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The Great Escape
- Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
- Narrated by: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
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Publisher's summary
The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations.
In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton - one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty - tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind.
Deaton describes vast innovations and wrenching setbacks: the successes of antibiotics, pest control, vaccinations, and clean water on one hand and disastrous famines and the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other. He examines the United States, a nation that has prospered but is today experiencing slower growth and increasing inequality. He also considers how economic growth in India and China has improved the lives of more than a billion people. Deaton argues that international aid has been ineffective and even harmful. He suggests alternative efforts - including reforming incentives to drug companies and lifting trade restrictions - that will allow the developing world to bring about its own great escape.
Demonstrating how changes in health and living standards have transformed our lives, The Great Escape is a powerful guide to addressing the well-being of all nations.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men for every hour, every day, and every night for more than a year. With only their bare hands and crude homemade tools, they sank shafts, built underground railroads, forged passports, drew maps, faked weapons, and tailored German clothes.
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Fascinating and exciting!!
- By 6catz on 10-28-13
By: Paul Brickhill
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Earth in Human Hands
- Shaping Our Planet's Future
- By: David Grinspoon
- Narrated by: David Grinspoon
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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NASA Astrobiologist and renowned scientist Dr. David Grinspoon brings listeners an optimistic message about humanity's future in the face of climate change. For the first time in Earth's history, our planet is experiencing a confluence of rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: Humans. Climate change is only the most visible of the modifications we've made - up until this point, inadvertently - to the planet. And our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures.
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Wonderful listen.
- By Britt on 05-25-17
By: David Grinspoon
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Factfulness
- Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
- By: Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling
- Narrated by: Richard Harries
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of carrying only opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends - what percentage of the world's population live in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school - we systematically get the answers wrong. In Factfulness, professor of international health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two longtime collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens.
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Great Read not for Listening
- By carlos gomez on 06-01-18
By: Hans Rosling, and others
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The Great Escape
- A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America
- By: Saket Soni
- Narrated by: Saket Soni
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In late 2006, Saket Soni, a 28-year-old, Indian-born community organizer received an anonymous phone call from an Indian migrant worker inside a Mississippi labor camp. He and 500 other men were living in squalor in Gulf Coast “man camps,” surrounded by barbed wire, watched by armed guards, crammed into cold trailers with putrid portable toilets, forced to eat moldy bread and frozen rice. Worse, lured by the promise of good work and green cards, the men had desperately scraped together up to $20,000 each to apply for this “opportunity”.
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Riveting!
- By Susan M. Lewis on 10-18-23
By: Saket Soni
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A Brief History of Japan
- Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun
- By: Jonathan Clements
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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With intelligence and wit, author Jonathan Clements blends documentary and storytelling styles to connect the past, present, and future of Japan, and in broad yet detailed strokes reveals a country of paradoxes: a modern nation steeped in ancient traditions; a democracy with an emperor as head of state; a famously safe society built on 108 volcanoes resting on the world's most active earthquake zone; a fast-paced urban and technologically advanced country whose land consists predominantly of mountains and forests.
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A Brief Review of the Book
- By Than on 12-07-19
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Why Nations Fail
- The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
- By: Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?
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Pros and Cons of "Why Nations Fail"
- By Joshua Kim on 05-01-12
By: Daron Acemoglu, and others
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Enlightenment Now
- The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 19 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West but worldwide.
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We live in the best of all times
- By Neuron on 02-25-18
By: Steven Pinker
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The Rational Optimist
- How Prosperity Evolves
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Life is getting better at an accelerating rate. Food availability, income, and life span are up; disease, child mortality, and violence are down all across the globe. Though the world is far from perfect, necessities and luxuries alike are getting cheaper; population growth is slowing; Africa is following Asia out of poverty; the Internet, the mobile phone, and container shipping are enriching people's lives as never before.
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Personal
- By Robert F. Jones on 09-15-17
By: Matt Ridley
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Debt - Updated and Expanded
- The First 5,000 Years
- By: David Graeber
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.
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Transformative to the point of being revolutionary
- By James C. Samans on 08-14-16
By: David Graeber
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The Greek Way
- By: Edith Hamilton
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on a thorough study of Greek life and civilization, of Greek literature, philosophy, and art, The Greek Way interprets their meaning and brings a realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. Miss Hamilton's book must take its place with the few interpretative volumes which are permanently rooted and profoundly alive in our literature.
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...Not as Good as The Echo of Greece
- By The Masked Reviewer on 11-04-16
By: Edith Hamilton
What listeners say about The Great Escape
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Chris
- 06-13-16
Most accessible despite the seriousness of the topic
Deaton uses the story line of the movie The Great Escape to recount how advances in knowledge on health and wealth create the opportunity for some to escape the world of poverty thereby creating or deepening inequality.
This evidence based, jargon free book is refreshingly impartial in its treatment of inequality. A must read (listen) for those who care about inequality and want to do something about it.
The book contains some tables and graphics that are well enough presented but require a little imagination to mentally recreate from the verbal description.
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2 people found this helpful
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- C and L
- 10-09-23
Math errors?
The professor that got a 1% raise on 50k got a $500 raise - not a $1000 raise. Still listening to the rest of the book but I was a bit taken aback by this obvious error.
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- Mario Silveira Baqueiro
- 10-23-20
Good read with a misleading subtitle
The subtitle of this book made me think the author would be more elucidative about the technical subjects of the original of inequality. Instead it just touched the topic by talking about things that are common knowledge. It's a good reading nonetheless. Narration is pretty good.
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- Connor T.
- 08-07-16
great, well researched and well thought out book!
Awesome book, but a little hard to follow in audio form without seeing referenced graphs.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-16-17
Great book!
The book is great. It is my opinion that everyone should listen to this book. The speed of the reader is too slow for me (but it might be optimum for some users). Ways to rectify that:
1. Thoughts and prayers approach: Wish the reader would have read a little faster and then accept your fate.
or
2. Politely ask amazon that they build an iphone audible app that will give the listeners an option to listen at speed of 1.10x or 1.15x. The 1.0x speed is too slow. 1.25x speed is too fast.
or
3. Buy an Android phone on which such options are available for the Audible app.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Patrick Daoust
- 08-07-16
very informative book
This is a very informative book. The arguments are well constructed, explanations are clear. It is explained in a bit of a dry and academic fashion however.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in international povery and inequality.
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- Lanceulots
- 07-16-19
enlightening
I feel like this book gave wonderful explanations of a Viewpoint that is not intuitive
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- Jaime Ronderos Dumit
- 02-19-17
what is going on with poverty?
The relationships between wealth and health as weel the influence of political structure and medicine
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- Joe
- 10-17-20
Must listen
This is a great book for researchers or people with some knowledge on economics and who like to know more about inequality in the world. Excellent book.
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- Leslie
- 02-26-24
listening changed my understanding
I have the book but as casual reading it is out of my comfort zone. I decided to give it a try on audio format and it's been easier to understand. I can "skip" the graphs and challenging sections by just listening passively. As someone with ADHD, I feel proud for FINISHING the book! I learned that foreign aid is not always helpful, I understand as explained by a Nobel laureate instead of the summary by stranger on social media.
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