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Upheaval
- Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
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Publisher's summary
A brilliant new theory of how and why some nations recover from trauma and others don't, by the author of the landmark best sellers Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse.
In his earlier best sellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in the final audiobook in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change - a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma.
In a dazzling comparative study, Diamond shows us how seven countries have survived defining upheavals in the recent past - from US Commodore Perry's arrival in Japan to the Soviet invasion of Finland to Pinochet's regime in Chile - through a process of painful self-appraisal and adaptation, and he identifies patterns in the way that these distinct nations recovered from calamity. Looking ahead to the future, he investigates whether the US and the world are squandering their natural advantages on a path toward political conflict and decline. Or can we still learn from the lessons of the past?
Adding a psychological dimension to the awe-inspiring grasp of history, geography, economics, and anthropology that marks all Diamond's work, Upheaval reveals how both nations and individuals can become more resilient. The result is an audiobook that is epic, urgent, and groundbreaking.
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- By: Noam Chomsky, C.J. Polychroniou
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Precipice, Noam Chomsky sheds light into the phenomenon of Trumpism, exposes the catastrophic nature and impact of Trump's policies on people, the environment, and the planet as a whole, and captures the dynamics of the brutal class warfare launched by the masters of capital to maintain and even enhance the features of a dog-eat-dog society to the unprecedented mobilization of millions of people against neoliberal capitalism, racism, and police violence.
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Of Incalculable Importance
- By Anonymous User on 12-15-21
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
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Blood Oil
- Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules That Run the World
- By: Leif Wenar
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 20 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Natural resources empower the world's most coercive men. Autocrats like Putin and the Saudis spend oil money on weapons and repression. ISIS and Congo's militias spend resource money on atrocities and ammunition. For decades resource-fueled authoritarians and extremists have forced endless crises on the West - and the ultimate source of their resource money is us, paying at the gas station and the mall.
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Caveat: Human beings -- Totally untrustworthy
- By lost the power cord could you send me another cord address 13 east wilmont ave somers point nj 08244 on 05-17-16
By: Leif Wenar
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The Last President of Europe
- Emmanuel Macron's Race to Revive France and Save the World
- By: William Drozdiak
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A revelatory examination of the global impact of Emmanuel Macron's tumultuous presidency. In The Last President of Europe, William Drozdiak tells with exclusive inside access the story of Macron's presidency and the political challenges the French leader continues to face.
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Interesting but poorly read
- By Anonymous User on 05-12-22
By: William Drozdiak
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Hopes and Prospects
- By: Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: Brian Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky examines the dangers and prospects of our early 21st century. Exploring challenges such as the growing gap between North and South, American exceptionalism (including under President Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-Israeli assault on Gaza, and the recent recent financial bailouts, he also sees hope for the future. Chomsky surveys the democratic wave in Latin America and the growing global solidarity movements.
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An Intellectual Wind Tunnel
- By Cellar_Door_Books on 04-23-11
By: Noam Chomsky
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The Post-American World 2.0
- By: Fareed Zakaria
- Narrated by: Fareed Zakaria
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the New York Times and international best seller, revised and expanded with a new afterword. This is the essential update of Fareed Zakaria's analysis about America and its shifting position in world affairs. In this new edition, Zakaria makes sense of the rapidly changing global landscape. With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, he draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past 500 years - the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States - to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the rise of the rest.
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S/B req reading for every man, woman and child...
- By Kopernicus on 10-20-11
By: Fareed Zakaria
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China and Japan
- Facing History
- By: Ezra F. Vogel
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 22 hrs and 51 mins
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China and Japan have cultural and political connections that stretch back 1,500 years. But today, their relationship is strained. China's military buildup deeply worries Japan, while Japan's brutal occupation of China in World War II remains an open wound. In recent years, less than 10 percent of each population had positive feelings toward the other, and both countries insist that the other side must deal openly with its history before relations can improve. Ezra Vogel's China and Japan examines key turning points in Sino-Japanese history.
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China & Japan is first rate by a top scholar
- By Louise Stone on 06-17-20
By: Ezra F. Vogel
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When the Facts Change
- Essays, 1995-2010
- By: Tony Judt
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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In When the Facts Change, Tony Judt's widow and fellow historian Jennifer Homans has assembled an essential collection of the most important and influential pieces written in the last 15 years of Judt's life, the years in which he found his voice in the public sphere. Included are seminal essays on the full range of Judt's concerns, including Europe as an idea and in reality, before 1989 and thereafter; Israel, the Holocaust and the Jews; American hyperpower and the world after 9/11.
