The Politics & Social Sciences category has 11,027 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 115,402 ratings. The most-rated is 12 Rules for Life.
Icelandic Magic
Summary
A practical guide to the magical systems of pre-Christian Iceland Reveals spells and workings drawn directly from surviving magical books from the 16th to 20th century preserved at the National Library in Reykjavík Explores the history of magic in Iceland through original translations of Icelandic folktales about famous magicians and about legendary grimoires, such as the Galdrabók, the oldest and most complete book of its kind Explains how to personalize the spells through the creation of unique signs and symbols based on the mythic names of Odin and Icelandic magical alphabets During the Christianization of Europe in the Middle Ages, many books of magic were lost as the ancient pagan traditions were suppressed. But in Iceland the practice of recording magical spells in books continued in secret for centuries, on a scale not seen elsewhere. Now housed in the National Library in Reykjavík, these surviving grimoires, which represent only a hundredth of what was lost, reveal a rich magical tradition that continued to evolve into the 20th century. Drawing directly from the actual surviving Icelandic books of magic, Stephen Flowers presents a complete system of magic based on Icelandic lore and magical practices from the 16th century onward. He explores the history of magic in Iceland in pagan and early Christian times and reveals specific practical techniques and ritual templates that readers can adapt to their unique purposes. Illustrating traditional Icelandic magical practices and the Icelanders’ attitudes toward them, he shares original translations of Icelandic folktales about famous magicians, such as the legend of Gray-Skin, and about legendary grimoires, such as the Galdrabók, the oldest and most complete book of its kind. After initiating the reader into the grammar and symbols of Icelandic magic through history and lore, Flowers then presents an extensive catalog of actual spells and magical workings from the historical Icelandic books of magic. These examples provide ready-made forms for practical experimentation as well as an exemplary guide on how to create signs and symbols for more personalized magical work. The author also includes guidance on creating unique magical signs from the 100 mythic names of Odin, which he translates and interprets magically, and from Icelandic magical alphabets, symbols that connect Icelandic magic to the ancient runic tradition. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2016 Stephen E. Flowers, Ph.D.. All Rights Reserved. (P)2020 Inner Traditions Audio. All Rights Reserved.
![Cover art for La Ola Latina [The Latino Wave]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51yyWIQgRKL._SL500_.jpg)
La Ola Latina [The Latino Wave]
Summary
En las elecciones del 2004, hubo tres millones más votantes hispanos que en el año 2000. Los hispanos pusieron al presidente George W. Bush en la Casa Blanca en el 2000 y luego lo reeligieron en el 2004. Es imposible ignorar una influencia tan grande y un voto tan importante. El cambio más dramático que está viviendo este país no tiene nada que ver con la guerra contra el terrorismo o con la economía; tiene que ver, simplemente, con la revolución demográfi ca impulsada por los latinos. Es la Ola Latina. Enel 2002 los latinos se convirtieron, ofi cialmente, en el grupo minoritario más grande de Estados Unidos, superando los 38 millones de habitantes, cosa que no se esperaba que ocurriera hasta dentro de una década más. Para el año 2125 habrá más latinos que blancos (no hispanos) en Estados Unidos. Es decir, los hispanos pasarán de minoría a mayoría. Basándose en entrevistas con los más reconocidos expertos en temas latinos y con hispanos que viven a lo largo yancho de los Estados Unidos, Ramos intenta descifrar lo que signifi ca este sorprendente cambio demográfi co para todos los norteamericanos, hispanos o no, tanto en su vida diaria como en su cultura. Con el profesionalismo, precisión, y sensibilidad que lo caracteriza, Ramos nos muestra quienes son, exactamente, estos nuevos americanos, cuáles son sus intereses políticos y por qué es importante que el resto del país se preocupe porentender lo que es la "experiencia latina". Quien ignore el reto de los latinos, corre el riesgo de darle la espalda al futuro de Estados Unidos. Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2004 Jorge Ramos (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Empower Your Thoughts
Summary
Random distractions defeating your focus? Struggling to develop a positive mindset? Fearful thoughts and worry creating stress and anxiety? When your thoughts are given a free pass to act without restraint, your mind becomes a machine set to autopilot. You become immersed in anxiety and worry that lead to fear-based decisions and inaction. Your negative thoughts, if allowed to take over your mind unhinged, could sabotage future opportunity and rob you of positive experiences you should be enjoying. Empower Your Thoughts will give you back the power to think freely again, to express ideas without restraint, and to explore the freedom of creativity - the greatest freedom there is. By listening to it, you'll be able to transform your thoughts with practical, actionable steps that bring real results. Written by best-selling author, coach and personal development trainer Scott Allan, Empower Your Thoughts is focused on taking clear action toward your goals and dreams. With specific strategies, sage advice, and practical activities designed to help you develop a positive mental mindset, you'll be able to eliminate mental clutter and live a more meaningful, peaceful life.
