-
Empire of Water
- An Environmental and Political History of the New York City Water Supply
- Narrated by: Douglas R. Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $21.70
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Island at the Center of the World
- The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today.
-
-
Incomplete history, but fun. Performance is poor.
- By Matthew on 11-27-18
By: Russell Shorto
-
Troubled Water
- What's Wrong with What We Drink
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Seth Siegel tells how contaminants got in our drinking water, what they’re doing to us, and what we must do to make our water safe.
-
-
An important book on a critical issue
- By Alexander on 11-07-19
By: Seth M. Siegel
-
Energy and Civilization
- A History
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.
-
-
Not a good format for this book
- By C. Hoogeboom on 05-19-18
By: Vaclav Smil
-
The Accidental Superpower
- The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Accidental Superpower, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how geography, combined with demography and energy independence, will pave the way for one of the great turning points in history, and one in which America reasserts its global dominance. No other country has a greater network of internal waterways, a greater command of deepwater navigation, or a firmer hold on industrialization technologies than America.
-
-
DDD: Demographics Determine Destiny
- By Soudant on 03-23-15
By: Peter Zeihan
-
This Changes Everything
- Capitalism vs. the Climate
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies.
-
-
Didactic and preachy... and I agree with her
- By plau on 09-25-16
By: Naomi Klein
-
The Absent Superpower
- The Shale Revolution and a World Without America
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Toby Sheets
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014's The Accidental Superpower, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan made the case that geographic, demographic, and energy trends were unravelling the global system. Zeihan takes the story a step further in The Absent Superpower, mapping out the threats and opportunities as the world descends into disorder.
-
-
Only worthwhile if you're curious about updates
- By Anon on 02-27-18
By: Peter Zeihan
-
The Island at the Center of the World
- The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
- By: Russell Shorto
- Narrated by: Russell Shorto
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a landmark work of history, Russell Shorto presents astonishing information on the founding of our nation and reveals in riveting detail the crucial role of the Dutch in making America what it is today.
-
-
Incomplete history, but fun. Performance is poor.
- By Matthew on 11-27-18
By: Russell Shorto
-
Troubled Water
- What's Wrong with What We Drink
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Seth Siegel tells how contaminants got in our drinking water, what they’re doing to us, and what we must do to make our water safe.
-
-
An important book on a critical issue
- By Alexander on 11-07-19
By: Seth M. Siegel
-
Energy and Civilization
- A History
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.
-
-
Not a good format for this book
- By C. Hoogeboom on 05-19-18
By: Vaclav Smil
-
The Accidental Superpower
- The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Accidental Superpower, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how geography, combined with demography and energy independence, will pave the way for one of the great turning points in history, and one in which America reasserts its global dominance. No other country has a greater network of internal waterways, a greater command of deepwater navigation, or a firmer hold on industrialization technologies than America.
-
-
DDD: Demographics Determine Destiny
- By Soudant on 03-23-15
By: Peter Zeihan
-
This Changes Everything
- Capitalism vs. the Climate
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies.
-
-
Didactic and preachy... and I agree with her
- By plau on 09-25-16
By: Naomi Klein
-
The Absent Superpower
- The Shale Revolution and a World Without America
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Toby Sheets
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2014's The Accidental Superpower, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan made the case that geographic, demographic, and energy trends were unravelling the global system. Zeihan takes the story a step further in The Absent Superpower, mapping out the threats and opportunities as the world descends into disorder.
-
-
Only worthwhile if you're curious about updates
- By Anon on 02-27-18
By: Peter Zeihan
-
The Source
- How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers
- By: Martin Doyle
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment - over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development. Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the US Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of Engineers, the discovery of gold in 1848, and the construction of the Hoover Dam and the TVA during the New Deal, to the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina.
-
-
Great historical read without compare.
- By Thomas P Dore on 04-10-18
By: Martin Doyle
-
Private Empire
- ExxonMobil and American Power
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.
-
-
Please no more accents!
