The author deftly defines four Americas: Free America (independent, "don't tread on me"); Real America (Christian nationalist, anti-expertise); Smart America (winners in the meritocracy); Just America (equality overall). He takes on all four while narrating with precision, passion, and empathy, letting the stories and quotations speak for themselves. He delivers this pithy audiobook at a good pace, and the force of his convictions comes through. His historic north stars, Alexis de Tocqueville and Walt Whitman, provide context for his ongoing project of understanding the fractures in our democracy. This provocative audiobook is at its best in its finely crafted profiles of editor/publisher Horace Greeley, labor advocate Frances Perkins, and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. Packer's evaluation of the state of contemporary journalism is compelling.
Pub Date: June 15, 2021
Duration: 6 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9781250816122
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Kozol’s shocking exposé of inequities in the funding of our public schools contrasts white suburban schools with those serving black and Hispanic populations. Interviews with students, teachers, and school administrators add eloquent testimony to Kozol’s disturbing presentation of facts. Narration by Jack Winston is clear and brisk, but the pace is unrelenting, with little pause for transition between scenes or chapters. Winston’s cool, detached voice contrasts with Kozol’s impasssioned and outraged message. The sheer repetition and magnitude of Kozol’s damning evidence is numbing; the narration gives no relief. Powerful medicine, most easily taken in small doses. Music signalling tape changes is jarringly inappropriate.
Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 8 hrs
Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
This highly informative history of prehistory tells a new story of how Homo sapiens settled down and started civilizing.
This is historian and popular podcaster Wyman’s second audiobook, after The Verge (2021), which spanned the years 1490-1530 during the European Renaissance. Here his focus is 10,000 years earlier, at the end of the Ice Age, and the spread of what could now be called humans. The story of how, all over the globe, they gave up the migratory life, settled, and started building is wonderfully, richly told in this outstanding history. Wyman doesn’t have the smoothest or most melodic of voices, but he easily wins over the ear and the imagination with his solid research and his adept storytelling.
This highly informative history of prehistory tells a new story of how Homo sapiens settled down and started civilizing.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
Duration: 14 hrs, 55 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063256514
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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