©2019 Scott Allan (P)2019 Scott Allan
Last Word
Summary
The last word on the JFK assassination by the New York Times best-selling author and JFK historian! Mark Lane tried the only US court case in which the jurors concluded that the CIA plotted the murder of President Kennedy, but there was always a missing piece: How did the CIA control cops and Secret Service agents on the ground in Dealey Plaza? How did federal authorities prevent the House Select Committee on Assassinations from discovering the truth about the complicity of the CIA? Now, Mark Lane tells all in this explosive new book, with exclusive new interviews, sworn testimony, and meticulous new research (including interviews with Oliver Stone, Dallas Police deputy sheriffs, Robert K. Tanenbaum, and Abraham Bolden). Lane finds out first hand exactly what went on the day JFK was assassinated. He includes sworn statements given to the Warren Commission by a police officer who confronted a man who he thought was the assassin. The officer testified that he drew his gun and pointed it at the suspect, who showed Secret Service ID. Yet, the Secret Service later reported that there were no Secret Service agents on foot in Dealey Plaza. The Last Word proves that the CIA, operating through a secret small group, prepared all credentials for Secret Service agents in Dallas for the two days that Kennedy was going to be there - conclusive evidence of the CIA's involvement in the assassination.
©2011 Mark Lane (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
The Poison Tree
Summary
Edgar Award Finalist: The shocking account of a Wyoming father who terrorized his family for years - until his children plotted a deadly solution. One cold November night, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, fifteen-year-old Richard Jahnke Jr., ROTC leader and former Boy Scout, waited for his parents to return from celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the night they met. When his father got out of the car, the boy blasted him through the heart with a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Richard's seventeen-year-old sister, Deborah, was sitting on the living room couch with a high-powered rifle - just in case her brother missed. Hours later the Jahnke kids were behind bars. Days later they made headlines. So did the truth about the house of horrors on Cowpoke Road. Was it cold-blooded murder? Or self-defense? Richard Jahnke Sr., special agent for the IRS, gun collector, and avid reader of Soldier of Fortune, had been subjecting his wife, Maria, and both children to harrowing abuse - physical, psychological, and sexual - for years. Deborah and her brother conspired to finally put a stop to it themselves. But their fate was in the hands of a prejudiced and inept judicial system, and only public outcry could save them. Written with the full and revealing cooperation of the Jahnkes, this finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime is "the ultimate family nightmare, played out in the heartland of America.... From the night of the murder through both trials, convictions and both youngsters' eventual release...it's gripping reading" (Chicago Tribune).
©1986 Alan Prendergast (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Uprooted
Summary
"A superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands." (Kirkus Reviews) In the tradition of Wendell Berry, a young writer wrestles with what we owe the places we’ve left behind. In the tiny farm town of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead, now a journalist in Washington, DC, is one who left, and in Uprooted, she examines the heartbreaking consequences of uprooting - for Emmett, and for the greater heartland America. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Uprooted wrestles with the questions of what we owe the places we come from and what we are willing to sacrifice for profit and progress. As part of her own quest to decide whether or not to return to her roots, Olmstead revisits the stories of those who, like her great-grandparents and grandparents, made Emmett a strong community and her childhood idyllic. She looks at the stark realities of farming life today, identifying the government policies and big agriculture practices that make it almost impossible for such towns to survive. And she explores the ranks of Emmett’s newcomers and what growth means for the area’s farming tradition. Avoiding both sentimental devotion to the past and blind faith in progress, Olmstead uncovers ways modern life attacks all of our roots, both metaphorical and literal. She brings listeners face to face with the damage and brain drain left in the wake of our pursuit of self-improvement, economic opportunity, and so-called growth. Ultimately, she comes to an uneasy conclusion for herself: one can cultivate habits and practices that promote rootedness wherever one may be, but: Some things, once lost, cannot be recovered.
