
Our Class
Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $14.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Prentice Onayemi
-
By:
-
Chris Hedges
About this listen
A powerfully moving book that “could make graspable why today’s prisons are contemporary slave plantations” (Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple), giving voice to the poorest among us and laying bare the cruelty of a penal system that too often defines their lives.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has taught courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history since 2013 in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at East Jersey State Prison and other New Jersey prisons. In his first class at East Jersey State Prison, where students read and discussed plays by Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, among others, his class set out to write a play of their own. In writing the play, Caged, which would run for a month in 2018 to sold-out audiences at the Passage Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey, and later be published, students gave words to the grief and suffering they and their families have endured, as well as to their hopes and dreams. The class’ artistic and personal discovery, as well as transformation, is chronicled in heartbreaking detail in Our Class.
This “magnificent” (Cornel West, author of Race Matters) book gives a human face and a voice to those our society too often demonizes and abandons. It exposes the terrible crucible and injustice of America’s penal system and the struggle by those trapped within its embrace to live lives of dignity, meaning, and purpose.
©2021 Summit Study, Inc. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
America: The Farewell Tour
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
-
-
Terrible narrator for the book
- By H U Rehman on 10-01-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
The Greatest Evil Is War
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In fifteen short chapters, Chris Hedges astonishes us with his clear and cogent argument against war, not on philosophical grounds or through moral arguments, but in an irrefutable stream of personal encounters with the victims of war, from veterans and parents to gravely wounded American serviceman who served in the Iraq War, to survivors of the Holocaust, to soldiers in the Falklands War, among others. Hedges reported from Sarajevo, and was in the Balkans to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union.
-
-
Another amazing title by an amazing journalist.
- By Zzzing on 12-28-22
By: Chris Hedges
-
Unspeakable
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Michael Quinlan
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges has been telling truth to (and against) power since his earliest days as a radical journalist. He is an intellectual bomb-thrower who continues to confront American empire in the most incisive, challenging ways. The kinds of insights he provides into the deeply troubled state of our democracy cannot be found anywhere else.
-
-
Complexity of corporate neoliberalism explained
- By Dwayne on 11-09-16
By: Chris Hedges
-
Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
-
-
Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
-
American Fascists
- The Christian Right and the War on America
- By: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other televangelists first spoke of the United States being a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedoms and our way of life.
-
-
Please, read or listen to this book.
- By D on 06-22-07
By: Chris Hedges, and others
-
Empire of Illusion
- The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We now live in two Americas. One - now the minority - functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other - the majority - is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority - which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected-presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade level. In this "other America", serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
-
-
A superficial tirade
- By Diueine Monteiro on 04-24-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
America: The Farewell Tour
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
-
-
Terrible narrator for the book
- By H U Rehman on 10-01-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
The Greatest Evil Is War
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In fifteen short chapters, Chris Hedges astonishes us with his clear and cogent argument against war, not on philosophical grounds or through moral arguments, but in an irrefutable stream of personal encounters with the victims of war, from veterans and parents to gravely wounded American serviceman who served in the Iraq War, to survivors of the Holocaust, to soldiers in the Falklands War, among others. Hedges reported from Sarajevo, and was in the Balkans to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union.
-
-
Another amazing title by an amazing journalist.
- By Zzzing on 12-28-22
By: Chris Hedges
-
Unspeakable
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Michael Quinlan
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges has been telling truth to (and against) power since his earliest days as a radical journalist. He is an intellectual bomb-thrower who continues to confront American empire in the most incisive, challenging ways. The kinds of insights he provides into the deeply troubled state of our democracy cannot be found anywhere else.
-
-
Complexity of corporate neoliberalism explained
- By Dwayne on 11-09-16
By: Chris Hedges
-
Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
-
-
Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
-
American Fascists
- The Christian Right and the War on America
- By: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other televangelists first spoke of the United States being a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedoms and our way of life.
-
-
Please, read or listen to this book.
- By D on 06-22-07
By: Chris Hedges, and others
-
Empire of Illusion
- The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We now live in two Americas. One - now the minority - functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other - the majority - is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority - which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected-presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade level. In this "other America", serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
-
-
A superficial tirade
- By Diueine Monteiro on 04-24-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
Wages of Rebellion
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: David deVries
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges - who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class - investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance.
-
-
Excellent, important book
- By Eric L, Montreal on 09-06-15
By: Chris Hedges
-
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on his own experience and on the literature of combat from Homer to Michael Herr, Hedges shows how war seduces not just those on the front lines but entire societies, corrupting politics, destroying culture, and perverting the most basic human desires. Mixing hard-nosed realism with profound moral and philosophical insight, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a work of terrible power and redemptive clarity whose truths have never been more necessary.
