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The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Why Violence Has Declined
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
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Let me save you a credit: progress is hard
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Publisher's summary
“If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this - the most inspiring book I've ever read." - Bill Gates (May, 2017)
Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year
The author of Enlightenment Now and The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought offers a controversial history of violence.
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?
This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives - the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away - and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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According to Goldberg, if the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, the greatest trick liberals ever pulled was convincing themselves they’re not ideological. Today “objective” journalists and academics and “moderate” politicians peddle some of the most radical arguments by hiding them in homespun aphorisms.
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I enjoyed it...and I'm a Democrat!!
- By Private. on 05-14-12
By: Jonah Goldberg
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War Without Mercy
- Race and Power in the Pacific War
- By: John W. Dower
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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War Without Mercy has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most original and important books to be written about the war between Japan and the United States." In this monumental history, professor John Dower reveals a hidden, explosive dimension of the Pacific War - race - while writing what John Toland has called "a landmark book...a powerful, moving, and evenhanded history that is sorely needed in both America and Japan."
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War without Mercy
- By rbergen on 05-02-17
By: John W. Dower
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Blunder
- Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions
- By: Zachary Shore
- Narrated by: Zachary Shore, Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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We all make bad decisions. It's part of being human. The resulting mistakes can be valuable, the story goes, because we learn from them. But do we? Historian Zachary Shore says no, not always, and he has a long list of examples to prove his point.
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helpful extension of the genre
- By Andy on 07-11-09
By: Zachary Shore
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Moral Tribes
- Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
- By: Joshua Greene
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A pathbreaking neuroscientist reveals how our social instincts turn Me into Us, but turn Us against Them - and what we can do about it. The great dilemma of our shrinking world is simple: never before have those we disagree with been so present in our lives. The more globalization dissolves national borders, the more clearly we see that human beings are deeply divided on moral lines - about everything from tax codes to sexual practices to energy consumption - and that, when we really disagree, our emotions turn positively tribal.
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Good Science, Bad Philosophy
- By Jacob on 10-27-16
By: Joshua Greene
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Why Honor Matters
- By: Tamler Sommers
- Narrated by: Tamler Sommers
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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To the modern mind, the idea of honor is outdated, sexist, and barbaric. It evokes Hamilton and Burr and pistols at dawn, not visions of a well-organized society. But for philosopher Tamler Sommers, a sense of honor is essential to living moral lives. In Why Honor Matters, Sommers argues that our collective rejection of honor has come at great cost. Reliant only on Enlightenment liberalism, the United States has become the home of the cowardly, the shameless, the selfish, and the alienated. Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity.
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A critical, yet seemingly impossible, topic!
- By Anonymous User on 03-10-20
By: Tamler Sommers
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How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too)
- By: David Goldman
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Past and present civilizations failed and fail for many reasons, but the number-one predictor of a civilization’s survival is its sense of religion—or lack thereof. So argues David Goldman in How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too). The strength of a civilization’s religion affects its purpose, its fertility rate, and ultimately, its fate, says Goldman—who then argues that, contrary to popular belief, Islamic countries are in the last throes of death while Christian America is in a position to flourish.
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Pseudointellectual Clickbait
- By Sam on 12-22-20
By: David Goldman
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Still the Best Hope
- Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph
- By: Dennis Prager
- Narrated by: Erik Bergman
- Length: 15 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In this visionary book, Dennis Prager, one of America's most original thinkers, contends that humanity confronts a monumental choice. The world must decide between American values and its two oppositional alternatives: Islamism and European-style democratic socialism. Prager makes the case for the American value system as the most viable program ever devised to produce a good society. Those values are explained here more clearly and persuasively than ever before.
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An Important Book, should be required reading
- By Beth on 07-18-12
By: Dennis Prager
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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Why?
- Explaining the Holocaust
- By: Peter Hayes
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite the outpouring of books, movies, museums, memorials, and courses devoted to the Holocaust, a coherent explanation of why such ghastly carnage erupted from the heart of civilized Europe in the 20th century still seems elusive even 70 years later. Numerous theories have sprouted in an attempt to console ourselves and to point the blame in emotionally satisfying directions - yet none of them are fully convincing.
