History audiobooks

The War to End All Wars

By: Edward M. Coffman

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 12 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Edward M. Coffman’s stunning work of military history, The War to End All Wars, offers a fresh and interesting perspective on the Great War, focusing solely on the United States as a major player in the struggle. Coffman pays special attention to the American soldier and his experiences throughout the conflict, making this a brilliant social... Read more

Postwar

By: Tony Judt

Narrated by: Ralph Cosham

Length: 43 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award - One of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year“Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal“Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar... Read more

American Rose

By: Karen Abbott

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, bestselling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age—told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered.

America in the... Read more

Life on the Mississippi

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 15 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

A brilliant amalgam of remembrance and reportage, by turns satiric, celebratory, nostalgic, and melancholy, Life on the Mississippi evokes the great river that Mark Twain knew as a boy and young man and the one he revisited as a mature and successful author. Written between the publication of his two greatest novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer... Read more

Roughing It

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 17 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally published over one hundred years ago, Roughing It is Mark Twain's second major work, after the success of his 1869 travel book, Innocents Abroad. This humorous travel book, based on Twain's stagecoach journey through the American West and his adventures in the Pacific islands, is full of colorful caricatures of outlandish locals and... Read more

The Federalist Papers

By: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay & James Madison

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 19 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally published anonymously, The Federalist Papers first appeared in 1787 as a series of letters to New York newspapers exhorting voters to ratify the proposed Constitution of the United States. Still hotly debated and open to often controversial interpretations, the arguments first presented here by three of America's greatest patriots and... Read more

The Wealth of Nations

By: Adam Smith

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 36 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

The foundation for all modern economic thought and political economy, The Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who introduces the world to the very idea of economics and capitalism in the modern sense of the words. Smith details his argument in five books:

Book I. Of the Causes of Improvement in the Productive... Read more

Don't Forget to Write

By: Pam Hobbs

Narrated by: Penelope Freeman

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

'Dad walked determinedly down the path, joined by two neighbours with five children between them. As we reached the corner of Kent Avenue, I looked back for one last wave. But Mum had buried her head in her pinny and it was a year before I saw her again.'

In June 1940, 10-year-old Pam Hobbs and her sister Iris took the long journey from their... Read more

Let Me Go

By: Helga Schneider

Narrated by: Anne Dover

Length: 4 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

When Helga Schneider was four, her mother, Traudi, abandoned her to pursue her career. In 1998, Helga received a letter asking her to visit Traudi, now 90-years old, before she dies. Mother and daughter have met only once after Traudi left, on a disastrous visit where Helga first learnt the terrible secret of her mother's past.

Traudi was as an... Read more

A History of Native America

By: Ned Blackhawk

Narrated by: Ned Blackhawk

Length: 8 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

In these illuminating lectures from Professor Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone), a history of Native America is provided from the time shortly before the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present. Focusing on the Columbian Exchange, Indians and the American Constitution, American Indian Removal, the Civil War, and the modern age,... Read more

Conflicts That Shaped Pharaonic Egypt

By: John Darnell

Narrated by: John Darnell

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Professor of Egyptology and director of the Yale Egyptological Institute John C. Darnell delves into the history of Ancient Egypt from the Predynastic Period through the end of the New Kingdom. In these lectures, Professor Darnell shows that, despite common perceptions, Pharaonic Egyptian civilization existed within a multicultural society... Read more

Command and Control

By: Mark Polelle

Narrated by: Mark Polelle

Length: 7 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Professor Mark R. Polelle examines great military leaders in history, beginning with George Washington and moving on to Napoleon, U.S. Grant, Pershing, MacArthur, and Schwarzkopf, among others. The course also addresses the politics of military history and leadership and illustrates the circumstances that enable the rise of great leaders.... Read more

Tales of the Alhambra

By: Washington Irving

Narrated by: Kevin Foley

Length: 13 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most entertaining travelogues ever written, Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra is a heady mix of fact, myth, and depictions of secret chambers, desperate battles, imprisoned princesses, palace ghosts, and fragrant gardens, described in a wistful and dreamlike eloquence. Irving, who also penned "Rip Van Winkle" and "Sleepy... Read more

