Social Science audiobooks

Pale Rider

By: Laura Spinney

Narrated by: Paul Hodgson

Length: 10 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska, and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus -- one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on twentieth-century history.
The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a... Read more

Jumping at Shadows

By: Sasha Abramsky

Narrated by: Matthew Waterson

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Why is an unarmed young black woman who knocks on a stranger's front door to ask for help after her car breaks down perceived to be so threatening that he shoots her dead? Why do we fear infrequent acts of terrorism more far more common acts of violence? Why does a disease like Ebola, which killed only a handful of Americans, provoke panic,... Read more

A World of Three Zeros

By: Muhammad Yunus

Narrated by: Dan Woren

Length: 8 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and bestselling author of Banker to the Poor offers his vision of an emerging new economic system that can save humankind and the planet

Muhammad Yunus, who created microcredit, invented social business, and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in alleviating poverty, is one of today's most trenchant social... Read more

Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

By: Beverly Daniel Tatum

Narrated by: Beverly Daniel Tatum

Length: 13 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

The classic, New York Times-bestselling book on the psychology of racism that shows us how to talk about race in America.

Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? How can we get past our reluctance to... Read more

Guts

By: Paul Vigna

Narrated by: Graham Halstead

Length: 8 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

In this first and only guide to AMC’s exceptional hit series The Walking Dead, the Wall Street Journal’s Walking Dead columnist celebrates the show, its storylines, characters, and development, and examines its popularity and cultural resonance.From its first episode, The Walking Dead took fans in the United States and across the world by storm,... Read more

Hiding in the Bathroom

By: Morra Aarons-Mele

Narrated by: Coleen Marlo

Length: 8 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

“Introverts will love this practical and moving guide to building a career, network, and life you love.” –SUSAN CAIN, author of QuietFrom the marketing guru and host of the popular Forbes.com podcast Hiding in the Bathroom, a breakthrough introverts' guide that broadens the conversation sparked by Quiet and moves away from the ""Lean In""... Read more

Tides

By: Jonathan White

Narrated by: Dan Woren

Length: 11 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes listeners across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides.In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a... Read more

The All-or-Nothing Marriage

By: Eli J. Finkel

Narrated by: Mark Deakins

Length: 8 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

“After years of debate and inquiry, the key to a great marriage remained shrouded in mystery. Until now...”—Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

Eli J. Finkel's insightful and ground-breaking investigation of marriage clearly shows that the best marriages today are better than the best marriages of earlier eras. Indeed,... Read more

Radical Hope

By: Carolina De Robertis

Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo & Kaleo Griffith

Length: 7 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Radical Hope is a collection of letters—to ancestors, to children five generations from now, to strangers in grocery lines, to any and all who feel weary and discouraged—written by award-winning novelists, poets, political thinkers, and activists. Provocative and inspiring, Radical Hope offers readers a kaleidoscopic view of the love and courage... Read more

The Wrong Way to Save Your Life

By: Megan Stielstra

Narrated by: Megan Stielstra & Meredith Mitchell

Length: 8 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

“Stielstra is a masterful essayist.” —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and HungerFrom an important new writer comes this powerful collection of personal essays on fear, creativity, art, faith, academia, the Internet, and justice.In this poignant and inciting collection of literary essays, Megan Stielstra tells stories to ward off fears both... Read more

Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children

By: Roberta Michnick Golink, PhD; Kathy Hirsh-Pase...

Narrated by: Allyson Ryan

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Bestseller!

Bronze medal winner of the Living Now Book Awards for Parenting!

In just a few years, today's children and teens will forge careers that look nothing like those that were available to their parents or grandparents. While the U.S. economy becomes ever more information-driven, our system of education seems stuck... Read more

The Hacking of the American Mind

By: Robert H. Lustig

Narrated by: Robert H. Lustig

Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

"Explores how industry has manipulated our most deep-seated survival instincts."—David Perlmutter, MD, Author, #1 New York Times bestseller, Grain Brain and Brain Maker

The New York Times–bestselling author of Fat Chance reveals the corporate scheme to sell pleasure, driving the international epidemic of addiction, depression, and chronic... Read more

World Without Mind

By: Franklin Foer

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Length: 8 hours

Abridged: No

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 • One of the best books of the year by The New York Times, LA Times, and NPR

Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence.

Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who... Read more

An American Family

By: Khizr Khan

Narrated by: Khizr Khan

Length: 11 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

This “moving [and] wonderful” memoir by the Muslim American Gold Star father, captivating DNC speaker, and 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient is “a story about family and faith [that] can teach all of us what real American patriotism looks like” (The New York Times Book Review).
 
“[Khizr] Khan offers a valuable perspective as we... Read more

Inferior

By: Angela Saini

Narrated by: Hannah Melbourn

Length: 7 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

What science has gotten so shamefully wrong about women, and the fight, by both female and male scientists, to rewrite what we thought we knew

For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less a scientist than Charles Darwin asserted that women... Read more

Boys Adrift

By: Leonard Sax

Narrated by: Allan Robertson

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Why America's sons are underachieving, and what we can do about it.

Something is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically. While Emily is working... Read more

What I Found in a Thousand Towns

By: Dar Williams

Narrated by: Dar Williams

Length: 8 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A beloved folk singer presents an impassioned account of the fall and rise of the small American towns she cherishes.

Dubbed by the New Yorker as "one of America's very best singer-songwriters," Dar Williams has made her career not in stadiums, but touring America's small towns. She has played their venues, composed in their coffee shops, and... Read more

Hippie Food

By: Jonathan Kauffman

Narrated by: George Newbern

Length: 9 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

An enlightening narrative history—an entertaining fusion of Tom Wolfe and Michael Pollan—that traces the colorful origins of once unconventional foods and the diverse fringe movements, charismatic gurus, and counterculture elements that brought them to the mainstream and created a distinctly American cuisine.Food writer Jonathan Kauffman... Read more

Slavery’s Capitalism

By: Sven Beckert & Seth Rockman

Narrated by: William Hughes, Kevin Kenerly, Bahni Turpin, Pa...

Length: 13 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world’s most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage.This was no mere coincidence. Slavery’s Capitalism argues for slavery’s centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades... Read more

Beyond the Messy Truth

By: Van Jones

Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi

Length: 7 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

A passionate manifesto that exposes hypocrisy on both sides of the political divide and points a way out of the tribalism that is tearing America apart—by the CNN political contributor and host hailed as “a star of the 2016 campaign” (The New York Times) who coined the term “whitelash”

Van Jones burst into the American consciousness during the... Read more

Grocery

By: Michael Ruhlman

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

Length: 11 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

In Grocery, bestselling author Michael Ruhlman offers incisive commentary on America’s relationship with its food and investigates the overlooked source of so much of it—the grocery store.
 
In a culture obsessed with food—how it looks, what it tastes like, where it comes from, what is good for us—there are often more questions than answers.... Read more

Be Fierce

By: Gretchen Carlson

Narrated by: Gretchen Carlson

Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

A groundbreaking manifesto from journalist Gretchen Carlson about how women can protect themselves from sexual harassment in the workplace and reclaim their power against abuse or injustice.In BE FIERCE, Gretchen shares her own experiences, as well as powerful and moving stories from women in many different careers and fields who decided they... Read more

Wish Lanterns

By: Alec Ash

Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

There are more than 320 million Chinese between the ages of sixteen and thirty. Children of the one-child policy, born after Mao, with no memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre, they are the first net native generation to come of age in a market-driven, more international China. Their experiences and aspirations were formed in a radically... Read more

Feminism and The Future of Women

By: Estelle Freedman

Narrated by: Richard Davidson

Length: 7 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Since the time of the abolitionists, no movement has so politicized social life in the United States as feminism. Responsible for wide-ranging legislation, such as women's right to vote and the right to an abortion, feminists have fought their way to the center of the country's political dialogue and made themselves a major presence there. But... Read more