The Highest Law in the Land
How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy
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Narrated by:
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Nan McNamara
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By:
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Jessica Pishko
About this listen
Shortlisted for Columbia Journalism School’s J. Anthony Lukas Award
A Publishers Lunch NonFiction Buzz Book| Named Most Anticipated by Los Angeles Times
A leading authority on sheriffs investigates the impunity with which they police their communities, alongside the troubling role they play in American life, law enforcement, and, increasingly, national politics.
The figure of the American sheriff has loomed large in popular imagination, though given the outsize jurisdiction sheriffs have over people’s lives, the office of sheriffs remains a gravely under-examined institution. Locally elected, largely unaccountable, and difficult to remove, the country’s over three thousand sheriffs, mostly white men, wield immense power—making arrests, running county jails, enforcing evictions and immigration laws—with a quarter of all U.S. law enforcement officers reporting to them. In recent years there’s been a revival of “constitutional sheriffs,” who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. They’ve protested federal mask and vaccine mandates and gun regulations, railed against police reforms, and, ultimately, declared themselves election police, with many endorsing the “Big Lie” of a stolen presidential election. They are embraced by far-right militia groups, white nationalists, the Claremont Institute, and former president Donald Trump, who sees them as allies in mass deportation and border policing.
How did a group of law enforcement officers decide that they were “above the law?” What are the stakes for local and national politics, and for America as a multi-racial democracy?
Blending investigative reporting, historical research, and political analysis, author Jessica Pishko takes us to the roots of why sheriffs have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment, and uncovers how sheriffs have effectively evaded accountability since the nation’s founding.
A must-hear for fans of Michelle Alexander, Gilbert King, Elizabeth Hinton, and Kathleen Belew.
©2024 Jessica Pishko (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“As this nation seeks to make sense of the alarming rise of far-right extremism as well as the excessive power and everyday abuses of law enforcement, Pishko’s latest study of American sheriffs is a startling must-read. As she makes clear, these threats to our democracy are inexorably connected—sharing not just insidious ideologies and ugly practices, but also extraordinary power and popularity. That local sheriffs drive this recent and most pressing danger is something that we overlook at our peril.”—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy
"Blending superb reportage and indispensable history, Jessica Pishko’s book could not be more timely. The Highest Law in the Land is essential reading for anyone concerned about the unbridled power of law enforcement in 21st Century America. An absolutely fascinating and harrowing read.”—Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove
“Eye-opening account of the modern-day American sheriff”—Linda Greenhouse for New York Review of Books
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In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.
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A Gripping and Necessary Work
- By booklover on 11-24-24
By: Ben Austen, and others
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Ho Tactics
- How to MindF**k a Man into Spending, Spoiling, and Sponsoring
- By: G. L. Lambert
- Narrated by: Patrick Stevens
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
I have discovered a group of women who refuse to be exploited, are immune to manipulation, and who never settle in the name of love. These ladies know what they want and take what they want by beating men at their own game. Utilizing the secrets exposed in this book, these women gain power, money, and status. Men call them gold diggers, women call them hos, but they call themselves winners. This is the book that society doesn't want you to listen to….
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I spent $24,000 in 4 months
- By B.M. on 10-06-18
By: G. L. Lambert
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
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My Big TOE: Awakening
- Book One of a Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics
- By: Thomas Campbell
- Narrated by: Thomas Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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My Big TOE: Awakening, written by a nuclear physicist in the language of contemporary culture, unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. The entirety of human experience (mind, body, and spirit) including both our objective and subjective worlds is brought together under one seamless scientific understanding.
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What a Trip (but to where?)
- By Michael on 11-26-13
By: Thomas Campbell
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Caffeine
- How Caffeine Created the Modern World
- By: Michael Pollan
- Narrated by: Michael Pollan
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Original Recording
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Michael Pollan, known for his best-selling nonfiction audio, including The Omnivores Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind, conceived and wrote Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World as an Audible Original. In this controversial and exciting listen, Pollan explores caffeine’s power as the most-used drug in the world - and the only one we give to children (in soda pop) as a treat.
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Leaves much to be desired
- By Melody H on 02-02-20
By: Michael Pollan
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Mythology: Mega Collection
- Classic Stories from the Greek, Celtic, Norse, Japanese, Hindu, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Mythology
- By: Scott Lewis
- Narrated by: Madison Niederhauser, Oliver Hunt
- Length: 31 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
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An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
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Eight Dates
- Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
- By: John Gottman PhD, Julie Schwartz Gottman PhD, Doug Abrams, and others
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin, Julie McKay
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Navigating the challenges of long-term commitment takes effort - and it just got simpler, with this empowering, step-by-step guide to communicating about the things that matter most to you and your partner. Drawing on 40 years of research from their world-famous Love Lab, Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman invite couples on eight fun, easy, and profoundly rewarding dates, each one focused on a make-or-break issue: trust, conflict, sex, money, family, adventure, spirituality, and dreams.
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What the F. Robot-reader???!?!?!
- By Anonymous User on 01-21-20
By: John Gottman PhD, and others
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Armed with an insider’s perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the Supreme Court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican Party itself.
