History audiobooks

Go Down Together

By: Jeff Guinn

Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan

Length: 16 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

Previous books and films have emphasized the supposed glamour of America's most notorious criminal couple, thus contributing to ongoing mythology. The real story is completely different—and far more fascinating.With newly discovered material, bestselling author Jeff Guinn tells the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love... Read more

The Great Escape

By: Paul Brickhill

Narrated by: Robert Whitfield

Length: 7 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred American and British air force officers, every single one of them, every minute, every hour, every day, and every night for more than a year. With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade... Read more

The Last Best Hope

By: Joe Scarborough

Narrated by: Joe Scarborough

Length: 8 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

In this groundbreaking book, Joe Scarborough tells Republican Party bosses what they don’t want to hear, explains why Democrats are making matters so much worse, and then shows leaders of both parties the way forward.

The Last Best Hope draws on the forgotten genius of conservatism to offer a road map for the movement and the country. Delivering... Read more

Satchel

By: Larry Tye

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 13 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy “Satchel” Paige

“Among the rare biographies of an athlete that transcend sports . . . gives us the man as well as the myth.”—The Boston Globe

Few reliable records or news reports survive about players in... Read more

The Ascent of George Washington

By: John Ferling

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 17 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Even compared to his fellow founders, George Washington stands tall. Our first president has long been considered a stoic hero, holding himself above the rough-and-tumble politics of his day. Now John Ferling peers behind that image, carefully burnished by Washington himself, to show us a leader who was not only not above politics but a canny... Read more

40 More Years

By: Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza & James Carville

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 7 hours

Abridged: No

Every four years Americans hold a presidential election. Somebody wins and somebody loses. That's life. But 2008 was an anomaly. The election of President Barack Obama is about something far bigger than four or even eight years in the White House. Since 2004, Americans have been witnessing and participating in the emergence of a Democratic... Read more

K Blows Top

By: Peter Carlson

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 10 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Khrushchev’s 1959 trip across America was one of the strangest exercises in international diplomacy ever conducted—“a surreal extravaganza,” as one historian called it. Khrushchev told jokes, threw tantrums, sparked a riot in a San Francisco supermarket, wowed the coeds in a home-economics class in Iowa, and ogled Shirley MacLaine as she filmed... Read more

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

By: Alain de Botton

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 6 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

We spend most of our waking lives at work—in occupations most often chosen by our inexperienced younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our jobs mean to us. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace, beautifully exploring what other people wake up to do... Read more

The Illustrious Dead

By: Stephan Talty

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 9 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

A masterful dual narrative of Napoleon Bonaparte and a tiny microbe that pits the height of human ambition and achievement against the supremacy of nature, from the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Blue Water
 
“Gripping . . . Talty brings international politics and science together in a compelling story of personal hubris and... Read more

Lords of the Sea

By: John R. Hale

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 13 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The navy created by the people of Athens in ancient Greece was one of the finest fighting forces in the history of the world and the model for all other national navies to come. The Athenian navy built a civilization, empowered the world's first democracy, and led a band of ordinary citizens on a voyage of discovery that altered the course of... Read more

On a Wing and a Prayer

By: Joshua Levine

Narrated by: Joshua Levine

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Few are aware of the risks that the pioneering airmen of the First World War took. On a Wing and a Prayer is a narrative history that conveys the perils of those early days, the thrills of learning to fly, and the horrors of war in the air at a time when pilots carried little defensive armament and no parachutes. In 1914 aircraft were a... Read more

Odyssey of the West VI

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt, Joel F. Recheimer & Katherine...

Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

The Odyssey of the West series, a grand exploration of art, literature, revolutionary theories, and intellectual progress through the ages, concludes with a fascinating look at the twentieth century. Series editor and esteemed university professor Timothy B. Shutt is joined by contributing lecturers for a lively discussion of the major works and... Read more

On the Shoulders of Giants, Vol 2

By: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Narrated by: Jesse L. Martin

Length: 2 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times best-selling author and NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar examines some of the leading political and cultural figures of the Harlem Renaissance-including Marcus Garvey,W.E.B. Du Bois, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Langston Hughes, and many more. Read more

A History of Ancient Sparta

By: Timothy B. Shutt

Narrated by: Timothy B. Shutt

Length: 7 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Professor Timothy B. Shutt examines the history and culture of ancient Sparta, a society renowned for military excellence and adherence to the values of courage, discipline, duty, and the overcoming of fear. Vastly outnumbered at the Battle of Thermopylae, the Spartan "300" held off an overwhelming Persian force before finally succumbing- but... Read more

The Girls from Ames

By: Jeffrey Zaslow

Narrated by: Andrea Gallo

Length: 12 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow is a Will Rogers Humanitarian Award winner and was the replacement advice columnist for Ann Landers in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here he turns his eye to a group of 11 friends who grew up in Ames, Iowa, during the 1960s, a period of unprecedented opportunity for women. What emerges is an inspiring look at the... Read more

The Medieval World I

By: Thomas F. Madden

Narrated by: Thomas F. Madden

Length: 8 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

This all-encompassing investigation of a highly influential time period includes the major events of the era and informative discussion of empire, papacy, the Crusades, and the fall of Constantinople. During the course of these lectures, Professor Madden also addresses the rise of Islam, reform movements, and schisms in the church. In so doing,... Read more

The Food of a Younger Land

By: Mark Kurlansky

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Mark Kurlansky's new book takes us back to the food of a younger America. Before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before chain restaurants brought uniformity, and before the Frigidaire meant that frozen food could be stored for longer, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped to form... Read more

Hella Nation

By: Evan Wright

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 14 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

From his work as a reporter at Hustler magazine to his National Magazine Award—winning writing for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, Evan Wright has always had an affinity for outsiders—what he calls "the lost tribes of America." The previously published pieces in this collection chart a deeply personal journey, beginning with his stark but... Read more

Valkyrie

By: Florence Fehrenbach, Jerome Fehrenbach & Philip...

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 4 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

When World War II erupted, Philipp von Boeselager, son of an aristocratic Catholic family, fought enthusiastically for his country as a cavalry lieutenant. But in the summer of 1942, when he witnessed the regime's criminal brutality toward Jews and Gypsies, his patriotism quickly turned to disgust, and he joined a group of officers intent on... Read more

Being Digital - Abridged

By: Nicholas Negroponte

Narrated by: Penn Jillette

Length: 1 hour 12 minutes

Abridged: Yes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "Succinct and readable.... If you suffer from digital anxiety ... here is a book that lays it all out for you." --Newsday

In lively, mordantly witty prose, Negroponte decodes the mysteries--and debunks the hype--surrounding bandwidth, multimedia, virtual reality, and the Internet, and explains why such touted innovations as... Read more

The Africans

By: David Lamb

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 18 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

David Lamb, critically-acclaimed author of The Arabs, spent four years in Africa as a news correspondent, traveling through 48 of its countries. Written in 1983, The Africans is a remarkable and very personal commentary on the people of this vast continent. It offers colorful, close-up views of presidents, peasants, guerilla leaders, and... Read more

Plain, Honest Men

By: Richard Beeman

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 19 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

The Constitutional Convention affected nothing less than a revolution in the nature of the American government. Led by James Madison, a small cohort of delegates devised a plan that would radically alter the balance of power between state and national governments, and then sprung that idea on a largely unsuspecting convention. The success of... Read more

Whittaker Chambers

By: Sam Tanenhaus

Narrated by: Edward Lewis

Length: 18 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Whittaker Chambers is the first biography of this complex and enigmatic figure. Drawing on dozens of interviews and on materials from forty archives in the United States and abroad—including still-classified KGB dossiers—Tanenhaus traces the remarkable journey that led Chambers from a sleepy Long Island village to center stage in America's... Read more

Ted Kennedy

By: Edward Klein

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

In the most inspiring speech of his career, Ted Kennedy once vowed: "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Unlike his martyred brothers, John and Robert, whose lives were cut off before the promise of a better future could be realized, Ted lived... Read more