Political Advocacy Audiobooks | Politics

The Engagement: America's Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage

The riveting story of the conflict over same-sex marriage in the United States-the most significant civil rights breakthrough of the new millennium On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional, making same-sex unions legal across the United States. But the road to that momentous decision was much longer than many know. In this definitive account, Sasha Issenberg vividly guides us through same-sex marriage's unexpected path from the unimaginable to the inevitable. It is a story that begins in Hawaii in 1990, when a rivalry among local activists triggered a sequence of events that forced the state to justify excluding gay couples from marriage. In the White House, one president signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which elevated the matter to a national issue, and his successor tried to write it into the Constitution. Over twenty-five years, the debate played out across the country, from the first legal same-sex weddings in Massachusetts to the epic face-off over California's Proposition 8 and, finally, to the landmark Supreme Court decisions of United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges. From churches to hedge funds, no corner of American life went untouched. This richly detailed narrative follows the coast-to-coast conflict through courtrooms and war rooms, bedrooms and boardrooms, to shed light on every aspect of a political and legal controversy that divided Americans like no other. Following a cast of characters that includes those who sought their own right to wed, those who fought to protect the traditional definition of marriage, and those who changed their minds about it, The Engagement is certain to become a seminal book on the modern culture wars.

Sasha Issenberg (Author), Graham Halstead (Narrator)

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Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement from the Revolution to Reconstruction

A groundbreaking history of the movement for equal rights that courageously battled racist laws and institutions, north and south, in the decades before the Civil War. The half-century before the Civil War was beset with conflict over equality as well as freedom. Beginning in 1803, many free states, claiming the authority to maintain the domestic peace, enacted laws that discouraged free African Americans from settling their boundaries and restricted the rights to testify in court, move freely from place to place, work, vote, and attend public school. But over time, African American activists and their white allies, often facing mob violence, courageously built a movement to fight these racist laws. They countered the states' insistence on local control with the equal-rights promises they found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Long stymied by hostile white majorities and unfavorable court decisions, the movement's vision became increasingly mainstream in the 1850s, particularly among supporters of the new Republican party. When Congress began rebuilding the nation after the Civil War, Republicans installed this vision of racial equality in the 1866 Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment. These were the landmark achievements of the first civil rights movement.

Kate Masur (Author), Allyson Johnson (Narrator)

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Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes

In 1897, Britain responded to the killing of a group of officials by razing an empire to the ground. The men had been travelling to the ancient Kingdom of Benin, in what is now Nigeria, when they were ambushed and killed by local soldiers. Just six weeks later, the British had exacted their revenge, set Benin aflame, exiled the king and annexed the territory. They also made off with some of Africa's greatest works of art. This is the story of the 'Benin Bronzes', their creation, theft, and what should happen to them now. When first exhibited in London they caused a sensation and helped reshape European attitudes towards Africa, challenging the prevailing view of the continent as 'backward' and without culture. But seeing them in the British Museum today is, in the words of one Benin City artist, like 'visiting relatives behind bars'. In a time of fevered debate about the legacies of empire, loot, museums, and history, what does the future hold for the Bronzes themselves?

Barnaby Phillips (Author), Michael Page (Narrator)

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The Constitution: Enduring Myths and Hidden Truths

One Day University presents a series of audio lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds of religion, government, literature, and social justice. Amid the heat of a Philadelphia summer in 1787, the delegates of the Constitutional Convention gathered to save a fledgling republic whose very existence was mired in doubt. Americans had waged a bloody war against their mother country a decade earlier to win their independence. Now, as the delegates debated the contours of a new frame of government, they were all too aware that if they failed, the people might once again take up arms. At this pivotal moment in history, the delegates drafted a Constitution that endures today as the oldest surviving national charter still in effect anywhere in the world. But what did the framers really mean? Did they intend the Establishment Clause to merely ban a national religion or completely separate church and state? Was the Second Amendment designed to protect the rights of individuals or just militias? Were the framers unanimously in favor of allowing only men to vote, or were there some who felt differently? How much do we actually know about what transpired in Independence Hall? What myths were later invented and accepted as law? The surprising answers to these questions matter, not only for uncovering the truth about our history but for rethinking the laws that govern our lives today.

