Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Yen" in All Categories

The 21st century has been an era of hardening borders-increased borderland patrols, surveillance, and militarization are widening the chasm between those who can vacation (or do business) where they please, and others whose movements are restricted by armed guards. But as journalist Todd Miller finds in Empire of Borders, the US border is also becoming increasingly fluid, expanding thousands of miles outside of US territory often to protect Washington's interests.

Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman's bold, perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty - a poet, a New Yorker, and an American - keeps company with Whitman and his Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet's life and work.

In this gripping narrative history, Seth G. Jones reveals the CIA's involvement in a landmark victory for democracy during the Cold War. In 1983, while Soviet- backed Polish prime minister Wojciech Jaruzelski worked to crush a budding opposition movement through martial law, the CIA launched a sophisticated intelligence campaign supporting dissident groups. With President Ronald Reagan's support, American funds bankrolled clandestine newspapers, broadcasting, and information warfare. This initiative, code-named QRHELPFUL, proved vital in establishing a free and democratic Poland.

On July 17, 2018, starting an unjust war became a prosecutable international crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Crime of Aggression is Noah Weisbord's riveting insider's account of the high-stakes legal fight to enact this historic legislation and hold politicians accountable for the wars they start. Weisbord, a key drafter of the law for the International Criminal Court, takes listeners behind the scenes of one of the most consequential legal dramas in modern international diplomacy.

In Maier's hands, the Declaration of Independence is brought close to us. She lets us hear the voice of the people as revealed in the other "declarations" of 1776: the local resolutions - most of which have gone unnoticed over the past two centuries - that explained, advocated, and justified Independence and undergirded Congress' work. Detective-like, she discloses the origins of key ideas and phrases in the Declaration and unravels the complex story of its drafting and of the group-editing job which angered Thomas Jefferson.

In his 1976 book, The Long Run Solution, Joe Henderson suggested that becoming truly accomplished at running (or at anything) doesn't typically require us to perform superhuman feats. In fact, success is frequently realized by those who simply do the things anyone can do that most of us never will. In What Anyone Can Do, with the help of Leo Bottary's Year of the Peer podcast guests, you'll discover that if you surround yourself with the right people, you'll do the things anyone can do far more often.

Colonel Tiso's account offers unique insights into the challenges of planning the Iraqi campaign and the intricacies and challenges of multinational service through the lens of his assignments as a war planner at U.S. Central Command, Senior Military Adviser of the Arab Peninsula Shield Force and the Polish-led Multinational Division (Central-South), and Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (C-3) of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team tasked to develop the New Iraqi Army.

An airplane lands at a desolate airport in a remote Colorado ski town. Onboard, Dr. Lyle Martin, a world-class infectious disease specialist, is brusquely awakened to shocking news: Everyone not on the plane appears to be dead. A lethal new kind of virus may have surfaced, threatening our survival, and now Martin - one of the most sought after virologists on the planet until his career took a precipitous slide - is at the center of the investigation.

Beware Euphoria uncovers the roots of America's moral obsession with drug regulation, offering a lively and fascinating history of the nation's racialized fear of intoxication. Challenging the idea that early anti-drug laws in the United States arose from racial animus, George Fisher instead shows in textured detail how United States drug laws were driven by a deep-seated cultural taboo against euphoria and a preoccupation with white moral integrity.

Religion-related violence is the fastest spreading type of violence worldwide. Attacks on religious minorities follow a clear pattern and are preceded with early warning signs. Until now, such violence had no name, let alone a set of policies designed to identify and prevent it. A unique attempt to create a new moral and legal category alongside other forms of persecution and mass murder, Religicide explores the roots of atrocities such as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, and other human rights catastrophes.

How the World Listens explores our everyday and professional interactions with sound. The book aims to uncover the human relationship with sound across the world and to reveal practical ways in which a better understanding of listening can help us in our daily lives.

The origin story of barbecue is a popular topic with a ravenous audience, but commonly held understandings of barbecue are often plagued by half-truths and misconceptions. From Barbycu to Barbecue offers a fresh new look at the story of southern barbecuing. Award winning barbecue cook Joseph R. Haynes sets out to correct one of the most common barbecue myths, the "Caribbean Origins Theory," which holds that the original southern barbecuing technique was imported from the Caribbean to what is today the American South.

The University of California, Berkeley—widely known as "Cal"—is admired worldwide as a bastion of innovation and a hub for progressive thought. Far less known are the university's roots in plunder, warfare, and the promotion of white supremacy. As Tony Platt shows in The Scandal of Cal, these original sins sit at the center of UC Berkeley's history.

America was built on white pine. From the 1600s through the Civil War and beyond, it was used to build the nation's ships and houses, barns, and bridges. Yet this popularity came at a cost: by the end of the nineteenth century, clear cutting had decimated much of America's white pine forests. In White Pine, ecologist and writer John Pastor takes listeners on walk through history, connecting the white pine forests that remain today to a legacy of destruction and renewal.

In a world dominated by things, we must work hard to account for one another's personhood. We need to cultivate relational structures that honor every human's dignity in vital interpersonal community. The theological and philosophical framework known as personalism can help guide us toward such a culture. Drawing from a wide range of thought leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope John Paul II, Paul Louis Metzger presents a personalist moral vision founded on the Christian ideals of faith, hope, and love.