Social Sciences

A breakout media and political analyst delivers a sweeping snapshot of American democracy and the role that African Americans have played in its shaping while offering concrete information to help harness the electoral power of the country’s rising majority and exposing political forces aligned to subvert and suppress black voters.

From the award-winning NBC News and MSNBC correspondent comes a powerful and deeply reported journey to lay bare the full truth behind the defining moral crisis of the Trump years: the systematic separation of thousands of desperate migrant families at the US-Mexico border....

In August of 2019, Donald Trump finished building his border wall - at least a portion of it. In San Diego, the Army Corps of engineers completed two years of construction on a 14-mile steel beamed barrier that extends 18 feet high and cost a staggering $147 million. As one border patrol agent told reporters visiting the site, "It was funded and approved and it was built under his administration. It is Trump’s wall." 14 Miles is a definitive account of all the dramatic construction, showing listeners what it feels like to stand on both sides of the border.

The Politics of Trauma offers somatics with a social analysis. This audiobook is for therapists and social activists who understand that trauma healing is not just for individuals - and that social change is not just for movement builders. Just as health practitioners need to consider the societal factors underlying trauma, so, too, must activists understand the physical and mental impacts of trauma on their own lives and the lives of the communities with whom they organize. Trauma healing and social change are, at their best, interdependent.

Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.

In a voice as candid as it is evocative, Gail Caldwell traces a path from her West Texas girlhood through her emergence as a young daredevil, then as a feminist - a journey that reflected seismic shifts in the culture itself. Caldwell's travels took her to California and Mexico and dark country roads, and the dangers she encountered were rivaled only by the personal demons she faced.

Time to Stand Up retells the story of the historical Buddha, one of the greatest sacred activists of all time, as a practical human being whose teachings of freedom from suffering are more relevant than ever in this time of global peril. Evolving onward from the patriarchal template of spiritual warriors and their quests, former nun Thanissara explores awakening from within a feminine view where the archetypes of lover and nurturer are placed as central and essential for a sustainable world.

Why is it so much easier for the Democratic Party to win the national popular vote than to build and maintain a majority in Congress? Why can Democrats sweep statewide offices in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan yet fail to take control of the same states' legislatures? Many place exclusive blame on partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression. But as political scientist Jonathan A. Rodden demonstrates in Why Cities Lose, the left's electoral challenges have deeper roots in economic and political geography.  

A searing chronicle of wartime experiences, Even the Women Must Fight probes the cultural legacy of North Vietnam's American War. Unflinching in its portrayal of hardship, valor, and personal sacrifice, this wrenching account is nothing short of a revelation, banishing in one bold stroke the familiar image of Vietnamese women as passive onlookers, war brides, prostitutes, or helpless refugees. 

One woman's memory of miscarriage, heartbreak, and abusive leadership in the work-place. In Can a Girl Catch a Break? Nadean Barton take you step by step in her life and the journey of what she endured growing up, in her relationships, and at work. You will learn that you can also be vulnerable in any given situation. Her motivation to write this audiobook came about after suffering a horrific miscarriage and in the midst of it where her boyfriend left her to miscarry.

"Is your mother good?", "Are you good?", "Do you want to come live with me?" Inuit adults often playfully present small children with difficult, even dangerous, choices and then dramatize the consequences of the child’s answers. They are enacting in larger-than-life form the plots that drive Inuit social life - testing, acting out problems, entertaining themselves, and, most of all, bringing up their children.

From rediscovering an ancestral village in China to experiencing the realities of American life as a Nigerian, the search for belonging crosses borders and generations. Selected from the archives of Catapult magazine, the essays in A Map Is Only One Story highlight the human side of immigration policies and polarized rhetoric, as 20 writers share provocative personal stories of existing between languages and cultures.

In a follow-up to the popular The New Paris, Lindsey Tramuta explores the impact that the women of Paris have had on the rapidly evolving culture of their city.  

488 Rules for Life is not a self-help book, because it's not you who needs help, it's other people. Whether they're walking and texting, asphyxiating you on public transport with their noxious perfume cloud, or leaving one useless square of toilet paper on the roll, a lot of people just don't know the rules.    

Fleeing intimate partner violence at age 20, Julie was stalked by her ex-partner for more than 10 years, rarely mentioning it to friends, let alone addressing it publicly. The contrast between her public career as a brave champion for women with her own private life of violence and fear meant a shaky and exhausting balancing act. Resilience Is Futile is a story of survival, courage, and ultimately, hope. But it is also a challenge to the ways we understand trauma and resilience. It is the story of one survivor who won’t give up and refuses to shut up.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged and how these reactions maintain racial inequality....

In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes listeners through a widening circle of antiracist ideas - from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilites - that will help listeners see all forms of racism clearly....

A current, constructive, and actionable exploration of today's racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that listeners of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide....

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation....

NBC News and MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff, winner of the 2019 Walter Cronkite Award for his reporting on the child separation crisis, delivers a profoundly personal and moving report from the border and beyond....

James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race....

Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society....

Based off the original workbook, Me and White Supremacy teaches listeners how to dismantle the privilege within themselves so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too....

James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil-rights movement with his eloquent manifesto....

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history....

Here are the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths, stylishly retold by Stephen Fry. The legendary writer, actor, and comedian breathes life into ancient tales, from Pandora's box to Prometheus's fire, and transforms the adventures of Zeus and the Olympians....

Beverly Daniel Tatum argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides....

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned....

In this groundbreaking work, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of body-centered psychology....

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science....

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history....

A leading advocate for racial reconciliation calls Christians to move toward deeper understanding in the midst of a divisive culture....

A breakout media and political analyst delivers a sweeping snapshot of American democracy and the role that African Americans have played in its shaping while offering concrete information to help harness the electoral power of the country’s rising majority....

Frank, funny, and utterly unapologetic, this is not a book for those who need a trigger warning, but is THE book for everyone who wants to hit the snooze bar on the “woke” culture....

In the newest installment of the best-selling series Mythos, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry moves from the exploits of the Olympian gods to the deeds of mortal heroes....

A timely investigation into the new "safety culture" on campus and the dangers it poses to free speech, mental health, education, and ultimately democracy.... 

In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum....

This explosive new audiobook challenges many of the long-held assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans and Nazis, about slavery, and about education....

Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America....

A potent and electrifying critique of today's feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminism....

Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today's most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future....

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of white working-class Americans....

Although eugenics is now widely discredited, some groups and individuals claim a new scientific basis for old racist assumptions. Pondering the continuing influence of racist research and thought, despite all evidence to the contrary, Robert Wald Sussman explains why....

A radical and optimistic view of the future course of human development from the best-selling author of How to Create a Mind and The Age of Spiritual Machines who Bill Gates calls “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence”....

Full of passionate, personal and keenly felt argument, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is a wake-up call to a nation in denial about structural and institutional racism....