city’s elderly residents and documenting the stories that comprise the nation’s record-breaking population decline. Finally, he takes us into the offices of energy executives and nuclear regulators, as they fight to determine whether reactors threatened by earthquake faults will be permitted to restart after the Fukushima disaster, a conflict that brings the entire regulatory system to the brink of collapse. Six years in the making, Richard’s perceptive and probing account establishes him as an authority on his subjects, but he remains aware of his status as an outsider and interpreter for his readers. His long-term engagement with the personal lives of his sources revives the expatriate literary tradition of Lafcadio Hearn and Donald Richie, bringing its best qualities into a century where forensic investigation of wrongdoing and compassionate observation of its consequences are equally crucial. Through an exceptional range of approaches to an exceptionally complex society, Every Human Intention provides an understanding of today’s Japan that goes far beyond politics, truisms, and sensational arguments.
©2021 Dreux Richard (P)2021 Random House Audio
The Vladimir Lenin Collection: State and Revolution, What Is to Be Done?, & Imperialism: The Final Stage of Capitalism
Summary
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924) is better known by his alias Lenin. A Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist, he served as the head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia became the Soviet Union, a one-party state governed by the Communist Party. The Vladimir Lenin Collection includes: Book one: State and Revolution discusses the role of the state in society, the need for proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inability of social democracy to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin's definition of the state is “A special organisation of force: it is an organisation of violence for the suppression of some class". Quoting Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Lenin investigates theoretical questions about the existence of the state after the proletarian revolution, addressing the arguments of anarchists, social democrats, and reformists. He describes the progressive stages of societal change as the revolution that establishes “the lower stage of communist society” and the “higher stage of communist society” that would yield a stable society where personal freedom might be expressed. Book two: What Is to Be Done? (1902) is a political pamphlet in which Lenin contends that the working class will not become politically aware simply by struggling with employers over wages, hours, and working conditions. He maintains that Marxists should form a political party of committed revolutionaries to spread Marxist political ideas among the workers. The pamphlet was partly responsible for the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party into Lenin's Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Claiming that socialist theory was the product of the "revolutionary socialist intellectuals", Lenin states that the working class was able to develop only a “trade-union consciousness". He points out that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the founders of modern scientific socialism, belonged to this bourgeois intelligentsia. Book three: "Imperialism: The Final Stage of Capitalism", a 1916 essay by Lenin, was an early attempt to account for the increasing importance of the global market in the 20th century. Lenin claims that colonialism and the First World War emerged from the worldwide spread of the capitalist economy. In the course of colonizing undeveloped countries, the great powers: the German, British, French, and Russian empires eventually engage in geopolitical conflict over the economic exploitation of large portions of the globe. Furthermore, in the capitalist homeland, the profits generated by the exploitation of colonies allow the business class to bribe native politicians, labor leaders, and the labor aristocracy in order to thwart worker revolts. The essay is a synthesis of Lenin's development of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital (1867).
Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks
Moving Forward
Summary
Most political origin stories have the same backbone. A bright young person starts reading the Washington Post in elementary school. She skips school to see a presidential candidate. In middle school, she canvasses door-to-door. The story can be intimidating. It reinforces the feeling that politics is a closed system: If you weren’t participating in debate club, the Young Democrats, and Model UN, you have no chance. Karine Jean-Pierre’s story breaks the mold. In Moving Forward, she tells how she got involved, showing how politics can be accessible to anyone, no matter their background. In today’s political climate, the need for all of us to participate has never been more crucial. This audiobook is her call-to-arms for those who know that now is the time for us to act. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Karine Jean-Pierre (P)2019 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited
Checkpoint Charlie
Summary
A powerful, fascinating, and groundbreaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the US confronted the USSR during the Cold War.
East Germany committed a billion dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s, an 11-foot-high barrier that consisted of 79 miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, and 20 bunkers and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next 28 years, at least 5,000 people attempted to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it.
In November 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world’s media flocked to capture the moment that, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie had been the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades.
As the 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the essence of the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the world throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as Eisenhower, Stalin, JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedung, Nixon, Reagan, and other politicians of the period. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the wall; children who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost loved ones trying to escape over it; military policemen and soldiers who guarded the checkpoints; CIA, MI6, and Stasi operatives who oversaw operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie.
