Social Science Audiobooks

What good are the arts? Why should we care about the past? For millennia, humanity has sought to understand and transmit to future generations not just the "know-how" of life, but the "know-why"—the meaning and purpose of our existence, as expressed in art, architecture, religion, and philosophy. This crucial passing down of knowledge has required the radical integration of insights from the past and from other cultures. In Culture, acclaimed author, professor, and public intellectual Martin Puchner takes us on a breakneck tour through pivotal moments in world history, providing a global introduction to the arts and humanities in one engaging volume. From Nefertiti's lost city to the plays of Wole Soyinka; from the theaters of ancient Greece to Chinese travel journals to Arab and Aztec libraries; from a South Asian statuette found at Pompeii to a time capsule left behind on the Moon, Puchner tells the gripping story of human achievement through our collective losses and rediscoveries, power plays and heroic journeys, innovations, imitations, and appropriations. More than a work of history, Culture is an archive of humanity's most monumental junctures and a guidebook for the future of us humans as a creative species.

From “one of the most interesting sociologists of his generation” and a former cop, the story of three departments and their struggle to change aggressive police culture and achieve what Americans want: fair, humane, and effective policing. What should we do about the police? After the murder of George Floyd, there’s no institution more controversial: only 14 percent of Americans believe that “policing works pretty well as it is” (CNN, April 27, 2021). We’re swimming in proposals for reform, but most do not tackle the aggressive culture of the profession, which prioritizes locking up bad guys at any cost, loyalty to other cops, and not taking flak from anyone on the street. Far from improving public safety, this culture, in fact, poses a danger to citizens and cops alike. Walk the Walk brings listeners deep inside three unusual departments—in Stockton, California; Longmont, Colorado; and LaGrange, Georgia—whose chiefs signed on to replace that aggressive culture with something better: with models focused on equity before the law, social responsibility, racial reconciliation, and the preservation of life. Informed by research, unflinching and by turns gripping, tragic, and inspirational, this audiobook follows the chiefs—and their officers and detectives—as they conjured a new spirit of policing. While every community faces unique challenges with police reform, Walk the Walk opens a window onto what the police could be, if we took seriously the charge of creating a more just America. A Macmillan Audio production from Metropolitan Books.

Edited by Shelly Oria—author and editor of Indelible in the Hippocampus—this explosive, intersectional collection of essays, fiction, poems, plays, and more, explores the universality of human reproductive experiences, as well as their distinct individuality. An enlisted sailor must choose between her military career and keeping an unexpected pregnancy. A mother of three decides to become a surrogate, but is unprepared for everything that happens next. A trans man’s pregnancy forces them to approach their key relationships in a new way. A woman’s choice to live a child-free life is put to the test when her husband’s dying wish is for them to become parents. Forced sterilization camps line the borders of America in a dystopian future that may not be far off. In their own unique and unforgettable way, each storyteller examines our crisis of access to care in ways that are at turns haunting, heartbreaking, and outright funny. This collection is a collaboration with the Brigid Alliance, a nationwide service that arranges and funds confidential and personal travel support to those seeking abortion care.

Where does one go without health insurance, when turned away by hospitals, clinics, and doctors? In The People’s Hospital, physician Ricardo Nuila’s stunning debut, we follow the lives of five uninsured Houstonians as their struggle for survival leads them to a hospital where insurance comes second to genuine care. First, we meet Stephen, the restaurant franchise manager who signed up for his company’s lowest priced plan, only to find himself facing insurmountable costs after a cancer diagnosis. Then Christian—a young college student and retail worker who can’t seem to get an accurate diagnosis, let alone treatment, for his debilitating knee pain. Geronimo, thirty-six years old, has liver failure, but his meager disability check disqualifies him for Medicaid—and puts a life-saving transplant just out of reach. Roxana, who’s lived in the community without a visa for more than two decades, suffers from complications related to her cancer treatment. And finally, there’s Ebonie, a young mother whose high-risk pregnancy endangers her life. Whether due to immigration status, income, or the vagaries of state Medicaid law, all five are denied access to care. For all five, this exclusion could prove life-threatening. Each patient eventually lands at Ben Taub, the county hospital where Dr. Nuila has worked for over a decade. Nuila delves with empathy into the experiences of his patients, braiding their dramas into a singular narrative that contradicts the established idea that the only way to receive good healthcare is with good insurance. As readers follow the movingly rendered twists and turns in each patient’s story, it’s impossible to deny that our system is broken—and that Ben Taub’s innovative model, which emphasizes people over payments, could help light the path forward.

