Social Science audiobooks

Marijuana : Cannabis Classics from the 30's & 40's

By: Classics Reborn Audio Publishing

Narrated by: Nina Salzar & Others

Length: 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Discover cannabis classics from the 30s and 40s. Read more

Long Open to Refugees, Hostilities are Growing in Uganda

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Nearly 600,000 refugees have entered Uganda since July, fleeing violence and war in neighboring South Sudan, and the flow continues unabated. The overwhelming numbers are straining relief efforts and inciting tensions between newcomers and Ugandans from nearby communities. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports. Read more

Radical Hope

By: Carolina De Robertis

Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo & Kaleo Griffith

Length: 7 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Radical Hope is a collection of letters—to ancestors, to children five generations from now, to strangers in grocery lines, to any and all who feel weary and discouraged—written by award-winning novelists, poets, political thinkers, and activists. Provocative and inspiring, Radical Hope offers readers a kaleidoscopic view of the love and courage... Read more

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell

By: W. Kamau Bell

Narrated by: W. Kamau Bell

Length: 10 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

You may know W. Kamau Bell from his new, Emmy-nominated hit show on CNN, United Shades of America. Or maybe you’ve read about him in the New York Times, which called him “the most promising new talent in political comedy in many years.” Or maybe from The New Yorker, fawning over his brand of humor writing: "Bell’s gimmick is intersectional... Read more

At Mama's Knee

By: April Ryan

Narrated by: Mia Ellis

Length: 6 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In her first book, The Presidency in Black and White, journalist April Ryan examined race in America through her experience as a White House reporter. In this book, she shifts the conversation from the White House to every home in America. At Mama's Knee looks at race and race relations through the lessons that mothers transmit to their... Read more

The Broken Ladder

By: Keith Payne

Narrated by: James Foster

Length: 7 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

A timely examination by a leading scientist of the physical, psychological, and moral effects of inequalityToday’s inequality is on a scale that none of us has seen in our lifetimes, yet this disparity between rich and poor has ramifications that extend far beyond mere financial means. In The Broken Ladder psychologist Keith Payne examines how... Read more

Behave

By: Robert M. Sapolsky

Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom

Length: 26 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestseller  • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize  • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year

“It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal

"It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York... Read more

Nobody

By: Marc Lamont Hill

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

Length: 6 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the United States following the death of Michael Brown revealed something far deeper than a passionate display of age-old racial frustrations; they unveiled a public chasm that has been growing for years, as America has consistently and intentionally denied significant segments of its population access... Read more

Born to Walk

By: Dan Rubinstein

Narrated by: Braden Wright

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

The humble act of putting one foot in front of the other transcends age, geography, culture, and class, and is one of the most economical and environmentally responsible modes of transit. Yet with our modern fixation on speed, this healthy pedestrian activity has been largely left behind.At a personal and professional crossroads, writer, editor,... Read more

A Path Out of Poverty

By: Paul Farmer

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."
—Lilla Watson, Aboriginal activist and artist

World-renowned physician and public health pioneer Dr. Paul Farmer has long been devoted to caring and advocating for the world's... Read more

Muck City

By: Bryan Mealer

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 10 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

In a town deep in the Florida Everglades, where high school football is the only escape, a haunted quarterback, a returning hero, and a scholar struggle against terrible odds.

The loamy black “muck” that surrounds Belle Glade, Florida once built an empire for Big Sugar and provided much of the nation's vegetables, often on the backs of roving,... Read more

Superfast Primetime Ultimate Nation

By: Adam Roberts

Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm

Length: 11 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Who can foretell India's future? Mr. Joshi is a fortune teller in a slum in south Delhi who uses a soothsaying green parrot to make predictions. When Adam Roberts visited him in 2012, Joshi's parrot declared that India was destined to become the most powerful nation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The parrot also foretold that India would... Read more