Andrew Porwancher (Author), Andrew Porwancher (Narrator)

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The Child in the Electric Chair: The Execution of George Junius Stinney Jr. and the Making of a Trag

At 7:30 a.m. on June 16, 1944, George Junius Stinney Jr. was escorted by four guards to the death chamber. Wearing socks but no shoes, the 14-year-old Black boy walked with his Bible tucked under his arm. The guards strapped his slight, five-foot-one-inch frame into the electric chair. His small size made it difficult to affix the electrode to his right leg and the face mask, which was clearly too large, fell to the floor when the executioner flipped the switch. That day, George Stinney became, and today remains, the youngest person executed in the United States during the twentieth century. How was it possible, even in Jim Crow South Carolina, for a child to be convicted, sentenced to death, and executed based on circumstantial evidence in a trial that lasted only a few hours? Through extensive archival research and interviews with Stinney's contemporaries?men and women alive today who still carry distinctive memories of the events that rocked the small town of Alcolu and the entire state?Eli Faber pieces together the chain of events that led to this tragic injustice. The first book to fully explore the events leading to Stinney's death, The Child in the Electric Chair offers a compelling narrative with a meticulously researched analysis of the world in which Stinney lived?the era of lynching, segregation, and racist assumptions about Black Americans. Faber explains how a systemically racist system, paired with the personal ambitions of powerful individuals, turned a blind eye to human decency and one of the basic tenets of the American legal system that individuals are innocent until proven guilty. As society continues to grapple with the legacies of racial injustice, the story of George Stinney remains one that can teach us lessons about our collective past and present. By ably placing the Stinney case into a larger context, Faber reveals how this case is not just a travesty of justice locked in the era of the Jim Crow South but rather one that continues to resonate in our own time.

Eli Faber (Author), Beresford Bennett, Karen Chilton (Narrator)

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Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces

This groundbreaking history of how American police forces have been militarized is now revised and updated. Newly added material brings the story through 2020, including analysis of the Ferguson protests, the Obama and Trump administrations, and the George Floyd protests. The last days of colonialism taught America's revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But over the last two centuries, America's cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as enemies. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians' ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative that spans from America's earliest days through today shows how a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

Radley Balko (Author), Greg Baglia (Narrator)

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Free Speech: The First Amendment in Crisis

Andrew Porwancher (Author), Andrew Porwancher (Narrator)

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El fin del armario: Lesbianas, gays, bisexuales y trans en el siglo XXI

