David Stampone has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 4 authors, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is The Upside of Down.
The Upside of Down
Summary
From the author of the number one best-selling and Governor General’s Literary Award-winning The Ingenuity Gap - an essential addition to the bookshelf of every thinking person with a stake in our world and our civilization. This is a groundbreaking, essential book for our times. Thomas Homer-Dixon brings to bear his formidable understanding of the urgent problems that confront our world to clarify their scope and deep causes. The Upside of Down provides a vivid picture of the immense stresses that are simultaneously converging on our societies and threatening a breakdown that would profoundly shake civilization. It shows, too, how we can choose a better route into the future. With the immediacy that characterized his award-winning international best seller, The Ingenuity Gap, Homer-Dixon takes us on a remarkable journey - from the fall of the Roman empire to the devastation of the 9/11 attacks in New York, from Toronto in the 2003 blackout to the ancient temples of Lebanon and the wildfires of California. Incorporating the newest findings from an astonishing array of disciplines, he argues that the great stresses our world is experiencing - global warming, energy scarcity, population imbalances, and widening gaps between rich and poor - can’t be looked at independently. As these stresses combine and converge, the risk of breakdown rises. The first signs are appearing in the wastelands of the Arctic, the mud-clogged streets of Gonaïves, Haiti, and the volatile regions of the Middle East and Asia. But while the consequences of denial in our more perilous world are dire, Homer-Dixon makes clear that we can use our emerging understanding of the complex systems in which we live to avoid catastrophic collapse in a way the Roman empire could not. This vitally important new book shows how, in the face of breakdown, we can still provide for the renewal of our global civilization. We are creating the conditions for catastrophe, but by understanding the underlying principles that make human and natural systems resilient - and by working together to put those principles into effect - we can still limit the severity of collapse and foster regeneration, innovation, and renewal.
©2020 Thomas Homer-Dixon (P)2020 Penguin Random House Canada
The War Comes Home
Summary
Here, freelance writer Aaron Glantz hones in on the momentous impact of the Iraq war on injured veterans as they return home. The War Comes Home is structured around the different experiences of US veterans of the Iraq war. Sections of the book are dedicated to the difficulties of reintegrating to civilian life after coming home, living with disability, unemployment, dealing with the military bureaucracy, suicide, and homelessness - as well as more upbeat sections about families, communities and fellow veterans pulling together to help each other. Each section is told primarily through personal stories of Iraq war veterans and their families, backed-up by statistics. Some veterans appear as regular characters throughout the book, some only appear for a short discussion. Such a structure shows both the scope and the humanity of the issues at stake. In this way, The War Comes Home is conversational, readable, and informative.
©2009 University of California Press (P)2009 University of California Press
For the People
Summary
For the People offers a new interpretation of populist political movements from the Revolution to the eve of the Civil War and roots them in the disconnect between the theory of rule by the people and the reality of rule by elected representatives. Ron Formisano seeks to rescue populist movements from the distortions of contemporary opponents as well as the misunderstandings of later historians.From the Anti-Federalists to the Know-Nothings, Formisano traces the movements chronologically, contextualizing them and demonstrating the progression of ideas and movements. Although American populist movements have typically been categorized as either progressive or reactionary, left-leaning or right-leaning, Formisano argues that most populist movements exhibit liberal and illiberal tendencies simultaneously. Gendered notions of "manhood" are an enduring feature, yet women have been intimately involved in nearly every populist insurgency. By considering these movements together, Formisano identifies commonalities that belie the pattern of historical polarization and bring populist movements from the margins to the core of American history.
©2008 The University of North Carolina Press (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Public Domain
Summary
Our failure to appreciate the importance of the public domain—the realm of material that is free for anyone to use without permission or fee—limits free speech, digital creativity, and scientific innovation, argues the author of this book. The public domain is under siege, and James Boyle explains why and how we must protect it.
©2008 Yale University Press (P)2008 Yale University Press