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The Economy of Cities
- Narrated by: Rachel Fulginiti
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
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The Economy of Cities
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Publisher's summary
In this book, Jane Jacobs, building on the work of her debut, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, investigates the delicate way cities balance the interplay between the domestic production of goods and the ever-changing tide of imports. Using case studies of developing cities in the ancient, pre-agricultural world, and contemporary cities on the decline, like the financially irresponsible New York City of the mid-sixties, Jacobs identifies the main drivers of urban prosperity and growth, often via counterintuitive and revelatory lessons.
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A detailed explanation
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By: David S. Landes
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The Technology Trap
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Very good
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Here is the story of how, beginning well before the advent of machine production in the 1780s, these men captured ancient trades and skills in Asia, combined them with the expropriation of lands in the Americas and the enslavement of African workers to crucially recast the disparate realms of cotton that had existed for millennia. We see how industrial capitalism then reshaped these worlds of cotton into an empire, and how this empire transformed the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A New History of Global Capitalism
- By Lucian of Samosata on 03-17-15
By: Sven Beckert
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Work
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- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 270
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Work defines who we are. It determines our status and dictates how, where, and with whom we spend most of our time. It mediates our self-worth and molds our values. But are we hardwired to work as hard as we do? Did our Stone Age ancestors also live to work and work to live? And what might a world where work plays a far less important role look like? To answer these questions, James Suzman charts a grand history of "work" from the origins of life on Earth to our ever more automated present, challenging some of our deepest assumptions about who we are.
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2 out of 5 stars
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if you like Jared Diamond's work, you'll like this
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By: James Suzman
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The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 13
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 7
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, then this two-in-one books bundle is for you. Includes: Age of Enlightenment and The Industrial Revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great overview of the subject
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The Ages of Globalization
- Geography, Technology, and Institutions
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- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale. Sachs takes listeners through a series of seven distinct waves of technological and institutional change, starting with the original settling of the planet by early modern humans through long-distance migration and ending with reflections on today's globalization.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Narrator.
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Behemoth
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 210
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 208
We live in a factory-made world: modern life is built on three centuries of advances in factory production, efficiency, and technology. But giant factories have also fueled our fears about the future since their beginnings, when William Blake called them "dark Satanic mills". Many factories that operated over the last two centuries - such as Homestead, River Rouge, and Foxconn - were known for the labor exploitation and class warfare they engendered, not to mention the environmental devastation caused by factory production.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Get rid of the fake accents
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How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
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- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 528
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 448
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Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
A Superb must read for everyone
- By Joy on 04-16-19
By: Walter Rodney, and others
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The Conquest of Bread
- By: Pyotr Kropotkin
- Narrated by: Peter Kenny
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 398
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 328
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 322
In The Conquest of Bread, first published in 1892, Kropotkin set out his ideas on how his heightened idealism could work. It was all the more extraordinary because he was born into an aristocratic land-owning family - with some 1,200 male serfs - though from his student years his liberal views and his fixation on the need for social change saw him take a revolutionary path. This led rapidly to decades of exile. It is a passionate, even a fierce polemic for dramatic social change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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“All is for All”
- By Gabriel on 01-02-19
By: Pyotr Kropotkin
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The Mystery of Capital
- Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
- By: Hernando de Soto
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 141
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 120
"The hour of capitalism's greatest triumph," writes Hernando de Soto, "is, in the eyes of four-fifths of humanity, its hour of crisis." In The Mystery of Capital, the world-famous Peruvian economist takes up one of the most pressing questions the world faces today: Why do some countries succeed at capitalism while others fail?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Good global perspective on Capitalism
- By Nellie boi on 05-29-21
By: Hernando de Soto
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A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
- A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
- By: Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 85
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A remarkable exposé & synthesis of the Ponzi scheme that capitalism is and always has been.
- By Scott on 02-10-18
By: Raj Patel, and others
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China, Inc.
- By: Ted C. Fishman
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 315
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4 out of 5 stars 78
China today is visible everywhere: In the news, in the economic pressures battering America, in the workplace, and in every trip to the store. Provocative, timely, and essential, this dramatic account of China's growing dominance as an industrial super-power by journalist Ted C. Fishman explains how the profound shift in the global economic order has occurred, and why it already affects us all.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Just read the Amazon reviews befor buying it ...
- By Dan on 08-10-05
By: Ted C. Fishman
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The Conquest of Bread
- By: Peter Kropotkin
- Narrated by: Jim D Johnston
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 31
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 28
Originally written in French, The Conquest of Bread first appeared as a series of articles in the anarchist journal Le Révolté. It was first published in Paris with a preface by Élisée Reclus, who also suggested the title. Between 1892 and 1894, it was serialized in part in the London journal Freedom, of which Kropotkin was a co-founder. In the work, Kropotkin points out what he considers to be the defects of the economic systems of feudalism and capitalism and why he believes they thrive on and maintain poverty and scarcity.
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3 out of 5 stars
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If we were all perfect. That's a big if.
- By DesmoProfundis on 06-07-21
By: Peter Kropotkin
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Sustainability
- A History
- By: Jeremy L. Caradonna
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Caradonna's unique and concise history broadens our understanding of what "sustainability" means, revealing how it progressed from a relatively marginal concept to an ideal that shapes everything from individual lifestyles, government and corporate strategies, and even national and international policy. For anyone seeking understand the history of those striving to make the world a better place to live, here's a place to start.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Excellent
- By marc grub on 03-06-17
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Triumph of the City
- How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
- By: Edward Glaeser
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 423
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 350
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 345
America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly. Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Urbanophile Brain Candy
- By Clay Downing on 12-18-15
By: Edward Glaeser
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An Edible History of Humanity
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 559
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 456
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 456
Throughout history, food has acted as a catalyst of social change, political organization, geopolitical competition, industrial development, military conflict, and economic expansion. An Edible History of Humanity is a pithy, entertaining account of how a series of changes---caused, enabled, or influenced by food---has helped to shape and transform societies around the world.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Flawed, but worthwhile
- By Ary Shalizi on 12-28-17
By: Tom Standage
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What listeners say about The Economy of Cities
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- David P. Wingert
- 04-14-23
Superb…and prescient!
A classic that deserves more attention. Ms. Jacobs was not as deeply considered in her time as she should have been. Her economic analysis is spot on!
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