Politics & Economy audiobooks

Choices on Overcrowded Prisons

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Spencer Michels reports from California on the state's effort to comply with a Supreme Court ruling to alleviate overcrowding in the state's prisons. Read more

Massive Financial Crisis

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

As part of his continuing series of reports making sense of business and the economy, Paul Solman talks to MIT finance professor Andrew Lo about why he's asking Congress to keep investigating the financial crisis. Read more

Al Gore calls Trump's deregulation proposals ‘literally insane'

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 4 minutes

Abridged: No

"Former vice president and climate change activist Al Gore warns that climate change could be an “existential threat” and calls President Trump’s response an “outlier reaction.” In a wide-ranging interview, Judy Woodruff speaks with Gore about Hurricane Michael, President Trump and the UN Climate Change report." Read more

Sharp black-white divide on perceptions of Ferguson

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Unrest continues to grip Ferguson, Missouri as the National Guard struggles to help restore order. Meanwhile, a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center has found a stark racial divide in reactions to the Michael Brown shooting and the ongoing protests and violence in Ferguson. Judy Woodruff explores the situation with Carroll Doherty, the... Read more

Interview with Menacham Begin

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 27 minutes

Abridged: No

In this 1978 interview, Menacham Begin discussses the breakdown of Middle East peace talks. Read more

How do communities increase accountability and rebuild trust

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Around the nation, from Ferguson to Staten Island to Albuquerque, communities are grappling with the aftermath of deaths caused by police officers who used lethal force. Gwen Ifill talks to Cornell William Brooks of the NAACP and Richard Berry of the International Association of Chiefs of Police about how to repair strained relations and curb... Read more

How the Civil Rights Act Changed America

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

July 2, 2014 marked 50 years since President Lyndon Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, ethnicity and sex. Gwen Ifill is joined by Todd Purdum to discuss his new book, An Idea Whose Time Has Come, which tells the story of how the legislation came to be. Read more

Terror Aid Ban Upheld

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The Supreme Court upheld a Federal law banning aid to terror groups. For more, Jeffrey Brown speaks with Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal. Read more

Bartlett and Steele: What Happens to a Dream Betrayed?

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Economic correspondent Paul Solman talks to the authors of The Betrayal of the American Dream, Donald Barlett and James Steele, who say the drive for free trade has exported so many jobs to China, Brazil and India that American workers may become irrelevant to their own economy, just as other countries gain a middle class. Read more

School district tries making police more guardian than warrior

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, there's been an increased police presence at schools. But that presence has also sparked concerns. According to a recent analysis, black students are more likely to be arrested on campus than their white counterparts. Special correspondent Kavitha Cardoza of Education Week reports on how the... Read more

An interview with Fidel Castro

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 58 minutes

Abridged: No

This June 25, 1985 special edition of the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour features highlights of a five-hour interview conducted with President of Cuba Fidel Castro conducted by Robert MacNeil. It was Castro's first interview on U.S. television in six years, and covers a range of topics, including some that Castro never before discussed in public. Read more

50th Anniversary of the March on Washington

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Fifty years after the March on Washington, the vision of the civil rights movement has expanded beyond black and white, but what is left to be done? Gwen Ifill sits down with Peniel Joseph of Tufts University and filmmaker Bonnie Boswell Hamilton on how the goals of the March translate to the needs of today. Read more

Conversation with Dorothy Height

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Dorothy Height has been fighting for racial equality for more than six decades. Gwen Ifill talked to her recently about her new memoir, Open Wide the Freedom Gates. Read more

Evan Thomas - Robert Kennedy: His Life

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Margaret Warner speaks with Evan Thomas, the author of a new book about the life of Robert F. Kennedy. Read more

Interview with Paul Nitze

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Jim Lehrer interviews American diplomat Paul Nitze on his views of the Soviet Union. Read more

Deciphering the Shape of Economic Recovery

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 5 minutes

Abridged: No

What do economists mean when they talk about the shape of a recession or recovery in terms of letters of the alphabet? Paul Solman talks with Simon Johnson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to understand how we graph a recession and its corresponding recovery. Then, leading economists weigh in on the shape they think the recovery... Read more

Why "Doctor Zhivago" was dangerous

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

When Boris Pasternak finished his novel Dr. Zhivago in 1956, Soviet authorities refused to publish the tale of an individual’s struggle amid the Russian Revolution. A new book, The Zhivago Affair, tells the story of how Pasternak’s novel came to be published and smuggled back into the Soviet Union — with help from the CIA. Jeffrey Brown talks to... Read more

How Trayvon Martin Case Could Affect Stand Your Ground Laws

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

A grand jury will not investigate the death of Trayvon Martin -- the unarmed black teenager shot in a gated community in February, a special prosecutor said Monday. Gwen Ifill and Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins' Center for Gun Policy and Research discuss the case's potential effects on other states' "stand your ground" laws. Read more

David Herbert Donald: We Are Lincoln Men

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Margaret Warner speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Herbert Donald about his book We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends. Read more

Taylor Branch and Shukree Hassan Tilghman

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Fifty years after the March on Washington, African-Americans still confront high rates of unemployment, segregation in education and race-based partisan gridlock. In what areas have we seen progress? Gwen Ifill discusses the advances and what's left to be done with historian Taylor Branch and filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman. Read more

John Lewis: 50th Anniversary of The March on Washington

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Fifty years ago, 23-year-old John Lewis raised his voice to a crowd of more than 200,000 people at a protest march that would come to represent "the best of America." Gwen Ifill talks to the congressman about what motivated him to become a young civil rights leader and the current state of civil rights and equality in America. Read more

Battle for Mosul over, but hidden ISIS danger could lurk for years

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Iraq may have ousted Islamic States militants from the city of Mosul over the summer, but the major task of finding and destroying the mines, booby traps and bombs remains. A security firm hired by the U.S. and Iraqi workers are making progress to clear major areas, but it could take years or even decades. Special correspondent Marcia Biggs... Read more

Cubans Grapple With Challenges

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Ray Suarez reports from Havana on how the country's economy is adapting to the gradual economic reforms of President Raul Castro -- while maintaining a tradition of socialism. Read more

Simon Winchester: The Man Who Loved China

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

In The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester tells the story of Joseph Needham, an eccentric biochemist at Cambridge University who embarked on two great love affairs—Lu Gwei-Djen and China. In this interview, Winchester discusses Needham's introduction to Chinese language, his creation of an intellectual force during war and conflict, China's... Read more