Social Science audiobooks

The Hidden Brain

By: Shankar Vedantam

Narrated by: Steve West

Length: 10 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Most of us would agree that there’s a clear—and even obvious—connection between the things we believe and the way we behave. But what if our actions are driven not by our conscious values and beliefs but by hidden motivations we’re not even aware of?
 
The “hidden brain” is Shankar Vedantam’s shorthand for a host of brain functions, emotional... Read more

Peniel Joseph: Dark Days, Bright Nights

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

In observance of Martin Luther King Day in 2010, Ray Suarez speaks with historian Peniel Joseph about his book Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama. Read more

Consciousness On the Job

By: Jeff Klein

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Jeff Klein's work is one of his greatest sources of joy, and he's made it his vocation to help others find ways to bring real consciousness to the jobs they do every day. He tells fascinating stories of successful entrepreneurs, who bring a rare brand of connection to their businesses, and suggestions for how you can deepen the mindfulness you... Read more

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love

By: Barbara Pease & Allan Pease

Narrated by: Chelsea Bruland & Jeff Prewett

Length: 8 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Allan and Barbara Pease, the international bestsell­ing authors of Why Men Don’t Listen & Women Can’t Read Maps, deliver their most exciting book yet.
 
Will men and women ever see eye-to-eye about love and sex? How will relationships ever be rewarding if men only want to rush into bed and women want to rush to the altar? In this practical,... Read more

Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love - Abridged

By: Barbara Pease & Allan Pease

Narrated by: Chelsea Bruland & Jeff Prewett

Length: 4 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Allan and Barbara Pease, the international bestsell­ing authors of Why Men Don’t Listen & Women Can’t Read Maps, deliver their most exciting book yet.
 
Will men and women ever see eye-to-eye about love and sex? How will relationships ever be rewarding if men only want to rush into bed and women want to rush to the altar? In this practical,... Read more

Intellectuals and Society

By: Thomas Sowell

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 11 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

This title offers a withering and clear-eyed critique about—but not for—intellectuals that explores their impact on public opinion, policy, and society at large.The thesis ofIntellectuals and Societystates that the influence of intellectuals is not only greater than in previous eras but also takes a very different form from that envisioned by... Read more

Worse Than War

By: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 26 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's books are events. They stir passionate public debate among political and civic leaders, scholars, and the general public because they compel people to rethink the most powerful conventional wisdoms and stubborn moral problems of the day. Worse Than War gets to the heart of the phenomenon of genocide, which has caused... Read more

Religion, Myth, and Magic

By: Susan Johnston

Narrated by: Susan Johnston

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Anthropologist Susan Johnston turns a scholarly eye on one of humankind's primary interests throughout history: the spiritual belief system. Beginning her lectures with an attempt to define religion, Professor Johnston continues this intriguing study with an examination of mythology and symbols, rituals and witchcraft, gender, politics, and... Read more

Shoptimism

By: Lee Eisenberg

Narrated by: Jim Frangione

Length: 14 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Lee Eisenberg's The Number hit the New York Times best-seller list and became an instant classic with those wanting to learn more about retiring comfortably. Here he investigates the forces that compel Americans to shop till they drop. A timely exploration, Shoptimism takes a critical look at an often downplayed aspect of American economic... Read more

Have You Seen My Country Lately?

By: Jerry Doyle

Narrated by: Jerry Doyle

Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

"I’ve seen my country lately. Frankly, I don’t like what I see. Nevertheless, it’s not too late to restore the great and unique wonder that is the United States. We are the beacon of hope for the world, and we will remain so as long as we stand up for our principles."

