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The Light That Failed
- Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
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The Light That Failed
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Publisher's summary
A landmark book that completely transforms our understanding of the crisis of liberalism, from two pre-eminent intellectuals.
Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance?
In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West.
In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat. Reckoning with the history of the last 30 years, they show that the most powerful force behind the wave of populist xenophobia that began in Eastern Europe stems from resentment at the post-1989 imperative to become Westernized.
Through this prism, the Trump revolution represents an ironic fulfillment of the promise that the nations exiting from communist rule would come to resemble the United States. In a strange twist, Trump has elevated Putin’s Russia and Orba´n’s Hungary into models for the United States.
Written by two pre-eminent intellectuals bridging the East/West divide, The Light That Failed is a landmark book that sheds light on the extraordinary history of the fall of the Western ideal.
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
In When the Facts Change, Tony Judt's widow and fellow historian Jennifer Homans has assembled an essential collection of the most important and influential pieces written in the last 15 years of Judt's life, the years in which he found his voice in the public sphere. Included are seminal essays on the full range of Judt's concerns, including Europe as an idea and in reality, before 1989 and thereafter; Israel, the Holocaust and the Jews; American hyperpower and the world after 9/11.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Essential
- By Herman Utik on 09-19-16
By: Tony Judt
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Fascism: The Career of a Concept
- By: Paul Gottfried
- Narrated by: Kevin Moriarty
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story5 out of 5 stars 37
What does it mean to label someone a fascist? Today, it is equated with denouncing him or her as a Nazi. But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term's meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces the word's polemical function within the context of present ideological struggles.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Refreshing scholarly treatment of a widely misused concept
- By Minister of the Posterior on 01-15-24
By: Paul Gottfried
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The Age of Illusions
- How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory
- By: Andrew Bacevich
- Narrated by: Andrew Bacevich, Rob Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world’s “indispensable nation”, its “sole superpower”, the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Badly named, but pretty good overall
- By Brian on 02-20-20
By: Andrew Bacevich
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The Jungle Grows Back
- America and Our Imperiled World
- By: Robert Kagan
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 274
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 240
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 237
Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Out of date: covid, Trump nobel nominations etc
- By David on 11-13-18
By: Robert Kagan
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The End of History and the Last Man
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 322
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 263
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 257
Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An important discussion expertly narrated
- By Kevin Teeple on 06-27-19
By: Francis Fukuyama
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Of Paradise and Power
- America and Europe in the New World Order
- By: Robert Kagan
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 38
When historians want to find out about the ideas that motivated American foreign policy in the early years of the twenty-first century, they would do well to read this book. Robert Kagan has formally set out a case for unilateralism on the part of the United States, as opposed to the multilateralism now characteristic of Europe. Kagan believes that the United States can disregard a weak Europe, and have a free hand in pursuing its global interests.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Quick and pithy listen
- By Erik Fosshage on 01-14-04
By: Robert Kagan
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The Anatomy of Fascism
- By: Robert O. Paxton
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,165
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 987
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 971
What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete, what the fascists did rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question for the first time. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up "enemies of the state", through Mussolini's rise to power, to Germany's fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book for getting a clearer idea of fascism
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-17
By: Robert O. Paxton
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Tomorrow, the World
- The Birth of US Global Supremacy
- By: Stephen Wertheim
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 83
For most of its history, the US avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in European-style power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as the world’s armed superpower and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Wertheim traces America’s transformation to the crucible of World War II, especially in the months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the Nazis conquered France, the architects of the nation’s new foreign policy came to believe that the US ought to achieve primacy in international affairs forevermore.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful punch to American dogma.
- By JLK on 06-30-21
By: Stephen Wertheim
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Age of Anger
- A History of the Present
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 283
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4 out of 5 stars 248
How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world - from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the 18th century before leading us to the present.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By AR on 04-28-17
By: Pankaj Mishra
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The Demon in Democracy
- Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies
- By: Ryszard Legutko, John O'Sullivan, Teresa Adelson
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades - and he fought with the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important book on political philosophy
- By Wayne on 08-02-19
By: Ryszard Legutko, and others
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American Rule
- How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People
- By: Jared Yates Sexton
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 254
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 214
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 213
In American Rule, Jared Yates Sexton upends those convenient fictions by laying bare the foundational myths at the heart of our collective American imagination. From the very origins of this nation, Americans in power have abused and subjugated others; enabling that corruption are the many myths of American exceptionalism and steadfast values, which are fed to the public and repeated across generations.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Truth
- By Laurie on 09-28-20
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Identity
- The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 748
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 637
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 625
In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American institutions were in decay, as the state was progressively captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatened to destabilize the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to “the people”, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Robotic narrator
- By Shahin on 09-19-18
By: Francis Fukuyama
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Democracy Matters
- Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
- By: Cornel West
- Narrated by: Cornel West
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 305
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 219
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 218
Democracy Matters is Cornel West's bold and powerful critique of the troubling deterioration of democracy in America in this threatening post-9/11 age of terrorist rage and imperial overreach, and an inspiring call for a resurgence of the deep democratic tradition in our country, which has waged war on the forces of imperialist corruption throughout our history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Well written, a refreshing voice of inspiration
- By Gabriel on 07-06-05
By: Cornel West
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American Exceptionalism and American Innocence
- A People's History of Fake News - From The Revolutionary War to The War on Terror
- By: Roberto Sirvent, Danny Haiphong, Ajamu Baraka - foreword, and others
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
American Exceptionalism and American Innocence examines the stories we’re told that lead us to think that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, regardless of slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, and the more than a century’s worth of imperialist war that the U.S. has wrought on the planet. Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong detail just what Captain America’s shield tells us about the pretensions of U.S. foreign policy, how Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates engage in humanitarian imperialism, and more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Still processing
- By D'Juan Eastman on 07-03-19
By: Roberto Sirvent, and others
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Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 43 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,303
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,068
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,058
Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world’s most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through 34 nations and 60 years of political and cultural change—all in one integrated, enthralling narrative.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, but not terrific listening
- By History on 10-18-11
By: Tony Judt
What listeners say about The Light That Failed
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mara
- 04-15-20
Poignant and Thoughtful
Beautifully written and clear-headed commentary on the world's move away from liberal democracy. Heavy on academic vocabulary and theory -- those with a background in foreign policy or international relations will get a lot out of this book!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Safronov
- 05-03-21
Great text
Great text worth listening, but the question persists, where do we go from there as the global economy is not going anywhere and the countries become even closer.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Trebla
- 02-10-20
Wow. I listened twice
This is the most lucid and believable explanation of the history of the world political situation since the Berlin Wall Fall. Putin makes sense, China makes sense, Eastern Europe makes sense, and the US story almost does when seen as the failure of ideologies requiring evangelism & conversion of the masses, but rather the rise of multiple centers of self-serving cultures.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Phil
- 04-17-20
Outstanding must-read
This is a fascinating analysis of the path that took us from 1989 to the 2020 moment. The insights into Orbán and Putin’s thinking redirected my understanding.
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