One of Literary Hub's most anticipated books of 2023 The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children—and a searing indictment of the American foster care system. On March 26, 2018, rescue workers discovered a crumpled SUV and the bodies of two women and several children at the bottom of a cliff beside the Pacific Coast Highway. Investigators soon concluded that the crash was a murder-suicide, but there was more to the story: Jennifer and Sarah Hart, it turned out, were a white married couple who had adopted the six Black children from two different Texas families in 2006 and 2008. Behind the family's loving facade, however, was a pattern of abuse and neglect that went ignored as the couple withdrew the children from school and moved across the country. It soon became apparent that the State of Texas knew very little about the two individuals to whom it had given custody of six children—with fateful consequences. In the manner of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family and other classic works of investigative journalism, Roxanna Asgarian’s We Were Once a Family is a revelation of vulnerable lives; it is also a shattering exposé of the foster care and adoption systems that produced this tragedy. As a journalist in Houston, Asgarian became the first reporter to put the children’s birth families at the center of the story. We follow the author as she runs up against the intransigence of a state agency that removes tens of thousands of kids from homes each year in the name of child welfare, while often failing to consider alternatives. Her reporting uncovers persistent racial biases and corruption as children of color are separated from birth parents without proper cause. The result is a riveting narrative and a deeply reported indictment of a system that continues to fail America’s most vulnerable children while upending the lives of their families. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

An unsparing, incisive, yet ultimately hopeful look at how we can shed the American obsession with self-reliance that has made us less healthy, less secure, and less fulfilled The promise that you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is central to the story of the American Dream. It’s the belief that if you work hard and rely on your own resources, you will eventually succeed. However, time and again we have seen how this foundational myth, with its emphasis on individual determination, brittle self-sufficiency, and personal accomplishment, does not help us. Instead, as income inequality rises around us, we are left with shame and self-blame for our condition. Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our own independence and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone. Looking at a range of delusions and half solutions—from “grit” to the false Horatio Alger story to the rise of GoFundMe—Quart reveals how we have been steered away from robust social programs that would address the root causes of our problems. Meanwhile, the responsibility for survival has been shifted onto the backs of ordinary people, burdening generations with debt instead of providing the social safety net we so desperately need. Insightful, sharply argued, and characterized by Quart’s lively writing and deep reporting, and for fans of Evicted and Nickel and Dimed, Bootstrapped is a powerful examination of what ails us at a societal level and a plan for how we can free ourselves from these self-defeating narratives. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Before the podcast and the smartphone, there was the cassette tape and the Walkman — two devices that, although not considered much today, were revolutionary. They were recordable, rewritable, spliceable, compact, and mobile. For the first time, they allowed you to move through the world and listen to a voice speaking only to you. These cassette tapes brought us together, pulled us apart, and forever changed how we say those three simple words, ‘I love you.’ In five episodes from around the world, Mixtape explores the impact the cassette had and continues to have today.

“Page for page, I may not have ever learned more from a book.... Womb is a history book as well as a biology book but it’s also an adventure and a celebration.” —Rob Delaney, actor and author of A Heart That Works A groundbreaking, triumphant investigation of the uterus—from birth to death, in sickness and in health, throughout history and into our possible future—from midwife and acclaimed writer Leah Hazard The size of a clenched fist and the shape of a light bulb—with no less power and potential. Every person on Earth began inside a uterus, but how much do we really understand about the womb? Bringing together medical history, scientific discoveries, and journalistic exploration, Leah Hazard embarks on a journey in search of answers about the body’s most miraculous and contentious organ. We meet the people who have shaped our relationship with the uterus: doctors and doulas, yoni steamers and fibroid-tea hawkers, legislators who would regulate the organ’s very existence, and boundary-breaking researchers on the frontiers of the field. With a midwife’s warmth and humor, Hazard tackles pressing questions: Is the womb connected to the brain? Can cervical crypts store sperm? Do hysterectomies affect sexual pleasure? How can smart tampons help health care? Why does endometriosis take so long to be diagnosed? Will external gestation be possible in our lifetime? How does gender-affirming hormone therapy affect the uterus? Why does medical racism impact reproductive healthcare? A clear-eyed and inclusive examination of the cultural prejudices and assumptions that have made the uterus so poorly understood for centuries, Womb takes a fresh look at an organ that brings us pain and pleasure—a small part of our bodies that has a larger impact than we ever thought possible.  