©2019 Iain MacGregor (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
Churchill, Roosevelt & Company
Summary
During World War II the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain cemented the alliance that won the war. But the ultimate victory of that partnership has obscured many of the conflicts behind Franklin Roosevelt's grins and Winston Churchill's victory signs, the clashes of principles and especially personalities between and within the two nations. Synthesizing an impressive variety of sources, from memoirs and letters to histories and biographies, Lewis Lehrman explains how the Anglo-American alliance worked - and occasionally did not work - by presenting portraits and case studies of the men who worked the back channels and back rooms, the secretaries and under secretaries, ambassadors and ministers, responsible for carrying out Roosevelt's and Churchill's agendas while also pursuing their own and thwarting others'. This was the domain of Joseph Kennedy, American ambassador to England often at odds with his boss; spymasters William Donovan and William Stephenson; Secretary of State Cordell Hull, whom FDR frequently bypassed in favor of Under Secretary Sumner Welles; British ambassadors Lord Lothian and Lord Halifax; and, above them all, Roosevelt and Churchill, who had the difficult task, not always well performed, of managing their subordinates and who frequently chose to conduct foreign policy directly between themselves. Scrupulous in its research and fair in its judgments, Lehrman's audiobook reveals the personal diplomacy at the core of the Anglo-American alliance.
©2017 Lewis E. Lehrman (P)2018 Tantor
Beyond Outrage
Summary
Robert B. Reich urges Americans to get beyond mere outrage about the nation’s increasingly concentrated wealth and corrupt politics in order to mobilize and to take back our economy and democracy. Americans can’t rely only on getting good people elected, Reich argues, because nothing positive happens in Washington unless good people outside Washington are organized to help make those things happen after the election. But in order to be effectively mobilized, we need to see the big picture. Reich connects the dots for us, showing why the increasing share of income and wealth going to the top has hobbled jobs and growth for everyone else, while undermining our democracy; has caused Americans to become increasingly cynical about public life; and has turned many Americans against one another. He also explains why the proposals of the “regressive right” are dead wrong and provides a clear road map for what must be done instead. Here is a blueprint for action for everyone who cares about the future of America.
©2012 Robert B. Reich (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Manias, Panics, and Crashes (Seventh Edition)
Summary
Manias, Panics, and Crashes is a scholarly and entertaining account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries. Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this book has been hailed as "a true classic...both timely and timeless". This seventh edition of an investment classic has been thoroughly revised and expanded following the latest crises to hit international markets. Renowned economist Robert Z. Aliber introduces the concept that global financial crises in recent years are not independent events, but symptomatic of an inherent instability in the international system.
©2015 Robert Z. Aliber and Charles P. Kindleberger (P)2021 Upfront Books
The New Digital Age
Summary
The must-listen book for anyone concerned about the present and the future. From two leading thinkers, the widely anticipated book that describes a new, hugely connected world of the future, full of challenges and benefits which are ours to meet and harness. The New Digital Age is the product of an unparalleled collaboration: full of the brilliant insights of one of Silicon Valley's great innovators - what Bill Gates was to Microsoft and Steve Jobs was to Apple, Schmidt (along with Larry Page and Sergey Brin) was to Google - and the Director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, formerly an advisor to both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. Never before has the future been so vividly and transparently imagined. From technologies that will change lives (information systems that greatly increase productivity, safety, and our quality of life, thought-controlled motion technology that can revolutionise medical procedures, and near-perfect translation technology that allows us to have more diversified interactions) to our most important future considerations (curating our online identity and fighting those who would do harm with it) to the widespread political change that will transform the globe (through transformations in conflict, increasingly active and global citizenries, a new wave of cyber-terrorism, and states operating simultaneously in the physical and virtual realms) to the ever-present threats to our privacy and security, Schmidt and Cohen outline in great detail and scope all the promise and peril awaiting us in the coming decades. A breakthrough book - pragmatic, inspirational and totally fascinating. Whether a government, a business, or an individual, we must understand technology if we want to understand the future.
©2013 Google Inc. and Jared Cohen (P)2013 Audible, Inc
Why They Marched
Summary
Looking beyond the national leadership of the suffrage movement, an acclaimed historian gives voice to the thousands of women from different backgrounds, races, and religions whose local passion and protest resounded throughout the land. For far too long, the history of how American women won the right to vote has been told as the tale of a few iconic leaders, all white and native-born. But Susan Ware uncovered a much broader and more diverse story waiting to be told. Why They Marched is a tribute to the many women who worked tirelessly in communities across the nation, out of the spotlight, protesting, petitioning, and insisting on their right to full citizenship. Ware tells her story through the lives of 19 activists, most of whom have long been overlooked. We meet Mary Church Terrell, a multilingual African American woman; Rose Schneiderman, a labor activist building coalitions on New York’s Lower East Side; Claiborne Catlin, who toured the Massachusetts countryside on horseback to drum up support for the cause; Mary Johnston, an aristocratic novelist bucking the Southern ruling elite; Emmeline B. Wells, a Mormon woman in a polygamous marriage determined to make her voice heard; and others who helped harness a groundswell of popular support. We also see the many places where the suffrage movement unfolded - in church parlors, meeting rooms, and the halls of Congress, but also on college campuses and even at the top of Mount Rainier. Few corners of the United States were untouched by suffrage activism. Ware’s deeply moving stories provide a fresh account of one of the most significant moments of political mobilization in American history. The dramatic, often joyous experiences of these women resonate powerfully today, as a new generation of young women demands to be heard.
