Social Science audiobooks

The Strange Order of Things

By: Antonio Damasio

Narrated by: Steve West & Antonio Damasio

Length: 9 hours

Abridged: No

From one of our preeminent neuroscientists: a landmark reflection that spans the biological and social sciences, offering a new way of understanding the origins of life, feeling, and culture.
 
The Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition of that regulates human physiology within the range that... Read more

Dawn of the New Everything

By: Jaron Lanier

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 14 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

"[Oliver Wyman] narrates in a reflective tone that fits well with Lanier's mix of recollections, philosophy, and explanations of technology...Lanier takes the listener through VR breakthroughs like Nintendo's Power Glove and delves into the psychology involved in the VR experience." — AudioFile Magazine

In this captivating audiobook, Jaron Lanier... Read more

The H-Spot

By: Jill Filipovic

Narrated by: Jill Filipovic

Length: 11 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

What do women want? The same thing men were promised in the Declaration of Independence: happiness, or at least the freedom to pursue it.

For women, though, pursuing happiness is a complicated endeavor, and if you head out into America and talk to women one-on-one, as Jill Filipovic has done, you'll see that happiness is indelibly shaped by the... Read more

Solitude

By: Michael Harris

Narrated by: Kerry Shale

Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

"Kerry Shale's reading delivers lots of information clearly as Harris discusses technological developments that threaten our solitude today. While much of Harris's book is critical of those developments, Shale also captures Harris's humor and occasional indignance." — AudioFile Magazine

With a foreword by Nicholas Carr, author of the Pulitzer... Read more

Achtung Baby

By: Sara Zaske

Narrated by: Sara Zaske

Length: 7 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

"[Sarah Zaske] reads her fascinating book on contemporary German parenting with friendly confidence and a delightful curiosity about her discoveries while raising two young children in Berlin...Zaske's gift for narrative and her keen observations about German and American parenting make this a refreshing, eye-opening audio for those raising... Read more

Life in Code

By: Ellen Ullman

Narrated by: Ellen Ullman

Length: 9 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by the author.

The never-more-necessary return of one of our most vital and eloquent voices on technology and culture, the author of the seminal Close to the Machine

The last twenty years have brought us the rise of the internet, the development of artificial intelligence, the ubiquity of once unimaginably powerful computers,... Read more

Walk Out Walk On

By: Margaret Wheatley & Deborah Frieze

Narrated by: Deborah Frieze

Length: 7 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

This is an era of increasingly complex problems, fewer and fewer resources to address them, and failing solutions. Is it possible to find viable solutions to the challenges we face today as individuals, communities, and nations? This inspiring book takes readers on a learning journey to seven communities around the world to meet people who have... Read more

Pro-Voice

By: Aspen Baker

Narrated by: Erin Mallon

Length: 5 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Dialogue, Not Dogma

When Aspen Baker had an abortion at the age of twenty-four, she felt caught between the warring pro-life and pro-choice factions, with no safe space to share her feelings.

In this hopeful and moving book, Baker describes how she and Exhale, the organization she cofounded, developed their “pro-voice” philosophy and the creative... Read more

The Nonviolence Handbook

By: Michael N Nagler , Ph.D.

Narrated by: Michael N Nagler , Ph.D.

Length: 2 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

“Nonviolence is not the recourse of the weak but actually calls for an uncommon kind of strength; it is not a refraining from something but the engaging of a positive force,” renowned peace activist Michael Nagler writes. Here he offers a step-by-step guide to creatively using nonviolence to confront any problem and to build change movements... Read more

Intelligent Disobedience

By: Ira Chaleff

Narrated by: Dave Clark

Length: 6 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

When It's Smart to Say No

Nearly every week we read about a tragedy or scandal that could have been prevented if individuals had said no to ill-advised or illegitimate orders. In this timely book, Ira Chaleff explores when and how to disobey inappropriate orders, reduce unacceptable risk, and find better ways to achieve legitimate goals.