Radiolab wants to get you in your feels. If you need a good laugh, a deep cry, or a broad smile, this audiobook is for you. Radiolab has gone into the archive and pulled out stories bound to make you feel something. In five chapters, we cover tales of Attachment, Confusion, Love, Grief and Bliss. We are leaving no stone unturned in our attempt to tug at your heartstrings. We will explore the depths of the sea floor, go deep into the jungle, verge into big cities, and even peek into the grave.

This program is read by the author. In the literary tradition of Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, this debut memoir confronts both the challenges and joys of growing up Black and making your own truth. Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away. Mouton writes, “The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way. . . . Mythmaking isn’t a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women.” Mouton’s memoir Black Chameleon is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet’s gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form. A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who broke the story, the inspiring account of the sixteen female scientists who forced MIT to publicly admit it had been discriminating against its female faculty for years—sparking a nationwide reckoning with the pervasive sexism in science. “Excellent and infuriating.” —The New York Times In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women on its faculty, forcing institutions across the country to confront a problem they had long ignored: the need for more women at the top levels of science. Written by the journalist who broke the story for The Boston Globe, The Exceptions is the untold story of how sixteen highly accomplished women on the MIT faculty came together to do the work that triggered the historic admission. The Exceptions centers on the life of Nancy Hopkins, a reluctant feminist who became the leader of the sixteen and a hero to two generations of women in science. Hired to prestigious universities at the dawn of affirmative action efforts in the 1970s, Dr. Hopkins and her peers embarked on their careers believing that discrimination against women was a thing of the past—that science was, at last, a pure meritocracy. For years they explained away the discrimination they experienced as the exception, not the rule. Only when these few women came together after decades of underpayment and the denial of credit, advancement, and equal resources to do their work did they recognize the relentless pattern: women were often marginalized and minimized, especially as they grew older. Meanwhile, men of similar or lesser ability had their career paths paved and widened. The Exceptions is a powerful yet all-too-familiar story that will resonate with all professional women who experience what those at MIT called “21st-century discrimination”—a subtle and stubborn bias, often unconscious but still damaging. As in bestsellers from Hidden Figures to Lab Girl and Code Girls, we are offered a rare glimpse into the world of high-level scientific research and learn about the extraordinary female scientists whose work has been overlooked throughout history, and how these women courageously fought for fair treatment as they struggled to achieve the recognition they rightfully deserve.

“The Great Displacement is closely observed, compassionate, and far-sighted.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Under a White Sky The untold story of climate migration in the United States—the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by disaster, and the implications for all of us as we confront a changing future. Even as climate change dominates the headlines, many of us still think about it in the future tense—we imagine that as global warming gets worse over the coming decades, millions of people will scatter around the world fleeing famine and rising seas. What we often don’t realize is that the consequences of climate change are already visible, right here in the United States. In communities across the country, climate disasters are pushing thousands of people away from their homes. A human-centered narrative with national scope, The Great Displacement is “a vivid tour of the new human geography just coming into view” (David Wallace-Wells, New York Times bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth). From half-drowned Louisiana to fire-scorched California, from the dried-up cotton fields of Arizona to the soaked watersheds of inland North Carolina, people are moving. In the last few decades, the federal government has moved tens of thousands of families away from flood zones, and tens of thousands more have moved of their own accord in the aftermath of natural disasters. Insurance and mortgage markets are already shifting to reflect mounting climate risk, pricing people out of risky areas. Over the next fifty years, millions of Americans will be caught up in this churn of displacement, forced inland and northward in what will be the largest migration in our country’s history. The Great Displacement compassionately tells the stories of those who are already experiencing life on the move, while detailing just how radically climate change will transform our lives—erasing historic towns and villages, pushing people toward new areas, and reshaping the geography of the United States.