©2019 Susan Ware (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing
Villains of All Nations
Summary
Villains of All Nations explores the "Golden Age" of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates. Rediker introduces us to the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger; swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; and the unnamed, unlimbed pirate who was likely Robert Louis Stevenson's model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island. This history shows from the bottom up how sailors emerged from deadly working conditions on merchant and naval ships, turned pirate, and created a starkly different reality aboard their own ships, electing their officers, dividing their booty equitably, and maintaining a multinational social order. The real lives of this motley crew - which included cross-dressing women, people of color, and the "outcasts of all nations" - are far more compelling than contemporary myth.
©2004 Marcus Rediker (P)2019 Random House Audio
China
Summary
The Chinese economy appears destined for failure, the financial bubble forever in peril of popping, the real estate sector doomed to collapse, the factories fated for bankruptcy. Banks drowning in bad loans. An urban landscape littered with ghost towns of empty property. Industrial zones stalked by zombie firms. Trade tariffs blocking the path to global markets. And yet, against the odds and against expectations, growth continues, wealth rises, international influence expands. The coming collapse of China is always coming, never arriving. Thomas Orlik, a veteran of more than a decade in Beijing, turns the spotlight on China's fragile fundamentals and resources for resilience. Drawing on discussions with communist cadres, shadow bankers, and migrant workers, Orlik pieces together a unique perspective on China's past, present, and possible futures. Mapping possible scenarios, Orlik games out what will happen if the bubble that never pops finally does. The magnitude of the shock to China and the world would be tremendous. For those in the West nervously watching China's rise as a geopolitical challenger, the alternative could be even less palatable.
©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2021 Tantor
Protecting the President
Summary
Being a Secret Service agent is one of the most treacherous jobs in the world and never more so than in today's highly polarized America. Facing threats from fence jumpers and manifesto writers, and from murderous terrorists and sophisticated spies, protecting the president is harder than ever. In an age of hyper-partisan politics, emotions are high and threats are everywhere. On top of that, with international tensions reaching a boiling point, it's harder than ever to determine friend from foe. Yet the President of the United States is in very real danger if the Secret Service doesn't change course soon and evolve with the rapidly changing threat environment. Not only is the agency facing scandals from within, low morale, and an ever-present media looking to capitalize on the slightest misstep, the agency also has to contend with highly motivated bad guys who are already working on technologically advanced methodologies and are constantly striving to formulate the logistics of an attack on the White House. Eventually terrorist planners will find a way to acquire the technology, weapons, explosives, and know-how to make an attempt on the life of the President. The only question is "What are we going to do about it?"
©2017 Dan Bongino (P)2018 Tantor
Flying Saucers from the Kremlin
Summary
Russian meddling: These are two words that just about everyone has come to know very well in the last few years. Only a fool - or someone with an agenda of a sinister kind - would deny that such meddling occurred. But how many know that, for decades, the Russians secretly used the UFO phenomenon as a means to try and destabilize the West? Why did the Russians try to recruit some of the most well-known UFO “contactees” of the 1950s? What’s the connection between the KGB and the notorious Majestic 12 documents? Why did the Soviet Union fabricate tales of aliens and feed them to the Pentagon? Does the UFO meddling still continue to this day? These are just a few of the many questions that Nick Redfern answers in his chilling new book. Nick Redfern is the author of more than 40 books including Men in Black, Women in Black, The Roswell UFO Conspiracy, and 365 Days of UFOs. Nick has appeared on many TV shows, including the BBC’s Out of This World, the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive, the History Channel’s Monster Quest, America’s Book of Secrets and UFO Hunters, National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural, and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
©2019 Lisa Hagan Books (P)2019 Beacon Audiobooks
Armageddon
Summary
Timed for the critical presidential election season, New York Times best-selling author and noted political commentator Dick Morris provides a strategy and position on the issues for Republicans to attract crucial new voters to the party in order to win back the White House in 2016 and put an end to the Obama agenda of ruinous socialism. By using new issues, attracting new voters, and offering new alternatives, Republicans can win the election of 2016 and save America! This book will be must-listening for pundits, politicians, and voters alike who are looking to end America's decline and get on the path to prosperity again.
