Political Advocacy Audiobooks | Politics

Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

One of Buzzfeed's 24 New Books We Couldn’t Put Down “One of the smartest young writers of her generation.”—Book Riot From the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing—a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with”—comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America. Between 1916 and 1970, six million black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as The Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities, it also disconnected them from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity, argues Morgan Jerkins. In this fascinating and deeply personal exploration, she recreates her ancestors’ journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took from Georgia and South Carolina to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California. Following in their footsteps, Jerkins seeks to understand not only her own past, but the lineage of an entire group of people who have been displaced, disenfranchised, and disrespected throughout our history. Through interviews and hundreds of pages of transcription, Jerkins braids the loose threads of her family’s oral histories, which she was able to trace back 300 years, with the insights and recollections of black people she met along the way—the tissue of black myths, customs, and blood that connect the bones of American history. Incisive and illuminating, Wandering in Strange Lands is a timely and enthralling look at America’s past and present, one family’s legacy, and a young black woman’s life, filtered through her sharp and curious eyes.

Morgan Jerkins (Author), Morgan Jerkins (Narrator)

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They Can't Kill Us All: The Story of Black Lives Matter

Brought to you by Penguin. **Winner of the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose** A deeply reported book on the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, offering unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America, and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it In over a year of on-the-ground reportage, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled across the US to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the scale of the response to Michael Brown's death and understand the magnitude of the problem police violence represents, Lowery conducted hundreds of interviews with the families of victims of police brutality, as well as with local activists working to stop it. Lowery investigates the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with constant discrimination, failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs. Offering a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, They Can't Kill Us All demonstrates that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. And at the end of President Obama's tenure, it grapples with a worrying and largely unexamined aspect of his legacy: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to the marginalised Americans most in need of it. 'A devastating front-line account of the police killings and the young activism that sparked one of the most significant racial justice movements since the 1960s: Black Lives Matter ... Lowery more or less pulls the sheet off America ... essential reading' Junot Díaz, The New York Times, Books of 2016 'Electric ... so well reported, so plainly told and so evidently the work of a man who has not grown a callus on his heart' Dwight Garner, The New York Times, 'A Top Ten Book of 2016' 'I'd recommend everyone to read this book ... it's not just statistics, it's not just the information, but it's the connective tissue that shows the human story behind it. I really enjoyed it' Trevor Noah, host of Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' © Wesley Lowery 2017 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Wesley Lowery (Author), Ron Butler (Narrator)

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Crisis on the Border: An Eyewitness Account of Illegal Aliens, Violent Crime, and Cartels

For six months, Army Captain Matt C. Pinsker was deployed to the Mexican-American border as a member of a unique mission. He and a handful of others were assigned to the Department of Justice as Special Prosecutors to handle the increasing number of immigration cases resulting from President Trump's "zero tolerance" policy.Once arrived, Captain Pinsker found himself dead center handling the near-impossible challenges of America's immigration crisis. Overnight, he was directly involved in family separations, DACA, asylum seekers and refugees, the war on drugs, gun-running, the Mexican cartels, caravans, and human trafficking. And every day, he was making decisions that would permanently affect those whose lives he touched.In the course of these official interactions, Pinsker experienced some unexpected gut punches. Over weeks, then months, he discovered that the situation at the border was far more dangerous than most Americans realized, simultaneously creating a massive humanitarian crisis both at home and abroad. In this stunning book, Captain Pinsker describes a constant cycle of violence, human trafficking, and drug smuggling. He reveals how vulnerable immigrants are preyed upon and exploited en route to the border. As Captain Pinsker shares what took place on his watch-from separating refugee families to protecting them from the barbarism of Mexican drug cartels-he delivers an indictment of America's failure to fix its broken immigration system and truly secure its border.

Matt C. Pinsker (Author), Dan Crue (Narrator)

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Japan's Infamous Unit 731: Firsthand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program

This is a riveting and disturbing account of the medical atrocities performed in China during WWII. Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of China. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments in the name of science and Japan's wartime chemical and biological warfare research. Author Hal Gold draws upon a wealth of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities. The book presents the words of former unit members themselves, taken from remarks they made at a traveling Unit 731 exhibition held in Japan in 1994-95. They recount vivid first-hand memories of what it was like to take part in horrific experiments on men, women, and children, their motivations and reasons why they chose to speak about their actions all these years later. By showing how the ethics of normal men and women, and even an entire profession, can be warped by the fire of war, this important book offers a window on a time of human madness and the hope that history will not be repeated.

