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  • The Open Society and Its Enemies

  • New One-Volume Edition
  • Written by: Karl Popper
  • Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
  • Length: 23 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (19 ratings)

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The Open Society and Its Enemies

Written by: Karl Popper
Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
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Publisher's Summary

One of the most important books of the twentieth century, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is an uncompromising defense of liberal democracy and a powerful attack on the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result.

An immediate sensation when it was first published in two volumes in 1945, Popper's monumental achievement has attained legendary status on both the Left and Right and is credited with inspiring anticommunist dissidents during the Cold War. Arguing that the spirit of free, critical inquiry that governs scientific investigation should also apply to politics, Popper traces the roots of an opposite, authoritarian tendency to a tradition represented by Plato, Marx, and Hegel.

©1994 The University of Klagenfurt/Karl Popper Library (P)2019 Tantor

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Challenging and rewarding

Challenging and rewarding like the writings of David Deutsch. And, as with Deutsch, I will re-listen again and again.

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A Propos

Started before the invasion of Ukraine. Maybe that made the theme more salient for me. Thought-provoking, worth the effort. Narration was excellent. If you're not familiar with Plato or Hegel might be a bit of a struggle.

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Simply outstanding

From my perspective, this book is a vivid evidence to the might of human's intellectualism (or at least Popper's). Not necessariy an easy listen or read, since one should follow along tightly to grasp the whole volume of the logical analysis, but definitely a solid, straightforward, and iconoclastic yet soberly self-critical account. Addenda are a also a must for those appreciating K.P. for his contribution to epistemology

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