©2021 Grace Olmstead (P)2021 Penguin Audio
The Russian Revolution
Summary
The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the 20th century. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it has become possible to step back and see the full picture. Starting with an overview of the roots of the revolution, Fitzpatrick takes the story from 1917, through Stalin's "revolution from above", to the great purges of the 1930s. She tells a gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up by devouring its own children. This updated edition contains a fully revised introduction to address the centenary, and what it all means in retrospect.
©2017 Sheila Fitzpatrick (P)2020 Upfront Books
Dying
Summary
At the age of 60, Cory Taylor is dying of melanoma-related brain cancer. Her illness is no longer treatable: She now weighs less than her neighbor's retriever. As her body weakens, she describes the experience - the vulnerability and strength, the courage and humility, the anger and acceptance - of knowing she will soon die. Written in the space of a few weeks, in a tremendous creative surge, this powerful and beautiful memoir is a clear-eyed account of what dying teaches: Taylor describes the tangle of her feelings, remembers the lives and deaths of her parents, and examines why she would like to be able to choose the circumstances of her death. Taylor's last words offer a vocabulary for listeners to speak about the most difficult thing any of us will face. And while Dying: A Memoir is a deeply affecting meditation on death, it is also a funny and wise tribute to life.
©2017 Cory Taylor (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Moralia: Volume 2
Summary
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (46 ce - after 119) was born in Chaeronea, Boeotia, to a wealthy Greek family and assumed his full Latin name on becoming a Roman citizen. He made the most of his varied background and experience as a philosopher, magistrate, ambassador and priest at the Delphic Temple of Apollo, to become one of the most important biographers and essayists of classical Greek and Roman times. His Parallel Lives, which recounts and describes the personalities and achievements of the great figures of the era, is his most well-known (and voluminous) text. But Moralia, his collection of essays on a rich variety of subjects, continues to fascinate and educate. Volume 2 comprises 17 essays which are arguably even wider ranging than the Ethical Essays in Volume 1, opening with ‘On Listening to Lectures’, in which he warns against the habit of ‘the great majority of persons who practise speaking before they have acquired the habit of listening'. Plutarch is didactic, entertaining, informative and at times controversial. He considers atheism in ‘Superstition’, asks ‘Were the Athenians more famous in War or in Wisdom?' and in ‘On Love of Wealth’ confirms that money can’t buy you love: nor ‘peace of mind, greatness of spirit, serenity, confidence, and self-sufficiency'. Plutarch’s fascination with history and biography is also apparent here with some absorbing tales in ‘Sayings of Kings and Commanders’, ‘Sayings of Spartan Women’ and ‘Bravery of Women’. Taking another tack, he turns his attention to the political sphere in ‘A Philosopher ought to Converse especially with Men in Power’. And he gives advice ‘To an Uneducated Ruler’, pointing out that ‘most kings and rulers are so foolish as to act like unskillful sculptors, who think their colossal figures look large and imposing if they are modelled with their feet far apart, their muscles tense, and their mouths wide open’ - advice that is just as relevant to rulers in the 21st century. Throughout these essays there is humour, whimsy and wisdom, but above all Plutarch demonstrates an engaging humanity in his survey of man, in all his greatness and his foibles. Matthew Lloyd Davies is an ideal representative. Translations by Richard Shilleto.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of How to Read Literature Like a Professor uses the same skills to teach how to access accurate information in a rapidly changing 24/7 news cycle and become better readers, thinkers, and consumers of media. We live in an information age, but it is increasingly difficult to know which information to trust. Fake news is rampant in mass media, stoked by foreign powers wishing to disrupt a democratic society. We need to be more perceptive, more critical, and more judicious readers. The future of our republic may depend on it. How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor is more careful, more attentive, more aware reading. On bookstore shelves, one book looks as authoritative as the next. Online, posts and memes don’t announce their relative veracity. It is up to readers to establish how accurate, how thorough, how fair material may be. After laying out general principles of reading nonfiction, How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor offers advice for specific reading strategies in various genres from histories and biographies to science and technology to social media. Throughout, the emphasis will be on understanding writers’ biases, interrogating claims, analyzing arguments, remaining wary of broad assertions and easy answers, and thinking critically about the written and spoken materials readers encounter. We can become better citizens through better reading, and the time for that is now. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Thomas C. Foster (P)2020 HarperAudio