In keeping with his no-holds-barred on-air style, conservative radio talk show... Read more

The Last American Man - Abridged

By: Elizabeth Gilbert

Narrated by: Patricia Kalember

Length: 6 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: Yes

An unforgettable look at a truly pioneering, but thoroughly modern, American hero.Finalist for the National Book Award 2002In this rousing examination of contemporary American male identity, acclaimed author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert explores the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway. In 1977, at the age of seventeen, Conway left his... Read more

The Faith Instinct

By: Nicholas Wade

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 12 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

For at least the last fifty thousand years, and probably much longer, people have practiced religion. Yet little attention has been given, either by believers or atheists, to the question of whether this universal human behavior might have an evolutionary basis. Did religion evolve, in other words, because it helped people in early societies... Read more

Return of the Primitive

By: Ayn Rand & Peter Schwartz

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 13 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

In the 1960s and early ’70s, the most prominent, vocal cultural movement was the New Left: a movement that condemned America and everything it stood for: individualism, material wealth, science, technology, capitalism.While the New Left achieved limited political success, it brought about vast cultural changes that remain with us to this day.... Read more

Tinsel

By: Hank Stuever

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

In Tinsel, Hank Stuever searches out the most outlandish cultural excesses as well as the secret beauties of modern America’s half-trillion-dollar Christmas holiday.When Stuever’s narrative begins, he’s standing in line with the people waiting to purchase flat-screen TVs at Best Buy on Black Friday. From there he follows Tammy Parnell, the... Read more

Cowboys Full - Abridged

By: James McManus

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 7 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: Yes

From James McManus, author of the bestselling Positively Fifth Street, comes the definitive story of the game that, more than any other, reflects who we are and how we operate.

Cowboys Full is the story of poker, from its roots in China, the Middle East, and Europe to its ascent as a global—but especially an American—phenomenon. It describes how... Read more

Why Women Have Sex

By: David M. Buss & Cindy M. Meston

Narrated by: Renée Raudman

Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Do women have sex simply to reproduce or display their affection? When Cindy M. Meston, a clinical psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, and evolutionary psychologist David M. Buss joined forces to investigate the underlying sexual motivations of women, what they found astonished them.



Through the voices of real women, Meston and... Read more

The Curse of the Good Girl

By: Rachel Simmons

Narrated by: Christina Moore

Length: 7 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Rachel Simmons is a New York Times best-selling author and the founding director of the Girls' Leadership Institute. The Curse of the Good Girl looks into the phenomenon of the glass ceiling placed on girls who attempt to live up to the standard of being "good." Simmons then shows how parents can help build girls' self-esteem and give them the... Read more

Eating Animals

By: Jonathan Safran Foer

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

Length: 10 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

Part memoir and part investigative report, Eating Animals is the groundbreaking moral examination of vegetarianism, farming, and the food we eat every day that inspired the documentary of the same name.

Bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his life oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. For years he... Read more

Poet Sherman Alexie Talks

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Author Sherman Alexie talks about his new book of poetry called Faces and his new short story collection, War Dances. Read more

The Department of Mad Scientists

By: Michael Belfiore

Narrated by: Michael Belfiore

Length: 10 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

The first-ever inside look at DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the Internet to GPS to driverless cars
America's greatest idea factory isn't Bell Labs, Silicon Valley, or MIT's Media Lab. It's the secretive,... Read more

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

By: Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Narrated by: Thomas Cathcart

Length: 4 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

From the authors of the bestselling Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . ., a new book on the meaning of death (and life, too). Read more

What the Dog Saw

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell

Length: 12 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

The bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia focuses on "minor geniuses" and idiosyncratic behavior to illuminate the ways all of us organize experience in this "delightful" (Bloomberg News) collection of writings from The New Yorker.

What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one... Read more

Eating the Dinosaur

By: Chuck Klosterman

Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman

Length: 6 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

After a bestselling and acclaimed diversion into fiction, Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, returns to the form in which he’s been spectacularly successful with a collection of essays about our consumption of pop culture and sports.

Q: What is this book about?

A: Well, that’s difficult to say. I haven’t read it yet—I’ve... Read more

SuperFreakonomics

By: Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner

Length: 7 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Freakonomics lived on the New York Times bestseller list for an astonishing two years. Now authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with more iconoclastic insights and observations in SuperFreakonomics—the long awaited follow-up to their New York Times Notable blockbuster. Based on revolutionary research and original studies... Read more