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Outstanding book! A must read
- By Pierre on 11-13-21
By: Peter Hayes
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The 10 Big Lies About America
- Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation
- By: Michael Medved
- Narrated by: Michael Medved
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In this bold and brilliantly argued book, acclaimed author and talk-radio host Michael Medved zeroes in on 10 of the biggest fallacies that millions of Americans believe about our country - in spite of incontrovertible facts to the contrary. In The 10 Big Lies About America, Medved pinpoints the most pernicious pieces of America-bashing disinformation that pollute current debates about the economy, race, religion in politics, the Iraq war, and other contentious issues.
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Truth
- By Dominique Bessette on 01-23-17
By: Michael Medved
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What's So Great About America
- By: Dinesh D'Souza
- Narrated by: Dinesh D'Souza
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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America is under attack as never before - not only from terrorists, but from people who provide a rationale for terrorism. Best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza takes on all of America's critics and proves them wrong - as perhaps only a writer with an immigrant's understanding of this country can.
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Excellant!
- By William J. Schleue on 01-02-03
By: Dinesh D'Souza
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In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
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Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
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Enlightenment Now
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Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West but worldwide.
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We live in the best of all times
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Rationality
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In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions.
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Steven Pinker's Frozen Worldview from the 90s
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The Language Instinct
- How the Mind Creates Language
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In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association....
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Absolutely Amazing and Interesting
- By J. C. on 10-28-12
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Words and Rules
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First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
- By Tristan on 04-10-16
By: Steven Pinker
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How the Mind Works
- By: Steven Pinker
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- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
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In this delightful, acclaimed bestseller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness?
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Excellent, but a difficult listen.
- By David Roseberry on 12-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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The Blank Slate
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Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
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Enlightenment Now
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Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West but worldwide.
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We live in the best of all times
- By Neuron on 02-25-18
By: Steven Pinker
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Rationality
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In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions.
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Steven Pinker's Frozen Worldview from the 90s
- By Ryan Booth on 11-12-21
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The Language Instinct
- How the Mind Creates Language
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In this classic, the world’s expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves our vast knowledge of language into a compelling story: language is a human instinct, wired into our brains by evolution. The Language Instinct received the William James Book Prize from the American Psychological Association....
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Absolutely Amazing and Interesting
- By J. C. on 10-28-12
By: Steven Pinker
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Words and Rules
- The Ingredients of Language
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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First published in 2000, Words and Rules remains one of Pinker's most provocative and accessible books, illuminating the fascinating relationship between the brain, the mind, and how language makes us humans.
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Amazing how much irregular verbs can teach.
- By Tristan on 04-10-16
By: Steven Pinker
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Excellent, but a difficult listen.
- By David Roseberry on 12-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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Fear and Trembling
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Kierkegaard discusses Genesis 22:1-18, the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. He notes that Abraham was all willing to sacrifice his son in the name of god, without tears or complaint; he simply obeyed. He argues that faith requires passion - something that Abraham clearly had and that you must experience it yourself or you could never truly understand.
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Good content, poor delivery
- By Go On on 12-09-19
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The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium
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Originally published in 2014, this updated edition of The Revolt of the Public includes an extensive analysis of Donald Trump's improbable rise to the presidency and the electoral triumphs of Brexit and concludes with a speculative look forward, pondering whether the current elite class can bring about a reformation of the democratic process and whether new organizing principles, adapted to a digital world, can arise out of the present political turbulence.
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New forces break things, but can't replace them
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The Stuff of Thought
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In The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Pinker reveals how our use of prepositions and tenses taps into peculiarly human concepts of space and time, and how our nouns and verbs speak to our notions of matter.
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Pinker is truly a brilliant and lucid explainer...
- By Rudi on 06-17-09
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Stumbling on Happiness
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A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy–and what we can do about it. Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes.
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Great Book!
