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History and Utopia
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's summary
“Only a monster can allow himself the luxury of seeing things as they are,” writes E. M. Cioran, the Romanian-born philosopher who has rightly been compared to Samuel Beckett.
In History and Utopia, Cioran the monster writes of politics in its broadest sense, of history, and of the utopian dream. His views are, to say the least, provocative. In one essay he casts a scathing look at democracy, that “festival of mediocrity”; in another he turns his uncompromising gaze on Russia, its history, its evolution, and what he calls “the virtues of liberty.” In the dark shadow of Stalin and Hitler, he writes of tyrants and tyranny with rare lucidity and convincing logic. In “Odyssey of Rancor,” he examines the deep-rooted dream in all of us to “hate our neighbors,” to take immediate and irremediable revenge. And, in the final essay, he analyzes the notion of the “golden age,” the biblical Eden, the utopia of so many poets and thinkers.
Critic reviews
“Cioran has a claim to be regarded as among the handful of original minds . . . writing today.”—The New York Times
“Cioran may be the most distinguished contemporary in a line descending from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.”—Los Angeles Times
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Why We Are Restless
- On the Modern Quest for Contentment
- By: Benjamin Storey, Jenna Silber Storey
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, yet everywhere we see signs that our pursuit of happiness has proven fruitless. Dissatisfied, we seek change for the sake of change - even if it means undermining the foundations of our common life. In Why We Are Restless, Benjamin and Jenna Storey offer a profound and beautiful reflection on the roots of this malaise and examine how we might begin to cure ourselves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good primer.
- By Chris on 09-29-21
By: Benjamin Storey, and others
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The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23,075
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20,313
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20,277
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simple, Beautiful, and Exquisitely Textured
- By Darwin8u on 04-09-13
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The Story of Philosophy
- The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 19 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,835
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,487
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,471
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic and insightful book
- By ESK on 01-25-13
By: Will Durant
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The Irony of American History
- By: Reinhold Niebuhr
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 190
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 144
Forged during the tumultuous but triumphant postwar years when America came of age as a world power, The Irony of American History is more relevant now than ever before. Cited by politicians as diverse as Hillary Clinton and John McCain, Niebuhr's masterpiece on the incongruity between personal ideals and political reality is both an indictment of American moral complacency and a warning against the arrogance of virtue.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Superlative Book
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-10
By: Reinhold Niebuhr
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For the New Intellectual
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 328
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 200
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 203
This is Ayn Rand's challenge to the prevalent philosophical doctrines of our time and the "atmosphere of guilt, of panic, of despair, of boredom, and of all-pervasive evasion" that they create. One of the most controversial figures on the intellectual scene, Ayn Rand was the proponent of a moral philosophy, an ethic of rational self-interest, that stands in sharp opposition to the ethics of altruism and self-sacrifice.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Rehashed narrative and bad ideas.
- By Avid reader on 08-11-05
By: Ayn Rand
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Atheist Delusions
- The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Ralph Morocco
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 250
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 221
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 215
In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious "histories" offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Conversion Experience.
- By Ted on 12-01-14
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Culture and the Death of God
- By: Terry Eagleton
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4 out of 5 stars 32
How to live in a supposedly faithless world threatened by religious fundamentalism? Terry Eagleton, formidable thinker and renowned cultural critic, investigates in this thought-provoking audiobook the contradictions, difficulties, and significance of the modern search for a replacement for God. Lucid, stylish, and entertaining in his usual manner, Eagleton presents a brilliant survey of modern thought that also serves as a timely, urgently needed intervention into our perilous political present.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Intelligently written and without Grace
- By Gary on 10-25-17
By: Terry Eagleton
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The Wisdom of Life, Counsels and Maxims
- By: Arthur Schopenhauer
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
'The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.' Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century because his humanistic, atheistic, if pessimistic views chimed with a new secularism that was emerging from a Western society dominated by religion. Despite his rather forbidding image (and a few outdated views), he is one of the most approachable German philosophers, and this is certainly evident in these two key works, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims.
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5 out of 5 stars
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depressingly hopeful
- By Sebastian huerta on 06-22-17
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The God Who Weeps
- How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life
- By: Terryl Givens, Fiona Givens
- Narrated by: Fiona Givens
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 704
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 613
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 603
"Whether by design or by chance," Terryl and Fiona Givens write, "we find ourselves in a universe filled with mystery. We encounter appealing arguments for a Divinity that is a childish projection, for prophets as scheming or deluded imposters, and for scripture as so much fabulous fiction. But there is also compelling evidence that a glorious Divinity presides over the cosmos, that His angels are strangers we have entertained unawares, and that His word and will are made manifest through a sacred canon that is never definitively closed."
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5 out of 5 stars
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So engaging that I listened to it twice
- By Douglas on 01-02-14
By: Terryl Givens, and others
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The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
- By: Gustave Le Bon
- Narrated by: Joseph Gomez
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 68
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind is a seminal work on crowd psychology by Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), a French social psychologist. He observes that a crowd forms when an influential idea unites a number of individuals and prompts them to act towards a common goal. In a crowd, the conscious personality of the individual is submerged and dominated by the collective mind. Furthermore, every sentiment becomes contagious to a degree that individuals readily sacrifice their personal interest to the collective.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read in terms of group psychology....
- By Alednam A Uonopk on 08-19-20
By: Gustave Le Bon
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Irrational Man
- A Study in Existential Philosophy
- By: William Barrett
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Widely recognized as the finest definition of existentialist philosophy ever written, this book introduced existentialism to America in 1958. Irrational Man begins by discussing the roots of existentialism in the art and thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Baudelaire, Blake, Dostoevski, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Picasso, Joyce, and Beckett. The heart of the book explains the views of the foremost existentialists - Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre. The result is a marvelously lucid definition of existentialism and a brilliant interpretation of its impact.
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4 out of 5 stars
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heady
- By A. Antine on 07-28-22
By: William Barrett
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Discourse on Colonialism
- By: Aimé Césaire
- Narrated by: J. Keith Jackson
- Length: 3 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story5 out of 5 stars 74
This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly 20 years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements and has sold more than 75,000 copies to date.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Authentic Analytical Book on Colonialism.
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-23
By: Aimé Césaire
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No Man Is an Island
- By: Thomas Merton
- Narrated by: Jonathan Montaldo
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 363
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 279
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 278
> No Man Is an Island is a collection of 16 essays in which Thomas Merton plumbs aspects of human spirituality. Merton treats the “basic verities on which the spiritual life depends”. Essay themes include hope, conscience, sacrifice, charity, sincerity, mercy, and silence. The work is threaded through with Merton’s deep awareness that we are all called to “live not for ourselves but for others”.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Gem of a Book
- By Amazon Customer on 03-12-10
By: Thomas Merton
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The Varieties of Religious Experience
- By: William James
- Narrated by: Jim Killavey
- Length: 18 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
The Varieties of Religious Experience is considered to be the classic work in the field. To quote Wikipedia, "James was most interested in understanding personal religious experience. The importance of James to the psychology of religion - and to psychology more generally - is difficult to overstate. He discussed many essential issues that remain of vital concern today. What makes James writing so special is that he could take a very complex subject and, without watering it down, make it understandable to 'the rest of us.'"
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5 out of 5 stars
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Profound stuff
- By Empowerment on 09-05-09
By: William James
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The Givenness of Things
- Essays
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mostly thoughts on religious things
- By Adam Shields on 01-26-16
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