"Lessa Lamb narrates with a fine tone and timbre. She inhabits the youthful sound and elegant style of this layered audiobook. Her timing and sense of occasion add richness to its informed foray into all things wolf as she captures the drama, fear, and anxiety that underlie the immersive presentation." - AudioFile Magazine (Earphones Award Winner) For fans of Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk and Mary Roach, Erica Berry’s WOLFISH blends science, history, and cultural criticism in a years-long journey to understand our myths about wolves, and track one legendary wolf, OR-7, from the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon "Wolfish starts with a single wolf and spirals through nuanced investigations of fear, gender, violence, and story. A GORGEOUS achievement." —Blair Braverman, author of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube “This is one of those stories that begins with a female body. Hers was crumpled, roadside, in the ash-colored slush between asphalt and snowbank.” So begins Erica Berry’s kaleidoscopic exploration of wolves, both real and symbolic. At the center of this lyrical inquiry is the legendary OR-7, who roams away from his familial pack in northeastern Oregon. While charting OR-7’s record-breaking journey out of the Wallowa Mountains, Erica simultaneously details her own coming-of-age as she moves away from home and wrestles with inherited beliefs about fear, danger, femininity, and the body. As Erica chronicles her own migration—from crying wolf as a child on her grandfather’s sheep farm to accidentally eating mandrake in Sicily—she searches for new expressions for how to be a brave woman, human, and animal in our warming world. What do stories so long told about wolves tell us about our relationship to fear? How can our society peel back the layers of what scares us? By strategically unspooling the strands of our cultural constructions of predator and prey, and what it means to navigate a world in which we can be both, Erica bridges the gap between human fear and grief through the lens of a wrongfully misunderstood species. Wolfish is for anybody trying to navigate a world that is often scary. A powerful, timeless, and necessary book for our current and future generations. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

"A story so bizarre, only Will Sommer could report it.” —Molly Jong-Fast The definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has gained a mainstream following among Republican lawmakers and ordinary citizens, the threat it poses to democracy, and how we can reach those who have embraced the conspiracy and are disseminating its lies. The Storm is Coming. Trust the Plan. WWG1WGA. You’ve seen the letter Q on TV and in the news – it’s been everywhere from Trump rallies to the January 6th insurrection. “QAnon” used to sound vaguely familiar, somewhat ominous, but not quite mainstream. But what was once a fringe conspiracy theory has now become a household name and its symbols recognizable around the world. How did this happen, who is actually involved, what do they believe, and what do they want? Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer has been on the ground with Q’s followers since day one, and in Trust the Plan Sommer has written the definitive book on the movement—who started it and who grew it, what they really believe is going on, and what they want to see “the Storm” accomplish on the day of its reckoning. At once a character study and a journalistic exposé, Sommer lets his cast of characters do the talking as he visits them around the world, from their makeshift compounds to the rallies they are still holding. The great tragedy of this story is ultimately the legitimization of this ideology by mainstream politicians eager to gain access to a large and growing cohort of voters. Though 2020 brought the end of Trump’s presidency, his following within the QAnon community has simply pivoted and grown stronger. Trust the Plan shows us in granular detail who we’ll be up against for years to come, in the US and abroad. Understanding why and how something like Q happens is an indispensable exercise, and in showing us how we got here we can chart a path out. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Journalist and author Mark Whitaker explores the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity expressed in the slogan “Black Power” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. In gripping, novelistic detail, Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenomenon began to challenge the traditional civil rights movement in the turbulent year of 1966. Saying It Loud takes you inside the dramatic events in this seminal year, from Stokely Carmichael’s middle-of-the-night ouster of moderate icon John Lewis as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Carmichael’s impassioned cry of “Black Power!” during a protest march in rural Mississippi. From Julian Bond’s humiliating and racist ouster from the Georgia state legislature because of his antiwar statements to Ronald Reagan’s election as California governor riding a “white backlash” vote against Black Power and urban unrest. From the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, to the origins of Kwanzaa, the Black Arts Movement, and the first Black studies programs. From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated campaign to take the civil rights movement north to Chicago to the wrenching ousting of the white members of SNCC. Deeply researched and widely reported, Saying It Loud offers brilliant portraits of the major characters in the yearlong drama, and provides new details and insights from key players and journalists who covered the story. It also makes a compelling case for why the lessons from 1966 still resonate in the era of Black Lives Matter and the fierce contemporary battles over voting rights, identity politics, and the teaching of Black history.

