Episode Details

The People of the Abyss by Jack London audiobook.

Genre: history

In 1902, celebrated American writer Jack London crosses the Atlantic and disappears into the slums of Londons East End, determined to see what polite society refuses to notice. With little money, plain clothes, and a borrowed accent, he moves among the homeless and the working poor, sleeping in casual wards, queuing for a scrap of bread, and searching for day labor that vanishes as quickly as it appears. What begins as an experiment in observation becomes a relentless tour of overcrowded lodging houses, hunger, sickness, and the bureaucratic machinery meant to manage misery rather than end it. London introduces the reader to men and women ground down by low wages and bad luck, and he records their routines with a reporters eye and a reformers anger. The book is both immersion journalism and moral indictment, asking how a modern empire can tolerate such deprivation in its own capital. Tense, immediate, and often unsettling, The People of the Abyss invites listeners to confront the human cost of poverty, and to question the stories societies tell themselves about merit, blame, and survival.

Chapters (Approximate)

(00:00:00) Chapter 01

(00:20:07) Chapter 02

(00:28:05) Chapter 03

(00:34:58) Chapter 04

(00:50:47) Chapter 05

(01:02:18) Chapter 06

(01:14:47) Chapter 07

(01:25:23) Chapter 08

(01:47:38) Chapter 09

(02:14:16) Chapter 10

(02:22:38) Chapter 11

(02:43:45) Chapter 12

(03:09:05) Chapter 13

(03:18:45) Chapter 14

(03:33:37) Chapter 15

(03:41:02) Chapter 16

(03:50:26) Chapter 17

(04:02:20) Chapter 18

(04:13:53) Chapter 19

(04:39:28) Chapter 20

(04:57:19) Chapter 21

(05:15:51) Chapter 22

(05:29:49) Chapter 23

(05:41:24) Chapter 24

(05:48:07) Chapter 25

(06:02:40) Chapter 26

(06:16:34) Chapter 27

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices