History audiobooks

Art of War

By: Sun Tzu

Length: 1 hour 12 minutes

Abridged: No

It is not too often one can read or listen to a 2600 year-old book and know that it still has relevance and importance today. The Art of War has long been considered not only a military classic, but a classic book in general. Sun Tzu’s treatise on various aspects and components of wartime strategy is highly recommended for insight into the... Read more

Benjamin Franklin

By: Edmund S. Morgan

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

Length: 9 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the most remarkable figure in American history: the greatest statesman of his age, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the American republic. He was also a pioneering scientist, a best-selling author, the country's first postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant, a diplomat, a ladies' man, and a moralist -... Read more

God and Sex

By: Michael Coogan

Narrated by: Michael Coogan

Length: 5 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

An examination of sex and the Bible by one of the leading biblical scholars in the United States.

For several decades, Michael Coogan's introductory course on the Old Testament has been a perennial favorite among students at Harvard University. In God and Sex, Coogan examines one of the most controversial aspects of the Hebrew Scripture: What the... Read more

Closing with the Enemy

By: Michael D. Doubler

Narrated by: Mel Foster

Length: 16 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Closing with the Enemy picks up where D-Day leaves off. From Normandy through the "breakout" in France to the German army's last gasp in the Battle of the Bulge, Michael D. Doubler deals with the deadly business of war—closing with the enemy, fighting and winning battles, taking and holding territory. His study provides a provocative... Read more

Crown and Country

By: David Starkey

Narrated by: David Starkey, Tim Pigott-Smith & Jim Norton

Length: 15 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

An exploration of the British monarchy from the retreat of the Romans up until the modern day. The monarchy is one of Britain’s longest surviving institutions – as well as one of its most tumultuous and revered. In this masterful book, David Starkey looks at the monarchy as a whole, charting its history from Roman times, to... Read more

East of Chosin

By: Roy E. Appleman

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 13 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Roy Appleman's East of Chosin, first published in 1987, won acclaim from reviewers, readers, and veterans and their families. For the first time, there was one complete and accessible record of what happened to the army troops trapped east of the Chosin Reservoir during the first wintry blast of the Korean War. Based heavily on the author's... Read more

Democracy in America

By: Alexis de Tocqueville

Narrated by: John Pruden

Length: 34 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and civil servant, made a nine-month journey through eastern America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation's evolving politics. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for... Read more

Hell to Pay

By: D. M. Giangreco

Narrated by: Danny Campbell

Length: 16 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Hell to Pay is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the many complex issues that encompassed the strategic plans for the proposed American invasion of Japan. U.S. planning for the invasion and military occupation of Imperial Japan was begun in 1943, two years before the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In its final... Read more

A Renegade History of the United States

By: Thaddeus Russell

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 16 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Historian Howard Zinn demonstrated that there are compelling, alternative histories that are both scholarly and valuable. Now, Thaddeus Russell provides a challenging new way of reading history that will turn convention on its head and is sure to elicit as much controversy as it does support.

Russell shows that drunkards, laggards, prostitutes,... Read more

American Soldiers

By: Peter S. Kindsvatter

Narrated by: Joshua Swanson

Length: 18 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Some warriors are drawn to the thrill of combat and find it the defining moment of their lives. Others fall victim to fear, exhaustion, impaired reasoning, and despair. This was certainly true for twentieth-century American ground troops. Whether embracing or being demoralized by war, these men risked their lives for causes larger than... Read more

Bloody Crimes

By: James L. Swanson

Narrated by: Richard Thomas

Length: 12 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

In Bloody Crimes, James L. Swanson—the Edgar® Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt—brings to life two epic events of the Civil War era: the thrilling chase to apprehend Confederate president Jefferson Davis in the wake of the Lincoln assassination and the momentous  20 -day funeral that took Abraham Lincoln’s body home to... Read more

Listen to This

By: Alex Ross

Narrated by: Alex Ross

Length: 14 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

One of The Telegraph's Best Music Books 2011

Alex Ross's award-winning international bestseller, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, has become a contemporary classic, establishing Ross as one of our most popular and acclaimed cultural historians. Listen to This, which takes its title from a beloved 2004 essay in which Ross... Read more

Obama's Wars

By: Bob Woodward

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 15 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

2011 Audie Award Finalist for Nonfiction

In Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward provides the most intimate and sweeping portrait yet of the young president as commander in chief. Drawing on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews with most of the key players, including the president, Woodward tells the... Read more