- By TL on 06-09-06
By: Daniel Gilbert
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Think with Pinker
- How to Be a Better Critical Thinker
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Steven Pinker, Various, Tim Harford, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Highlights
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Cognitive scientist Professor Steven Pinker has spent his life thinking about thinking, and now he wants us to join him. With the aid of his critical thinking toolkit, he hopes to help us make smarter choices, become more rational, gain a greater understanding of the confused world we live in—and maybe even become better citizens. In this fascinating series, produced in partnership with the Open University, he examines the different ways the human brain can be tripped up, from understanding probability to the difference between correlation and causation.
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Insightful, Useful, & a Must for Reasoning Persons
- By Zach Brunson on 12-31-22
By: Steven Pinker
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The Paradox of Choice
- Why More is Less
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- Narrated by: Ken Kliban
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- Unabridged
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By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
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The Tyranny of Pop Economics
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The Sense of Style
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In The Sense of Style, the best-selling linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker answers these questions and more. Rethinking the usage guide for the 21st century, Pinker doesn’t carp about the decline of language or recycle pet peeves from the rulebooks of a century ago. Instead, he applies insights from the sciences of language and mind to the challenge of crafting clear, coherent, and stylish prose.
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A great book, done a great injustice by the audio
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By: Steven Pinker
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The Upside of Stress
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More than 44 percent of Americans admit to losing sleep over stress. And while most of us do everything we can to reduce it, Stanford psychologist and best-selling author Kelly McGonigal, PhD, delivers a startling message: Stress isn't bad. In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal highlights new research indicating that stress can, in fact, make us stronger, smarter, and happier - if we learn how to embrace it.
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Bedtime Reading for Insomniacs
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Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
- Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice
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In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few. So begins this most beloved of all American Zen works....
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*NOT* Unabridged
- By Nichael on 02-24-22
By: Shunryu Suzuki
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On the Genealogy of Morals
- A Polemic
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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In On the Genealogy of Morals, subtitled "A Polemic", Nietzsche furthers his pursuit of a clarity that is less tainted by imposed prejudices. He looks at the way attitudes towards 'morality' evolved and the way congenital ideas of morality were heavily colored by the Judaic and Christian traditions.
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Be strong, not weak.
- By Wayne on 06-24-13
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The Denial of Death
- By: Ernest Becker
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie: man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than 30 years after its writing.
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Not for the closed-minded
- By Yhatze on 05-27-17
By: Ernest Becker
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The Expectation Effect
- How Your Mindset Can Change Your World
- By: David Robson
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Melding neuroscience with narrative, science journalist David Robson takes lstenersi on a deep dive into the many life zones the expectation effect permeates. We see how people who believe stress is beneficial become more creative when placed under strain. We see how associating aging with wisdom can add seven plus years to your life. People say seeing is believing but, over and over, Robson proves that the converse is truer: Believing is seeing.
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Every leader and teacher must read!
- By Myron Golden on 09-18-22
By: David Robson
What listeners say about The Better Angels of Our Nature
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gary
- 05-21-12
Probably the best book I have ever read.
What did you love best about The Better Angels of Our Nature?
The book changed the way I look at the world. I had false preconceptions about the changing nature of violence through out history and where we are today. The book opened my eyes to how we really are progressing better and gives me hope about the future. The book is probably the book that has changed my world view more than any other book. Pinker's "The Blank Slate" also changed my world view. That book also opened my eyes to the false preconceptions I had developed while growing up about man. And to show that I'm not a Pinker sycophant, I would just only moderately recommend Pinker's 'How the Mind Works".
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6 people found this helpful
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- CrazyBird
- 11-25-11
A feel good book...for sure!
If the condition of the world is getting you down than you must listen to this wonderfully researched and written font of knowledge! I have listened to this book several times and cannot give Mr. Pinker enough praise. Steven Pinker leads you down a time line of well researched information and statistics on man's journey from brute to civilized and caring creature. I must recommend this work to all parents as it is a great relief to find that our world, and the world that we are leaving our children, is not the death trap of misery the news media and powers that be lead us, and want us, to believe. It is a long read, but a wonderful read, and I hope it reaches a great number of people. As I said before, I recommend it to all.
