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Post-Liberalism
- Recovering a Shared World
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
Liberal democracy is the dominant political ideology in the West today. Taken at face value it suggests an equivalency between its two central components-liberalism and democracy - but as Fred Dallmayr argues here, the two operate in very different registers. The two frequently conflict, endangering our public life. This is evident in the rise of self-centered neo-liberalism as well as autocratic movements in our world today.
More specifically, the conflict within liberal democracy is between the pursuit of individual or corporate interest, on the one hand, and a "people" increasingly fractured by economic and cultural clashes, on the other. Dallmayr asks whether there is still room for genuine privacy and authentic democracy when all public goods, from schools to parks, police, and armies, have been made the target of privatization. In this book, Dallmayr sets out to rescue democracy as a shared public and post-liberal regime. Nonetheless, "post-liberalism" does not involve the denial of human freedom nor does it suggest the endorsement of illiberal collectivism or nationalism. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary political, religious, and secular thought, Dallmayr charts a possible path to a liberal socialism that is devoid of egalitarian imperatives and a private sphere free from acquisitiveness.
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Performance
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Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades - and he fought with the Polish anti-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature.
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Important book on political philosophy
- By Wayne on 08-02-19
By: Ryszard Legutko, and others
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Cosmos and Psyche
- Intimations of a New World View
- By: Richard Tarnas
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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From a philosopher whose magisterial history of Western thought was praised by Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith comes a brilliant new book that traces the connection between cosmic cycles and archetypal patterns of human experience. Drawing on years of research and on thinkers from Plato to Jung, Richard Tarnas explores the planetary correlations of epochal events like the French Revolution, the two world wars, and September 11. Cosmos and Psyche is a work of immense sophistication, deep learning, and lasting importance.
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Compelling content; monochromatic narration
- By Melissa Chase on 04-14-21
By: Richard Tarnas
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Irrationality
- A History of the Dark Side of Reason
- By: Justin E. H. Smith
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Discovering that reason is the defining feature of our species, we named ourselves the “rational animal”. But is this flattering story itself rational? In this sweeping account of irrationality from antiquity to today - from the fifth-century BC murder of Hippasus for revealing the existence of irrational numbers to the rise of Twitter mobs and the election of Donald Trump - Justin Smith says the evidence suggests the opposite.
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A good brain workout
- By ThomasC on 04-09-19
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The Twilight of the American Enlightenment
- The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief
- By: George M. Marsden
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course.
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Such a relevant book to our current world
- By Adam Shields on 09-14-16
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Fascism: The Career of a Concept
- By: Paul Gottfried
- Narrated by: Kevin Moriarty
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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What does it mean to label someone a fascist? Today, it is equated with denouncing him or her as a Nazi. But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term's meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces the word's polemical function within the context of present ideological struggles.
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Refreshing scholarly treatment of a widely misused concept
- By Minister of the Posterior on 01-15-24
By: Paul Gottfried
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The Mind That Is Catholic
- Philosophical and Political Essays
- By: James V. Schall
- Narrated by: Tim Lundeen
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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James V. Schall is a treasure of the Catholic intellectual tradition. A prolific author and essayist, Schall readily connects with his readers on sundry topics from war to friendship, philosophy, politics, and to ordinary everyday living. In his newest work, The Mind That Is Catholic, he presents a retrospective collection of his academic and literary essays written in the past 50 years.
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Profound Insights
- By Considerable on 10-17-14
By: James V. Schall
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A Brief History of Fascist Lies
- By: Federico Finchelstein
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In this short companion to his book From Fascism to Populism in History, world-renowned historian Federico Finchelstein explains why fascists regarded simple and often hateful lies as truth and why so many of their followers believed the falsehoods. Throughout the history of the 20th century, many supporters of fascist ideologies regarded political lies as truth incarnated in their leader. From Hitler to Mussolini, fascist leaders capitalized on lies as the base of their power and popular sovereignty.
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On Augustine
- By: Rowan Williams
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge), Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new audiobook, he turns his attention to St Augustine. St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory ( The City of God) and, through his Confessions, to the understanding of human psychology.
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thoughtful take.
- By Michael McGuire on 04-17-22
By: Rowan Williams
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A Book Forged in Hell
- Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age
- By: Steven Nadler
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired.
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Well researched, comprehensive intro to Spinoza’s work.
- By Tom on 01-27-22
By: Steven Nadler
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The Irony of Modern Catholic History
- How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform
- By: George Weigel
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout much of the 19th century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago.
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Well written and considered book, bad narrator
- By Brad on 12-13-19
By: George Weigel