History audiobooks

Nothing Daunted

By: Dorothy Wickenden

Narrated by: Margaret Nichols & Dorothy Wickenden

Length: 8 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

From the author of The Agitators, the acclaimed and captivating true story of two restless society girls who left their affluent lives to “rough it” as teachers in the wilds of Colorado in 1916.

In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, bored by society luncheons, charity work, and the effete men who courted them, left their... Read more

Cod

By: Mark Kurlansky

Narrated by: Richard Davidson

Length: 7 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Author Mark Kurlansky pleasantly surprised the world with this engaging best-seller that garnered rave reviews from critics and casual readers alike. His subject for this whimsical biography is the codfish, a species remarkable for its influence on humanity. Cod, Kurlansky argues, has driven economic, political, cultural and military thinking... Read more

Shock Value

By: Jason Zinoman

Narrated by: Pete Larkin

Length: 8 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Much has been written about the storied New Hollywood of the 1970s, but while Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Copola were making their first classic movies, a parallel universe of directors gave birth to the modern horror film—aggressive, raw, and utterly original. Based on unprecedented access to the genre's major players,... Read more

The President and the Assassin

By: Scott Miller

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 13 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1901, as America tallied its gains from a period of unprecedented imperial expansion, an assassin's bullet shattered the nation's confidence. The shocking murder of President William McKinley threw into stark relief the emerging new world order of what would come to be known as the American Century. The President and the Assassin is the story... Read more

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

By: David Hume

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 6 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

Published in 1748, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume's distillation of his mature philosophy. Addressing themes including the limits of human understanding, the compatibility of free will with determinism, weaknesses in the foundations of religion, and the appeal of skepticism, An Enquiry... Read more

A World on Fire

By: Amanda Foreman

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 32 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

10 BEST BOOKS • THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • 2011
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post • The New Yorker • Chicago Tribune • The Economist • Nancy Pearl, NPR • Bloomberg.com • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly

Acclaimed historian Amanda Foreman follows the phenomenal success of her New... Read more

The Patriot’s History Reader

By: Larry Schweikart, Dave Dougherty & Michael Allen

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 16 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

An original collection of the most influential documents in American history from the bestselling authors of A Patriot’s History of the United StatesSince 2005, A Patriot’s History of the United States has become a modern classic for its defense of America as a unique country founded on the principles of justice, equality, and freedom for all.... Read more

How the Hippies Saved Physics

By: David Kaiser

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 12 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The surprising story of eccentric young scientists who stood up to convention—and changed the face of modern physicsIn the 1970s, amid severe cutbacks in physics funding, a small group of underemployed physicists in Berkeley decided to throw off the constraints of academia and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the... Read more

The Union War

By: Gary W. Gallagher

Narrated by: Mel Foster

Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Even one hundred and fifty years later, we are haunted by the Civil War—by its division, its bloodshed, and perhaps, above all, by its origins. Today, many believe that the war was fought over slavery. This answer satisfies our contemporary sense of justice, but as Gary W. Gallagher shows in this brilliant revisionist history, it is an... Read more

An Empire of Ice

By: Edward J. Larson

Narrated by: John Allen Nelson

Length: 10 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others... Read more

Small Unit Leadership

By: Dandridge M. Malone

Narrated by: Alan Bomar Jones

Length: 7 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

What does it take to get the job done? How do you get the men in your unit to do what you say? To follow you into battle and shoot to kill? How do you build the confidence that spurs men on to do their jobs, to stand by their leaders and each other? Find the answers to these questions and more, in this classic for those who have to get the job... Read more

Independence

By: John Ferling

Narrated by: Robert Fass

Length: 16 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

No event in American history was more pivotal—or more furiously contested—than Congress's decision to declare independence in July 1776. Even months after American blood had been shed at Lexington and Concord, many colonists remained loyal to Britain. John Adams, a leader of the revolutionary effort, said bringing the fractious colonies together... Read more

Behind the Palace Doors

By: Michael Farquhar

Narrated by: James Langton

Length: 9 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Beleaguered by scandal, betrayed by faithless spouses, bedeviled by ambitious children, the kings and queens of Great Britain have been many things, but they have never been dull. Some sacrificed everything for love, while others met a cruel fate at the edge of an axman's blade.