A definitive and surprising exploration of the history of Black horror films, after the rising success of Get Out, Candyman, and Lovecraft Country from creators behind the acclaimed documentary, Horror Noire. The Black Guy Dies First explores the Black journey in modern horror cinema, from the fodder epitomized by Spider Baby to the Oscar-​winning cinematic heights of Get Out and beyond. This eye-opening book delves into the themes, tropes, and traits that have come to characterize Black roles in horror since 1968, a year in which race made national headlines in iconic moments from the enactment of the 1968 Civil Rights Act and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April. This timely book is a must-read for cinema and horror fans alike.

A practical, shame-free guide for navigating conversations across our differences at a time of rapid social change. In the current period of social and political unrest, conversations about identity are becoming more frequent and more difficult. On subjects like critical race theory, gender equity in the workplace, and LGBTQ-inclusive classrooms, many of us are understandably fearful of saying the wrong thing. That fear can sometimes prevent us from speaking up at all, depriving people from marginalized groups of support and stalling progress toward a more just and inclusive society. Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, founders of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU School of Law, are here to show potential allies that these conversations don’t have to be so overwhelming. Through stories drawn from contexts as varied as social media posts, dinner party conversations, and workplace disputes, they offer seven user-friendly principles that teach skills such as how to avoid common conversational pitfalls, engage in respectful disagreement, offer authentic apologies, and better support people in our lives who experience bias. Research-backed, accessible, and uplifting, Say the Right Thing charts a pathway out of cancel culture toward more meaningful and empathetic dialogue on issues of identity. It also gives us the practical tools to do good in our spheres of influence. Whether managing diverse teams at work, navigating issues of inclusion at college, or challenging biased comments at a family barbecue, Yoshino and Glasgow help us move from unconsciously hurting people to consciously helping them.

From the award-winning author of Down from the Mountain, a memoir of inheritance, history, and one gun’s role in the violence that shaped the American West—and an impassioned call to forge a new way forward Bryce Andrews was raised to do no harm. The son of a pacifist and conscientious objector, he moved from Seattle to Montana to tend livestock and the land as a cowboy. For a decade, he was happy. Yet, when Andrews inherited his grandfather’s Smith & Wesson revolver, he felt the weight of the violence braided into his chosen life. Other white men who’d come before him had turned firearms like this one against wildlife, wilderness, and the Indigenous peoples who had lived in these landscapes for millennia. This was how the West was “won.” Now, the losses were all around him and a weapon was in his hand. In precise, elegiac prose, Andrews chronicles his journey to forge a new path for himself, and to reshape one handgun into a tool for good work. As waves of gun violence swept the country and wildfires burned across his beloved valley, he began asking questions—of ranchers, his Native neighbors, his family, and a blacksmith who taught him to shape steel—in search of a new way to live with the land and with one another. In laying down his arms, he transformed an inherited weapon, his ranch, and the arc of his life. Holding Fire is a deeply felt memoir of one Western heart’s wild growth, and a personal testament to how things that seem permanent—inheritance, legacies of violence, forged steel—can change. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

*A Zibby's Most Anticipated Book of 2023* *A "Next Big Idea Club" Must-Read Book for January* *An Essence "Books by Black Authors to Read This Winter" Pick?* A piercing collection of essays on racial tension in America and the ongoing fight for visibility, change, and lasting hope “There are stories that must be told.” Acclaimed novelist and scholar Daniel Black has spent a career writing into the unspoken, fleshing out, through storytelling, pain that can’t be described. Now, in his debut essay collection, Black gives voice to the experiences of those who often find themselves on the margins. Tackling topics ranging from police brutality to the AIDS crisis to the role of HBCUs to queer representation in the black church, Black on Black celebrates the resilience, fortitude, and survival of black people in a land where their body is always on display. As Daniel Black reminds us, while hope may be slow in coming, it always arrives, and when it does, it delivers beyond the imagination. Propulsive, intimate, and achingly relevant, Black on Black is cultural criticism at its openhearted best.