-
-
Powerful, perceptive, personal
- By Cx30 on 08-08-07
By: Chris Hedges
-
I Don't Believe in Atheists
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges
- Length: 4 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There are two radical and dangerous sides to the debate on faith and religion in America: Christian fundamentalists, who see religious faith as their exclusive prerogative, and New Atheists, who brand all religious belief as irrational. Too often, the religious majority - those committed to tolerance and compassion as well as their faith - are caught in the middle.
-
-
An author who knows little but thinks he knows all
- By GLENN on 04-16-09
By: Chris Hedges
-
Manufacturing Consent
- The Political Economy of the Mass Media
- By: Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this pathbreaking work, now with a new introduction, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.
-
-
Eye opening
- By EFM on 03-24-18
By: Edward S. Herman, and others
-
Democracy Incorporated
- Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
- By: Sheldon S. Wolin
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive - and where elites are eager to keep them that way.
-
-
Essential listening....
- By M. Levine on 02-25-11
By: Sheldon S. Wolin
-
Consequences of Capitalism
- Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance
- By: Noam Chomsky, Marv Waterstone
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How do politics shape our world, our lives, and our perceptions? How much of “common sense” is actually driven by the ruling class’ needs and interests? And how are we to challenge the capitalist structures that now threaten all life on the planet? Consequences of Capitalism exposes the deep, often unseen, connections between neoliberal “common sense” and structural power. In making these linkages, we see how the current hegemony keeps social justice movements divided and marginalized. And, most importantly, we see how we can fight to overcome these divisions.
-
-
Everyone must read this book.
- By Lydia M. Prado on 02-03-21
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
-
Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
-
-
Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
By: Naomi Klein
-
Bird Uncaged
- An Abolitionist's Freedom Song
- By: Marlon Peterson
- Narrated by: Marlon Peterson
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marlon Peterson grew up in 1980s Crown Heights, raised by Trinidadian immigrants. Amid the routine violence that shaped his neighborhood, Marlon became a high-achieving and devout child, the specter of the American dream opening up before him. But in the aftermath of immense trauma, he participated in a robbery that resulted in two murders. At 19, Peterson was charged and later convicted. He served 10 long years in prison. In Bird Uncaged, Peterson challenges the typical “redemption” narrative and our assumptions about justice.
-
-
This book is unputdownable!!
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 07-29-21
By: Marlon Peterson
-
The Sickness Is the System
- When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself
- By: Richard D. Wolff
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The coronavirus pandemic, the deepening economic crash, dangerously divisive political responses, and exploding social tensions have thrown an already declining American capitalist system into a tailspin. The consequences of these mounting and intertwined crises will shape our future. In this unique collection of over 50 essays, The Sickness Is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself, Richard D. Wolff argues clearly that "returning to normal" no longer responds adequately to the accumulated problems of US capitalism.
By: Richard D. Wolff
-
Tupac Shakur
- The Authorized Biography
- By: Staci Robinson
- Narrated by: Jamal Joseph, Staci Robinson
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tupac Shakur is one of the greatest and most controversial artists of all time. More than a quarter of a century after his tragic death in 1996 at the age of just twenty-five, he continues to be one of the most misunderstood, complicated, and prolific figures in modern history. Drawing on exclusive access to Tupac’s private notebooks, letters, and uncensored conversations with those who loved and knew him best, this estate-authorized biography paints the fullest and most intimate picture to date of the young man who became a legend for generations to come.
-
-
The Biography we’ve been waiting for
- By carl zayas on 02-24-24
By: Staci Robinson
-
The Management of Savagery
- How America's National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump
- By: Max Blumenthal
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Management of Savagery, Max Blumenthal excavates the real story behind America's dealings with the world and shows how the extremist forces that now threaten peace across the globe are the inevitable flowering of America's imperial designs. Washington's secret funding of the mujahedin provoked the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. With guns and money, the United States has ever since sustained the extremists, including Osama Bin Laden, who have become its enemies.
-
-
Middle management of savagery.
- By jeff on 09-03-19
By: Max Blumenthal
-
Solitary
- Unbroken by four decades in solitary confinement. My story of transformation and hope.
- By: Albert Woodfox
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Solitary is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement - in a six-foot by nine-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana - all for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement....
-
-
An eye opener!
- By Ellen Gilmartin on 05-25-19
By: Albert Woodfox
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
-
-
Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
-
Unspeakable
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Michael Quinlan
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges has been telling truth to (and against) power since his earliest days as a radical journalist. He is an intellectual bomb-thrower who continues to confront American empire in the most incisive, challenging ways. The kinds of insights he provides into the deeply troubled state of our democracy cannot be found anywhere else.
-
-
Complexity of corporate neoliberalism explained
- By Dwayne on 11-09-16
By: Chris Hedges
-
Wages of Rebellion
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: David deVries
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges - who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class - investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance.
