Audiobooks narrated by Clark Cornell

Concerns about censorship have once again reached a fever pitch across the liberal West. With a few notable exceptions, complaints about censorship in the twenty-first century West are complaints about the behavior of private parties: employers, media conglomerates, social media platforms, and search engines. To better understand the concerns surrounding nonstate interference with speech, Private Censorship offers an account of censorship, as well as an assessment of the ethical and political issues it raises across contexts. J. P. Messina asks and variously answers questions like: what should we think when employees get fired for things they say and how might patterns of such firings create a climate of fear inimical to free inquiry? When is it appropriate for social media firms to deplatform users, and what does it mean for our democracy that those in charge of such decisions are often wealthy Silicon Valley executives? Do search engines act as massive gatekeepers to information in troubling ways, and how might they be constrained, if they do? Along the way, Messina casts a critical eye on many popular proposals for responding to these complaints. Unlike these popular approaches, Private Censorship foregrounds the importance of rights to property, association, and free expression for thinking well about twenty-first century censorship concerns.

J.P. Messina (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Natural Right and History

In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever.

Leo Strauss (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America

In 1908, near Folsom, New Mexico, a cowboy discovered the remains of a herd of extinct giant bison. By examining flint points embedded in the bones, archeologists later determined that a band of humans had killed and butchered the animals 12,450 years ago. This discovery vastly expanded America's known human history but also revealed the long-standing danger Homo sapiens presented to the continent's evolutionary richness. Distinguished scholar Dan Flores's ambitious history chronicles the epoch in which humans and animals have coexisted in the 'wild new world' of North America-a place shaped both by its own grand evolutionary forces and by momentous arrivals from Asia, Africa, and Europe. With portraits of iconic creatures such as mammoths, horses, wolves, and bison, Flores describes the evolution and historical ecology of North America like never before. In thrilling narrative style, informed by genomic science, evolutionary biology, and environmental history, Flores celebrates the astonishing bestiary that arose on our continent and introduces the complex human cultures and individuals who hastened its eradication, studied America's animals, and moved heaven and earth to rescue them. Eons in scope and continental in scale, Wild New World is a sweeping yet intimate Big History of the animal-human story in America.

Dan Flores (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City

Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City, by local resident and tour guide Mark R. Jones, explores the dark alleys and seedy characters not often associated with the Charleston of today. A beautiful Southern city distinguished by its opulent homes, towering church steeples, and hospitality, Charleston, South Carolina, has long been associated with the genteel side of Southern living. However, beyond the outward appearances that most people associate with Charleston, there is another side that most visitors and residents would dare not believe is part of the very fabric from which the city's history was woven. From the sexual escapades of an original Lord Proprietor and the comings and goings of the most notorious pirates, to secret brothels and nightclubs, Jones leads the reader back to a time when 'drinking, eating, and whoring with more than fifty wenches' was perhaps more common in the Holy City than one may imagine.

Mark R. Jones (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Clawing for Honor

Challenged by the greatest dragon swordsman to a duel, Galen once again finds himself over his head and sinking fast! He used Claw, his magical sword, to save the town of Cranbook, and now Galen and Vala are enjoying a little well-earned success for a change. But it seems like tales of his derring-do have exploded far beyond the reality of the story. The greatest dragon swordsman alive wants a piece of Galen, and he's on his way to collect. Three days. Galen has just three days to learn to use his sword effectively, or he's dead meat! While he's off seeking help from his friends, Vala ends up in trouble of her own. A simple job application takes her down a rabbit hole into-well, she's not quite sure what it is, but the deeper she looks, the greater the risk grows. Together these two have faced some tough adversaries. But now they're divided-and about to discover if the strength they've each found within themselves is enough.

Kevin Mclaughlin, Michael Anderle (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Clawing For Escape

Magic is a dangerous tool, but uncontrolled magic can be downright deadly. When the theft of a magical artifact goes wrong, its power opens a rift between our world and the Void which surrounds all planes of existence. The black disk threatens to suck our world into the Void, but Magic Managed is on the scene, ready to save the day. Galen and Vala 'manage' this misadventure well enough-at least at first. But then another portal opens. And another. And another . . . The threat didn't end with the first disk's disappearance. If anything, it is only growing. Worse still, these portals won't shut down. Vala's special magic gave her the glimmering of an understanding of the nature of magic itself. But will that knowledge be enough to solve the riddle of these portals? Or will our world be sucked into the Void and lost forever?