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Essential
- By Herman Utik on 09-19-16
By: Tony Judt
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The Cold War
- A World History
- By: Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 22 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.
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A lenghy treatise on the Cold War
- By Donald Hill on 11-21-17
By: Odd Arne Westad
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Cuba Libre
- A 500-Year Quest for Independence
- By: Philip Brenner, Peter Eisner
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This timely book provides a balanced, deeply knowledgeable introduction to Cuba since 1492. Tracing the island's history over 500 years, the authors provide an incisive overview for anyone interested in exploring beyond the enduring stereotypes.
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Lost Opportunity (and time)
- By Alexander Piquer on 05-04-18
By: Philip Brenner, and others
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Foreign Policy Begins at Home
- By: Richard Haass
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The biggest threat to the United States comes not from abroad but from within. This is the provocative, timely, and unexpected message of Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass’ Foreign Policy Begins at Home. A rising China, climate change, terrorism, a nuclear Iran, a turbulent Middle East, and a reckless North Korea all present serious challenges. But U.S. national security depends even more on the United States addressing its burgeoning deficit and debt, crumbling infrastructure, second-class schools, and outdated immigration system
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Last 4 years
- By Don on 07-22-17
By: Richard Haass
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The Lucifer Principle
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The Lucifer Priciple is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships among genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that "evil" is a by-product of nature's strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric. Though this argument is not a new one - it has been brought forth by such great historical figures as St. Paul, Thomas Hobbes, and Raymond Dart - Howard Bloom here takes fresh data from a variety of sources and shapes it into a lens through which listeners can reinterpret the human experience.
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What listeners say about Upheaval
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Marian
- 05-12-19
The Urine of the Earth in a Teacup
Please read this book!
I remember hearing the term, “Historical Theory” as an undergraduate in the 1980’s, and I wondered how a “factual” subject like history could possibly have a theoretical component. Over time, I learned that our operating theories, our perspectives, our frames, our expectations, and our programming matter more to every human activity than the facts. Facts are important, but authors pick facts selectively, choose words purposefully, and express findings based on internalized models. Every academic discipline has a theory. Every human has an operating system, an internal theory, too.
Here you have metatheory, theory, and eggs of theory essential to human discourse. Jared Diamond is a polymath; he communicates the emotional fight or flight syndrome of the tortured whale swimming in the ocean of human fireworks while his heart beats on the drum of experimental thinking in the manner of Jonas Salk; he links together his conversations with the prejudiced German or Australian with the nose to smell our common survival fears; his touch is not just the handshake of the Lebanese bird watcher, but also that of the economist seated near the tinderbox anger of modern serfs sick of “rags to riches” myths. He tasted the urine of earth, found it sugary, and gives us his best treatment theories in a world still to invent insulin.
Is it dull? Not at all. I did not want to miss a single word. Is it important or relevant, this history book? Absolutely. Diamond’s inner political scientist and inner psychologist informs us of our warts and beauty marks here in the United States within the context of selected global comparisons and contrast. Our leaders, entrepreneurs, monied classes, and citizens must open their hearts, brains, and stomachs to the warnings and potentials provided by Diamond. I want more, Professor. Please continue! Diamond’s discussions of the warts and beauty marks of other countries, such as modern Japan, should be “Eureka” moments for other countries, too. We have only one planet, and, as Diamond points out, we cannot look to the galaxy of other known Earths for ideas.
Diamond’s style is intuitive; almost each time I thought, “but what about xyz?” he soon addressed my concern as if he had anticipated my question. This book is easy to follow, but it is not overly simplistic. Is this a book any academic with access to a research library could write? Not a chance. Personal experiences and ponderings across decades inform the results. Is the book contrary to academic research? Very few passages seem to cross the line of unsubstantiated opinion or Diamond’s personal bias. Is it a book of solutions? No. It is a book that gifts verbal concepts to test. It is a book that highlights both incremental change and paradigm shift. It is a book about the medicine of sustainability and the “chronic, incurable, hard to cure diseases” of the political man. It is a book about crimes, failures, lessons, guilts, lack of introspection, mistakes, successes, social responsibilities, democracies, stratifications, social liberalisms, sacrifices, survivals, threats, random chances, plans, and our daily bread. Is your urine sugary? We fix the Earth’s diabetes one operating system at a time.
