Social Science audiobooks

Breaking the Chains

By: William Loren Katz

Narrated by: Peter Francis James

Length: 5 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Generations of American history students grew up believing that slave rebellion was relatively rare, that slaves accepted their lot and became attached to their masters, and that they were ultimately liberated with little or no effort of their own. Liberally sprinkled with quotations from Civil War era blacks, both slave and free, Breaking the... Read more

Going Clear

By: Lawrence Wright

Narrated by: Morton Sellers

Length: 17 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

National Book Award Finalist


A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—both famous and less well known—and years... Read more

Rosenfeld: Guns in School

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Ray Suarez looks at responses by lawmakers and the NRA to President Obama's gun violence proposals. Jeffrey Brown hones in on the topic of mental health with Barry Rosenfeld, a clinical forensic psychologist at Fordham University, and Dr. Paramjit Joshi of the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Read more

Searching for Zion

By: Emily Raboteau

Narrated by: Quincy Tyler Bernstine

Length: 10 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Emily Raboteau’s Searching for Zion takes listeners around the world on an unexpected adventure of faith. Both one woman’s quest for a place to call “home” and an investigation into a people’s search for the Promised Land, this landmark work is a trenchant inquiry into contemporary and historical ethnic displacement. At twenty-three, Raboteau... Read more

Coming of Age in Mississippi

By: Anne Moody

Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts

Length: 15 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till's lynching. Before then, she had "known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was…the... Read more

The World Until Yesterday

By: Jared Diamond

Narrated by: Jay Snyder

Length: 18 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

Most of us take for granted the features of our modern society, from air travel and telecommunications to literacy and obesity. Yet for nearly all of its six million years of existence, human society had none of these things. While the gulf that divides us from our primitive ancestors may seem unbridgeably wide, we can glimpse much of our former... Read more

How to Think More About Sex

By: Alain de Botton

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Length: 3 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE IS DEDICATED TO EXPLORING LIFE'S BIG QUESTIONS IN HIGHLY-PORTABLE PAPERBACKS, FEATURING FRENCH FLAPS AND DECKLE EDGES, THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES CALLS "DAMNABLY CUTE." WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS, BUT WE WILL DIRECT YOU TOWARDS A VARIETY OF USEFUL IDEAS THAT ARE GUARANTEED TO STIMULATE, PROVOKE, AND CONSOLE.

We don't think too... Read more

The Amistad Rebellion

By: Marcus Rediker

Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez

Length: 9 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

Noted historian Marcus Rediker has earned numerous awards for his work, including the sought-after George Washington Book Prize. In The Amistad Rebellion, he turns his attention to the famed slave ship that set sail from Havana in 1839. Painstakingly researched, Rediker's account follows the slaves' point of view, from the joyous moments after... Read more

Utopian Frontiers

By: Drew Tapley

Narrated by: John Phillip Roach

Length: 7 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

What if there was a secret city at work on finding answers to the survival of humanity? Technologies beyond your imagination. A city expanding, recruiting and evolving. There is no government, no money, no bosses, institutions, cars or roads; and age takes on new meaning. This “facity” is one big research product in and of itself, and nothing... Read more

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

By: James Weldon Johnson

Narrated by: Richard Allen

Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally published anonymously in 1912, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man revealed as never before the color line dividing America, and the price it exacted on those souls who could traverse the two worlds. The book presents the fictional account of 'an ex-colored man' - an African-American who could pass for white - as he attempts to... Read more

Co-Creating A Dream Of A Modern Day Oz

By: Jean Houston, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Justine Willis Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Here Houston takes us on a whirlwind tour of the authentic American myth of the Wizard of Oz. She answers the question of what it means to have a brain, a heart, and to act with courage. Using the characters of the scarecrow, tin man, lion, and Dorothy, Houston inspires us to follow our deep yearning in order to develop and contribute to a... Read more