Kevin Mclaughlin, Michael Anderle (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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What If

Sometimes it takes letting go of the past to find out who you want to be. During his semester abroad, Griffin Reed almost gave his heart to a girl who loved someone else. Lesson learned. Now he's home, where following in his father's footsteps may not be what he wants, but it's what his parents expect. It might be taking the easy road, but he doesn't see a way out. Something that could have killed Maggie Kendall took away the person she used to be instead. Her condition makes her dependent on sticky notes, photos, and medication just to get through each day. The last thing she needs is a distraction-or someone new to disappoint. What they refuse to see is they are perfect for each other. Maggie makes Griffin want to be a better man, and he makes her believe a future is possible. But these two have to find a way to share the secrets ripping them apart, if they're ever going to have a chance at happiness.

A.J. Pine (Author), Clark Cornell, Larke J. Henory (Narrator)

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Clawing for Survival

Cast out by dragonkind, threatened by his own family . . . A dragon with nothing left to lose can be a dangerous thing. Unless, of course, that dragon is Galen Stormwing. He's never been very dangerous. He was a failure at school, a failure at gaining powers, and a failure at keeping them. Now his own parents have told him he needs to do something to impress them within three days, or they'll have him executed as an embarrassment to the clan. He does the only sensible thing he can think of. He runs for it. Survival trumps pride, as far as Galen is concerned. Most dragons won't go to Canada, realm of the dwarf people, so that's where he must go. But he's not the only one fighting for survival. Vala is a young dwarf in school to become an engineer when she begins exhibiting magical powers. There's never been a dwarf mage before, and not all her people are thrilled about it. In fact, some of them would rather see Vala dead than allow their race to become polluted in that manner. Both of them are vulnerable, lost, alone-and hunted. But together, they might just have what they need to save each other!

Kevin Mclaughlin, Michael Anderle (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Power in the Wild: The Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways Animals Strive for Control over Others

The quest for power in animals is so much richer, so much more nuanced than who wins what knock-down, drag-out fight. Indeed, power struggles among animals often look more like an opera than a boxing match. Tracing the path to power for over thirty different species on six continents, writer and behavioral ecologist Lee Alan Dugatkin takes us on a journey around the globe, shepherded by leading researchers who have discovered that in everything from hyenas to dolphins, bonobos to field mice, cichlid fish to cuttlefish, copperhead snakes to ravens, and meerkats to mongooses, power revolves around spying, deception, manipulation, forming and breaking up alliances, complex assessments of potential opponents, building social networks, and more. Power pervades every aspect of the social life of animals: what they eat, where they eat, where they live, whom they mate with, how many offspring they produce, whom they join forces with, and whom they work to depose. In some species, power can even change an animal's sex. Nor are humans invulnerable to this magnificently intricate melodrama: Dugatkin's tales of the researchers studying power in animals are full of unexpected pitfalls, twists and turns, serendipity, and the pure joy of scientific discovery.

Lee Alan Dugatkin (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Majority Minority

How do societies respond to great demographic change? This question lingers over the contemporary politics of the United States and other countries where persistent immigration has altered populations and may soon produce a majority minority milestone, where the original ethnic or religious majority loses its numerical advantage to one or more foreign-origin minority groups. Until now, most of our knowledge about largescale responses to demographic change has been based on studies of individual people's reactions, which tend to be instinctively defensive and intolerant. To anticipate and inform future responses to demographic change, Justin Gest looks to the past. In Majority Minority, Gest wields historical analysis and interview-based fieldwork inside six of the world's few societies that have already experienced a majority minority transition to understand what factors produce different social outcomes. Gest concludes that states hold great power to shape public responses and perceptions of demographic change through political institutions and the rhetoric of leaders. Through subsequent survey research, Gest also identifies novel ways that leaders can leverage nationalist sentiment to reduce the appeal of nativism-by framing immigration and demographic change in terms of the national interest.

Justin Gest (Author), Clark Cornell (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Clark Cornell