Hal Gold (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)

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Welfare for the Rich: How Your Tax Dollars End Up in Millionaires' Pockets - And What You Can Do Abo

In today's ultra-polarized and highly partisan political environment, Welfare for the Rich is one of the rare books written to appeal to engaged and open-minded citizens from across the political spectrum. Welfare for the Rich is the first book to describe and analyze the many ways that federal and state governments provide handouts-subsidies, grants, tax credits, loan guarantees, price supports, and many other payouts-to millionaires, billionaires, and the companies they own and run. Many journalists, scholars, and activists have focused on one or more of these dysfunctional programs. A few of the most egregious examples have even become famous. But Welfare for the Rich is the first attempt to paint a comprehensive, easily accessible picture of a system largely designed by the richest Americans-through lobbyists, lawyers, political action committees, special interest groups, and other powerful influencers-with the specific goal of making sure the government keeps wealth and power flowing from the many to the few.

Lisa Conyers, Phil Harvey (Author), Stephen R. Thorne (Narrator)

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Jesus Politics: How to Win Back the Soul of America

New York Times bestselling author and Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson exposes the destructive nature of American politics and calls on Christians to actively participate in advancing the Kingdom of heaven on earth. We live in an ever-dividing country, a country in which identity politics, creeping socialist policies, and the vast partisan divide threaten the very fabric of America. After decades of political decay and of losing sight of our first principles, the American people are suffering from runaway debt, increased rates of depression, broken families, moral decay, and more. In Jesus Politics, Phil Robertson provides an alternate path: a radical call for Christians to use their freedoms to advance the agenda of the King and win back the soul of America. Exploring the problems facing our country and how Jesus would respond to each, Robertson offers a manifesto, showing us how to do good by King Jesus, bringing the kingdom of heaven to our homes, neighborhoods, churches, communities, and country. Jesus Politics charges listeners to use their time, talents, resources, influence, and votes to protect and advance the policies of King Jesus. Together, Robertson declares that we can win back the soul of America, becoming a nation that proclaims, 'In the King we trust.'

Phil Robertson (Author), Milton Bagby (Narrator)

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On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting

One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows—those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.

Lawrence Goldstone (Author), Rhett Samuel Price (Narrator)

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ثورة الشباب

كل ثورة دليل حيوية.. والشباب هو الجزء الحيوي في الجسم؛ فلا عجب أن يقوم بالثورة الشباب.. هكذا وبمنتهى البساطة يستهلّ الكاتب العظيم توفيق الحكيم كتابه 'ثورة الشباب'، والذي بدا وكأنه يكتب فصوله وهو حاضر بيننا يتابع أحداث الثورات الحديثة، على الرغم من أنَّ الكتاب صدرت طبعته الأولى عام 1975. لم يكن ما كتبه الحكيم في هذه الصفحات مجرد كلام عام يمكن أن يُحمل على عدة أوجه، بل كانت الثقة التي كتب بها تجعل كلماته أقرب إلى النبوءة! وكأن حس الفنان استشرف المستقبل ورأى معالم ما سيحدث، وإلا فكيف تنبّأ بأن ثورة الشباب ستكون سلمية بلا عنف، وأنها ستكتسب زهواً في البداية، مما يجعل البعض يعتبرها أعظم ثورات التاريخ قبل أن يضعها التاريخ في سياقها الطبيعي لتطور أي أمة، وأنها ستُجابَه بثورة مضادة تؤدي إلى العنف، وأن الثورة ستلجأ إلى عنف الهوجة لاقتلاع كل ما قبلها فتصبح بدايتها بداية كل خير وتاريخها هو تأريخ لكل شيء!!

توفيق الحكيم (Author), جمال مرعي (Narrator)

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The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago

With his colleagues at the People's Law Office (PLO), Flint Taylor has argued landmark civil-rights cases that have exposed corruption and cover-ups within the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and throughout the city's corrupt political machine.The Torture Machine takes listeners from the 1969 murders of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton and Panther Mark Clark-and the historic thirteen-years of litigation that followed-through the dogged pursuit of commander Jon Burge, the leader of a torture ring within the CPD that used barbaric methods, including electric shock, to elicit false confessions from suspects.Joining forces with community activists, torture survivors and their families, other lawyers, and local reporters, Taylor and the PLO gathered evidence from multiple cases to bring suit against the CPD officers and the City of Chicago. As the struggle expanded beyond the torture scandal to the ultimately successful campaign to end the death penalty in Illinois, and obtained reparations for many of the torture survivors, it set human-rights precedents that have since been adopted across the United States.

