Political Advocacy Audiobooks | Politics

This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century

Strategic nonviolent action has reasserted itself as a potent force in shaping public debate and forcing political change. Whether it is an explosive surge of protest calling for racial justice in the United States or a demand for democratic reform in Hong Kong or Mexico, when mass movements erupt onto our television screens, the media portrays them as being as spontaneous and unpredictable. In This Is an Uprising, political analysts Mark and Paul Engler uncover the organization and well-planned strategies behind such outbursts of protest, examining core principles that have been used to spark and guide moments of transformative unrest. This Is an Uprising traces the evolution of civil resistance, providing new insights into the contributions of early experimenters such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.; groundbreaking theorists such as Gene Sharp and Frances Fox Piven; and contemporary practitioners who have toppled repressive regimes. Drawing from discussions with activists now working to defend human rights, challenge corporate corruption, and combat climate change, the Englers show how people with few resources and little influence in conventional politics can nevertheless engineer momentous upheavals.

Mark Engler, Paul Engler (Author), Graham Halstead (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Soul of the First Amendment

The right of Americans to voice their beliefs without government approval or oversight is protected under what may well be the most honored and least understood addendum to the U.S. Constitution-the First Amendment. Floyd Abrams, a noted lawyer and award-winning legal scholar specializing in First Amendment issues, examines the degree to which American law protects free speech more often, more intensely, and more controversially than is the case anywhere else in the world, including democratic nations such as Canada and England. In this lively, powerful, and provocative work, the author addresses legal issues from the adoption of the Bill of Rights through recent cases such as Citizens United. He also examines the repeated conflicts between claims of free speech and those of national security occasioned by the publication of classified material such as was contained in the Pentagon Papers and was made public by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden.

Floyd Abrams (Author), James Foster (Narrator)

Audiobook

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America

An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics-and their impact on people of color-are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime. As Forman shows, the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office around the country amid a surge in crime. Many came to believe that tough measures-such as stringent drug and gun laws and "pretext traffic stops" in poor African American neighborhoods-were needed to secure a stable future for black communities. Some politicians and activists saw criminals as a "cancer" that had to be cut away from the rest of black America. Others supported harsh measures more reluctantly, believing they had no other choice in the face of a public safety emergency. Drawing on his experience as a public defender and focusing on Washington, D.C., Forman writes with compassion for individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas-from the young men and women he defended to officials struggling to cope with an impossible situation. The result is an original view of our justice system as well as a moving portrait of the human beings caught in its coils.

James Forman, Jr. (Author), Kevin R. Free (Narrator)

Audiobook

You're More Powerful than You Think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen

Is this the America you want? If not, here's how to claim the power to change your country. We are in an age of epic political turbulence in America. Old hierarchies and institutions are collapsing. From the election of Donald Trump to the upending of the major political parties to the spread of grassroots movements like Black Lives Matter and $15 Now, people across the country and across the political spectrum are reclaiming power. Are you ready for this age of bottom-up citizen power? Do you understand what power truly is, how it flows, who has it, and how you can claim and exercise it? Eric Liu, who has spent a career practicing and teaching civic power, lays out the answers in this incisive, inspiring, and provocative book. Using examples from the left and the right, past and present, he reveals the core laws of power. He shows that all of us can generate power-and then, step by step, he shows us how. The strategies of reform and revolution he lays out will help every reader make sense of our world today. If you want to be more than a spectator in this new era, you need to read this book.

Eric Liu (Author), Eric Liu (Narrator)

Audiobook

Jackson

Once in the White House, Andrew Jackson stood for the rights of common citizens, founded the Democratic Party, expanded the powers of the presidency, paid off the national debt, and postponed civil war by prevailing against the advocates of states' rights. By today's standards, however, Jackson was hardly politically correct: he also owned many slaves on his Tennessee plantation and sponsored the Indian Removal Act, which triggered the brutal forced march of tens of thousands of Native Americans to Oklahoma. Here is his story.

Ralph K. Andrist (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Heritage History of the Indian Wars

Robert M. Utley, Wilcomb E. Washburn (Author), David Drummond (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin’s parents take readers beyond the news cycle with an account only they could give: the intimate story of a tragically foreshortened life and the rise of a movement. On a February evening in 2012, in a small town in central Florida, seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was walking home with candy and a can of juice in hand and talking on the phone with a friend when a fatal encounter with a gun-wielding neighborhood watchman ended his young life. The watchman was briefly detained by the police and released. Trayvon’s father—a truck driver named Tracy—tried to get answers from the police but was shut down and ignored. Trayvon’s mother, a civil servant for the city of Miami, was paralyzed by the news of her son’s death and lost in mourning, unable to leave her room for days. But in a matter of weeks, their son’s name would be spoken by President Obama, honored by professional athletes, and passionately discussed all over traditional and social media. And at the head of a growing nationwide campaign for justice were Trayvon’s parents, who—driven by their intense love for their lost son—discovered their voices, gathered allies, and launched a movement that would change the country. Five years after his tragic death, Travyon Martin’s name is still evoked every day. He has become a symbol of social justice activism, as has his hauntingly familiar image: the photo of a child still in the process of becoming a young man, wearing a hoodie and gazing silently at the camera. But who was Trayvon Martin, before he became, in death, an icon? And how did one black child’s death on a dark, rainy street in a small Florida town become the match that lit a civil rights crusade? Rest in Power, told through the compelling alternating narratives of Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, answers, for the first time, those questions from the most intimate of sources. It’s the story of the beautiful and complex child they lost, the cruel unresponsiveness of the police and the hostility of the legal system, and the inspiring journey they took from grief and pain to power, and from tragedy and senselessness to meaning. Advance praise for Rest in Power “Not since Emmitt Till has a parent’s love for a murdered child moved the nation to search its soul about racial injustice and inequality. Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin’s extraordinary witness, indomitable spirit and unwavering demand for change have altered the dynamics of racial justice discourse in this country. This powerful book illuminates the witness, the grief, and the commitment to reform that Trayvon Martin’s death has mobilized; it is a story fueled by a demand for justice but rooted in love.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy “As the fifth anniversary of this tragic crime nears, Fulton and Martin share a remarkably candid and deeply affecting in-the-moment chronicle of the explosive aftermath of the murder. Writing in alternate chapters, they share every detail of their shock, grief, and grueling quest for justice. . . . Given the unconscionable shooting deaths of young black men, many by police, that followed Trayvon’s, this galvanizing testimony from parents who channeled their sorrow into action offers a deeply humanizing perspective on the crisis propelling a national movement.”—Booklist (starred review)

