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Blunder
- Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions
- Narrated by: Zachary Shore, Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
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Blunder
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Publisher's summary
From colonialism to globalization, from gender wars to civil wars, or any circumstance for which our best solutions backfire, Shore demonstrates how rigid thinking can subtly lead us to undermine ourselves. In the process, he identifies seven "cognition traps" to avoid. These insidious yet unavoidable mind-sets include:
Drawing on examples from history, politics, business and economics, health care, even folk tales and popular culture, Shore illustrates the profound impact blunders can have. But he also emphasizes how understanding these seven simple cognition traps can help us all make wiser judgments in our daily lives.
For anyone whose best-laid plans have been foiled by faulty thinking, Blunder shines the penetrating spotlight of history on decision making and the patterns of thought that can lead us all astray.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,391
In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If It's Bad for Humanity, It's Good for Business
- By Nelson Alexander on 09-29-07
By: Naomi Klein
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A Thousand Hills
- Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Paul Kagame grew up as a wretched refugee. He and a group of comrades, determined to force their way back home after a generation of exile, designed one of the most audacious covert operations in the history of clandestine war. Then, after taking power, they amazed the world by stabilizing and reviving their devastated country.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Best Most Comprehensive Work on Rwanda
- By Greg on 07-30-10
By: Stephen Kinzer
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Tribe
- On Homecoming and Belonging
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Sebastian Junger
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 15,196
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 13,036
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12,962
Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians - but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the incredibly intimate bonds of platoon life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The most profound book on the subject
- By joseph on 05-26-16
By: Sebastian Junger
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Fire in the Lake
- By: Frances FitzGerald
- Narrated by: Jeff Bottoms
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
This magisterial work, based on Frances FitzGerald's many years of research and travels, takes us inside the history of Vietnam - the traditional, ancestor-worshiping villages, the conflicts between Communists and anti-Communists, Catholics and Buddhists, generals and monks, the disruption created by French colonialism, and America's ill-fated intervention - and reveals the country as seen through Vietnamese eyes. Originally published in 1972, Fire in the Lake was the first history of Vietnam written by an American, and subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize.
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5 out of 5 stars
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American Hubris; Vietnamese Misery
- By gunnerThrax on 01-24-21
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Rwanda, Inc.
- How a Devastated Nation Became an Economic Model for the Developing World
- By: Patricia Crisafulli, Andrea Redmond
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 109
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 85
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Story4 out of 5 stars 85
Eighteen years after the genocide that made Rwanda international news, yet left it all but abandoned by the West, the country has achieved a miraculous turnaround. Rising out of the complete devastation of a failed state, Rwanda has emerged on the world stage yet again - this time with a unique model for governance and economic development under the leadership of its strong and decisive president, Paul Kagame. Here, Patricia Crisafulli and Andrea Redmond look at Kagame’s leadership.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Paul Kagame is a dictator, not a savior.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-21
By: Patricia Crisafulli, and others
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Sex and War
- How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World
- By: Malcom Potts, Thomas Hayden
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4 out of 5 stars 120
Human beings have been battling one another since time immemorial. But why war and terrorism? Why are men almost always the killers, and why are war and sex so inextricably linked? Why do we kill members of our own species intentionally, when few other animals do so?
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2 out of 5 stars
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This is the Berkley view point on terriorism
- By J.T. on 08-22-11
By: Malcom Potts, and others
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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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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story5 out of 5 stars 120
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding book! A must read
- By Pierre on 11-13-21
By: Peter Hayes
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Stalin
- New Biography of a Dictator
- By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Nora Seligman Favorov - translator
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 294
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 293
This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it, but wouldn't want to live it
- By Neil on 01-12-20
By: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, and others
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The Real North Korea
- Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
- By: Andrei Lankov
- Narrated by: Steven Roy Grimsley
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 600
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 526
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 525
Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Broad and nuanced account of North Korea
- By Neuron on 07-29-15
By: Andrei Lankov
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Winter Is Coming
- Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
- By: Garry Kasparov
- Narrated by: George Backman
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 982
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 881
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 880
The ascension of Vladimir Putin - a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB - to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years - as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him - Putin has grown into not only a dictator but a global threat. With his vast resources and nuclear weapons, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A polemic against Putin
- By David on 05-27-16
By: Garry Kasparov
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Potsdam
- The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe
- By: Michael Neiberg
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 467
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 408
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 407
After Germany's defeat in World War II, Europe lay in tatters. Millions of refugees were dispersed across the continent. Food and fuel were scarce. Britain was bankrupt while Germany had been reduced to rubble. In July 1945, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin gathered in a quiet suburb of Berlin to negotiate a lasting peace - a peace that would finally put an end to the conflagration that had started in 1914, a peace under which Europe could be rebuilt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Richly told and entertaining.
- By John Kaiser on 06-20-15
By: Michael Neiberg
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Practicing History
- Selected Essays
- By: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
Master historian Barbara W. Tuchman looks at history in a unique way and draws lessons from what she sees. This accessible introduction to the subject of history offers striking insights into America's past and present, trenchant observations on the international scene, and thoughtful pieces on the historian's role. Here is a splendid body of work, the story of a lifetime spent "practicing history".
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2 out of 5 stars
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Barbara Tuchman fan faced with reality
- By J. Whittle on 09-27-18
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The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Why Violence Has Declined
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,342
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,493
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,446
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I'd kill for another book this good
- By Eric on 11-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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Flashpoints
- The Emerging Crisis in Europe
- By: George Friedman
- Narrated by: Bruce Turk, George Friedman
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 752
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 650
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 656
George Friedman has forecasted the coming trends (politics, technology, population, and culture) of the next century in The Next 100 Years, and focused his predictions on the coming ten years in The Next Decade. Now, in Flashpoints, Friedman zooms in on the region that has, for 500 years, been the cultural hotbed of the world - Europe - and examines the most basic and fascinating building block of the region: culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Important Reading: Old Grievances Do Not Go Away
- By John on 02-21-15
By: George Friedman
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Forgotten Ally
- China's World War II, 1937 - 1945
- By: Rana Mitter
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 355
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 308
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 309
For decades, a major piece of World War II history has gone virtually unwritten. The war began in China two full years before Hitler invaded Poland, and China eventually became the fourth great ally, partner to the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain. Yet its drama of invasion, resistance, slaughter, and political intrigue remains little known in the West.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Bland
- By Rodney on 01-23-14
By: Rana Mitter
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The Return of Marco Polo's World
- War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 275
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 249
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 246
Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, as well as encounters with preeminent realist thinkers, Kaplan outlines the timeless principles that should shape America's role in a turbulent world: a respect for the limits of Western-style democracy; a delineation between American interests and American values; an awareness of the psychological toll of warfare; a projection of power via a strong navy; and more.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Essays on the Region of the Silk Road
- By Jeff Beardsley on 05-19-18
By: Robert D. Kaplan