Flint Taylor, Taylor Flint (Author), Arthur Morey (Narrator)

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How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps

A growing number of Americans want to tear down what it’s taken us 250 years to build—and they’ll start by canceling our shared history, ideals, and culture. Traditional areas of civic agreement are vanishing. We can’t agree on what makes America special. We can’t even agree that America is special. We’re coming to the point that we can’t even agree what the word America itself means. “Disintegrationists” say we’re stronger together, but their assault on America’s history, philosophy, and culture will only tear us apart. Who are the disintegrationists? From Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States to the New York Times’ 1619 project, many modern analyses view American history through the lens of competing oppressions, a racist and corrupt experiment from the very beginning. They see American philosophy as a lie – beautiful words pasted over a thoroughly rotted system. They see America’s culture of rights as a façade that merely reinforces traditional hierarchies of power, instead of being the only culture that guarantees freedom for individuals. Disintegrationist attacks on the values that built our nation are insidious because they replace each foundational belief, from the rights to free speech and self-defense to the importance of marriage and faith communities, with nothing more than an increased reliance on the government. This twisted disintegrationist vision replaces the traditional “unionist” understanding that all Americans are united in a shared striving toward the perfection of universal ideals. How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps shows that to be a cohesive nation we have to uphold foundational truths about ourselves, our history, and reality itself—to be unionists instead of disintegrationists. Shapiro offers a vital warning that if we don’t recover these shared truths, our future—our union—as a great country is threatened with destruction.

Ben Shapiro (Author), Ben Shapiro (Narrator)

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Revolutionary Witchcraft: A Guide to Magical Activism

A fiery, intersectional guide for activists and witches alike, Revolutionary Witchcraft is an empowered introduction to the history and practice of politically-motivated magic. From the politically charged origins of the word 'witch' to the present-day magical resistance, this bold handbook explores the role of witchcraft in our modern world. Author, activist, and practicing witch Sarah Lyons takes listeners on a journey through a leftist history of magic-from the witch hunts of early modern England, through the Salem Witch Trials, and up to our present moment. Pairing mystical acts, including sigil magic and soul flight, with core organizing tactics, like power mapping and protests, Revolutionary Witchcraft offers a blueprint for building a politically grounded magical praxis. From social justice to environmental activism, this radical reimagining of political activism addresses today's most pressing problems with empowering, inclusive rituals and magical actions. Each chapter introduces a key concept, like dreaming big, experiencing magical initiation, and joining the revolution, supported by a surprising historical case study on the power of mystical action. Full of actionable ideas for magical organizing, Revolutionary Witchcraft is the perfect companion for the magical uprising.

Sarah Lyons (Author), Rebecca Mitchell (Narrator)

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The Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight fo

A thrilling narrative that introduces a key but underreported moment in World War II: The Doolitte Raids and the international war crimes trial in 1945 that defined Japanese-American relations and changed legal history. In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States was in search of a plan. President Roosevelt, determined to show the world that our nation would not be intimidated or defeated by enemy powers, he demanded recommendations for a show of strength. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward, and led eighty young men, gathered together from the far-flung corners of Depression-era America, on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Sixteen planes in all, they only had enough fuel for a one-way trip. Together, the Raiders, as they were called, did what no one had successfully done for more than a thousand years. They struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. Almost immediately, The Doolittle Raid captured the public imagination, and has remained a seminal moment in World War II history, but the heroism and bravery of the mission is only half the story. In Last Mission to Tokyo, Michel Paradis reveals the dramatic aftermath of the mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese, a dramatic rescue of the survivors in the last weeks of World War II, and an international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers—in which both the United States and Japan accused the other of war crimes—that would change the face of our legal and military history. Perfect for fans of Lucky 666 and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, Last Mission to Tokyo is a thrilling war story-meets-courtroom-drama that explores a key moment in World War II.

Michel Paradis (Author), Jacques Roy (Narrator)

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Political Advocacy Audiobooks in Politics