Obama's Wars - Abridged

By: Bob Woodward

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 15 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: Yes

2011 Audie Award Finalist for Nonfiction

In Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward provides the most intimate and sweeping portrait yet of the young president as commander in chief. Drawing on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews with most of the key players, including the president, Woodward tells the... Read more

Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa und das heilige Reich - Abridged

By: Stefan Weinfurter

Narrated by: Stefan Weinfurter

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: Yes

KAISER FRIEDRICH BARBAROSSA UND DAS HEILIGE REICH Barbarossa (1152 - 1190) ist bis heute im kollektiven Gedächtnis unserer Geschichte gegenwärtig. In Jahrhunderten hat sich ein regelrechter Mythos um ihn gerankt. Was aber waren seine historischen Leistungen? Dass in seiner Zeit die Bezeichnung "Heiliges Reich" entstanden ist, gibt uns... Read more

Athen und Jerusalem: Antike Bildung in frühchristlich-lukanischen Erzählungen - Abridged

By: Peter Lampe

Narrated by: Peter Lampe

Length: 54 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Ende des 1. Jahrhunderts: In den frühchristlichen Hausgemeinden fanden sich auch Gebildetere und sozial Arriviertere ein. Denen erzählt Lukas in seinem Evangelium und der Apostelgeschichte die judeo-christliche Tradition neu, indem er zahlreiche Reminiszenzen an hellenistische Bildung einstreut, um besseren Kreisen seiner Zeit den christlichen... Read more

1939

By: Richard Overy

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 3 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

On August 24, 1939, the world held its collective breath as Hitler and Stalin signed the now infamous nonaggression pact, signaling an imminent invasion of Poland and daring Western Europe to respond.



In this dramatic account of the final days before the outbreak of World War II, award-winning historian Richard Overy vividly chronicles the... Read more

Cultures of War

By: John W. Dower

Narrated by: Kevin Foley

Length: 17 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Over recent decades, John W. Dower, one of America's preeminent historians, has addressed the roots and consequences of war from multiple perspectives. In War Without Mercy, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, he described and analyzed the brutality that attended World War II in the Pacific, as seen from both the Japanese and the... Read more

Rival Rails

By: Walter R. Borneman

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 15 hours

Abridged: No

The driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, which marked the completion of the country's first transcontinental railroad, was only the beginning of the race for railroad dominance. In the aftermath of this building feat, dozens of railroads, each with aggressive empire builders at their helms, raced one another for the ultimate prize... Read more

Yellow Dirt

By: Judy Pasternak

Narrated by: Laural Merlington

Length: 10 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people. The Navajo worked unprotected in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Long after these mines were abandoned, Navajos in all four corners of the Reservation (which borders Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) continued... Read more

Baseball - Abridged

By: Geoffrey C. Ward & Ken Burns

Narrated by: Ken Burns

Length: 6 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The companion to Ken Burns’s magnificent PBS television series—updated and expanded to coincide with the broadcast of a new, two-part Tenth Inning directed with Lynn Novick.
 
The authors of the acclaimed and bestselling The Civil War, Jazz, and The War turn to another uniquely American phenomenon: baseball. Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns’s moving... Read more

White House Diary

By: Jimmy Carter

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 22 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

The edited, annotated New York Times bestselling diary of President Jimmy Carter—filled with insights into his presidency, his relationships with friends and foes, and his lasting impact on issues that still preoccupy America and the world.

Each day during his presidency, Jimmy Carter made several entries in a private diary, recording his... Read more

To You We Shall Return

By: Joseph M. Marshall III

Narrated by: Joseph M. Marshall III

Length: 4 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

“Grandmother, you who listen and hear all, you from whom all good things come…It is your embrace we feel when we return to you.”This traditional Lakota prayer to Grandmother Earth opens Joseph Marshall III’s newest work, a meditation on our connection to the land and an exhortation to respect it. Using a combination of personal anecdote,... Read more

In Michelangelo's Shadow

By: Joseph Luzzi

Narrated by: Joseph Luzzi

Length: 6 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

The director of Italian studies at Bard College, Professor Joseph Luzzi, leads a comprehensive overview of Italian culture. Beginning in the fabled realm of Renaissance art and concluding with the sweeping transformations of present-day Italy, Professor Luzzi examines the Italian mystique and answers a number of intriguing questions: Is there a... Read more