Social Science audiobooks

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

By: James Weldon Johnson

Narrated by: Richard Allen

Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally published anonymously in 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man revealed as never before the color line dividing America, and the price it exacted on those souls who could traverse the two worlds. The book presents the fictional account of 'an ex-colored man' - an African-American who could pass for white - as he attempts to... Read more

Co-Creating A Dream Of A Modern Day Oz

By: Jean Houston, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Justine Willis Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Here Houston takes us on a whirlwind tour of the authentic American myth of the Wizard of Oz. She answers the question of what it means to have a brain, a heart, and to act with courage. Using the characters of the scarecrow, tin man, lion, and Dorothy, Houston inspires us to follow our deep yearning in order to develop and contribute to a... Read more

Drinking Water

By: James Salzman

Narrated by: Lee Hahn

Length: 7 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs... Read more

Up from Slavery

By: Booker T. Washington

Narrated by: Noah Waterman

Length: 6 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Booker T. Washington fought his way out of slavery to become an educator, statesman, political shaper, and proponent of the “do it yourself” idea. In his autobiography, he describes his early life as a slave on a Virginia plantation, his steady rise during the Civil War, his struggle for education, his schooling at the Hampton Institute, and his... Read more

Far From the Tree

By: Andrew Solomon

Narrated by: Andrew Solomon

Length: 40 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

* Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times *

* WINNER of the National Book Critics Circle Award * Books for a Better Life Award * The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year *

This masterpiece by the National Book Award–winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only... Read more

The Economics and Politics of Race

By: Thomas Sowell

Narrated by: Robert Morris

Length: 10 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

How much of a racial group’s economic fate is determined by the surrounding society it lives in and how much by internal patterns that follow that same group around the world? Using an international framework to analyze group differences, Sowell has pioneered a new approach for pursuing this important study based on historical experience and... Read more

Die Stunde der Dilettanten

By: Thomas Rietzschel

Narrated by: Anke Fabian

Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Der moderne Beruf: Dilettant. Nicht erlernbar, kein Studium erforderlich, auf allen (Interessens-)Gebieten anzutreffen, Wissen unnötig. Zeichnet sich besonders durch Ahnungslosigkeit aus, spricht ohne Sinn und Verstand unqualifiziertes Zeug, handelt ohne sich der Konsequenzen bewusst zu sein, es geht um mehr Schein als Sein. Trotz... Read more

Twentysomething

By: Robin Marantz Henig & Samantha Henig

Narrated by: Pam Ward & Emily Durante

Length: 10 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

What does it mean to be young today?In the summer of 2010, Robin Marantz Henig wrote a provocative article for the New York Times Magazine called "What Is It about 20-Somethings?" It generated enormous reader response and started a conversation that included both millennials and baby boomers. Now, working with her millennial daughter Samantha,... Read more

Superman Is Jewish?

By: Harry Brod

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 8 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Zeddy Lawrence once said, "It may not be true in all cases, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. If the word 'man' appears at the end of someone's name you can draw one of two conclusions: a) they're Jewish, as in Goldman, Feldman, or Lipman; or b) they're a superhero, as in Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man."

In Superman Is Jewish? Harry Brod... Read more

Assholes

By: Aaron James

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

In the spirit of the mega-selling On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary.

What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no... Read more

Pendulum

By: Michael R. Drew & Roy H. Williams

Narrated by: Michael R. Drew & Roy H. Williams

Length: 5 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Politics, manners, humor, sexuality, wealth, even our definitions of success are periodically renegotiated based on the new values society chooses to use as a lens to judge what is acceptable.

Are these new values randomly chosen or is there a pattern? Pendulum chronicles the stuttering history of western society; that endless back-and-forth... Read more

Silent Tears

By: Kay Bratt

Narrated by: Shannon McManus

Length: 9 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Irrepressible memories. Vacant eyes. A child being dangled from a third story window. A boy tied to a chair. Children sleeping in layers of clothing to fight off the bitter cold. An infant dying from starvation. Some things your mind will never allow you to forget.Silent Tears is the true story of the adversity and triumphs one woman faced as... Read more

Changes that Transformed the American Dream

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

For Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith, the American Dream depends upon the prosperity of middle class. Ray Suarez talks to Smith about his latest book, Who Stole the American Dream? for more on what needs to change to restore the American Dream, economically, politically and culturally. Read more

Londoners

By: Craig Taylor

Narrated by: Anna Bentinck, Jo Hall, Multiple Narrators, Rob...

