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Return of the Strong Gods
- Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins
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Publisher's summary
After the staggering slaughter of back-to-back world wars, the West embraced the ideal of the "open society". The promise: By liberating ourselves from the old attachments to nation, clan, and religion that had fueled centuries of violence, we could build a prosperous world without borders, freed from dogmas and managed by experts.
But the populism and nationalism that are upending politics in America and Europe are a sign that after three generations, the postwar consensus is breaking down. With compelling insight, R. R. Reno argues that we are witnessing the return of the "strong gods" - the powerful loyalties that bind men to their homeland and to one another.
Reacting to the calamitous first half of the 20th century, our political, cultural, and financial elites promoted open borders, open markets, and open minds. But this never-ending project of openness has hardened into a set of anti-dogmatic dogmas that destroy the social solidarity rooted in family, faith, and nation. While they worry about the return of fascism, our societies are dissolving.
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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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Thought Provoking Work On Liberty In America
- By Ezekiel on 05-28-19
By: Os Guinness
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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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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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Incisive and Illuminating
- By Jakob on 01-26-23
By: Yuval Levin
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Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization
- By: Samuel Gregg
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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This sharp commentary on the rise and current decline of Western Civilization touches on historical moments - including the building of early universities in the Middle Ages and the American Revolution - and figures - including Augustine, Acquinas, Edmund Burke, and Adam Smith - that exemplify the faith-reason synthesis at the heart of Western Civilization, as well as the modern villains that threaten to destroy it.
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Excellent description of the current state of the West
- By Terryn on 10-24-19
By: Samuel Gregg
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Democracy Matters
- Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
- By: Cornel West
- Narrated by: Cornel West
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Democracy Matters is Cornel West's bold and powerful critique of the troubling deterioration of democracy in America in this threatening post-9/11 age of terrorist rage and imperial overreach, and an inspiring call for a resurgence of the deep democratic tradition in our country, which has waged war on the forces of imperialist corruption throughout our history.
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Well written, a refreshing voice of inspiration
- By Gabriel on 07-06-05
By: Cornel West
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Bland Fanatics
- Liberals, the West, and the Afterlives of Empire
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In America and in England, faltering economies at home and failed wars abroad have generated a political and intellectual hysteria. It is a derangement manifested in a number of ways: nostalgia for imperialism, xenophobic paranoia, and denunciations of an allegedly intolerant left. These symptoms can be found even among the most informed of Anglo-America.
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Historical Liberalism on deathbed
- By Mehran Asdigha on 11-13-20
By: Pankaj Mishra
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The Irony of Modern Catholic History
- How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform
- By: George Weigel
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout much of the 19th century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago.
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Well written and considered book, bad narrator
- By Brad on 12-13-19
By: George Weigel
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The Inevitability of Tragedy
- Henry Kissinger and His World
- By: Barry Gewen
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries' attempts at democracy.
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Interesting but rambles
- By K on 02-17-21
By: Barry Gewen
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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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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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Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
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Age of Anger
- A History of the Present
- By: Pankaj Mishra
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world - from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the 18th century before leading us to the present.
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Disappointing
- By AR on 04-28-17
By: Pankaj Mishra
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Democracy Incorporated
- Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
- By: Sheldon S. Wolin
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive - and where elites are eager to keep them that way.
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Essential listening....
- By M. Levine on 02-25-11
By: Sheldon S. Wolin
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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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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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Superlative Book
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-10
By: Reinhold Niebuhr
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What listeners say about Return of the Strong Gods
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Colin MacKenzie
- 10-29-22
Demands your full attention
This is not a book to listen to while you’re driving, making dinner, etc. It demands the listener be fully present, and savor what they are hearing. It’s challenging, and in that I think it is worthwhile.
It was a book that made me think, and has made me want to get the hardcopy, so I can read it and annotate as I go. As I stop and think about it now, it made me wonder where the “Golden Mean of America” is today. People who are not at either of the poles that seem to divide us so much today. It is as if neither side can see anything good in points raised by the other.
And that is not something we can sustain.
I wonder what the answer to the question of What it is we love about our country? would be for each of us, And if each of us has even bothered to ask that question.
This book makes me believe that we should, and work to preserve what it is we love about our nation, and what it is we need to do to improve where we feel we fall short.
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- Nauman
- 12-09-23
Great listen.
Clearly highlights the biggest forces at play shaping our world. Lots of people who can't comprehend them feel insecure from them
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- Joshua K. Jones
- 06-27-20
Mandatory reading for disenchanted souls
Written for those who see the world seemingly falling apart around them and are wondering, "how did we get here?" A well documented dive into the history of modern liberalism, the rejection of beauty, order, and tradition, and replacing them with ever greater openness, diversity, and fluidity, where and how it went wrong, and what we can expect in the future.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Joel Foreman
- 07-08-20
Strong critical review with weak conclusion
The author does a fine job reviewing and making accessible his select intellectual history of the postwar “open” mind movement. This is the book’s strength. When Reno pivots to his prescriptive response he leaves his scholarly self behind and depends on unsubstantiated and unpersuasive biases. The book is well worth reading for it’s critical review which will lead readers like me to conclude. Contrary to Reno, that openness is desirable for the advanced civilization we all hope America will become.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Luzerspoon
- 09-22-22
A Second Reading, For The Win
The first time I read this, I was Libertarian and half of what he said didnt even register. Now, going back through, I think this book is more relevant than ever. The resistance to any masculine urge or principle os what defines our age, and I pray it comes to an end.
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- R. C. Haynes
- 07-21-24
The truth is told
Clear and concise history and analysis… increased understanding and hope for the future. enjoyed this book immensely
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- David Landau
- 01-18-21
Essential for saving the west
This book shows how individualism of the modern era erases the beauty from this world. In my opinion it should be mandatory in political science degrees in universitys.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-21-20
Mandatory reading
A refreshing take on the current political structure and how America/civilization got to where it is.
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- Carellimom
- 02-28-23
One of the most insightful books I’ve ever read
As a student of the 20th century and the fall of western civilization, as well as someone trying to make sense of the divisiveness of the 21st century, I have read many books on the subject. Most of them, both liberal and conservative, have points that are useful and interesting, but it always felt like pieces of the puzzle were missing. This is the first book I have read that weaves the most threads together for a fuller picture of “how we got here.” This isn’t light reading. This book is heavy on philosophy and economic theory. I can certainly see both liberals and conservatives objecting to aspects of this book. I like that the author steps on everyone’s toes, and seems to strive for an objective view. For that very reason, I would recommend this book to individuals of all political and philosophical persuasions.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Customer
- 09-14-24
Impressive Historical -Philosophical Analysis
Unique angle on the background of the progressive open society vs. traditional closed society since 1945. Well-documented ideas on the influence of several social commentators and philosophers who have helped make the United States into what it is today.
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