![Cover art for Bad Blood [French Version]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51C+BpHC1mL._SL500_.jpg)
Bad Blood [French Version]
Summary
L'histoire hallucinante de la célèbre start-up Theranos dans le livre de l'année selon le Washington Post : Bad Blood : Scandale Theranos, secrets et mensonges au cœur de la Silicon Valley. La start-up promettait une révolution dans la sphère médicale. Elizabeth Holmes, la fondatrice de Theranos, était tellement passionnée par la médecine préventive qu'elle avait laissé tomber ses études à Stanford pour créer une entreprise au service de l'humanité : sa technologie "novatrice et intelligente" consistait à recueillir toutes les analyses sanguines à l'aide d'un seul petit prélèvement au bout du doigt. Elizabeth était nommée comme l'une des "Cinq entrepreneurs visionnaires en passe de changer le monde" et "La plus jeune self-made-woman à devenir milliardaire" par de nombreux médias et a suscité un énorme intérêt du public. Une goutte de sang capillaire est suffisante pour faire des analyses justes, disait-elle. Tout le monde avait envie d'y croire, mais un petit détail a tout gâché : la technologie Theranos ne fonctionnait pas ! Dans ce livre audio John Carreyrou, l'auteur de Bad Blood, journaliste d'investigation au Wall Street Journal, deux fois lauréat du prix Pulitzer dévoile tous les secrets de Theranos. Pendant l'écoute vous apprendrez : l'entreprise a-t-elle eu la moindre chance de créer l'appareil révolutionnaire ; comment Elizabeth Holmes gagnait la confiance des investisseurs et gardait Theranos en vie pendant des années sans éveiller de soupçons ; l'entreprise était-elle créée pour une bonne cause et est tombé dans les ténèbres au fil du temps ou était-elle un mensonge depuis sa création. Bad Blood raconte l'histoire captivante du plus gros scandale industriel depuis Enron, à travers un récit édifiant tissé autour de promesses imprudentes et de l'ivresse financière de la Silicon Valley.
©2019 Original title: "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup". John Carreyrou, Larousse pour l'édition française (P)2020 ABP Éditions
Bad Blood (German edition)
Summary
Der New-York-Times-Bestseller jetzt auf Deutsch. Financial Times and McKinsey & Company Business Book of the Year Award 2018. Time Magazine Platz 1 der Best Non-fiction Books of 2018. Elizabeth Holmes, die Gründerin von Theranos, galt lange als der weibliche Steve Jobs. Das 19-jährige Start-up-Wunderkind versprach, mit ihrer Firma die Medizinindustrie zu revolutionieren. Ein einziger Tropfen Blut sollte reichen, um Blutbilder zu erstellen und Therapien zu steuern - eine Riesenhoffnung für Millionen Menschen und ein extrem lukratives Geschäft. Namhafte Investoren steckten Unsummen in das junge Unternehmen, bis es mit neun Milliarden Dollar am Markt kapitalisiert war. Es gab nur ein einziges Problem: Die Technologie hinter den schicken Apparaturen hat nie funktioniert. Pulitzer-Preisträger John Carreyrou kam diesem gigantischen Betrug auf die Spur und erzählt in seinem preisgekrönten Buch die packende Geschichte seiner Enthüllung.
©2019 Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt (P)2019 JOHN VERLAG
Ideas
Summary
As philosophy professor Taylor Carman explains in his helpful introduction, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) was the founder of modern phenomenology, one of the most important and influential movements of the 20th century. Ideas, published in 1913 – its full title is Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy – was the key work. It is arguably ‘the most fundamental and comprehensive statement of the fundamental principles of Husserl’s mature philosophy’. Carman continues, ‘What is phenomenology? It is, in short, an attempt to describe human experience as it is lived, prior to our reflecting on and theorizing about it, or indeed about the world that it reveals to us.’ Philosophy, Husserl proposed, had often become so immersed in the realm of abstraction and speculation that it had lost sight of fundamentals – in particular, a sense of reality, of man’s place in the world. He called the concrete texture of lived experience ‘the phenomena’ and the purpose of Husserl’s phenomenology was to bring philosophical attention and enquiry back to the ordinary awareness of ourselves and the world. As Carman declares, the object of Husserl’s phenomenological investigation, is consciousness. Ideas is divided into four parts: Part 1: Essence and Cognition of Essence; Part II: The Fundamental Phenomenological Outlook; Part III: Procedure of Pure Phenomenology in Respect of Methods and Problems; and Part IV: Reason and Reality (Wirklichkeit). This book and Husserl’s subsequent work had a strong influence on the existential movement of the 20th century, in particular the work of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-198) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). Phenomenology, Carman says unequivocally, became a 20th century movement which earned a permanent place in the history of philosophy and is indispensable for an adequate understanding of modern European thought. Husserl’s Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy is where it began. The text is presented in an exemplary clear reading by Leighton Pugh.
