History audiobooks

The First American

By: H.W. Brands

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 36 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Historian H.W. Brands' acclaimed, comprehensive biography of Ben Franklin--the first in over 60 years--made the New York Times best-seller list, was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, and earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination. The New Yorker hails, "Like its subject, this biography is both solid and enchanting." Many consider Franklin... Read more

The Enlightenment

By: James Schmidt

Narrated by: James Schmidt

Length: 7 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

The Enlightenment stands at the threshold of the modern age. It elevated the natural sciences to the preeminent position they enjoy in modern culture. It inaugurated a skepticism toward tradition and authority that decisively shaped modern attitudes in religion, morality, and politics. And it gave birth to a vision of history that saw man,... Read more

Danger's Hour

By: Maxwell Taylor Kennedy

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 17 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Based on extensive interviews with Japanese and American survivors, letters, diaries, and other primary sources, Danger's Hour explores the May 11, 1945, attack on the USS Bunker Hill, one of the deadliest kamikaze attacks of World War II. The book details the story of the ship herself (a technological marvel), her crew, and her kamikaze... Read more

Forgotten Patriots

By: Edwin G. Burrows

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 10 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown. Just over 6,800 of those men died in battle. About 25,000 became prisoners of war, most of them confined in New York City under conditions so atrocious that they perished by the thousands. Evidence suggests that at least 17,500 Americans may have died in these... Read more

Kill Bin Laden

By: Dalton Fury

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 11 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

The mission was to kill the most wanted man in the world—a mission important enough it couldn't be handled by just any American military or intelligence force. This was a mission of international importance, and the best America had to offer was needed. As such, the task was handed to roughly forty members of America's supersecret... Read more

The Conservative Mind

By: Russell Kirk

Narrated by: Phillip Davidson

Length: 19 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

First published in 1953, this magnificent work will be remembered in ages to come as one of our century's most important legacies. The then-young Kirk wrote this during a time when liberalism was heralded as the only political and intellectual tradition in America. There is no doubt that this book is responsible to a large degree for the rise of... Read more

Samuel Adams

By: Ira Stoll

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 10 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

"I pity Mr. Sam Adams," his cousin John Adams wrote to his wife, "for he was born a Rebel." At virtually every juncture of the American Revolution, from the Boston Massacre and Tea Party to Lexington and Concord and the ratification of the Constitution, Samuel Adams played a forceful role. With his fiery rhetoric and religious fervor, he was in... Read more

Frost/Nixon - Abridged

By: David Frost

Narrated by: David Frost

Length: 4 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Following the resounding success of the eponymous West End and Broadway hit play, Frost/Nixon tells the extraordinary story of how Sir David Frost pursued and landed the biggest fish of his career—and how the series drew larger audiences than any news interview ever had in the United States, before being shown all over the world.This is Frost's... Read more

The Voyage of the Beagle, with eBook

By: Charles Darwin

Narrated by: David Case

Length: 16 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Charles Darwin was just twenty-two when he went on his first voyage around the world in 1831. Darwin's father at first refused to allow his young son to go on the voyage. Fortunately, his father relented, and Darwin's journal is now considered by many to be the greatest scientific travel narrative ever written.



Revised by the author in 1860,... Read more

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, with eBook

By: Benjamin Franklin

Narrated by: Walter Costello

Length: 6 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Few men could compare to Benjamin Franklin. Virtually self-taught, he excelled as an athlete, a man of letters, a printer, a scientist, a wit, an inventor, an editor, and a writer, and he was probably the most successful diplomat in American history. David Hume hailed him as the first great philosopher and great man of letters in the New... Read more

Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier

By: Timothy J. Shannon

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 9 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Distinguished history professor and author Timothy J. Shannon is a recognized expert on the Indians of colonial America. In this concise study of Iroquois diplomacy, Shannon paints a vivid picture of the American frontier's most successful Indian confederacy. This enlightening narrative explores the shrewd, sometimes treacherous, tactics the... Read more

Tan Lejos de Dios

By: Ana Castillo

Narrated by: Gy Mirano

Length: 10 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Tome es un pueblito pequeno y aparentemente apacible en Nuevo Mexico central. En las habiles manos de Ana Castillo este asombroso lugar se nos revela como un sitio de maravillas, lleno de vida y conflictos: del pasado con el presente, lo real con lo sobrenatural, lo comico con lo horrifico, las tradiciones nativas con lo latino y lo "anglo," las... Read more

