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Battle for the Heart of Texas
- Political Change in the Electorate
- Narrated by: Kenneth Bryant Jr.
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
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Publisher's summary
Texas is a solid red state. Or trending purple. Or soon to be blue. One thing is certain: As Texas looms ever larger in national politics, the makeup of its electorate increasingly matters. At a critical moment, as migration, immigration, and a maturing populace alter the state’s political landscape, this book presents a deeply researched, data-rich look at who Texas voters are, what they want, and what it might mean for the future of the Republican and Democratic parties, the state, and the nation.
Battle for the Heart of Texas goes beyond the pronouncements of leaders and pundits to reveal voters’ nuanced opinions. Working with an unprecedented cache of polling figures and qualitative data from surveys and focus groups, Mark Owens, Kenneth A. Wink, and Kenneth Bryant Jr. provide an in-depth examination of what is reshaping voter preferences across Texas, including the partisan impact of the urbanization and nationalization of state politics.
Their analyses pinpoint the influence of race, media exposure, ideological diversity within the parties, and geographic variation across the state, detailing how Texas politics has changed over time. Race may not have typically defined Texas politics, for instance, but the authors find that rhetoric on policies related to race are now shaping the electorate. The diversity in civic engagement among the Latino community also emerges from the data, compounded and complicated by the growth of the Latino population of voting age.
The largest red state in the country, with the second-largest population, Texas is crucial to the way we think about political change in America—and this book amply and precisely equips us to understand the bellwether state’s changing politics.
The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
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Story
America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past 30 years, American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal's achievements. Now, the tide may be turning, and in The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman, the world's most widely read economist and one of its most influential political commentators, charts the way to reform.
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Great Book!!!
- By carl801 on 12-04-07
By: Paul Krugman
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Four Threats
- The Recurring Crises of American Democracy
- By: Suzanne Mettler, Robert C. Lieberman
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Four Threats, Lieberman and Mettler explore five historical episodes when democracy in the United States was under siege: the 1790s, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Depression, and Watergate. These episodes risked profound, even fatal, damage to the American democratic experiment, and on occasion antidemocratic forces have prevailed. From this history, four distinct characteristics of democratic disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power...have threatened the survival of the republic.
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Very informative
- By Angela Fobbs on 12-31-20
By: Suzanne Mettler, and others
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Enlightened Democracy
- The Case for the Electoral College, 2nd Edition
- By: Tara Ross
- Narrated by: Tara Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Enlightened Democracy traces the history of the Electoral College from the Constitutional Convention to the present. The Electoral College protects our republic and promotes our liberty. Americans should defend their unique presidential election system at all costs.
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Hold your breath
- By Ein on 03-13-20
By: Tara Ross
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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
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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."
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Not worth it
- By DailyShopper on 06-07-18
By: Yascha Mounk
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The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America
- The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks: What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.
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A must read to understand why voting is essential.
- By Brandon WIlliams on 10-05-19
By: Thom Hartmann
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Talk Radio’s America
- How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States
- By: Brian Rosenwald
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Radio hosts form a deep bond with their audience, which gives them enormous political power. Unlike elected representatives, however, they must entertain their audience or watch their ratings fall. Talk radio boosted the Republican agenda in the 1990s, but two decades later, escalation in the battle for the airwaves pushed hosts toward ever more conservative, outrageous, and hyperbolic content. Donald Trump borrowed conservative radio hosts' playbook and gave Republican base voters the kind of pugnacious candidate they had been demanding for decades.
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Excellent history of our national demise
- By CommentDante on 02-20-22
By: Brian Rosenwald
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The Everything American Government Book
- From the Constitution to Present-Day Elections, All You Need to Understand Our Democratic System
- By: Nick Ragone
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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If the confusion following the last presidential election is any indication, the average citizen knows precious little about the democratic system and the laws that affect their daily lives. The Everything American Government Book unravels the complexities of our democracy and provides listeners with the knowledge necessary to make the right decisions and take an active role in the management of their country. This thoroughly researched work is ideal for anyone brushing up on civics, as well as students of all ages.
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A solid understanding of local, state and national political structure...
- By Amazon Customer on 12-25-19
By: Nick Ragone
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They Don't Represent Us
- Reclaiming Our Democracy
- By: Lawrence Lessig
- Narrated by: Lawrence Lessig
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In They Don’t Represent Us, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig charts the way in which the fundamental institutions of our democracy, including our media, respond to narrow interests rather than to the needs and wishes of the nation’s citizenry. But the blame does not only lie with “them” - Washington’s politicians and power brokers, Lessig argues. The problem is also “us.”
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All Americans should read/listen to this.
- By Christopher W Catron on 03-22-20
By: Lawrence Lessig
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Fault Lines
- A History of the United States Since 1974
- By: Kevin M. Kruse, Julian E. Zelizer
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: You might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right. How did the US become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.
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Good overview of the past 45 years
- By Adam Shields on 02-26-19
By: Kevin M. Kruse, and others
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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Pivotal Tuesdays
- Four Elections That Shaped the Twentieth Century
- By: Margaret O'Mara
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Pivotal Tuesdays looks back at four pivotal presidential elections of the past 100 years to show how they shaped the 20th century. During the rowdy, four-way race in 1912 between Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Eugene Debs, and Woodrow Wilson, the candidates grappled with the tremendous changes of industrial capitalism and how best to respond to them. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's promises to give Americans a "New Deal" to combat the Great Depression helped him beat the beleaguered incumbent, Herbert Hoover.
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Important book...especially this year.
- By Jim on 07-31-16
By: Margaret O'Mara