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Enlightening
- By Dallas on 11-10-24
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The Gangs of Zion
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- Narrated by: Phil Morris
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Truth
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You Are What You Watch
- How Movies and TV Affect Everything
- By: Walt Hickey
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
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Definitely recommend if you’re a Comms major or into Pop Culture!!
- By Anonymous User on 10-30-24
By: Walt Hickey
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To Run the World
- The Kremlin's Cold War Bid for Global Power
- By: Sergey Radchenko
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
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In this new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides a deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin's postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev's reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev's jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev's failed attempts to reinvent Moscow.
By: Sergey Radchenko
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Vigilante Nation
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- By: Jon Michaels, David Noll
- Narrated by: Eric Yang
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
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Time and again, when confronted with serious challenges to their power and privilege, white Christian nationalists seek solace—and satisfaction—in state-supported forms of vigilantism. Vigilante Nation tells this story of the American Right marginalizing, subordinating, and disenfranchising the increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan members of the American polity. This book exposes the vigilantes’ plans, explains their methods—everything from book bans to anti-abortion bounties to attacks on government proceedings, including elections—and underscores the stakes.
By: Jon Michaels, and others
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- How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
- By: Kate Conger, Ryan Mac
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
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The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before.
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We thought we knew…we really didn’t
- By exBFF on 10-01-24
By: Kate Conger, and others
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Stench
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- Narrated by: David Brock, Sean Patrick Hopkins
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Armed with an insider’s perspective from his time within the conservative movement, David Brock reveals how the efforts to stack the Supreme Court in service of extreme right-wing interests stem from a decades-long strategy to weaponize our judicial system into an extension of the Republican Party itself.
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Enlightening
- By Dallas on 11-10-24
By: David Brock
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The Gangs of Zion
- A Black Cop's Crusade in Mormon Country
- By: Ron Stallworth
- Narrated by: Phil Morris
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
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Determined to pursue his passion for undercover work wherever it led, Stallworth finally lands in Salt Lake City, UT. Once again, he’s an outsider–not only as a Black man on a mostly white police force but also an unapologetic non-believer in a state dominated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But soon after his first drug bust in the Beehive, Stallworth makes a startling discovery–Bloods and Crips are infiltrating Mormon Country, threatening to turn the deeply conservative community into a hotbed of crime.
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Truth
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By: Ron Stallworth
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You Are What You Watch
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- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
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Virtually anyone who has ever watched a profound movie, a powerful TV show, or read a moving novel understands that entertainment can and does affect us in surprising and significant ways. But did you know that our most popular forms of entertainment can have a direct physical effect on us, a measurable impact on society, geopolitics, the economy, and even the future itself? In You Are What You Watch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Walter Hickey proves how exactly how what we watch (and read and listen to) has a far greater effect on us and the world at large than we imagine.
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Definitely recommend if you’re a Comms major or into Pop Culture!!
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To Run the World
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- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 30 hrs and 42 mins
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In this new history of the conflict that defined the postwar era, Sergey Radchenko provides a deep dive into the psychology of the Kremlin's decision-making. He reveals how the Soviet struggle with the United States and China reflected its irreconcilable ambitions as a self-proclaimed superpower and the leader of global revolution. This tension drove Soviet policies from Stalin's postwar scramble for territory to Khrushchev's reckless overseas adventurism and nuclear brinksmanship, Brezhnev's jockeying for influence in the third world, and Gorbachev's failed attempts to reinvent Moscow.
By: Sergey Radchenko
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Vigilante Nation
- How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy
- By: Jon Michaels, David Noll
- Narrated by: Eric Yang
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Time and again, when confronted with serious challenges to their power and privilege, white Christian nationalists seek solace—and satisfaction—in state-supported forms of vigilantism. Vigilante Nation tells this story of the American Right marginalizing, subordinating, and disenfranchising the increasingly diverse and cosmopolitan members of the American polity. This book exposes the vigilantes’ plans, explains their methods—everything from book bans to anti-abortion bounties to attacks on government proceedings, including elections—and underscores the stakes.
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- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
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The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before.
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We thought we knew…we really didn’t
- By exBFF on 10-01-24
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She-Wolves
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- Narrated by: Rebecca Lam
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First came the secretaries from Brooklyn and Queens—the "smart cookies" who learned on the job despite the obstacles. Then came the first Harvard Business School grads, who, despite their hard-earned diplomas, often settled for less. Eventually came the yuppies of the 1980s in power suits and commuter sneakers. In She-Wolves, award-winning historian Paulina Bren tells the story of the first generations of women who fought their way into the bad-boy culture and lavish opulence of the finance world.
By: Paulina Bren
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Vote with Your Phone
- Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy
- By: Bradley Tusk
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
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We do just about everything on our phones, and yet we still can't use them to vote. But the technology exists, provides enhanced security over traditional paper ballots, and it could exponentially increase voter turnout.
By: Bradley Tusk
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Shielded
- How the Police Became Untouchable
- By: Joanna Schwartz
- Narrated by: Joanna Schwartz
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
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In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power—the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policy makers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable. In Shielded, University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Joanna Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs.