'Durante siglos fue el silencio; ahora, muchos buscamos las palabras. Libros como El fin del armario nos ayudan a romper moldes, prejuicios, ignorancias. Y a encontrarlas, a aprender a hablar de estos tiempos en que la sexualidad y los géneros ya se dicen en un plural que crece y crece.' - Martín Caparrós Nadie es realmente libre si la libertad no es para todos. De allí que El fin del armario, una crónica brillante de los cambios vividos por lesbianas, gays, trans y bisexuales en el siglo xxi, no se haya escrito sólo para ellos, sino para lectores y lectoras de todas las orientaciones sexuales e identidades de género. Avances y retrocesos, mitos y prejuicios, alegrías y tristezas, todo interesa a la mirada de Bruno Bimbi, que integra historias personales y colectivas ocurridas en distintos lugares del mundo. Habla de homofobia y transfobia, pero también de racismo y antisemitismo. De filosofía, historia, teología, biología y política; de series de televisión, aplicaciones para el levante, para ligar, discotecas y cuartos oscuros. Desfilan por las páginas del libro el papa Francisco, los pastores evangélicos brasileños, Jair Bolsonaro, Nicolás Maduro, los ayatolás iraníes y la ultraderecha española, pero también Alan Turing, Pedro Zerolo, Laverne Cox, Rosa Parks y los gays rebeldes de Stonewall. Este libro habla también del peligro que suponen la ultraderecha y el fundamentalismo religioso en todo el mundo, incluida España. Y de la necesidad de hacer frente a sus discursos de odio y mentiras, una amenaza para la democracia, los derechos humanos y las libertades individuales. Eduardo Mendicutti elogia en su prólogo a la edición española la 'claridad de mirada y de juicio' y la 'sacudida de dolor, solidaridad y ganas de no desfallecer' que provoca en el lector este 'libro necesario' de lectura 'ágil y extraordinariamente cálida', cuyo autor 'sabe agarrar al lector por la cabeza y el corazón y zarandearlo'. 'El fin del armario es un libro periodístico fantástico, en el sentido clásico de la palabra: cuenta un montón de historias atractivas, atrapantes, estremecedoras, que la mayoría de los lectores desconoce. Es divertido, movilizante, transgresor, respetuoso, combativo, chismoso, todo en su medida y armoniosamente. Tiene una gran virtud que, a su vez, es un defecto. Bimbi intenta tender puentes entre el mundo gay y quienes aún mantienen sus prejuicios, y hace un esfuerzo enorme por desmontarlos. No agrede, no reprocha, no acusa: cuenta, explica. A uno le dan ganas de decir que ya no es necesario, que su interlocutor imaginario no merece tal dedicación. Tal vez llegue el momento en que la humanidad le pida perdón a la comunidad LGBT por las persecuciones, por las torturas, por la marginación a la que la sometió, por su infinita crueldad, y le agradezca su pelea, que nos ha hecho a todos más libres, livianos y buenos. Hasta entonces, este tipo de libros son tan necesarios, sobre todo cuando, además, están escritos con tanta pasión, cuando sus páginas son tan calientes, en la mejor acepción de la palabra.' - Ernesto Tenembaum

Bruno Bimbi (Author), Martín Gopar (Narrator)

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Sobre la tiranía: Veinte lecciones que aprender del siglo XX

'Nos deslizamos rápidamente hacia el fascismo. Timothy Snyder no nos permite hacernos ilusiones sobre nosotros mismos.' -Svetlana Aleksiévich, ganadora del Premio Nobel de Literatura 'Timothy Snyder razona con una claridad incomparable (...) y ha escrito el tipo de libro, tan poco común, que se lee de una sentada pero al que se vuelve una y otra vez en el intento de situarse en relación con los acontecimientos.' -Masha Gessen 'Un trabajo memorable, basado en la historia, pero imbuido de la urgencia feroz de lo que está pasando.' -Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post 'Por favor lean este libro, tan inteligente y oportuno.' -George Saunders La historia no se repite, pero sí alecciona. Tanto el nazismo como el comunismo fueron reacciones a la globalización: a las desigualdades reales o imaginadas que creaba, y a la aparente impotencia de las democracias para afrontarlas. Eran movimientos en los que un líder o un partido decían dar voz al pueblo, prometían protegerlo de las amenazas globales existentes y rechazaban la razón en favor del mito. La historia nos muestra que las sociedades pueden quebrarse, las democracias pueden caer, la ética puede venirse abajo y la gente corriente puede encontrarse en situaciones inimaginables. Hoy en día nos resultaría muy útil entender por qué. La historia puede familiarizar y puede servir de advertencia. No somos más sabios que los europeos que vieron cómo la democracia se rendía ante el autoritarismo durante el siglo xx. Pero cuando el orden político parece amenazado, nuestra ventaja es que podemos aprender de su experiencia para impedir el avance de la tiranía. Ahora es un buen momento para hacerlo. Este libro presenta veinte lecciones que aprender del siglo xx, adaptadas a las circunstancias de hoy.