This program includes an author's note read by the author. An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all. Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt. Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. Roughly 75 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial audiobook, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo—because we are all implicated. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

"Narrator Roger Davis, who earned first-class honors in media and anthropology, puts his training to good use to lead listeners through 17th- and 18th-century Malagasy history." - Library Journal The final posthumous work by the coauthor of the major New York Times bestseller The Dawn of Everything. Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies—vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of the European empire. In graduate school, David Graeber conducted ethnographic field research in Madagascar for his doctoral thesis on the island’s politics and history of slavery and magic. During this time, he encountered the Zana-Malata, an ethnic group of mixed descendants of the many pirates who settled on the island at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia, Graeber’s final posthumous book, is the outgrowth of this early research and the culmination of ideas that he developed in his classic, bestselling works Debt and The Dawn of Everything (written with the archaeologist David Wengrow). In this lively, incisive exploration, Graeber considers how the protodemocratic, even libertarian practices of the Zana-Malata came to shape the Enlightenment project defined for too long as distinctly European. He illuminates the non-European origins of what we consider to be “Western” thought and endeavors to recover forgotten forms of social and political order that gesture toward new, hopeful possibilities for the future. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

From the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace comes a timely, insightful, and groundbreaking look at the school-to-prison pipeline and life in the juvenile “justice” system. There has been very little written about juvenile detention and the path to justice. For many kids, a mistake made at age thirteen or fourteen—often resulting from external factors coupled with a biologically immature brain—can resonate through the rest of their lives, making high school difficult, college nearly impossible, and a middle-class life a mere fantasy. Here, in Children of the State, Jeff Hobbs challenges any preconceived perceptions about how the juvenile justice system works—and demonstrates in brilliant, piercing prose: No one so young should ever be considered irredeemable. Writing with great heart and sensitivity, Hobbs presents three different true stories that show the day-to-day life and the challenges faced by those living and working in juvenile programs: educators, counselors, and—most importantly—children. While serving a year-long detention in Wilmington, Delaware—one of the violent crime capitols of America—a bright young man considers both the benefits and the immense costs of striving for college acceptance while imprisoned. A career juvenile hall English Language Arts teacher struggles to align the small moments of wonder in her work alongside its statistical futility, all while the San Francisco city government considers a new juvenile system without cinderblocks—and possibly without teachers. A territorial fistfight in Paterson, New Jersey is called a hate crime by the media and the boy held accountable seeks redemption and friendship in a demanding Life & Professional Skills class in lower Manhattan. Through these stories, Hobbs creates intimate portraits of these individuals as they struggle to make good decisions amidst the challenges of overcoming their pasts, and also asks: What should society do with young people who have made terrible mistakes? Just as he did with The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Jeff Hobbs has crafted a gorgeous, captivating, and transcendent work of journalism with tremendous emotional power. Intimate and profound, relevant and revelatory, Children of the State masterfully blends personal stories with larger questions about race, class, prison reform, justice, and even about the concept of “fate.”

Featuring an introduction written and narrated by Rachel Maddow, Pegasus: How a Spy in Our Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy is the story of the one of the most sophisticated and invasive surveillance weapons ever created, used by governments around the world Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud's Pegasus: How a Spy in Our Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy is the story of the one of the most sophisticated and invasive surveillance weapons ever created, used by governments around the world. Pegasus is widely regarded as the most effective and sought-after cyber-surveillance system on the market. The system’s creator, the NSO Group, a private corporation headquartered in Israel, is not shy about proclaiming its ability to thwart terrorists and criminals. “Thousands of people in Europe owe their lives to hundreds of our company employees,” NSO’s cofounder declared in 2019. This bold assertion may be true, at least in part, but it’s by no means the whole story. NSO’s Pegasus system has not been limited to catching bad guys. It’s also been used to spy on hundreds, and maybe thousands, of innocent people around the world: heads of state, diplomats, human rights defenders, political opponents, and journalists. This spyware is as insidious as it is invasive, capable of infecting a private cell phone without alerting the owner, and of doing its work in the background, in silence, virtually undetectable. Pegasus can track a person’s daily movement in real time, gain control of the device’s microphones and cameras at will, and capture all videos, photos, emails, texts, and passwords—encrypted or not. This data can be exfiltrated, stored on outside servers, and then leveraged to blackmail, intimidate, and silence the victims. Its full reach is not yet known. “If they’ve found a way to hack one iPhone,” says Edward Snowden, “they’ve found a way to hack all iPhones.” Pegasus is a look inside the monthslong worldwide investigation, triggered by a single spectacular leak of data, and a look at how an international consortium of reporters and editors revealed that cyber intrusion and cyber surveillance are happening with exponentially increasing frequency across the globe, at a scale that astounds. Meticulously reported and masterfully written, Pegasus shines a light on the lives that have been turned upside down by this unprecedented threat and exposes the chilling new ways authoritarian regimes are eroding key pillars of democracy: privacy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