- By Zak on 07-24-12
By: Steve Coll
-
Drawdown
- The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
- By: Paul Hawken
- Narrated by: Christopher Solimene
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the face of widespread fear and apathy, an international coalition of researchers, professionals, and scientists have come together to offer a set of realistic and bold solutions to climate change. One hundred techniques and practices are described here - some are well known; some you may have never heard of.
-
-
Well researched and explained, but tedious
- By Pequis on 06-17-17
By: Paul Hawken
-
Triumph of the City
- How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
- By: Edward Glaeser
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly. Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live.
-
-
Urbanophile Brain Candy
- By Clay Downing on 12-18-15
By: Edward Glaeser
-
The Battle for Paradise
- Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the rubble of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans and ultrarich "Puertopians" are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island. In this vital and startling investigation, The New York Times best-selling author and activist Naomi Klein uncovers how the forces of shock politics and disaster capitalism seek to undermine the nation's radical, resilient vision for a just recovery.
-
-
- By carol j pridgeon on 06-08-18
By: Naomi Klein
-
Humanizing the Economy
- Co-operatives in the Age of Capital
- By: John Restakis
- Narrated by: David M. Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the close of the twentieth century, corporate capitalism extended its reach over the globe. While its defenders argue that globalization is the only way forward for modern, democratic societies, the spread of this system is failing to meet even the most basic needs of billions of individuals around the world. Moreover, the entrenchment of this free market system is undermining the foundations of healthy societies, caring communities, and personal wellbeing.
-
-
Right on the target
- By Ana Paula Soto Maior on 09-30-18
By: John Restakis
-
A Question of Power
- Electricity and the Wealth of Nations
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Robert Bryce
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Global demand for power is doubling every two decades, but electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to supply and do so reliably. Veteran journalist Robert Bryce tells the human story of electricity, the world's most important form of energy. Through onsite reporting from India, Iceland, Lebanon, Puerto Rico, New York, and Colorado, he shows how our cities, our money - our very lives - depend on reliable flows of electricity. He highlights the factors needed for successful electrification and explains why so many people are still stuck in the dark.
-
-
Not the complete story
- By John on 08-11-20
By: Robert Bryce
-
Windfall
- How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America's Power
- By: Meghan L. O'Sullivan
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a new administration focuses on raising American energy production, O'Sullivan's Windfall describes how new energy realities have profoundly affected the world of international relations and security. New technologies led to oversupplied oil markets and an emerging natural gas glut. This did more than drive down prices. It changed the structure of markets and altered the way many countries wield power and influence.
-
-
A super-sized editorial
- By Easycfp on 10-05-18
-
The Really Inconvenient Truths
- By: Iain Murray
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iain Murray's exposé reveals how environmental blowhards actually do more to waste energy, endanger species, and kill people than those they finger, while capitalism, hunting, and old-fashioned property rights have made the planet better. Rather than just myth busting and blame shifting, Murray offers applicable and effective solutions for each catastrophe - something the Left has yet to do.
-
-
Too right wing in his politics.
- By Ricky on 09-30-08
By: Iain Murray
-
Building the New American Economy
- Smart, Fair, and Sustainable
- By: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Bernie Sanders - foreward
- Narrated by: Rudy Sanda
- Length: 4 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a nation seemingly more divided than ever, many worry that Americans risk losing ground on solving the complex, interrelated problems the country faces - including rising inequality, the specter of climate change, astronomical health care costs, and economic stagnation. The renowned economist Jeffrey D. Sachs offers a practical approach to move America toward a new consensus: sustainable development.
-
-
If only....
- By Baboo TH on 01-24-18
By: Jeffrey D. Sachs, and others
-
The Road Taken
- The History and Future of America's Infrastructure
- By: Henry Petroski
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly 65,000 bridges in the United States as 'structurally deficient'. This crisis - and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis - shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public.
