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Losing Ground
- American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
- Narrated by: Robert Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.
Why? Charles Murray’s tough-minded answers to this question will please neither radical liberals nor radical conservatives. He offers no easy solutions, but by forcing us to face fundamental intellectual and moral problems about whom we want to help and how, Losing Ground marks an important first step in rethinking social policy.
Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He first came to national attention in 1984 with Losing Ground. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives with his wife in Burkittsville, Maryland.
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Kids These Days
- Human Capital and the Making of Millennials
- By: Malcolm Harris
- Narrated by: Will Collyer
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows "what's wrong with millennials". Glenn Beck says we've been ruined by "participation trophies". Simon Sinek says we have low self-esteem. An Australian millionaire says millennials could all afford homes if we'd just give up avocado toast. Thanks, millionaire. This millennial is here to prove them all wrong.
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A devastating dream of revolution
- By Kevin Tierney Jr on 11-23-17
By: Malcolm Harris
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Mindware
- Tools for Smart Thinking
- By: Richard E. Nisbett
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Many scientific and philosophical ideas are so powerful that they can be applied to our lives at home, work, and school to help us think smarter and more effectively about our behavior and the world around us. Surprisingly, many of these ideas remain unknown to most of us. In Mindware, the world-renowned psychologist Richard Nisbett presents these ideas in clear and accessible detail, offering a tool kit for better thinking and wiser decisions.
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Sound scientific advice on how to live your life
- By Neuron on 08-26-15
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The Complacent Class
- The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
- By: Tyler Cowen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs. The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist, and best-selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition - we're working harder than ever to avoid change.
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MUST READ
- By RJW on 05-06-17
By: Tyler Cowen
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Blind Spots
- Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It
- By: Max H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel
- Narrated by: Kate McQueen
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to.
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Great book
- By Ryan in SF on 11-15-18
By: Max H. Bazerman, and others
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Dear White America
- Letter to a New Minority
- By: Tim Wise
- Narrated by: Tim Wise
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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White Americans have long been comfortable in the assumption that they are the cultural norm. Now that notion is being challenged, as white people wrestle with what it means to be part of a fast-changing, truly multicultural nation. Facing chronic economic insecurity, a popular culture that reflects the nation's diverse cultural reality, and a future in which they will no longer constitute the majority of the population, and with a black president in the White House, whites are growing anxious.
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A Primer on Racism for White People
- By Susie on 07-11-16
By: Tim Wise
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The Great Escape
- Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
- By: Angus Deaton
- Narrated by: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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not worth listening
- By Kyung on 04-26-20
By: Angus Deaton
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Equal Is Unfair
- America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality
- By: Don Watkins, Yaron Brook
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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We've all heard that the American Dream is vanishing, and that the cause is rising income inequality. The rich are getting richer by rigging the system in their favor, leaving the rest of us to struggle just to keep our heads above water. To save the American Dream, we're told that we need to fight inequality through tax hikes, wealth redistribution schemes, and a far higher minimum wage.
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While I agree with most of this book,...
- By Wayne on 12-30-16
By: Don Watkins, and others
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This Noble Land
- My Vision For America
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Arthur Addison
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This Noble Land is Michener's most personal statement about America, an examination of the issues that threaten to fragment and undermine the nation - racial conflict, the widening gulf between rich and poor, the decline of education, the inadequacies of our health care system - as well as a thought-provoking prescription for sustaining our "outstanding success". First published shortly before Michener's death, This Noble Land stands as a wake-up call for a troubled era, infused with the wisdom and passion of a lifetime.
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A startling realization
- By Amazon Customer on 08-15-15
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Thank you for writing this
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By the People
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American freedom is being gutted. Whether we are trying to run a business, practice a vocation, raise our families, cooperate with our neighbors, or follow our religious beliefs, we run afoul of the government—not because we are doing anything wrong but because the government has decided it knows better. When we object, that government can and does tell us, “Try to fight this, and we’ll ruin you.”