How did rescue dogs become status symbols? Why are luxury brands losing their cachet? What’s made F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous observations obsolete? The answers are part of a new revolution that’s radically reorganizing the way we view ourselves and others, that “will be hard for pop-culture readers to put down” (Booklist). Status was once easy to identify—fast cars, fancy shoes, sprawling estates, elite brands. But in place of Louboutins and Lamborghinis, the relevance of the rich, famous, and gauche is waning and a riveting revolution is underfoot. Chuck Thompson—dubbed “savagely funny” by The New York Times and “wickedly entertaining” by the San Francisco Chronicle—sets out to determine what “status” means today and learns that what was once considered the low life has become the high life. In The Status Revolution, Thompson tours the new world of status from a small community in British Columbia where an indigenous artist uses wood carving to restore communal status; to a Washington, DC, meeting of the “Patriotic Millionaires,” a club of high-earners who are begging the government to tax them; to a luxury auto factory in the south of Italy where making beautiful cars is as much about bringing dignity to a low-earning region than it is about flash and indulgence; to a London lab where the neural secrets of status are being unlocked. “Chock-full of fascinating revelations” (In Touch Weekly) and with his signature wit and irreverence, Thompson explains why everything we know about status is changing, upends centuries of conventional wisdom, and shows how the new status revolution reflects our place in contemporary society.

“One of the nation’s most prominent civil rights leaders” (Washington Post), a New York Times bestselling author, community organizer, investigative journalist, Ivy League professor, and former head of the NAACP, Ben Jealous draws from a life lived on America’s racial fault line to deliver a series of gripping and lively parables that call on each of us to reconcile, heal, and work fearlessly to make America one nation. Never Forget Our People Were Always Free illuminates for each of us how the path to healing America’s broken heart starts with each of us having the courage to heal our own.The son of parents who had to leave Maryland because their cross-racial marriage was illegal, Ben Jealous’ lively, courageous and empathetic storytelling calls on every American to look past deeply-cut divisions and recognize we are all in the same boat now. Along the way Jealous grapples with hidden American mysteries, including: Why do white men die from suicide more often than black men die from murder?How did racial profiling kill an American president?What happens when a Ku Klux Klansman wrestles with what Jesus actually said? How did Dave Chappelle know the DC Snipers were Black? Why shouldn't the civil rights movement give up on rednecks?When is what we have collectively forgotten about race more important than what we actually know?What do the most indecipherable things our elders say tell us about ourselves?  Told as a series of parables, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free features intimate glimpses of political, and faith leaders as different as Jack Kemp, Stacey Abrams, and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu and heroes as unlikely as a retired constable, a female pirate from Madagascar, a long lost Irishman, a death row inmate, and a man with a confederate flag over his heart. More than anything, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free offers readers hope America’s oldest wounds can heal and her oldest divisions be overcome. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

A moving and deeply personal excavation of Indigenous beauty and passion in a suffering world In prose that is evocative and sensual, unabashedly queer and visceral, raw and autobiographical, Joshua Whitehead writes of an Indigenous body in pain, coping with trauma. Deeply rooted within, he reaches across the anguish to create a new form of storytelling he calls "biostory"—beyond genre, and entirely sovereign. Through this narrative perspective, Making Love with the Land recasts mental health struggles and our complex emotional landscapes from a nefarious parasite on his (and our) well-being to kin, even a relation, no matter what difficulties they present to us. Whitehead ruminates on loss and pain without shame or ridicule but rather highlights waypoints for personal transformation. Written in the aftermath of heartbreak, before and during the pandemic, Making Love with the Land illuminates this present moment in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are rediscovering old ways and creating new ones about connection with and responsibility toward each other and the land. Intellectually audacious and emotionally compelling, Whitehead shares his devotion to the world in which we live and brilliantly—even joyfully—maps his experience on the land that has shaped stories, histories, and bodies from time immemorial.

A poignant and ruthlessly honest journey through cultural expectations of size, race, and gender—and toward a brighter future—from National Book Award nominee Evette Dionne My body has not betrayed me; it has continued rebounding against all odds. It is a body that others map their expectations on, but it has never let me down. In this insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne explores the minefields fat Black woman are forced to navigate in the course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to diagnosis with heart failure at age twenty-nine, Dionne tracks her relationships with friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image. Along the way, she lifts back the curtain to reveal the subtle, insidious forms of surveillance and control levied at fat women: At the doctor’s office, where any health ailment is treated with a directive to lose weight. On dating sites, where larger bodies are rejected or fetishized. On TV, where fat characters are asexual comedic relief. But Dionne’s unflinching account of our deeply held prejudices is matched by her fierce belief in the power of self-love. An unmissable portrait of a woman on a journey toward understanding our society and herself, Weightless holds up a mirror to the world we live in and asks us to imagine the future we deserve.