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6 people found this helpful
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- A. Johnson
- 05-25-19
Somewhat misnamed
This book is advertised as being a hopeful book about how violence is decreasing in society. In practice it becomes a lurid celebration of the most horrifying aspects of human nature. It is a very well researched and organized book. However, I finally could not continue with it after the fifteen minute mark of obsessively detailed, almost fetishized descriptions of medieval torture and dismemberment techniques.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Marianne
- 12-19-11
A flimsy debate
Any additional comments?
I wish I could say I was surprised by this fascist diatribe masquerading as a scholarly work. What does surprise me is the praise heaped upon it by critics who should know better.The author's main assumption that violence has declined is a sound theory, backed by credible data. It seems almost self explanatory for a student of history. It's when the writer tries to explain modern changes in violent behavior that his political aims show through.The author attests that the decline in violence after the 1980s was caused by increased rates of imprisonment, and the tightening up of social norms after the 1960s. Yet, as the author points out himself, most of the rest of the world saw a decline in violence without an increase in incarceration as we had in the US. He gives this only a hand wave, and says it doesn't really mean anything. Except it does. Second, he provides no data whatsoever about changes in social norms. I would bet that he would find an increased liberalization of social conventions across the board, if he ever bothered to check. But since that doesn't fit his theory, it is easily ignored. All data and historical evidence supports the writer's main thesis, that violence had declined. However, he really needs to go back and really think about his theories of causation. Which I suspect her will not because they do not fit his political agenda.It's really a shame because he is an engaging author, and knows how to get a point across.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Rena Alisa
- 03-19-14
For those who love torture and gore.
This book loving depicts every horrible torture and sadistic punishment in the history of humanity. The author does mention how nice it is that we do not approve of these things today. However he then goes on to depict these horrors in great detail -- hour after hour. He is clearly fixated on all the ways we can torture people to death and takes great pains to describe every detail. He wastes little time in explaining how these tortures fell out of fashion. I finally just turned it off and deleted it. Only a sadist would like this book
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mohammed
- 10-04-11
excellent Audio
Its a great experience listening this Audio Book, Now I am hooed with Audio book
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4 people found this helpful
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- Drummer4Life
- 03-15-19
My Historian friends were right...
...Steven Pinker is a hack. Steven Pinker spends the majority of the book covering the revolutionary thesis that we have made progress? How does he do this? By describing in multiple accounts in vivid detail medieval tortures. I'm done reading Pinker.
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- Austin
- 05-23-18
Ok, ok, I get it. You're an atheist and a pacifist
I was intrigued by the premise, but after 20 minutes of listening to the inflammatory rhetoric chosen by the author for certain topics, I could not continue to listen with any expectation the the information provided was objectively gathered, interpreted, or documented. I'm not one to take the Bible literally, but the author's hostility and condescension toward Christianity is palpable. He makes it clear that he does not believe, which is fine, but then goes on to criticize the myths. For instance, he chooses to say that Sodom was annihilated for anal sex and similar sins, that Lot's wife was "executed" for the crime of turning her head, and that the ten commandments mandate the death penalty for sins like children talking back to their parents. I've listened to plenty of books written by atheist scientists. This was the first one that I had to fast forward through due to the author's tone and word choices. I wasn't holding my breath for a chapter on Islam or Hinduism, and wasn't surprised when the Christianity bashing ended without a segway to any other religion. The next chapter described honor as a concept that exists because everyone thinks that everyone else thinks that it exists. Then spankings were discussed. First, some parents even removed the pants and underwear to "maximize pain and humiliation." Spankings with a belt were described as "floggings." Other disciplinary measures "intended to inflict pain" include washing a mouth out with soap or sending a child to bed without dinner.
That's as far as I got. At that point I was certain that the author was unable to be nuetral or objective, and I was unwilling to subject myself to 36 more
hours of his opinion.
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- Phyllis R. Meyer
- 07-24-17
Talk about violence.
This is one of the most violent books I have ever read. I would think an audience who desired to read about the decline in violence wouldn't be interested in the gory details of historical torture and ill will of mankind (interesting word) against our own. Honestly, I couldn't finish the book - it was just to awful to take in. My only other comment is the author has to do an occasional dig against conservatives. If I want to buy a book about your political opinions then title one that way so I know what I am getting. When an author does this either way I am less inclined to every purchase another book they write.
