Experience our world: as it was, as it is, as it might become with these audiobooks about history, the arts, culture, education, and politics. Don't miss Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, or Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Writers, or Gwen Ifill's The Breakthrough.
A timely study of US diplomacy, Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World reveals the power of art to bridge cultural divides, facilitate understanding, and express and heal trauma. Learn More
National Book Award Fiction Longlist LA Times Best Books 2017 2018 National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist
Award-winning poet and critic Kevin Young tours us through a rogue's gallery of hoaxers, plagiarists, forgers, and fakers—from the humbug of P. T. Barnum and Edgar Allan Poe to the unrepentant bunk of JT LeRoy and Donald J. Trump. Learn More
Edited by Rochelle Riley; Foreword by Nikole Hannah Jones; read by Allyson Johnson
The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery is a plea to America to understand what life post-slavery remains like for many African Americans, who are descended from people whose unpaid labor built this land, but have had to spend the last century and a half carrying the dual burden of fighting racial injustice and rising above the lowered expectations and hateful bigotry that attempt to keep them shackled to that past. Learn More
Jaspin exposes a shocking history of racial cleansing in the United States, and one that, alarmingly, continues to affect the geography of race in America to this day. Learn More
AudioFile Earphones Winner BookPage Best Books of 2018 Best books of the year by Rolling Stone, BookPage, and Amazon
Rollicking, cinematic, deeply researched, highly readable, and thrillingly topical, Burning Down the Haus brings to life the young men and women who successfully fought authoritarianism three chords at a time—and is a fiery testament to the irrepressible spirit of resistance. Learn More
A brilliant, paradigm-shifting global history of how humanity has reshaped the planet, and the planet has shaped human history, over the last 500 years. Learn More
The death of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi freed Libya from forty-two years of despotic rule, raising hopes for a new era. But in the aftermath, the country descended into bitter rivalries and civil war, paving the way for the Islamic State and a catastrophic migrant crisis. In a fast-paced narrative that blends frontline reporting, analysis, and history, Frederic Wehrey tells the story of what went wrong. Learn More
The Burr Conspiracy offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of the United States at a time when it was far from clear to its people how long it would last. James E. Lewis also traces the enduring legacy of the stories that were told and accepted during this moment of uncertainty. Learn More
by Tom Z. Collina & William J. Perry; read by John Pruden
From authors William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina, The Button recounts the terrifying history of nuclear launch authority, from the faulty forty-six-cent microchip that nearly caused World War III to president Trump's tweet about his "much bigger & more powerful" button. Learn More
A paradigm-shifting investigation of Jim Crow–era violence, the legal apparatus that sustained it, and its enduring legacy, from a renowned legal scholar. Learn More
Offering listeners a new perspective on the historical importance of actuarial science in structural racism, Calculating Race is a particularly timely contribution as Big Data and algorithmic decision making increasingly pervade our lives. Learn More
From the "former sex worker taking Hollywood by storm" (The Daily Beast), comes a candid and hilarious memoir of sex work, shame, and self-discovery set in the colorful world of live-streaming camgirls. Learn More
A compelling new biography of Camilla, Queen Consort, that reveals how she transformed her role and established herself as one of the key members of the royal family. Learn More
In Campaigning in a Racially Diversifying America, Loren Collingwood develops a theory of Cross-Racial Electoral Mobilization (CRM) to explain why, when, and how candidates of one race or ethnicity act to mobilize voters of another race or ethnicity. Learn More
In Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? one of our leading social critics recounts capitalism's finest hour, and shows us how we might achieve it once again. Learn More