The... Read more

Progress

By: Johan Norberg

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

From an examination of official data from such institutions as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Johan Norberg paints a portrait of a better future ahead.It’s on the television, in the papers, and in our minds. Every day we’re bludgeoned by news of how bad everything is—financial... Read more

Las crónicas de Jackson Heights

By: Orlando Tobon

Narrated by: Jorge Pupo

Length: 5 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

El padrino de Jackson Heights hace mucho mas que arreglos de viajes desde su diminuta agencia escondida en un rincon del sector de Queens conocido como la Pequena Colombia de Nueva York. Con frecuencia Fernando Padron es la unica mano amiga para miles de inmigrantes latinos. Entre sus diversos oficios estan el de contador, buscador de empleos,... Read more

Goat

By: Brad Land

Narrated by: Nick Landrum

Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Reeling from a terrifying assault that leaves him psychologically shattered, 20-year-old Brad Land feels he will never be normal again. When he joins his brother's college fraternity to help him heal, he instead finds a new found terror. Read more

Invisible No More

By: Andrea J. Ritchie

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

Length: 11 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

“A passionate, incisive critique of the many ways in which women and girls of color are systematically erased or marginalized in discussions of police violence.” —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

Invisible No More is a timely examination of how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police... Read more

The Evolution of Desire

By: David M. Buss

Narrated by: Greg Tremblay

Length: 12 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

The groundbreaking, provocative book that uses evolutionary psychology to explain human mating and the mysteries of love.
If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question we must look into our evolutionary past, argues prominent psychologist David M. Buss. Based one of the largest... Read more

When I Was Puerto Rican

By: Esmeralda Santiago

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Esmeralda Santiago's story begins in rural Puerto Rico, where her childhood was full of both tenderness and domestic strife, tropical sounds and sights as well as poverty. Growing up, she learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage called morcilla, and the... Read more

White Working Class

By: Joan C. Williams

Narrated by: Liisa Ivary

Length: 3 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Around the world, populist movements are gaining traction among the white working class. Meanwhile, members of the professional elite―journalists, managers, and establishment politicians―are on the outside looking in, left to argue over the reasons. In White Working Class, Joan C. Williams, described as having “something approaching rock star... Read more

Broad Strokes

By: Bridget Quinn

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

Length: 5 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

Historically, major women artists have been excluded from the mainstream art canon. Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture, Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of fifteen brilliant female artists in this smart, feisty, educational, and... Read more

The Rough Patch

By: Daphne de Marneffe

Narrated by: Daphne de Marneffe

Length: 13 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

“Anyone grappling with the bewilderment of midlife…will be at once provoked and comforted by this enormously wise book” (Dani Shapiro, New York Times bestselling author of Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage), from a psychologist who has worked for decades with people struggling to preserve and enhance their marriages and long-term... Read more

The Awakened Woman

By: Tererai Trent

Narrated by: Tererai Trent

Length: 11 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of a 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, this moving manifesto “empowers women to access a fearlessness that will enable community progress” (Essence). Through one incredible woman’s journey from a small Zimbabwe village to becoming one of the world’s most recognizable voices in women’s empowerment and education, this... Read more

Otto Binder

By: Bill Schelly

Narrated by: Derek Botten

Length: 8 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

Otto Binder: The Life and Work of a Comic Book and Science Fiction Visionary chronicles the career of Otto Binder, from pulp magazine author to writer of Supergirl, Captain Marvel, and Superman comics. As the originator of the first sentient robot in literature ("I, Robot," published in Amazing Stories in 1939 and predating Isaac Asimov's... Read more

Eloquent Rage

By: Brittney Cooper

Narrated by: Brittney Cooper

Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

"...Cooper delivers a frank, conversational-style examination of the importance of black female friendships, respectability politics, and harmful stereotypes, among other topics. She blends candor and humor as she roots out toxic behaviors and beliefs we use in America to tear ourselves and each other down, while also offering paths forward.... Read more

Ghosts of the Tsunami

By: Richard Lloyd Parry

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 7 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

"In an understated performance, Simon Vance details one of the stunning tragedies arising from the tsunami that struck Japan in 2011...Vance's steady pacing, crisp enunciation, and careful inflection enhance the weight of the story, which moves between reportage and interviews, and ultimately reveals unsettling truths about this particular... Read more

Can't Nothing Bring Me Down

By: Ida Keeling

Narrated by: Lisa Renee' Pitts

Length: 6 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

It's never too late to do the impossible. Meet Ida Keeling, a 104-year-old mother, activist, and world record-holding runner. Her fierce independence and deep faith carried her through the Depression and the civil rights movement--but her greatest trials were yet to come.Miss Ida, as she is known in her community in the Bronx, grew up as a child... Read more