-
-
Well put
- By Lawrence on 08-10-17
By: Henry Petroski
-
The End of the Asian Century
- War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World's Most Dynamic Region
- By: Michael R. Auslin
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Historian and geopolitical expert Michael Auslin argues that far from being a cohesive powerhouse, Asia is a fractured region threatened by stagnation and instability. Here he provides a comprehensive account of the economic, military, political, and demographic risks that bedevil half of our world, arguing that Asia, working with the United States, has a unique opportunity to avert catastrophe - but only if it acts boldly.
-
-
Wake up Call
- By Daniel B. on 07-07-17
Publisher's Summary
Supplying water to millions is not simply an engineering and logistical challenge. As David Soll shows in his finely observed history of the nation’s largest municipal water system, the task of providing water to New Yorkers transformed the natural and built environment of the city, its suburbs, and distant rural watersheds. Almost as soon as New York City completed its first municipal water system in 1842, it began to expand the network, eventually reaching far into the Catskill Mountains, more than one hundred miles from the city.
Empire of Water explores the history of New York City’s water system - from the late 19th century to the early 21st century - focusing on the geographical, environmental, and political repercussions of the city’s search for more water. By tracing the evolution of the city’s water conservation efforts and watershed management regime, Soll reveals the tremendous shifts in environmental practices and consciousness that occurred during the 20th century.
Few episodes better capture the long-standing upstate-downstate divide in New York than the story of how mountain water came to flow from spigots in Brooklyn and Manhattan. His account of this unlikely environmental success story offers a "behind the scenes" perspective on the nation’s most ambitious and wide-ranging watershed protection program.
The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"This is first-rate environmental history." (Martin Melosi, University of Houston, author of The Sanitary City)
"Recommended." (Choice)
"David Soll ably deepens our understanding of New York's water supply." (American Historical Review)
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Empire of Water
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James P. Sullivan
- 08-08-20
How NYC came to dominate the waters of its region
Empire of Water is a worthwhile examination of how New York City became the owner and landlord of extensive acreage in the Catskills in its quest to build a reliable and clean water supply for its burgeoning population. The book, as its subtitle indicates, is a political, environmental, and really also a social survey and not an engineering study of the development of the water system, and how the city's relationship to that system changed over the course of a century. New York City, in the creation of this system, displaced thousands of upstate residents in several rounds of reservoir building, and in its final round even took control over the sources of the Delaware River, affecting Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Once the system was complete, however, the city became the quintessential absentee landlord, neglecting its properties to the detriment of its neighbors, leading to a series of crises in the late 20th century that forced a reckoning.
The book's chief faults are perhaps a too brief examination of just whom the city displaced, and a gloss over just why New York never tapped the Hudson.
The book is well narrated, and my chief quibble is that Ed Koch's last name should be pronounced like "Kotch", not "Coke" like the Koch brothers.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Roy
- 08-09-22
Mispronounced Regional Names and Terms.
Yikes! It's a good story but Ramapo is continually mispronounced. It's pronounced Ram-a-po not Rama-po!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 09-14-21
Eye Opening
Overall, an excellent book. A lifelong NYer I have been very familiar with the NYC water system, or so I thought. The fights and loss of homes and whole communities, environmental issues...wow. Only issue I had was with all the mispronounced names! Irked me the whole time...in NYC, Koch rhymes with scotch! Great book though.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John Cashman
- 08-14-20
Interesting book
This was an interesting listen, and has a great deal of information on the more recent history. I wish there was more on the earlier periods. I would also have liked to learn more about comparisons with other municipal water systems. It's still very worthwhile.
Related to this topic
-
The Source
- How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers
- By: Martin Doyle
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment - over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development. Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the US Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of Engineers, the discovery of gold in 1848, and the construction of the Hoover Dam and the TVA during the New Deal, to the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina.
-
-
Great historical read without compare.