Public Domain (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd
Colloqui con se stesso
Summary
I pensieri, raccolti in questo opera, tratto da "Ad se Ipsum", "A Se stesso", o "Colloqui con se stesso", com'è conosciuto dai più, di Marco Aurelio, racchiudono un estratto dei ricordi, delle riflessioni, e delle osservazioni più significative, che il filosofo romano mise per iscritto in dodici libri, nel corso della sua vita, che si svolse nel secondo secolo dopo Cristo. Questa fondamentale opera in versione audiolibro è imperdibile, essenziale, di facile comprensione, ed offre parecchi spunti di riflessione. Più che un monito contro le illusioni che spesso ingannano, Il filosofo mette in luce, di volta in volta, secondo gli argomenti trattati, un metodo, una regola morale, che può essere una guida sicura, per destreggiarsi tra i tranelli mentali e non, che inevitabilmente fanno parte del quotidiano di ognuno di noi. E sopra a tutto, c'è la Natura Universale, che ha già stabilito il respiro di ogni essere, la sua funzione, il suo a disposizione. Saper quindi cogliere quello che di bello, oppure brutto, la vita offre, non sempre è una capacità innata, ma gli esseri umani, essendo stati dotati di numerosi talenti, hanno la possibilità di farlo. O perlomeno di cercare di farlo. Marco Aurelio, l'imperatore filosofo, ci lascia questi "preziosi" pensieri, che ancora oggi hanno un senso, perché pur in tempi che sono molto diversi da quelli in cui l'opera è stata scritta, le situazioni si ripetono, e il libero arbitrio e la lucidità, sono essenziali, oggi più che mai.
©2013 Public domain (P)2013 GOODmood
On the Courthouse Lawn
Summary
Nearly 5,000 black Americans were lynched between 1890 and 1960. Over 40 years later, Sherrilyn Ifill's On the Courthouse Lawn examines the numerous ways that this racial trauma still resounds across the United States. While the lynchings and their immediate aftermath were devastating, the little-known contemporary consequences, such as the marginalization of political and economic development for black Americans, are equally pernicious. On the Courthouse Lawn investigates how the lynchings implicated average white citizens, some of whom actively participated in the violence while many others witnessed the lynchings but did nothing to stop them. Ifill observes that this history of complicity has become embedded in the social and cultural fabric of local communities, who either supported, condoned, or ignored the violence. She traces the lingering effects of two lynchings in Maryland to illustrate how ubiquitous this history is and issues a clarion call for American communities with histories of racial violence to be proactive in facing this legacy today. Inspired by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as by techniques of restorative justice, Ifill provides concrete ideas to help communities heal, including placing gravestones on the unmarked burial sites of lynching victims, issuing public apologies, establishing mandatory school programs on the local history of lynching, financially compensating those whose family homes or businesses were destroyed in the aftermath of lynching, and creating commemorative public spaces. Because the contemporary effects of racial violence are experienced most intensely in local communities, Ifill argues that reconciliation and reparation efforts must also be locally based in order to bring both black and white Americans together in an efficacious dialogue. A landmark book, On the Courthouse Lawn is a much-needed and urgent road map for communities finally confronting lynching's long shadow by embracing pragmatic reconciliation and reparation efforts.
©2018 Sherrilyn Ifill and Bryan Stevenson (P)2018 Beacon Press
Birthright Citizens
Summary
Birthright Citizens tells how African-American activists radically transformed the terms of citizenship for all Americans. Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses. They faced formidable opposition, most notoriously from the US Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott. Still, Martha S. Jones explains, no single case defined their status. Former slaves studied law, secured allies, and conducted themselves like citizens, establishing their status through local, everyday claims. All along they argued that birth guaranteed their rights. With fresh archival sources and an ambitious reframing of constitutional law-making before the Civil War, Jones explains how when the Fourteenth Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle, the aspirations of Black Americans were realized.