Length: 14 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Craig Taylor, an acclaimed journalist, playwright and writer, spent five years exploring the city and listening to its residents to create this amazingly rich portrait of London.
Here are the voices of London - rich and poor, native and immigrant, women and men. From the woman whose voice announces the stations on the London Underground to the... Read more

Mugged

By: Ann Coulter

Narrated by: Ann Coulter

Length: 10 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

“This isn’t a story about black people—it’s a story about the Left’s agenda to patronize blacks and lie to everyone else.” 

For decades, the Left has been putting on a play with themselves as heroes in an ongoing civil rights move­ment—which they were mostly absent from at the time. Long after pervasive racial discrimination ended, they kept... Read more

Bully

By: Lee Hirsch & Cynthia Lowen

Narrated by: Mel Foster

Length: 8 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

PRAISE FOR THE FILM:
“An insightful and moving documentary.” —USA Today“Moving and touching…Bully forces you to confront…the extent to which cruelty is embedded in our schools and therefore in our society as a whole.” —New York Times, Critics’ PickABOUT THIS AUDIOBOOK:
A companion to the acclaimed film Bully, this audiobook brings the story of the... Read more

The Color of Christ

By: Edward J. Blum & Paul Harvey

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 12 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

How is it that in America the image of Jesus Christ has been used both to justify the atrocities of white supremacy and to inspire the righteousness of civil rights crusades? In The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey weave a tapestry of American dreams and visions—from witch hunts to web pages, Harlem to Hollywood, slave cabins to... Read more

Future Perfect

By: Steven Johnson

Narrated by: Samuel Cohen

Length: 5 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Combining the deft social analysis of Where Good Ideas Come From with the optimistic arguments of Everything Bad Is Good For You, New York Times bestselling author Steven Johnson’s Future Perfect makes the case that a new model of political change is on the rise, transforming everything from local governments to classrooms, from protest... Read more

Life After Death

By: Damien Echols

Narrated by: Damien Echols

Length: 10 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1993, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr.—who have come to be known as the West Memphis Three—were arrested for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas. The ensuing trial was marked by tampered evidence, false testimony, and public hysteria. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in ... Read more

Dr. Mary's Monkey

By: Edward T. Haslam

Narrated by: Jim Meskimen

Length: 9 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage
for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert
government operations over the course of three decades. Following a
trail of police records, FBI files, cancer statistics, and medical
journals, this revealing book presents evidence of a web of medical... Read more

Bon voyage

By: Laurent Hurtel

Narrated by: Laurent Hurtel

Length: 1 hour 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Un nouveau recueil d’histoires pour changer votre histoire... « Bon voyage ! » vous invite à un nouveau périple au coeur du monde merveilleux des métaphores et des contes. Comme une prière, l’écouter, le réciter ou le chanter conduit vers une expérience magique qui réveil le divin en nous et autour de nous, pacifie notre coeur et le monde,... Read more

Hidden America

By: Jeanne Marie Laskas

Narrated by: Jamie Heinlein

Length: 9 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Five hundred feet underground, Jeanne Marie Laskas asked a coal miner named Smitty, “Do you think it’s weird that people know so little about you?” He replied, “I don’t think people know too much about the way the whole damn country works.”

Hidden America intends to fix that. Like John McPhee and Susan Orlean, Laskas dives deep into her subjects... Read more

The End of Men

By: Hanna Rosin

Narrated by: Laural Merlington

Length: 9 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Men have been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. And yet, as journalist Hanna Rosin discovered, that long-held truth is no longer true. At this unprecedented moment, women are no longer merely gaining on men; they have pulled decisively ahead by almost every measure. Already “the end of men” — the phrase Rosin coined — has... Read more

Why Have Kids?

By: Jessica Valenti

Narrated by: Emily Beresford

Length: 5 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

A provocative and intimate exploration of modern parenthood from a writer named “a gutsy young third-wave feminist” by the New York Times.If parenting is making Americans unhappy, if it’s impossible to “have it all,” if people don’t have the economic, social, or political structures needed to support parenting, then why do it?In Why Have Kids?,... Read more