I enjoyed this reading on Audible, but I felt disadvantaged because Audible does not provide access to the charts and tables referenced by Diamond. I will complain to Audible about the need for a pdf companion. If that fails, I will consider buying a companion Kindle version of this book; it is important and essential information. I do not mind investing in two versions of this Diamond book.
I repeat: Please read this book, and let’s make the future better.
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79 people found this helpful
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- Dan Fusselman
- 07-07-19
Change the Speed
The book is great. The speed of the narrator is too slow. Change the audio speed to 1.25 for a significantly better listening experience.
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56 people found this helpful
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- J. Thomson
- 10-28-19
Where are the charts and figures for Audible?
There are frequent references to two tables and other figures. Are these accessible to Audible listeners?
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51 people found this helpful
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- Tim B
- 05-17-19
Terrible narration, buying it in paper instead
I have never had trouble reading Jared Diamond 's books. This one, has put me to sleep several times already. The narrator is incredibly boring and monotone. Terrible,that Diamond's excellent material gets distorted like this.
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- hamishr
- 08-05-19
Interesting but irritating at times
This is an account of the recent history (mainly the last 60 or so years) of countries that Jared Diamond has visited frequently or lived in for an extended period. It is thus takes a subjective approach, based mainly on the the author's personal perspective and the perspectives of the people he came to know in these countries. Why and how countries change is difficult to pin down but the author has tried to do this by assessing each chosen country in terms of a list of change factors. The experiences and perspectives of the author in these countries are interesting but he has taken a highly opinionated approach, which I found irritating, especially when the issues involved are not as clear cut as he makes them out to be. He also tended to digress at times, again quite irritating (the low point: talking about which Australian wines he liked best). I certainly benefitted from listening to this book and, if nothing else, it has inspired me to find out more about these countries in order to gain a broader perspective.
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25 people found this helpful
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- henry mayo
- 05-14-19
No editor in sight.
After three hours I gave up on expecting any of the ideas that popped into his head to converge into anything coherent. He wanders from his failure at marriage to the joys of speaking Finnish with no regard for any actual narrative thread.
There is no grand 'theory' at work here. This book is nothing like his earlier works.
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21 people found this helpful
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- John Faithful Hamer
- 07-25-19
THE WISDOM OF AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE
Jared Diamond wrote this book at the ripe old age of 82. You can quibble with his names and dates here and there—forgetfulness sets in sooner or later, alas—but his erudition shines through regardless on every page. Diamond speaks more than ten languages and has lived an extraordinary life. He’s smarter than you. So quit the nitpicking, shut up, and listen to the man. I think you’ll find that he’s remarkably wise.
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- YunusTheOptimist
- 07-04-19
Sounds too simplistic basic.
It is astonishing how ignorant the world leaders are. We, the people, we put them there and follow them. Some of these leaders, I would not hire them as employees because they would cause calamitous low moral/trust yielding non productive working environment. With the prism of an learnt man in his 80s, Jared Diamond, in this this book, is shedding light today's populist movements and their soundbite messages, ignorant leaders and their followers who pay the price sometime with their lives.
Diamond’s analysis countries that he knows well:
Finland,
Chile,
Indonesia,
Japan,
Germany
Australia and
The USA
He explains how these countries have coped with crises, is shot through with reflections on the fragility of democracy. It explores the crucial condition of taking responsibility (without scapegoating), honest national self-appraisal, a willingness to learn from other nations and a capacity to compromise, sometimes, indeed, to swallow the unpleasant truth.
A must read
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- JD
- 12-01-19
Not sure I get it.
If asked who "my famous author is", I'd likely answer "Jared Diamond" until I read this book. I don't get it. Maybe it was the pressure to publish or just hubris, but I don't get it and I don't care. I read his other books twice each, but didn't finish this. Sorry, but this is just not relevant.
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- Hank
- 01-09-20
Countries in trouble have a common thread
Revealing history of countries that failed to control their own greedy and evil leaders. Brings to mind the old adage, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it
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