©2018 Martha S. Jones (P)2021 Tantor
![Cover art for Meditaciones [Meditations]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/514XBbgP+dL._SL500_.jpg)
Meditaciones [Meditations]
Summary
Ideas que han cambiado el mundo. Por primera vez en audiolibro A lo largo de la historia, algunos libros han cambiado el mundo. Han transformado la manera en que nos vemos a nosotros mismos y a los demás. Han inspirado el debate, la discordia, la guerra y la revolución. Han iluminado, indignado, provocado y consolado. Han enriquecido vidas, y también las han destruido. Taurus publica las obras de los grandes pensadores, pioneros, radicales y visionarios cuyas ideas sacudieron la civilización y nos impulsaron a ser quienes somos. Las Meditaciones del gran emperador-filósofo romano Marco Aurelio son sencillas aunque profundas obras de filosofía estoica que, a día de hoy, continúan ofreciendo a muchos orientación y consuelo con su elocuencia, sabiduría y humildad. Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.
©2014 Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, S.A.U (P)2019 Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, S.A.U.
The Histories
Summary
The Roman historian Tacitus was a successful politician who eventually became governor of the province of Asia. He is thought to have died around AD 120 and benefitted from the patronage of the Flavian emperors. The Histories, of which only just over four out of 14 books survive, covers the years following the assassination of the Emperor Nero: Rome was plunged into further civil war with the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69), which culminated in the accession of Vespasian, the first of the Flavians. Notwithstanding his proximity to the ruling family, Tacitus regretted Rome's development from republic to empire - which is especially evident in his annals. The Histories is a fascinating close-up account of a critical period in Roman history. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Public Domain (P)2021 Naxos Audiobooks
The Heart Is a Shifting Sea
Summary
In the vein of Behind the Beautiful Forevers, an intimate, deeply reported and revelatory examination of love, marriage, and the state of modern India - as witnessed through the lives of three very different couples in today's Mumbai. In 21st-century India, tradition is colliding with Western culture, a clash that touches the lives of everyday Indians from the wealthiest to the poorest. While ethnicity, class, and religion are influencing the nation's development, so too are pop culture and technology - an uneasy fusion whose impact is most evident in the institution of marriage. The Heart Is a Shifting Sea introduces three couples whose relationships illuminate these sweeping cultural shifts in dramatic ways: Veer and Maya, a forward-thinking professional couple whose union is tested by Maya's desire for independence; Shahzad and Sabeena, whose desperation for a child becomes entwined with the changing face of Islam; and Ashok and Parvati, whose arranged marriage, made possible by an online matchmaker, blossoms into true love. Though these three middle-class couples are at different stages in their lives and come from diverse religious backgrounds, their stories build on one another to present a layered, nuanced, and fascinating mosaic of the universal challenges, possibilities, and promise of matrimony in its present state. Elizabeth Flock has observed the evolving state of India from inside Mumbai, its largest metropolis. She spent close to a decade getting to know these couples - listening to their stories and living in their homes, where she was privy to countless moments of marital joy, inevitable frustration, dramatic upheaval, and whispered confessions and secrets. The result is a phenomenal feat of reportage that is both an enthralling portrait of a nation in the midst of transition and an unforgettable look at the universal mysteries of love and marriage that connect us all.
©2018 Elizabeth Flock (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers
Bible and Sword
Summary
Two-time Pulitzer Prize - winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the complex relationship of Britain to Palestine that led to the founding of the modern Jewish state - and to many of the problems that plague the Middle East today. From early times, the British people have been drawn to the Holy Land through two major influences: the translation of the Bible into English and, later, the imperial need to control the road to India and access to the oil in the Middle East. Under these influences, one cultural and the other political, countless Englishmen - pilgrims, crusaders, missionaries, merchants, explorers, and surveyors - have made their way to the land of the ancient Hebrews. With the lucidity and vividness that characterizes her work, Barbara Tuchman brings to life the development of these twin motives - the Bible and the sword - in the consciousness of the British people, until they were finally brought together at the end of World War I when Britain's conquest of Palestine from the Turks and the solemn moment of entering Jerusalem were imminent. Requiring a gesture of matching significance, that event evoked the Balfour Declaration of 1917, establishing a British-sponsored national home for the modern survivors of the people of the Old Testament. In her account, first published in 1956, Ms. Tuchman demonstrates that the seeds of today's troubles in the Middle East were planted long before the first efforts at founding a modern state of Israel.
©1984 Barbara W. Tuchman (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.