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essential reading for engaged citizens
- By SLD on 02-24-23
By: Joanna Schwartz
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Awakening the Spirit of America
- FDR’s War of Words with Charles Lindinbergh–and the Battle to Save Democracy
- By: Paul M. Sparrow
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Franklin Roosevelt awoke on September 1, 1939 to the news that Germany invaded Poland, signaling the start of World War II. The president warned for years that Hitler's fascist regime posed an existential threat to democracy, but the American public remained stubbornly isolationist as fascist sympathizing groups, egged on by right wing media stars promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, plotted to overthrow the president. The situation was dire, and Roosevelt found himself facing an unexpected adversary: Charles Lindbergh.
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A Captivating Story
- By Kimberly on 11-12-24
By: Paul M. Sparrow
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The Vagina Business
- The Innovative Breakthroughs That Could Change Everything in Women's Health
- By: Marina Gerner
- Narrated by: Marina Gerner
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Women make over 80% of healthcare decisions in the U.S., yet only 4% of all medical research and development is focused on women's health issues. From periods and childbirth to menopause, female pain has been normalized, as society shrugs and says "Welcome to being a woman," instead of coming up with better solutions. But it doesn't have to be this way. In The Vagina Business, award-winning journalist Marina Gerner, Ph.D. takes an eye-opening look at the innovators challenging the status quo to deliver the healthcare solutions women need.
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This book is a must-read for anyone who values empathy, learning and a data-driven approach.
- By Helene Ginzburg on 09-29-24
By: Marina Gerner
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Opus
- The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church
- By: Gareth Gore
- Narrated by: Gareth Gore
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For over half a century, Banco Popular was one of the most profitable banks in the world—until one day, in 2017, when the Spanish bank suddenly collapsed overnight. When investigative journalist Gareth Gore was dispatched to report on the story, he expected to find yet another case of unbridled capitalist ambition gone wrong. Instead, he uncovered decades of deception that hid one of the most brazen cases of corporate pillaging in history, perpetrated by a group of men sworn to celibacy and self-flagellation who had secretly controlled Popular and abused their positions there.
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Fascinating and discomforting
- By Cynthia H. on 10-21-24
By: Gareth Gore
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The Unseen Truth
- When Race Changed Sight in America
- By: Sarah Lewis
- Narrated by: Sarah Lewis
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In a masterpiece of historical detective work, Sarah Lewis exposes one of the most damaging lies in American history. There was a time when Americans were confronted with the fictions shoring up the nation’s racial regime and learned to disregard them. The true significance of this hidden history has gone unseen—until now. Groundbreaking and profoundly resonant, The Unseen Truth shows how visual tactics have long secured our regime of racial hierarchy in spite of its false foundations—and offers a way to begin to dismantle it.
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Learning to see, and unsee.
- By Erika P. on 10-30-24
By: Sarah Lewis
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Stolen Pride
- Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right
- By: Arlie Russell Hochschild
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For all the attempts to understand the state of American politics and the blue/red divide, we've ignored what economic and cultural loss can do to pride. What happens, Arlie Russell Hochschild asks, when a proud people in a hard-hit region suffer the deep loss of pride and are confronted with a powerful political appeal that makes it feel "stolen"? Hochschild's research drew her to Pikeville, Kentucky, in the heart of Appalachia, within the whitest and second-poorest congressional district in the nation.
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Important Fascinating. Compassionate. It may change your thinking.
- By F Shaw on 12-11-24
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Wild Faith
- How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America
- By: Talia Lavin
- Narrated by: Talia Lavin
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From school boards to the Supreme Court, Christian theocracy is ascendant in America—and only through exploring its motivations and impacts can we understand the crisis we face. In Wild Faith, Lavin fearlessly confronts whether our democracy can survive an organized, fervent theocratic movement, one that seeks to impose its religious beliefs on American citizens.
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Best Book
- By Stacy Lawson on 11-12-24
By: Talia Lavin
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Foreign Agents
- How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World
- By: Casey Michel
- Narrated by: Joe Dwyer
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself. These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous regimes in the process.
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Should be read by everyone
- By Jeroen on 10-27-24
By: Casey Michel
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White Poverty
- How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy
- By: Reverend Dr. William Barber II, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove - contributor
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One of the most pernicious and persistent myths in the United States is the association of Black skin with poverty. Though there are forty million more poor white people than Black people, most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, continue to think of poverty—along with issues like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps—as solely a Black problem. Why is this so? What are the historical causes? And what are the political consequences that result?
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Cannot be antiracist without the ties that bind
- By marwalk on 08-25-24
By: Reverend Dr. William Barber II, and others
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Left Adrift
- What Happened to Liberal Politics
- By: Timothy Shenk
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Politics today doesn’t look much like it did fifty years ago. Electorates that were once divided by economics—with blue-collar workers supporting leftwing parties while the wealthy trended right—are now more likely to split along cultural lines. Campaigns have gone high-tech, hoping to turn electioneering into a science. Meanwhile, a permanent class of political consultants has emerged, with teams of pollsters, message gurus, and field operatives. Taken together, all this amounts to a silent revolution that has transformed politics across much of the globe.
By: Timothy Shenk