- By Thomas P Dore on 04-10-18
By: Martin Doyle
-
Let There Be Water
- Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
-
-
More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
-
Climate of Hope
- How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet
- By: Michael Bloomberg, Carl Pope
- Narrated by: Michael R. Bloomberg - introduction, Charles Pellett, Carl Pope
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former head of the Sierra Club Carl Pope comes a manifesto on how the benefits of taking action on climate change are concrete, immediate, and immense. They explore climate change solutions that will make the world healthier and more prosperous, aiming to begin a new type of conversation on the issue that will spur bolder action by cities, businesses, and citizens—and even, someday, by Washington.
-
-
INCREDIBLE
- By David Cohn on 06-22-17
By: Michael Bloomberg, and others
-
The Well-Tempered City
- What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life
- By: Jonathan F. P. Rose
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cities are birthplaces of civilization; centers of culture, trade, and progress; cauldrons of opportunity - and the home of 80 percent of the world's population by 2050. As the 21st century progresses, metropolitan areas will bear the brunt of global megatrends such as climate change, natural resource depletion, population growth, income inequality, mass migrations, and education and health disparities, among many others.
-
-
The best way to save the future is to look at the past
- By Kate on 10-01-22
-
Water
- A Biography
- By: Giulio Boccaletti
- Narrated by: Giulio Boccaletti
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning millennia and continents, here is a stunningly revealing history of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization. Giulio Boccaletti - honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford - shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates Rivers.
-
-
Understand Built-Environment Governance~Know Water
- By Tom on 05-11-22
-
World on the Edge
- How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
- By: Lester R. Brown
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skillfully distills in World on the Edge.
-
-
a must read for anyone that cares about the future
- By Cynthia on 03-21-18
By: Lester R. Brown
-
The Source
- How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers
- By: Martin Doyle
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this fresh and powerful work of environmental history, Martin Doyle explores how rivers have often been the source of arguments at the heart of the American experiment - over federalism, taxation, regulation, conservation, and development. Doyle tells the epic story of America and its rivers, from the US Constitution's roots in interstate river navigation, the origins of the Army Corps of Engineers, the discovery of gold in 1848, and the construction of the Hoover Dam and the TVA during the New Deal, to the failure of the levees in Hurricane Katrina.
-
-
Great historical read without compare.
- By Thomas P Dore on 04-10-18
By: Martin Doyle
-
Let There Be Water
- Israel's Solution for a Water-Starved World
- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
-
-
More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
-
Climate of Hope
- How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet
- By: Michael Bloomberg, Carl Pope
- Narrated by: Michael R. Bloomberg - introduction, Charles Pellett, Carl Pope
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former head of the Sierra Club Carl Pope comes a manifesto on how the benefits of taking action on climate change are concrete, immediate, and immense. They explore climate change solutions that will make the world healthier and more prosperous, aiming to begin a new type of conversation on the issue that will spur bolder action by cities, businesses, and citizens—and even, someday, by Washington.
-
-
INCREDIBLE
- By David Cohn on 06-22-17
By: Michael Bloomberg, and others
-
The Well-Tempered City
- What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life
- By: Jonathan F. P. Rose
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cities are birthplaces of civilization; centers of culture, trade, and progress; cauldrons of opportunity - and the home of 80 percent of the world's population by 2050. As the 21st century progresses, metropolitan areas will bear the brunt of global megatrends such as climate change, natural resource depletion, population growth, income inequality, mass migrations, and education and health disparities, among many others.
-
-
The best way to save the future is to look at the past
- By Kate on 10-01-22
-
Water
- A Biography
- By: Giulio Boccaletti
- Narrated by: Giulio Boccaletti
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning millennia and continents, here is a stunningly revealing history of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization. Giulio Boccaletti - honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford - shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the earliest civilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates Rivers.
-
-
Understand Built-Environment Governance~Know Water
- By Tom on 05-11-22
-
World on the Edge
- How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
- By: Lester R. Brown
- Narrated by: Alan Robertson
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skillfully distills in World on the Edge.
