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Thick and Thin
- Moral Argument at Home and Abroad
- Narrated by: Kevin Moriarty
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
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Thick and Thin
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Publisher's summary
In Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad, Michael Walzer revises and extends the arguments in his influential Spheres of Justice, framing his ideas about justice, social criticism, and national identity in light of the new political world that has arisen in the past three decades. Walzer focuses on two different but interrelated kinds of moral argument: Maximalist and minimalist, thick and thin, local and universal. This new edition has a new preface and afterword, written by the author, describing how the reasoning of the book connects with arguments he made in Just and Unjust Wars about the morality of warfare.
Walzer's highly literate and fascinating blend of philosophy and historical analysis will appeal not only to those interested in the polemics surrounding Spheres of Justice and Just and Unjust Wars but also to intelligent readers who are more concerned with getting the arguments right.
The book is published by University of Notre Dame Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
"Extremely readable, engaging, and perceptive, ambitiously drawing into a unified framework a variety of difficult moral and political issues." (Times Literary Supplement)
"A moving, eloquent, and at times inspriring meditation on the problem of obligation." (Commonweal)
"Michael Walzer crowds a remarkable amount of original thought into 100 pages." (Richard Rorty, 1931-2007)
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Erudite and entertaining!
- By D. A. Vail on 05-20-19
By: Adam Gopnik
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Fools, Frauds and Firebrands
- Thinkers of the New Left
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 110
From one of the leading critics of leftist orientations comes a study of the thinkers who have most influenced the attitudes of the New Left. Beginning with a ruthless analysis of New Leftism and concluding with a critique of the key strands in its thinking, Roger Scruton conducts a reappraisal of such major left-wing thinkers as E. P. Thompson, Ronald Dworkin, R. D. Laing, Jurgen Habermas, Gyorgy Lukacs, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Slavoj Žižek, Ralph Milliband, and Eric Hobsbawm. Scruton delivers a critique of modern left-wing thinking.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deconstructing the New Left
- By Wayne on 01-17-20
By: Roger Scruton
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A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 212
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
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A Time to Build
- From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream
- By: Yuval Levin
- Narrated by: Ford Enlow
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 143
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
Americans are living through a social crisis. Our politics is polarized and bitterly divided. Culture wars rage on campus, in the media, social media, and other arenas of our common life. And for too many Americans, alienation can descend into despair, weakening families and communities and even driving an explosion of opioid abuse. Left and right alike have responded with populist anger at our institutions, and use only metaphors of destruction to describe the path forward: cleaning house, draining swamps. But, as Yuval Levin argues, this is a misguided prescription.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incisive and Illuminating
- By Jakob on 01-26-23
By: Yuval Levin
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Last Call for Liberty
- How America's Genius for Freedom Has Become Its Greatest Threat
- By: Os Guinness
- Narrated by: Os Guinness
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
The hour is critical. The American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. Conflicts, hostility, and incivility now threaten to tear the country apart. Competing visions have led to a dangerous moment of cultural self-destruction. This is no longer politics as usual, but an era of political warfare where our enemies are not foreign adversaries, but our fellow citizens. Yet the roots of the crisis are deeper than many realize. Os Guinness argues that we face a fundamental crisis of freedom, as America's genius for freedom has become her Achilles' heel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thought Provoking Work On Liberty In America
- By Ezekiel on 05-28-19
By: Os Guinness
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The Twilight of the American Enlightenment
- The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief
- By: George M. Marsden
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Such a relevant book to our current world
- By Adam Shields on 09-14-16
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A Short History of Ethics
- By: Alasdair MacIntyre
- Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 48
A Short History of Ethics is a significant contribution written by one of the most important living philosophers. It remains an important work, ideal for all students interested in ethics and morality.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great philosopher made ridiculous by accents
- By Olivia Walling on 10-04-17
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Truth and Truthfulness
- By: Bernard Williams
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 42
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4 out of 5 stars 33
What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combinationof passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Content is excellent but the sound quality falters
- By Andy B. on 09-08-23
By: Bernard Williams
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What Are We Doing Here?
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville, inform our political consciousness or discussing how beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Unpersuasive and a bit repetitive
- By Adam Shields on 03-07-18
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Between Past and Future
- Eight Exercises in Political Thought
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 51
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story5 out of 5 stars 39
Hannah Arendt's insightful observations of the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, constitute an impassioned contribution to political philosophy. In Between Past and Future, Arendt describes the perplexing crises modern society faces as a result of the loss of meaning of the traditional key words of politics: justice, reason, responsibility, virtue, and glory. Through a series of eight exercises, she shows how we can redistill the vital essence of these concepts and use them to regain a frame of reference for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just stunning
- By Peter Stephens on 02-26-18
By: Hannah Arendt
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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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On Revolution
- By: Hannah Arendt
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 202
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 201
Hannah Arendt's penetrating observations on the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the 18th-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the 20th century, Arendt traces the changing face of revolution and its relationship to war while underscoring the crucial role such events will play in the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful Analysis of Differing Revolutions
- By Roger on 01-10-18
By: Hannah Arendt
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The End of History and the Last Man
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 329
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 268
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 262
Ever since its first publication in 1992, The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An important discussion expertly narrated
- By Kevin Teeple on 06-27-19
By: Francis Fukuyama
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Culture and Imperialism
- By: Edward Said
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 19 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 153
A landmark work from the intellectually auspicious author of Orientalism, this book explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. This classic study, the direct successor to Said's main work, is read by Peter Ganim ( Orientalism).
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5 out of 5 stars
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BRAVO, AUDIBLE!! WE NEED MORE SAID!! REAL BOOKS!!
- By AnthonyStevens on 02-27-11
By: Edward Said
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Philosophy
- Who Needs It
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 10 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 418
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 273
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 272
Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deep and provocative
- By Sierra Bravo on 05-21-09
By: Ayn Rand
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Suicide of the West
- How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,394
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,258
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,236
Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
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