The Secret War With Iran

By: Ronen Bergman

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Length: 17 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

In the years since 9/11, the U.S. war on terror has focused on al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Coverage of Iran has been devoted almost exclusively to its nuclear ambitions. Yet, as Ronen Bergman's groundbreaking reporting in this vital investigative history reveals, for thirty years, Iran has been the world's leading sponsor of global terror... Read more

The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson

By: Robert Southey

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 9 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Having entered the British Navy at the age of twelve, Horatio Lord Nelson achieved the rank of captain at the age of twenty. As captain, he was quickly recognized as a magnetic and controversial figure. He triumphed at Cape St. Vincent and the Nile but failed at Tenefife and Boulogne. With the glories of Copenhagen and Trafalgar yet ahead of... Read more

Lost Women of the Bible

By: Carolyn Custis James

Narrated by: Ruth Bloomquist

Length: 10 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

You know the women of the Bible, but you don’t know them like this...It’s easy for Christian women—young and old—to get lost between the opportunities and demands of the present and the biblical teachings of the past. They live in a confusing world, caught in the crossfire between church and culture. Although home and family still remain... Read more

The Republic

By: Plato

Narrated by: Pat Bottino

Length: 12 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

In this monumental work of moral and political philosophy, Plato sought to answer some of the world’s most formidable questions: What does it mean to be good? What enables us to distinguish between right and wrong? How should human virtues be translated into a just society? Perhaps the greatest single treatise written on political philosophy,... Read more

Waking Giant

By: David S. Reynolds

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 15 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

The years from 1815 to 1848 were arguably the richest period in American life. In Waking Giant, award-winning historian David S. Reynolds illuminates the era's exciting political story alongside the fascinating social and cultural movements that influenced it. He casts fresh light on Andrew Jackson, who redefined the presidency, as well as John... Read more

The Lost History of Christianity

By: Philip Jenkins

Narrated by: Dick Hill

Length: 10 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

The Lost History of Christianity will change how we understand Christian and world history. Leading religion scholar Philip Jenkins reveals a vast Christian world to the east of the Roman Empire and how the earliest, most influential churches of the East—those that had the closest link to Jesus and the early church—died. In this... Read more

The Mental Floss History of the World

By: Erik Sass & Steve Wiegand

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 15 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

About 60,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens were just beginning their move across the grasslands and up the ladder of civilization. Everything since then, as they say, is history. Just in case you were sleeping in class that day, the geniuses at mental_floss magazine have put together a hilarious (and historically accurate) primer on... Read more

The American Way of War

By: Eugene Jarecki

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 12 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

In his famous farewell address in 1961, President Eisenhower urgently warned Americans to guard against the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" in the leviathan he dubbed the military-industrial complex. As Eugene Jarecki powerfully portrays in this piercing and necessary book, Eisenhower's worst fears have been realized. The complex has grown... Read more

American Lion - Abridged

By: Jon Meacham

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 10 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington forever

Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and... Read more

In Search of Bill Clinton

By: John D. Gartner

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 17 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

William Jefferson Clinton, the forty-second president of the United States, is undoubtedly the greatest American enigma of our age—a dark horse who captured the White House, fell from grace, and was resurrected as an elder statesman whose popularity rises and falls based on the day's sound bites.



John D. Gartner's In Search of Bill Clinton... Read more

Hard Tack and Coffee

By: John D. Billings

Narrated by: Edward Lewis

Length: 9 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

Throughout history, from antiquity to the present, service in the armed forces of one’s country has provided an almost endless source of material to entertain and even enlighten listeners. Military life has usually been a unique and peculiar experience for most civilians exposed to it. Originally published in 1888, Hard Tack and Coffee is the... Read more

Campaigning with Grant

By: General Horace Porter

Narrated by: Noah Waterman

Length: 12 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Horace Porter served as lieutenant colonel on Ulysses S. Grant’s staff from April 1864 to the end of the Civil War. He accompanied Grant into battle in the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg campaigns, and was present at Lee’s surrender at McLean’s house. Throughout the war, he kept extensive notes that capture Grant’s conversations, as... Read more