Sybrina Fulton, Tracy Martin (Author), Adenrele Ojo, J. D. Jackson, J.D. Jackson, Jd Jackson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Closing the Courthouse Door: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable

The Supreme Court's decisions on constitutional rights are well known and much talked about. But individuals who want to defend those rights need something else as well: access to courts that can rule on their complaints. And on matters of access, the Court's record over the past generation has been almost uniformly hostile to the enforcement of individual citizens' constitutional rights. The Court has restricted who has standing to sue, expanded the immunity of governments and government workers, limited the kinds of cases the federal courts can hear, and restricted the right of habeas corpus. Closing the Courthouse Door, by the distinguished legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, is the first book to show the effect of these decisions: taken together, they add up to a growing limitation on citizens' ability to defend their rights under the Constitution. Using many stories of people whose rights have been trampled yet who had no legal recourse, Chemerinsky argues that enforcing the Constitution should be the federal courts' primary purpose, and they should not be barred from considering any constitutional question.

Erwin Chemerinsky (Author), Mike Chamberlain (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous

Here is the ultimate book on the worldwide movement of hackers, pranksters, and activists that operates under the non-name Anonymous, by the writer the Huffington Post says "knows all of [Anonymous's] deepest, darkest secrets." Half a dozen years ago, anthropologist Gabriella Coleman set out to study the rise of this global phenomenon just as some of its members were turning to political protest and dangerous disruption. She ended up becoming so closely connected to Anonymous that the tricky story of her inside-outside status as Anon confidante, interpreter, and erstwhile mouthpiece forms one of the themes of this witty and entirely engrossing book. The narrative brims with details unearthed from within a notoriously mysterious subculture, whose semi-legendary tricksters-such as Topiary, tflow, Anachaos, and Sabu-emerge as complex, diverse, politically and culturally sophisticated people. Propelled by years of chats and encounters with a multitude of hackers, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy is filled with insights into the meaning of digital activism and little-understood facets of culture in the Internet age.

Gabriella Coleman (Author), Tavia Gilbert (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Revolution Where You Live: Stories from a 12,000-Mile Journey Through a New America

Discover the Real Revolution Unfolding across America. America faces huge challenges climate change, social injustice, racist violence, economic insecurity. Journalist Sarah van Gelder suspected that there were solutions, and she went looking for them, not in the centers of power, where people are richly rewarded for their allegiance to the status quo, but off the beaten track, in rural communities, small towns, and neglected urban neighborhoods. She bought a used pickup truck and camper and set off on a 12,000-mile journey through eighteen states, dozens of cities and towns, and five Indian reservations. From the ranches of Montana to the coalfields of Kentucky to the urban cores of Chicago and Detroit, van Gelder discovered people and communities who are remaking America from the ground up. Join her as she meets the quirky and the committed, the local heroes and the healers who, under the mass media's radar, are getting stuff done. The common thread running through their work was best summed up by a phrase she saw on a mural in Newark: We the People LOVE This Place. That connection we each have to our physical and ecological place, and to our human community, is where we find our power and our best hopes for a new America.

Sarah Van Gelder (Author), Natalie Hoyt (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Holocaust: A New History

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Holocaust by Laurence Rees, read by Jonathan Keeble. This landmark work answers two of the most fundamental questions in history - how, and why, did the Holocaust happen? Laurence Rees has spent twenty-five years meeting survivors and perpetrators of the Holocaust. Now, in his magnum opus, he combines their enthralling eyewitness testimony, a large amount of which has never been published before, with the latest academic research to create the first accessible and authoritative account of the Holocaust in more than three decades. This is a new history of the Holocaust in three ways. First, and most importantly, Rees has created a gripping narrative that that contains a large amount of testimony that has never been published before. Second, he places this powerful interview material in the context of an examination of the decision making process of the Nazi state, and in the process reveals the series of escalations that cumulatively created the horror. Third, Rees covers all those across Europe who participated in the deaths, and he argues that whilst hatred of the Jews was always at the epicentre of Nazi thinking, what happened cannot be fully understood without considering the murder of the Jews alongside plans to kill millions of non-Jews, including homosexuals, 'Gypsies' and the disabled. Through a chronological, intensely readable narrative, featuring enthralling eyewitness testimony and the latest academic research, this is a compelling new account of the worst crime in history.

Laurence Rees (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

Audiobook

Why Are We at War?

Beginning with his debut masterpiece, The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer has repeatedly told the truth about war. Why Are We at War? returns Mailer to the gravity of the battlefield and the grand hubris of the politicians who send soldiers there to die. First published in the early days of the Iraq War, Why Are We at War? is an explosive argument about the American quest for empire that still carries weight today. Scrutinizing the Bush administration's words and actions, Mailer unleashes his trademark moral rigor: "Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered.... To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad."

Norman Mailer (Author), Norman Mailer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Political Advocacy Audiobooks in Politics