-
-
a must read for anyone that cares about the future
- By Cynthia on 03-21-18
By: Lester R. Brown
-
The Emperor's New Road
- China and the Project of the Century
- By: Jonathan E. Hillman
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
China's Belt and Road Initiative is the world's most ambitious and misunderstood geoeconomic vision. To carry out President Xi's flagship foreign-policy effort, China promises to spend more than one trillion dollars for new ports, railways, fiber-optic cables, power plants, and other connections. It touches more than 130 countries and has expanded into the Arctic, cyberspace, and even outer space. Beijing promises that it is promoting global development, but Washington warns that it is charting a path to global dominance.
-
-
Boring and Fascinating
- By Greg Newkirk, GISP AICP on 03-18-21
-
This Changes Everything
- Capitalism vs. the Climate
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies.
-
-
Didactic and preachy... and I agree with her
- By plau on 09-25-16
By: Naomi Klein
-
The Accidental Superpower
- The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Accidental Superpower, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how geography, combined with demography and energy independence, will pave the way for one of the great turning points in history, and one in which America reasserts its global dominance. No other country has a greater network of internal waterways, a greater command of deepwater navigation, or a firmer hold on industrialization technologies than America.
-
-
DDD: Demographics Determine Destiny
- By Soudant on 03-23-15
By: Peter Zeihan
-
Water 4.0
- The Past, Present, and Future of the World's Most Vital Resource
- By: David Sedlak
- Narrated by: Gary Roelofs
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us give little thought to the hidden systems that bring us water and take it away when we’re done. But these underappreciated marvels of engineering face an array of challenges that cannot be solved without a fundamental change to our relationship with water.
-
-
Horrible narration, good info
- By Danielle V. Dolan on 10-06-20
By: David Sedlak
-
Nomad Century
- How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World
- By: Gaia Vince
- Narrated by: Gaia Vince
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drought-hit regions bleeding those who for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction. The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography. As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled in the past decade, on track to see literal billions displaced in the coming decades.
-
-
Too many Horrible Things
- By Trebla on 09-01-22
By: Gaia Vince
-
The Third Industrial Revolution
- How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Jeremy Rifkin presents an insider's account of the next great economic era: the Third Industrial Revolution, when a new ethic of sustainability will revolutionize the world we live in.
-
-
Lamenting "The Third Industrial Revolution"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Jeremy Rifkin
-
Connectography
- Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
- By: Parag Khanna
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets.
-
-
Great book but the narrator is a drag
- By MMC on 11-10-16
By: Parag Khanna
-
The Third Revolution
- Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State
- By: Elizabeth C. Economy
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eminent China scholar Elizabeth C. Economy provides an incisive look at the transformative changes underway in China today. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unleashed a powerful set of political and economic reforms: the centralization of power under Xi himself; the expansion of the Communist Party's role in Chinese political, social, and economic life; and the construction of a virtual wall of regulations to control more closely the exchange of ideas and capital between China and the outside world.
-
-
A decent synopsis of Xi Jinping and his polices
- By Yoda on 04-29-19
-
The Future
- Six Drivers of Global Change
- By: Al Gore
- Narrated by: Al Gore
- Length: 18 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ours is a time of revolutionary change that has no precedent in history. With the same passion he brought to the challenge of climate change, and with his decades of experience on the front lines of global policy, Al Gore surveys our planet’s beclouded horizon and offers a sober, learned, and ultimately hopeful forecast in the visionary tradition of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and John Naisbitt’s Megatrends. In The Future, Gore identifies the emerging forces that are reshaping our world....
-
-
Sorry Al it realy dose not work...
- By Mark on 01-31-13
By: Al Gore
-
The Green New Deal
- Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028 and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An urgent, workable plan to confront climate change and transform America's economy for a post-fossil fuel world from the New York Times best-selling author of The Third Industrial Revolution. A new vision for America’s future is quickly gaining momentum. The Green New Deal has caught fire in activist circles and become a central focus in the national conversation, setting the agenda for a new political movement that will likely transform the entire US and world economy.
-
-
More influenced by ideology than fact.
- By Amazon Customer on 09-21-20
By: Jeremy Rifkin
-
The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas.