-
If Mayors Ruled the World
- Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities
- Narrated by: Jeremy Gage
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 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 $29.95
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 Nation City
- Why Mayors Are Now Running the World
- By: Rahm Emanuel
- Narrated by: Rahm Emanuel, Johnathan McClain
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Nation City, Rahm Emanuel, former two-term mayor of Chicago and White House Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama, offers a firsthand account of how cities, rather than the federal government, stand at the center of innovation and effective governance. Drawing on his own experiences in Chicago, and on his relationships with other mayors around America, Emanuel provides dozens of examples to show how cities are improving education, infrastructure, job conditions, and environmental policy at a local level.
-
-
Maybe we should rethink the tax struture
- By Jean on 03-28-20
By: Rahm Emanuel
-
Shortest Way Home
- One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
- By: Pete Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Pete Buttigieg
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
-
-
This book gives hope for the future
- By E on 05-06-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
-
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
- The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell
- By: Joseph Campbell
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, John Lee, Susan Denaker
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.
-
-
Hard to finish
- By DBruno1987 on 10-25-16
By: Joseph Campbell
-
Caste (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Origins of Our Discontents
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
-
-
Brilliant, articulate, highly listenable.
- By GM on 08-05-20
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
- A John Hope Franklin Center Book
- By: Immanuel Wallerstein
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered 30 years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization.
-
-
Important text. Drier than the Sahara.
- By Literary D. Vice on 11-24-15
-
The Color of Law
- A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
- By: Richard Rothstein
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 - that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, he incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation - the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
-
-
Better suited to print than audio
- By ProfGolf on 02-04-18
-
The Nation City
- Why Mayors Are Now Running the World
- By: Rahm Emanuel
- Narrated by: Rahm Emanuel, Johnathan McClain
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Nation City, Rahm Emanuel, former two-term mayor of Chicago and White House Chief of Staff for President Barack Obama, offers a firsthand account of how cities, rather than the federal government, stand at the center of innovation and effective governance. Drawing on his own experiences in Chicago, and on his relationships with other mayors around America, Emanuel provides dozens of examples to show how cities are improving education, infrastructure, job conditions, and environmental policy at a local level.
-
-
Maybe we should rethink the tax struture
- By Jean on 03-28-20
By: Rahm Emanuel
-
Shortest Way Home
- One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
- By: Pete Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Pete Buttigieg
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
-
-
This book gives hope for the future
- By E on 05-06-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
-
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
- The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell
- By: Joseph Campbell
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, John Lee, Susan Denaker
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.
-
-
Hard to finish
- By DBruno1987 on 10-25-16
By: Joseph Campbell
-
Caste (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Origins of Our Discontents
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
-
-
Brilliant, articulate, highly listenable.
- By GM on 08-05-20
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction
- A John Hope Franklin Center Book
- By: Immanuel Wallerstein
- Narrated by: Fred Filbrich
- Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In World-Systems Analysis, Immanuel Wallerstein provides a concise and accessible introduction to the comprehensive approach that he pioneered 30 years ago to understanding the history and development of the modern world. Since Wallerstein first developed world-systems analysis, it has become a widely utilized methodology within the historical social sciences and a common point of reference in discussions of globalization.
-
-
Important text. Drier than the Sahara.
- By Literary D. Vice on 11-24-15
-
The Color of Law
- A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
- By: Richard Rothstein
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 - that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, he incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation - the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.
-
-
Better suited to print than audio
- By ProfGolf on 02-04-18
-
The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg
- Innovation, Money, and Politics
- By: Eleanor Randolph
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 15 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With unprecedented access, the veteran New York Times reporter and editorial writer who covered New York City and state politics offers a revealing portrait of one of the richest and famously private public figures in the country: business genius, inventor, innovator, publisher, philanthropist, activist, sly wit, and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.
-
-
Good bio, leans pro-Bloomberg
- By Amazon Customer on 10-18-19
By: Eleanor Randolph
-
Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
-
-
Debt
- By Andrew P. on 08-07-18
By: David Graeber
-
Race for Profit
- How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
- By: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Race for Profit uncovers how exploitative real estate practices continued well after housing discrimination was banned. The same racist structures and individuals remained intact after redlining's end, and close relationships between regulators and the industry created incentives to ignore improprieties. Meanwhile, new policies meant to encourage low-income homeownership created new methods to exploit Black homeowners.
-
-
Race for Profit
- By Hewti on 12-03-20
-
American Marxism
- By: Mark R. Levin
- Narrated by: Jeremy Lowell, Mark R. Levin
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009, Mark R. Levin galvanized conservatives with his unforgettable manifesto Liberty and Tyranny, by providing a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for halting the liberal assault on Constitution-based values. That book was about standing at the precipice of progressivism’s threat to our freedom, and now, over a decade later, we’re fully over that precipice and paying the price. In American Marxism, Levin explains how the core elements of Marxist ideology are now pervasive in American society and culture.
-
-
An articulate and point by point analysis of current affairs
- By Ricky_Savage on 07-13-21
By: Mark R. Levin
-
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
-
-
Best Summary of Political History I've Read
- By blah on 05-12-13
By: Francis Fukuyama
-
The People vs. Democracy
- Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
- By: Yascha Mounk
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is in turmoil. From India to Turkey and from Poland to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power. As a result democracy itself may now be at risk. Two core components of liberal democracy - individual rights and the popular will - are at war with each other. As the role of money in politics soared and important issues were taken out of public contestation, a system of "rights without democracy" took hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people. But in practice they create a system of "democracy without rights."