In this timely and necessary book, New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose dismantles two hundred years of unrealistic parenting expectations and empowers today’s mothers to make choices that actually serve themselves, their children, and their communities Close your eyes and picture the perfect mother. She is usually blonde and thin. Her roots are never showing and she installed that gleaming kitchen backsplash herself (watch her TikTok for DIY tips). She seamlessly melds work, wellness and home; and during the depths of the pandemic, she also ran remote school and woke up at 5 a.m. to meditate. You may read this and think it’s bananas; you have probably internalized much of it. Journalist Jessica Grose sure had. After she failed to meet every one of her own expectations for her first pregnancy, she devoted her career to revealing how morally bankrupt so many of these ideas and pressures are. Now, in Screaming on the Inside, Grose weaves together her personal journey with scientific, historical, and contemporary reporting to be the voice for American parents she wishes she’d had a decade ago. The truth is that parenting cannot follow a recipe; there’s no foolproof set of rules that will result in a perfectly adjusted child. Every parent has different values, and we will have different ideas about how to pass those values along to our children. What successful parenting has in common, regardless of culture or community, is close observation of the kind of unique humans our children are. In thoughtful and revelatory chapters about pregnancy, identity, work, social media, and the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, Grose explains how we got to this moment, why the current state of expectations on mothers is wholly unsustainable, and how we can move towards something better. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Cliff Evans attended a storied New England prep school and an Ivy League university, and when he finished, he turned to … professional counterfeiting. He and his team sought ways to make money illegally – by photocopying it. Why would someone with all the opportunities in the world turn to a life of crime?   In the Scribd Original, The Ivy League Counterfeiter, author and TV host Touré dives into how Evans built his operation and how it all fell apart. Touré and Evans were not just classmates – they were also friends. This true, gripping story goes deep inside Evans’s roller coaster life. It’s built on court documents and interviews with Evans, his mother, and his friends, who reveal that Evans was enamored with the street life – partly because he looked up to his older brother, a serial bank robber. His brother taught him the code of the street, but did he help bring down Evans? The Ivy League Counterfeiter is a harrowing, heart-thumping journey that takes us from the streets of Chicago to the hallowed halls of Columbia University, and into the criminal underworld. This provocative, unforgettable story encompasses the wild, chaotic ride of someone who just couldn’t stay away from the street life. 

Not so long ago, conspiracy theorists were relegated to the cultural fringes. They were the oddballs in the tinfoil hats, raging to one another about who really shot JFK and whether or not an astronaut walked on the moon. In recent years, however, as everything from stolen-election claims to vaccine disinformation to QAnon has made daily headlines, conspiracists have moved, if not front and center, then awfully close. As the American right wing retreats further into its political bunker and war rages in Ukraine, two particularly bizarre theories are gaining traction in the United States and Russia. They seem laughably far-fetched, but behind the absurdity lurk radical ideas that are becoming alarmingly commonplace. These ludicrous beliefs offer a road map of where we might be headed and also highlight the lunacy that’s already here. In Land of Delusion, cultural historian Colin Dickey, author of the acclaimed The Unidentified and Ghostland, introduces us to Tartaria, a great empire that sprang from Russia and spread across the globe, only to be destroyed by evil schemers who erased it from the history books. We also meet the New Chronologists, who claim that history began just eight hundred years ago and that the world was originally dominated by blond, blue-eyed Slavs. Crackpot theories to be sure, but they’re fueled by troubling beliefs that are all too real: that superior societies have been overrun by “others,” that we’ve been corrupted by fake news, and that power and lost glory must be restored. The far-reaching influence of Fox News, Alex Jones, lies generated by the Kremlin are enough to tell us that not only are these beliefs potent, they might soon become dominant. By turns entertaining and grimly serious, Land of Delusion takes us inside the warped logic of conspiracy theorists and connects the dots between crazy ideas and real-time events. Weird is one thing—weird and dangerous demands our full attention.