The Man Who Designed the Future

By: B. Alexandra Szerlip

Narrated by: B. Alexandra Szerlip

Length: 16 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Before there was Steve Jobs, there was Norman Bel Geddes. A ninth-grade dropout who found himself at the center of the worlds of industry, advertising, theater, and even gaming, Bel Geddes designed everything from the first all-weather stadium, to Manhattan’s most exclusive nightclub, to Futurama, the prescient 1939 exhibit that envisioned how... Read more

Ma Speaks Up

By: Marianne Leone

Narrated by: Marianne Leone

Length: 5 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The acclaimed actress and author of Jesse: A Mother’s Story tells the "entertaining and moving" story of her outspoken, frequently outrageous Italian immigrant mother (Tom Perrotta)

Marianne Leone’s Ma is in many senses a larger-than-life character, one who might be capable, even from the afterlife, of shattering expectations. Born on a farm in... Read more

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen

By: Elizabeth Ford

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 8 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Elizabeth Ford went through medical school unsure of where she belonged. It wasn’t until she did her psychiatry rotation that she found her calling—to care for one of the most vulnerable populations of mentally ill people, the inmates of New York City’s jails, including Rikers Island, who are so sick that they are sent to the Bellevue Hospital... Read more

Make Someone Happy

By: Elizabeth Berg

Narrated by: Elizabeth Berg

Length: 3 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a collection of Elizabeth Berg's most-loved Facebook posts. She was asked by many to put these short essays into book form, to create, as one reader said, something to "take to the beach, or bed, or on an airplane." Elizabeth and her friend, the book's designer Phyllis Florin, happily complied, and they hope that their offering will be... Read more

Manufacturing Consent

By: Noam Chomsky & Edward S. Herman

Narrated by: John Pruden

Length: 15 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups... Read more

From Cradle to Stage

By: Virginia Grohl

Narrated by: Virginia Grohl

Length: 8 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Written by Virginia Grohl, the mother of Dave Grohl—former Nirvana drummer and current frontman for the Foo Fighters—From Cradle to Stage shares stories and exclusive photos featuring mothers of rock icons, the icons themselves, and their Behind the Music-style relationships

While the Grohl family had always been musical-the family sang together... Read more

Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production

By: Nicolette Hahn Niman

Narrated by: Nicolette Hahn Niman

Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

For decades it has been nearly universal dogma among environmentalists and health advocates that cattle and beef are public enemy number one.

But is the matter really so clear cut? Hardly, argues environmental lawyer turned rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman in her new book, Defending Beef.

The public has long been led to believe that livestock,... Read more

All Day

By: Liza Jessie Peterson

Narrated by: Liza Jessie Peterson

Length: 9 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

ALL DAY is a behind-the-bars, personal glimpse into the issue of mass incarceration via an unpredictable, insightful and ultimately hopeful reflection on teaching teens while they await sentencing.

Told with equal parts raw honesty and unbridled compassion, ALL DAY recounts a year in Liza Jessie Peterson's classroom at Island Academy, the high... Read more

No Name in the Street

By: James Baldwin

Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly

Length: 5 hours

Abridged: No

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies displays James Baldwin’s fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works.In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early consciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain—the murders of Martin... Read more

Janesville

By: Amy Goldstein

Narrated by: Joy Osmanski

Length: 10 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

* Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year * Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize​ * 800-CEO-READ Business Book of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book * A Washington Post Notable Book * An NPR Best Book of 2017 * A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017 * An Economist Best Book of 2017 * A Business Insider Best Book of... Read more

Upside

By: Kenneth W. Gronbach

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Demographics not only define who we are, where we live, and how our numbers change. For those who can read beyond the raw figures, they open up hidden business opportunities that lie ahead.What will happen when retiring Boomers free up jobs? How will Generation Y alter supermarkets? Which states will have the most dynamic workforces? Will... Read more

Beauty Sick

By: Renee Engeln

Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt

Length: 11 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

An award-winning Northwestern University psychology professor reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Naomi Wolf, Peggy Orenstein, and Sheryl Sandberg.Today’s young women face a... Read more