-
-
a must read in the new age of political populism
- By Lazer L. Lazer on 07-02-18
By: Yascha Mounk
-
Creating Freedom
- The Lottery of Birth, the Illusion of Consent, and the Fight for Our Future
- By: Raoul Martinez
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A manifesto for deep and radical change, Creating Freedom explores the limits placed on freedom by human nature and society. It explodes myths, calling for a profound transformation in the way we think about democracy, equality, and our own identities.
-
-
The BEST book, I've listened to in a long time
- By G. Newton on 04-16-17
By: Raoul Martinez
-
You're More Powerful Than You Think
- A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen
- By: Eric Liu
- Narrated by: Eric Liu
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is this the America you want? If not, here's how to claim the power to change your country. We are in an age of epic political turbulence in America. Old hierarchies and institutions are collapsing. From the election of Donald Trump to the upending of the major political parties to the spread of grassroots movements like Black Lives Matter and $15 Now, people across the country and across the political spectrum are reclaiming power. Are you ready for this age of bottom-up citizen power?
-
-
Yes!
- By Darien on 07-09-18
By: Eric Liu
-
The Future of Freedom
- Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
- By: Fareed Zakaria
- Narrated by: Ned Schmidtke
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
American democracy is, in many people's minds, the model for the rest of the world. Fareed Zakaria points out that the American form of democracy is one of the least democratic in use today. Members of the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve, institutions that fundamentally shape our lives, are appointed, not elected. The Bill of Rights enumerates a set of privileges to which citizens are entitled, no matter what the majority says. By restricting our democracy, we enhance our freedom.
-
-
Superb Survey of Modern Democratic Issues
- By G Barth on 03-26-04
By: Fareed Zakaria
-
The Fractured Republic
- Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism
- By: Yuval Levin
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans today are frustrated and anxious. Our economy is sluggish and leaves workers insecure. Income inequality, cultural divisions, and political polarization increasingly pull us apart. Our governing institutions often seem paralyzed. And our politics has failed to rise to these challenges. No wonder, then, that Americans - and the politicians who represent them - are overwhelmingly nostalgic for a better time.
-
-
Make Subsidiary Great Again
- By J. Bickett on 01-09-17
By: Yuval Levin
-
Out of the Wreckage
- A New Politics for an Age of Crisis
- By: George Monbiot
- Narrated by: George Monbiot
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A toxic ideology rules the world of extreme competition and individualism. It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose. Only a positive vision can replace it, a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world. George Monbiot shows how new findings in psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology cast human nature in a radically different light: as the supreme altruists and co-operators.
-
-
What the world needs NOW
- By Anonymous User on 06-06-22
By: George Monbiot
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Robotic narrator
- By Shahin on 09-19-18
By: Francis Fukuyama
Publisher's Summary
In the face of the most perilous challenges of our time—climate change, terrorism, poverty, and trafficking of drugs, guns, and people—the nations of the world seem paralyzed.
The problems are too big, too interdependent, too divisive for the nation-state. Is the nation-state, once democracy's best hope, today democratically dysfunctional? Obsolete? The answer, says Benjamin Barber in this highly provocative and original book, is yes. Cities and the mayors who run them can do and are doing a better job.
Barber cites the unique qualities cities worldwide share: Pragmatism, civic trust, participation, indifference to borders and sovereignty, and a democratic penchant for networking, creativity, innovation, and cooperation. He demonstrates how city mayors, singly and jointly, are responding to transnational problems more effectively than nation-states mired in ideological infighting and sovereign rivalries. Featuring profiles of a dozen mayors around the world—courageous, eccentric, or both at once—If Mayors Ruled the World presents a compelling new vision of governance for the coming century. Barber makes a persuasive case that the city is democracy’s best hope in a globalizing world, and great mayors are already proving that this is so.
More from the same
What listeners say about If Mayors Ruled the World
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AC
- 08-20-15
They read ALL the tables.
What disappointed you about If Mayors Ruled the World?
They ready all the tables and there are a lot of tables in this book. There are not just a lot of tables, but a lot of long tables. Some take 20 minutes to get through. Its a completely useless exercise. Its almost impossible to follow someone reading a table for that long. This book is almost un-listenable for this reason. Its like having your book peppered with long interludes of someone reading (what might as well be) random words and numbers.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A. Hawley
- 06-16-15
Important, powerful ideas, difficult presentation
I bought this audiobook on the strength of a talk Benjamin Barber gave at the Long Now Foundation. There are two reasons why it wasn't my best Audible purchase ever.
First, Barber's main ideas and key recommendations are covered in his public talks and in the book's introduction, and the rest of the book is fairly repetitive. It's also written in an abstract style that I found hard to follow.
Second, the narrator, Jeremy Gage, didn't fill me with confidence that he really understood what he was reading (possibly because of the abstract language), so this wasn't the intellectually stimulating non-fiction listen I was hoping for. It can't be easy to make this kind of material interesting to listen to, but understanding the author's meaning in every paragraph would be a starting point.
However, as an urban policy wonk and city-dweller, I found the book's central ideas thought-provoking: that mayors are uniquely powerful in today's world; that they can and should take actions within their cities that flout or bypass state/national bureaucracies; and that because they're free to disregard borders and state sovereignty, they can join forces to leverage the enormous power of cities, notably in slowing climate change, whether nations can act or not.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- brian soly
- 07-24-15
Interesting ideas. Book could have used several more edits
I liked the ideas. The book gets a little redundant at times. I would love to see the parliament of mayors idea that he proposes.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 05-15-19
Inspiring read!
Barber's ideas may sound provicative, but they are common-sense. The choice of Luzkhov and Johnson as "role models" is puzzling though.