Drinking Water

By: James Salzman

Narrated by: Lee Hahn

Length: 7 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs... Read more

Up from Slavery

By: Booker T. Washington

Narrated by: Noah Waterman

Length: 6 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Booker T. Washington fought his way out of slavery to become an educator, statesman, political shaper, and proponent of the “do it yourself” idea. In his autobiography, he describes his early life as a slave on a Virginia plantation, his steady rise during the Civil War, his struggle for education, his schooling at the Hampton Institute, and his... Read more

Compelling Interest

By: Roger Resler

Narrated by: Roger Resler

Length: 12 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Is a fetus a person?Is “pro-choice” a neutral position?For 40 years since the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, the abortion debate has been highly charged and politicized. Questions like these—and passionate but widely varying answers—have become the common language of the public dialogue on this issue. Yet behind the scenes of this... Read more

Far From the Tree

By: Andrew Solomon

Narrated by: Andrew Solomon

Length: 40 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

* Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times *

* WINNER of the National Book Critics Circle Award * Books for a Better Life Award * The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year *

This masterpiece by the National Book Award–winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only... Read more

Die Stunde der Dilettanten

By: Thomas Rietzschel

Narrated by: Anke Fabian

Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Der moderne Beruf: Dilettant. Nicht erlernbar, kein Studium erforderlich, auf allen (Interessens-)Gebieten anzutreffen, Wissen unnötig. Zeichnet sich besonders durch Ahnungslosigkeit aus, spricht ohne Sinn und Verstand unqualifiziertes Zeug, handelt ohne sich der Konsequenzen bewusst zu sein, es geht um mehr Schein als Sein. Trotz... Read more

The Economics and Politics of Race

By: Thomas Sowell

Narrated by: Robert Morris

Length: 10 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

How much of a racial group’s economic fate is determined by the surrounding society it lives in and how much by internal patterns that follow that same group around the world? Using an international framework to analyze group differences, Sowell has pioneered a new approach for pursuing this important study based on historical experience and... Read more

Twentysomething

By: Robin Marantz Henig & Samantha Henig

Narrated by: Pam Ward & Emily Durante

Length: 10 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

What does it mean to be young today?In the summer of 2010, Robin Marantz Henig wrote a provocative article for the New York Times Magazine called "What Is It about 20-Somethings?" It generated enormous reader response and started a conversation that included both millennials and baby boomers. Now, working with her millennial daughter Samantha,... Read more

Superman Is Jewish?

By: Harry Brod

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 8 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Zeddy Lawrence once said, "It may not be true in all cases, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. If the word 'man' appears at the end of someone's name you can draw one of two conclusions: a) they're Jewish, as in Goldman, Feldman, or Lipman; or b) they're a superhero, as in Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man."

In Superman Is Jewish? Harry Brod... Read more

Assholes

By: Aaron James

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

In the spirit of the mega-selling On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary.

What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no... Read more

Master of the Mountain

By: Henry Wiencek

Narrated by: Brian Holsopple

Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Henry Wiencek’s eloquent, persuasive book—based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson’s papers—opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson’s... Read more

Pendulum

By: Michael R. Drew & Roy H. Williams

Narrated by: Michael R. Drew & Roy H. Williams

Length: 5 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Politics, manners, humor, sexuality, wealth, even our definitions of success are periodically renegotiated based on the new values society chooses to use as a lens to judge what is acceptable.

Are these new values randomly chosen or is there a pattern? Pendulum chronicles the stuttering history of western society; that endless back-and-forth... Read more

Silent Tears

By: Kay Bratt

Narrated by: Shannon McManus

Length: 9 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Irrepressible memories. Vacant eyes. A child being dangled from a third story window. A boy tied to a chair. Children sleeping in layers of clothing to fight off the bitter cold. An infant dying from starvation. Some things your mind will never allow you to forget.Silent Tears is the true story of the adversity and triumphs one woman faced as... Read more

Changes that Transformed the American Dream

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

For Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith, the American Dream depends upon the prosperity of middle class. Ray Suarez talks to Smith about his latest book, Who Stole the American Dream? for more on what needs to change to restore the American Dream, economically, politically and culturally. Read more