Timothy Snyder (Author), Edgar David Aguilera (Narrator)

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The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China's Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the

A riveting investigation into how a restive region of China became the site of a nightmare Orwellian social experiment-the definitive police state-and the global technology giants that made it possible Blocked from facts and truth, under constant surveillance, surrounded by a hostile alien police force: Xinjiang's Uyghur population has become cursed, oppressed, outcast. Most citizens cannot discern between enemy and friend. Social trust has been destroyed systematically. Friends betray each other, bosses snitch on employees, teachers expose their students, and children turn on their parents. Everyone is dependent on a government that nonetheless treats them with suspicion and contempt. Welcome to the Perfect Police State. Using the haunting story of one young woman's attempt to escape the vicious technological dystopia, his own reporting from Xinjiang, and extensive firsthand testimony from exiles, Geoffrey Cain reveals the extraordinary intrusiveness and power of the tech surveillance giants and the chilling implications for all our futures.

Geoffrey Cain (Author), Feodor Chin (Narrator)

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Schwarzbuch Corona: Zwischenbilanz der vermeidbaren Schäden und tolerierten Opfer

In der Medizin sagt man, die Therapie darf nicht schAdlicher sein als die Krankheit. UbertrAgt man dies auf die weltweiten Maßnahmen zur EindAmmung des Coronavirus, mUsste man wohl von einem der grOßten Kunstfehler der Geschichte sprechen. Die indirekten KollateralschAden der Therapie stehen in keinem VerhAltnis zu den SchAden durch das Virus selbst. Der Journalist und Bestsellerautor Jens Berger zeigt anhand zahlreicher nationaler und internationaler Beispiele, welche SchAden die Corona-Politik verursacht hat und immer noch verursacht. SchAden auf dem Gebiet der Okonomie, der Okologie und der Gesundheit - aber auch SchAden an unserer Psyche. SchAden, die so unsolidarisch verteilt sind, wie bei keiner Katastrophe zuvor. SchAden, die uns noch lange begleiten werden und unsere Gesellschaften nachhaltig verAndern werden. Berger blickt Uber den Tellerrand von Infiziertenzahlen und Inzidenzen und richtet den Fokus auf ZusammenhAnge, die in der Debatte gerne verdrAngt und ignoriert werden. Erstmals werden hier Daten und Studien zusammengetragen, die außerhalb von Fachkreisen wenig Beachtung finden, da sie nicht in das Bild einer Politik passen, fUr die das Wohl und die Gesundheit der BUrger angeblich das oberste Primat sind.

Jens Berger (Author), Klaus B. Wolf (Narrator)

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Fighting for Life: Becoming a Force for Change in a Wounded World

Includes an audiobook-exclusive episode of The Lila Rose Show featuring an in-depth discussion of the book and an interview with Lila's sister, Caterina. What makes your heart break for our broken world? You want to make a difference in the world. You're concerned about all the problems you see, the injustices and the suffering. But you don't know where to begin. Designed for the aspiring activist or world-changer, this book is the key to get you started. Live Action founder Lila Rose says transformation begins with heartbreak-with seeing the injustices around you and allowing that suffering to light a fire in your soul. In this book, she shares raw and intimate stories from both her personal journey and pro-life activism that will inspire you to become a champion for your own cause. Along the way, you'll discover how to - determine where the need for your gifts is the greatest and begin making a difference; - overcome insecurities and imposter syndrome and become a leader through practice; - find inner courage and confidence in the face of obstacles and criticism; and - bounce back from mistakes to continually grow and make a long-lasting impact. The fight for a world that is more just, more beautiful, and more loving needs all of us. In allowing yourself to be wounded by the brokenness of our world, you'll find the passion you need to make a difference-and draw closer to the One who truly saves.

Lila Rose (Author), Lila Rose (Narrator)

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Political Advocacy Audiobooks in Politics