-
-
Excellent, important book
- By Eric L, Montreal on 09-06-15
By: Chris Hedges
-
America: The Farewell Tour
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
-
-
Terrible narrator for the book
- By H U Rehman on 10-01-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
Empire of Illusion
- The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We now live in two Americas. One - now the minority - functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other - the majority - is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority - which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected-presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade level. In this "other America", serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
-
-
A superficial tirade
- By Diueine Monteiro on 04-24-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
American Fascists
- The Christian Right and the War on America
- By: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other televangelists first spoke of the United States being a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedoms and our way of life.
-
-
Please, read or listen to this book.
- By D on 06-22-07
By: Chris Hedges, and others
-
Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
-
-
Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
-
Unspeakable
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Michael Quinlan
- Length: 4 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chris Hedges has been telling truth to (and against) power since his earliest days as a radical journalist. He is an intellectual bomb-thrower who continues to confront American empire in the most incisive, challenging ways. The kinds of insights he provides into the deeply troubled state of our democracy cannot be found anywhere else.
-
-
Complexity of corporate neoliberalism explained
- By Dwayne on 11-09-16
By: Chris Hedges
-
Wages of Rebellion
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: David deVries
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges - who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class - investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance.
-
-
Excellent, important book
- By Eric L, Montreal on 09-06-15
By: Chris Hedges
-
America: The Farewell Tour
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
-
-
Terrible narrator for the book
- By H U Rehman on 10-01-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
Empire of Illusion
- The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We now live in two Americas. One - now the minority - functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other - the majority - is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority - which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected-presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade level. In this "other America", serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
-
-
A superficial tirade
- By Diueine Monteiro on 04-24-18
By: Chris Hedges
-
American Fascists
- The Christian Right and the War on America
- By: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Narrated by: Chris Hedges, Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other televangelists first spoke of the United States being a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedoms and our way of life.
-
-
Please, read or listen to this book.
- By D on 06-22-07
By: Chris Hedges, and others
What listeners say about Our Class
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cathy Barker
- 10-29-22
Astonishing
Quite simply, one of the most important books I have ever read. Should be required reading in every high school
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kevin Pesenecker
- 10-04-22
really good
loved it worth the read made me think Chris is a genius hard to say anything bad
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Two Leg Spider
- 12-13-21
Hedges’ Best Work Yet
Great Narrator, amazing story. A lot of the book is told from Hedges’ perspective, which was very interesting. IMHO, his best book yet.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-15-22
powerful
I actually got goosebumps at the end. I cannot recommend this book enough. two words
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gregorio Bueno
- 11-22-21
Riveting Story and Reality
I have come to know the great skills Hesges has and this is no exception. I think this book was more about his experience and his development as a human being while teaching in prison than the reality of prison in America. The story was good but it lacked structure at times. I found myself lost in the chapter and had to come back to figure out where I left off.
Narrator was excellent and I am hoping to hear from more him.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 11-10-21
Harrowing account of the prison system in the US
This is a dark subject but required reading in this country as it depicts the doom of prisoners
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gregory Stewart
- 04-25-22
Listening Worthy
Per usual Chris Hedges' book envelopes the listener. Challenges personal perspectives and gives insight to the state of the prison system in this country. This book is a good joiner to Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 10-09-22
Thank you Chris Hedges!
This work is deeply profound, insightful, and inspiring. This is a story about resurrection from the dead. I see the dry bones from Ezekiel coming alive.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Randy Baker
- 10-23-21
Amazing.
I’ve listened to dozens of Chris’s talks and most of his books. Life changing is all I can say.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- BeijInga
- 05-21-22
A very important book
Among the many, many challenges that plague America, the massive and deeply unfair imprisonment of such large parts of the population, in particular black men, may be one of the saddest, most racist.
In this book, I learned about the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It became big business to imprison people, especially black men of course, which is part of the reason so many of them are in jail today. A history of racism, violence and demonisation of them as violent criminals even though they're in jail more minor crimes or are innocent.
Second, I learned that only a small percentage of prisoners have been convicted in a trial. Most are there with plea deals. This includes many many innocent people who have been told they'll have no chance in a trial. In addition, many innocent people refuse plea deals, assuming they'll go free, because they're innocent, but then get harsher sentences than the plea deal. This scares others into taking deals.
Third, I learned prisoners (at least in the Jersey jail in this book) get 15 minutes to visit a dying relative or see a deseased relative in a funeral home, with no other family present. They are accompanied by a guard, of course, and have to pay the overtime of that guard, which can be hundreds of dollars. I learned a lot more than that of course.
Please read. Also, please look up other works by Chris Hedges, in books, online newspapers, on YouTube and his podcast.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!