Behind the Palace Doors features stories covering every monarch,... Read more

Brought to Justice

By: Editors of Life Magazine

Narrated by: Peter Ganim

Length: 1 hour 29 minutes

Abridged: No

May 2, 2011 marked the completion of a mission that had begun even before the devastating day of September 11, 2001. Brought to Justice is a riveting, dramatic, informed and sometimes surprising illustrated portrait of Osama bin Laden and America's efforts to find him and track him down.

At pivotal moments in world events, readers have long... Read more

Triangle

By: David Von Drehle

Narrated by: Barrett Whitener

Length: 10 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

“Outstanding… social history at its best.” –The New York Times Book Review

“An amazing, long-forgotten tale. A riveting history written with flair and precision.”—Bob Woodward

In one of the most honored books of the year, David Von Drehle transports us to a beautiful spring day in March 1911 when 146 workers—most of them young immigrant women—lost... Read more

At the Devil's Table

By: William C. Rempel

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 11 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

In this riveting and relentless nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter William C. Rempel tells the harrowing story of former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man facing an extraordinary dilemma—a man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful and treacherous Cali crime syndicate.

Colombia in the 1990s is a... Read more

Don't Know Much About History, 30th Anniversary Edition

By: Kenneth C. Davis

Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kenneth C. Davis, Zach McLarty & ...

Length: 29 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times bestseller 

“Reading Davis is like returning to the classroom of the best teacher you ever had!” —People magazine

From the arrival of Columbus through the historic election of Barack Obama and beyond, Kenneth C. Davis carries readers on a rollicking ride through more than five hundred years of American history. In this revised,... Read more

Don't Know Much About History, Anniversary Edition - Abridged

By: Kenneth C. Davis

Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kenneth C. Davis, Zach McLarty & ...

Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: Yes

“Fun, engrossing, and significant. . . . History in Davis’s hands is loud, coarse, painful, funny, irreverent—and memorable.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Here, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its debut as a New York Times bestseller, is the revised, updated, and expanded edition of the classic anti-textbook that changed the way we look at... Read more

Hannibal

By: Theodore Ayrault Dodge

Narrated by: Bill Wallace

Length: 20 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Hannibal is often considered the finest general the world has ever known. Setting out from Carthaginian-dominated Spain with a small army of select troops, he fought his way over the Pyrenees and crossed the Alps with elephants and a full baggage train. Descending into Italy, he destroyed the main Roman army at Lake Trasimeno and came close to... Read more

Berlin Diary

By: William L. Shirer

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 16 hours

Abridged: No

By the acclaimed journalist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, this day-by-day, eyewitness account of the momentous events leading up to World War II in Europe is the private, personal, utterly revealing journal of a great foreign correspondent.CBS radio broadcaster William L. Shirer was virtually unknown in 1940... Read more

The Age of Wonder

By: Sir Richard Holmes

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 21 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the romantic age of science.When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through... Read more

The Village

By: Bing West

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 9 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Few American battles have been so extended, savage, and personal. A handful of Americans volunteered to live among six thousand Vietnamese, training farmers to defend their village. Such "Combined Action Platoons" (CAPs) are not a lost footnote about how the war could have been fought; only the villagers remain to bear witness. This is the story... Read more

Sniper

By: Gina Cavallaro & Matt Larsen

Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin & Johnny Heller

Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

From Afghanistan's Hindu Kush peaks and sunbaked Helmand Valley to Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi in Iraq, American snipers have braved heart-pounding situations to hit their human targets dead-on. Few military feats stir the imagination like the image of a pair of riflemen waiting quietly in a building, a bomb crater, or a mountain pass for a... Read more

Travels with Charley in Search of America

By: John Steinbeck

Narrated by: Gary Sinise

Length: 7 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers
 
To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.

With Charley,... Read more