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Finally, some possible solutions
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Best-selling social historian Charles Murray has written a delightfully fussy - and entertaining - book on the hidden rules of the road in the workplace - and in life - from the standpoint of an admonishing, but encouraging, workplace grouch and taskmaster. Why the curmudgeon? The fact is that most older, more senior people in the workplace are closet curmudgeons. In today's politically correct world, they may hide their displeasure over your misuse of grammar or your overly familiar use of their first name without an express invitation. But don't be fooled by their pleasant demeanor....
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Good Book: From one curmudgeon to another
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Summary of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray: Review
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The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, originally released in 1996, was a controversial piece of literature in which the authors opine that low intelligence is associated with criminality, unemployment, and other poor life choices and outcomes. Listen to this summary, and learn how IQ is considered the common denominator that relegates some people to the bottom of the social class while others are exemplified as being superior for their exceptional intellect, rising to the top of the social ladder.
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This book is totally objective with good science up to the date it was published.
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Thank you for writing this
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By the People
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American freedom is being gutted. Whether we are trying to run a business, practice a vocation, raise our families, cooperate with our neighbors, or follow our religious beliefs, we run afoul of the government—not because we are doing anything wrong but because the government has decided it knows better. When we object, that government can and does tell us, “Try to fight this, and we’ll ruin you.”
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Finally, some possible solutions
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Best-selling social historian Charles Murray has written a delightfully fussy - and entertaining - book on the hidden rules of the road in the workplace - and in life - from the standpoint of an admonishing, but encouraging, workplace grouch and taskmaster. Why the curmudgeon? The fact is that most older, more senior people in the workplace are closet curmudgeons. In today's politically correct world, they may hide their displeasure over your misuse of grammar or your overly familiar use of their first name without an express invitation. But don't be fooled by their pleasant demeanor....
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Best book ever for space, ops, and engineering fans
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amazing detail
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The winner writes history
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Mostly good
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Mortifying!
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Anarchy, State, and Utopia
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First published in response to John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia has since become one of the defining texts in classic libertarian thought. Challenging and ultimately rejecting liberal, socialist, and conservative agendas, Nozick boldly asserts that the rights of individuals are violated as a state's responsibilities increase—and the only way to avoid these violations rests in the creation of a minimalist state limited to protection against force, fraud, theft, and the enforcement of contracts.
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joyfully ignorant or joyfully heinous
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All It Takes Is Guts
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This is a collection of Walter Williams’ essays, drawn from his syndicated column. Williams writes with brilliant clarity––and he doesn’t mince words. He destroys a number of prevailing myths, such as economic and social disparities being the result of racism and economic sanctions punishing the South African blacks more that the whites. Williams explains why the nature of congressmen is not to act in the national interest and shows how government regulations hinder rather than help the disadvantaged.
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We lost this national treasure on Dec. 2, 2020
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Using an international framework, Sowell analyzes how much a racial group’s economic fate is determined by the surrounding society and how much by internal patterns that follow that same group around the world.
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Very interesting material, with not very good audi
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Money Mischief
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What kind of mischief can result from misunderstanding the monetary system? The work of 2 obscure Scottish chemists destroyed the presidential prospects of William Jennings Bryan, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to appease a few senators from the American West who helped communism triumph in China, are just 2 such mishaps cited in this important work by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman. This accessible work also provides an in-depth discussion on the creation of value.
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This book is not unabridged.
- By James on 01-18-09
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Please Stop Helping Us
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Why is it that so many efforts by liberals to lift the Black underclass not only fail, but often harm the intended beneficiaries? In Please Stop Helping Us, Jason L. Riley examines how well-intentioned welfare programs are in fact holding Black Americans back. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they price a disproportionate number of Blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education is intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer Black college graduates than would otherwise exist.
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Required reading
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Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays
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Sociologist-economist Sowell, a noted conservative, offers opinions on social and foreign policy, law, education, and race, criticizing the trend of American politics since Reagan and reserving his sharpest criticism for special-interest groups.
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A Great Mind
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Radicals
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Radical liberals want to make America a better place, but their utopian social engineering leads, ironically, to greater human suffering. From Karl Marx to Barack Obama, Horowitz shows how the idealistic impulse to make the world a better place gives birth to the twin cultural pathologies of cynicism and nihilism and is the chief source of human suffering. A former liberal himself, Horowitz recounts his own brushes with radicalism and offers unparalleled insight into the disjointed ideology of liberal elites through case studies of well-known radial leftists, including Christopher Hitchens, feminist Bettina Aptheker, leftist academic Cornel West, and others.
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Radically Insightful!
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What listeners say about Losing Ground
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael
- 04-05-13
A great book ruined by a terrible recording
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
Nobody - this is completely unlistenable
What did you like best about this story?
Charles Murray's incisive unpacking of statistics is able to illuminate broad social trends in ways that laymen can understand.
What didn’t you like about Robert Morris’s performance?
Recording levels are much too high! The audio regularly peaks, going from inaudible to painful in the same sentence. Worse, there is someone else in the room talking!
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
No, this was unprofessional and embarrassing.
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13 people found this helpful
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- tdg
- 06-29-12
Interesting material poorly read
If you don't like statistics this book isn't for you. That said, "Losing Ground" is a very compelling sociology book and a great argument against big government programs that make liberals feel good but do little to improve the plight of the poor and under-privileged. However, as an audiobook it falls short. Mostly because it lacks the graphs making it difficult to digest the data being analysed, but also due to distractions in the performance. Robert Morris reads this books as though he is completely bored with it. At times he shows inflection but overall it is a flat read.
Mr. Morris' read, however, is quite tolerable compared to his sound engineer. Throughout the book we can hear the engineer answering the phone or conversing with visitors and perhaps giving Morris cues. At some points I could understand some of what he was saying, especially when he answers the phone (no ring just, "hello"). He is never silent for more than a few minutes, I think I timed a 30 minute stretch where his voice was not heard. This I found to be an intolerable situation and the reason I could not enjoy the book.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Jake
- 06-01-17
TERRIBLE AUDIO QUALITY!
Where does Losing Ground rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Great book, decent reader, clusterfuck of a recording.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Losing Ground?
Trying to be a human compressor in order to interpret the spoken word.
Would you be willing to try another one of Robert Morris’s performances?
yes, so long as he used a different recording engineer and/or studio
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
Enlightening book.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Gregory Munck
- 05-18-17
Very poor voice acting
Either the reader is a problem or the audio quality is very bad. Someone needs to retool or just re-record this book.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Bill
- 01-23-13
A real eye-popper
What did you love best about Losing Ground?
What a great book. I enjoyed the pace of the narration, not too fast or slow, understandable. About the book: Having lived through the events depicted, I found myself feeling as though I was tied down, watching a small child crawl slowly to the edge of a cliff, helpless to save him. I'm now listening to his book "Coming Apart".
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5 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 08-11-17
Yes
This book is so important. I'm going to be subjective and say it's probably one of the most important that I've finished in my quest for a more complete understanding of why our country is the way it is today in regards to our societal decay amongst minorities. It's all meat, all potatoes. I had no intention whatsoever of learning about who LBJ was, what he was like, or the way he treated people. I honestly don't care. I wanted to know specifically what social policies he championed and their affects. This book delivered.
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4 people found this helpful
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- DS
- 11-19-12
classic Murray
Always an interesting and thought provoking read, Murray turns economic and social policy on it's head and we all know it will never happen because the real politicians don't have the courage.
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4 people found this helpful
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- E Clifford
- 06-05-21
Very interesting book and relevant in 2021
Thoroughly researched, this is a great explanation of what Murray sees as the reasons for the outcomes of low income Americans. Worth a read.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Мэри Bolinger
- 06-20-21
subpar digitization
Several skips and a few occasion's of lines repeating where they would have switched from one tape to another.
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2 people found this helpful
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- musical engineer
- 03-24-18
explains both Ron Reagan and Bill Clinton
Loved it. Lousy recording quality. Extraordinary content. Would make a good addition to a standard high school Economics curriculum.
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