Rights of Man

By: Thomas Paine

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 9 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Rights of Man presents an impassioned defense of the Enlightenment principles of freedom and equality that Thomas Paine believed would soon sweep the world. He boldly claimed, "From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be extinguished. Without consuming...it winds its progress from nation to nation." Though many more... Read more

The Civil War of 1812

By: Alan Taylor

Narrated by: Andrew Garman

Length: 20 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

In the early nineteenth century, Britons and Americans renewed their struggle over the legacy of the American Revolution, leading to a second confrontation that redefined North America. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Alan Taylor’s vivid narrative tells the riveting story of the soldiers, immigrants, settlers, and Indians who fought to... Read more

The Poison King

By: Adrienne Mayor

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 15 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Machiavelli praised his military genius. European royalty sought out his secret elixir against poison. His life inspired Mozart’s first opera, while for centuries poets and playwrights recited bloody, romantic tales of his victories, defeats, intrigues, concubines, and mysterious death. But until now no modern historian has recounted the full... Read more

Why the West Rules---for Now

By: Ian Morris

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Length: 24 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Sometime around 1750, English entrepreneurs unleashed the astounding energies of steam and coal, and the world was forever changed. The emergence of factories, railroads, and gunboats propelled the West's rise to power in the nineteenth century, and the development of computers and nuclear weapons in the twentieth century secured its global... Read more

Stealing the Mystic Lamb

By: Noah Charney

Narrated by: John Allen Nelson

Length: 10 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece is on any art historian's list of the ten most important paintings ever made. Often referred to by the subject of its central panel, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, it represents the fulcrum between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is also the most frequently stolen artwork of all time.



Since its... Read more

Empire of Ancient Greece

By: Jean Kinney Williams

Narrated by: B.J. Harrison

Length: 4 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Empire of Ancient Greece is an informative introduction to this cornerstone of Western civilization. The Greeks invented and developed everything from logic and democracy to rhetoric, drama, and philosophy. Empire of Ancient Greece chronicles the remarkable legacy of the Greeks, as well as the diversity of their societies - from the thriving... Read more

Life on the Mississippi

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 13 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

The Mississippi River, known as “America’s river,” and Mark Twain are practically synonymous in American culture. The popularity of Twain’s steamboat and steamboat pilot on the ever-changing Mississippi has endured for over a century.A brilliant amalgam of remembrance and reportage, by turns satiric, celebratory, nostalgic, and melancholy, Life... Read more

Bound Away

By: David H. Fischer & James C. Kelly

Narrated by: Bruce Miles

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Bound Away offers a new understanding of the westward movement. After the Turner thesis which celebrated the frontier as the source of American freedom and democracy, and the iconoclasm of the new western historians who dismissed the idea of the frontier as merely a mask for conquest and exploitation, David Hackett Fischer and James C. Kelly... Read more

Fidel y Raul, mis hermanos, la historia secreta

By: Juanita Castro

Narrated by: Tatiana Vecino

Length: 16 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Este libro relata la vida de una familia y unos acontecimientos que cambiaron para siempre la historia de America Latina. Como nadie mas podia hacerlo, Juanita nos adentra en el mundo familiar de los Castro, desde su infancia y juventud hasta las nuevas generaciones, pasando por la gesta contra Batista, la Revolucion y el posterior desencanto de... Read more

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

By: Mike Brown

Narrated by: Ryan Gesell

Length: 7 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

The solar system most of us grew up with included nine planets, with Mercury closest to the sun and Pluto at the outer edge. Then, in 2005, astronomer Mike Brown made the discovery of a lifetime: a tenth planet, Eris, slightly bigger than Pluto. But instead of its resulting in one more planet being added to our solar system, Brown’s find ignited... Read more

Beyond the Crash

By: Gordon Brown

Narrated by: Gordon Brown

Length: 6 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

The international financial crisis that has held our global economy in its grip for too long still seems to be in full stride. Former British Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown believes the crisis can be reversed, but that the world’s leaders must work together if we are to avoid a decade of lost jobs and low... Read more