©2016 Dick Morris and Eileen McGann (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership
Summary
For the first time ever, 24 original recordings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his iconic "I Have A Dream" speech to his stirring sermon "A Knock At Midnight," are collected together in this treasured box set. His landmark speeches that echoed around the world and the more intimate sermons from the churches where he carried out his ministry are just as moving and meaningful today as they were when the great orator first expressed them. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches stirred a nation to change - and his calls to peaceful action and refusal to turn to despair or violence in the face of injustice continue to inspire the world today. Each of the twelve sermons and speeches collected here is accompanied by an introduction by other renowned theologians and champions of civil rights, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Rosa Parks, Reverend Billy Graham, Bishop TD Jakes, Aretha Franklin, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and Representative John Lewis, who share their priceless firsthand testimony on the events that inspired the delivery of King's message. This definitive box set includes all the landmark speeches of the great orator and American leader Martin Luther King, Jr., from his inspirational "I Have a Dream" to his firey "Give Us the Ballot." Comprised of recordings previously included in A Call to Conscience and A Knock at Midnight, The Essential Box Set is a must-have for any home, library, or school collection.
©2009 Hachette (P)2009 Hachette
Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives
Summary
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program. Many Americans today feel they don't hold the reins to their own health care; for American women, health care is nothing less than a Trojan horse. With women's health care politicized more than ever, it's impossible not to wonder how we got to now. Mimi Swartz's "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, Wives" is a vital snapshot of this history for fans of Hulu's adaption of The Handmaid's Tale or listeners of the podcast "Pod Save America". Told with immense levity and grave understanding, this article - available for the first time as an audio program - details a turning point in women's health care legislation. In 2011, Texas' state legislature went as far as any body of government has gone before in restricting women's reproductive rights. The legislature passed a sonogram law - forcing women to have an invasive sonogram 24 hours before a scheduled abortion - and cut the family planning budget from $111.5 million to just $37.9 million. To explore this moment, Swartz dips into the nuances of Texas politics, from the gritty in-fighting of a one-party state to the fight between two of Texas' most powerful women: Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood and Nancy Brinker of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. What results is a portrait of a time and state that rings like a premonition for the future of the country.
©2018 Mimi Swartz (P)2018 Random House Audio
Under Fire
Summary
The explosive inside account of the attack against the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence outposts in Benghazi, Libya. On the night of September 11, 2012, the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, Libya, came under ferocious attack by a heavily armed group of Islamic terrorists. The prolonged firefight, and the attack hours later on a nearby CIA outpost, resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, the Information Officer, Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, working for the Central Intelligence Agency. After the fall of Qaddafi, Benghazi was transformed into a hotbed of fundamentalist fervor and a den of spies for the northern half of the African continent. Moreover, it became the center of gravity for terrorist groups strategically situated in the violent whirlwinds of the Arab Spring. On the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks against the United States, a group of heavily armed Islamic terrorists had their sights set on the U.S. diplomatic and intelligence presence in the city. Based on the exclusive cooperation of eyewitnesses and confidential sources within the intelligence, diplomatic, and military communities, Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz reveal for the first time the terrifying twelve-hour ordeal confronted by Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, his Diplomatic Security (DS) contingent, and the CIA security specialists who raced to rescue them. More than just the minute-by-minute narrative of a desperate last stand in the midst of an anarchic rebellion, Under Fire is an inspiring testament to the bravery and selflessness of the men and women who put their country first while serving in one of the most dangerous regions in the world.
©2013 Fred Burton and Samuel M. Katz (P)2013 Macmillan Audio
Churchill's Trial
Summary
A penetrating look at the necessity of constitutional limits upon government and exceptional men to lead those governments, uniquely taken by overlaying the life and writings of Winston Churchill with the American experiment. Churchill faced his own death, often and bravely. He led millions of people who did the same. Why did he and they do these things, things that we still remember and honor them for doing? Many think Churchill's achievements during the greatest period in his life, the Second World War, called out an aspect of his character and ability suited for that unique circumstance but not for most others in which he lived. Churchill's Trial is an attempt to discover that something. Active in politics for 55 years that spanned the most traumatic events so far in history - the greatest wars, the greatest depression, the greatest political transformations, the greatest social upheavals, the greatest advancements of technology and therefore of human power - Churchill left one of the richest records about his life and actions. Today, we all face obstacles and necessities, and we all spend much of our time doing things that we must do, often things we would rather not do. For the statesman, these things are both numerous and grave: numerous because peoples and the matters that concern them are myriad; grave because they involve justice and injustice, life and death. To cope with them is a special capacity and art. The ability to cope with them is constantly and urgently required, but those who can do it at a high level are not common. There are lessons to be learned, both positive and negative, from Churchill's life and leadership that can help us to live our own lives, cope with our own problems, and serve the cause of our own country as it appears today.
©2015 Larry Arnn (P)2015 Thomas Nelson Publishers