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- Ryuhi
- 06-05-16
An overall good books with a few caveats
Steven Pinker does use a lot of time to in almost all cases very thoroughly argue his points, most of them I think seem very solidly founded, and more than that, different theories and explanations are frequently discussed and I think given a quite fair observation.
This is all very laudable for a popular science book, which this of course ultimately is.
I admit, I frequently felt the wish to examine some of his sources, I do wish there maybe was a pdf with lists of references and such included, but to be fair, that is likely expecting too much (Many popular science podcasts will nowadays be meticulous about linking sources, so I may be spoiled there).
I do want to point to a couple of points that I found to leave me unconvinced or critical:
1. The problem of historic and prehistoric data:
This is more minor, because I felt that Steven Pinker was pointing out sufficiently, that there are problems with this, but as someone who has taken a good amount of courses in prehistory, I want to strongly stress that any observation of prehistoric violence is HIGHLY speculative.
We have a limited archeological record, one that only shows a fraction of the population of its day. We are limited in how accurately we can asses details about day to day life that transcend the pure material record.
As an example, Ötzi, a quite famous neolithic ice mummy is discussed, and Pinker goes with a single interpretation of his cause of death and reconstructed life, without, as I think, sufficiently making it clear that this theory is not without competitors. He portrays him as being a raider, frankly, we do not know that, neither whether it is true, nor whether it can be seen as unlikely.
And this also goes for preserved bodies found in bogs.
There is a lot of uncertainty in this area which, frankly, makes any quantifying of data on violence very unreliable.
Similarly, ethnographic parallels, using contemporary hunter gatherer cultures and similar to understand prehistoric cultures is a method with several flaws, some of which are thankflly addressed in the book.
2. Historic phenomena being discussed:
Sometimes the book will discuss certain historical practices to argue its claim without, I think, sufficiently providing a nuanced view on them.
I shall use the example of the with hunts and witch trials which Pinker mentions in his books. The height of witch trials falls in the same era as the Renaissance, and in this context, I think it might have been useful, for understanding the phenomenon, to look at how people tried to rationalize it. There is quite some interesting information on arguments about witchcraft, like the the question of whether it was "real", or whether it consisted of what we today would call hallucinations and similar psychological effects.
Pinker instead presents a rather simplistic model of "crazy superstition" - an also fails to mention the strongly ambivalent role the church played in it. More than one pope illegalized witch trials, unsurprisingly denouncing the idea of witches as scapegoats for famines and other natural disasters.
I do feel that it is at least a fair argument to point out that something like that at least gives the impression of deliberately using this portrayal to enhance the impression of historic inhumanity and irrationality.
This does not quite sit well with me.
3. The feminization hypothesis for the reduction in violence:
Steven Pinker does mention his believe in women / femininity / the emancipation of women being a causal factor in reducing violence.
I am rather critical here mostly because I feel that he gives much less alternative interpretations, facts, detailed arguments and data for this than for many other claims.
Steven Pinker often is very methodical about pointing out the danger of misinterpreting correlation as causation, he does not show the same rigor when it comes to this theory.
More than that, when he describes states basing social systems strongly on authority ranking - and then also using the same model for marriage and family relations, by his own logic,he would be forced to identify men as a pacifying force in part responsible for the lower rate of violence in women - while making the contrary claim.
I think that had he given more space to a nuanced view on this theory, he could at least have addressed inconsistencies like this or made a better case for it, but frankly I think he overall fails to make an argument for feminism, women's rights and similar being a cause of reduction of violence, instead of being a positive consequence of the factors responsible for providing us with better living standards on the whole.
His reasoning seems more ideological than factual here, and that is I think a problem in a scientist.
In conclusion, I still think this is a good book which provides interesting and useful information and is definitely worth your time, but I strongly advise a critical attitude.
Steven Pinker definitely seems to be correct in his overall thesis, but I feel much less convinced when it comes at some of his explanations for this trend.
Lastly, the narration is clear, easy to listen to and well suited for a scientific book, I would rate it as a great production.
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