History audiobooks

Hörportrait: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Abridged

By: Sven Görtz

Narrated by: Sven Görtz

Length: 1 hour 16 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Mozart war unbestritten eines der größten musikalischen Genies aller Zeiten. Und obwohl er schon als junger Knabe Könige durch sein Klavierspiel hinzureißen verstand, war er doch während seines gesamten, kurzen Lebens ständig in Sorge um sein finanzielles sowie künstlerisches Auskommen. Dieses Hörporträt beleuchtet in 15 Kapiteln Mozarts... Read more

Hörportrait: Heinrich Heine - Abridged

By: Sven Görtz

Narrated by: Sven Görtz

Length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Abridged: Yes

"Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht..." (Heinrich Heine, aus: Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen). Dachte er dabei nicht vielmehr an die im französischen Exil so schmerzlich vermisste Mutter? Dieses Hörportrait beschreibt die Vielschichtigkeit des Schriftstellers, der immer wieder mit scharfer, ironischer Feder... Read more

Hörportrait: Marilyn Monroe - Abridged

By: Sven Görtz & Jörg Schneider

Narrated by: Sven Görtz & Pfeiffer Lea

Length: 1 hour 18 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Von allen auf die Rolle des Sexsymbols reduziert, war sie innerlich zerrissen und ohne jegliches Selbstbewusstsein - ein Zustand, den Marilyn Monroe mit immer größeren Mengen von Tabletten und Alkohol zu bekämpfen versuchte. Ihr früher, mysteriöser Tod und ihr glamouröses Leben sind Gegenstand des Hörportraits. Es beschreibt den Aufstieg... Read more

Hörportrait: Nostradamus - Abridged

By: Diverse

Narrated by: Reiner Schöne

Length: 59 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Die neueste Ausgabe der Biographien-Serie "Hörportrait" befasst sich mit einer der kontroversesten Figuren des Mittelalters: Nostradamus. Schon zu Lebzeiten erlangte er weltweite Berühmtheit, indem er den gewaltsamen Tod des Königs Heinrich II. vorhersagte. Seine Prophezeiungen, in denen er unter anderem die Herrschaften von Napoleon und Hitler... Read more

The Final Days of Socrates

By: Plato

Narrated by: Donal Donnelly & Ray Atherton

Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

The trial and condemnation of Socrates (469-399 B.C.) is one of the most tragic episodes in the history of Athens' decline. Plato, Socrates' most devoted disciple, has preserved for us the essence of the teaching and logical system of question-and-answer of western civilization's purest intellect in this sequence of four works: Euthyphro, The... Read more

Comrade J

By: Pete Earley

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 10 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Spymaster, defector, double agent—the remarkable true story of the man who ran Russia's post–cold war spy program in America.



In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, the cold war ended, and a new world order began. We thought everything had changed. But one thing never changed: the spies.



From 1995 to 2000, a man known as "Comrade J" was the... Read more

Don't Think of an Elephant

By: George Lakoff

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 4 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

This New York Times best-seller is the authoritative guide to comprehending what happened in the 2004 elections-and understanding how progressive thinkers can wrest control of America's political dialogue away from the conservatives who have it now. Author George Lakoff, who has become a key advisor to the Democratic Party, asserts that the... Read more

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

By: Samuel Pepys

Narrated by: Alexander Spencer

Length: 4 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Samuel Pepys was born in London in 1633 and died in Clapham in 1703. In his life, he was Secretary of Naval Affairs and President of the Royal Society, mingling with the greatest of the land. He lived through civil war, plague, and the greatest fire London has suffered outside of the Blitz in World War II. In 1660, at the age of 27, he began a... Read more

The Destruction of Jerusalem

By: Josephus

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 4 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The writings of Josephus contain one of the few historical accounts we have of the wars of the Jews and the first destruction of Jerusalem by Titus during the Roman occupation of Palestine in 70 A.D. This recording includes selections from The Wars of the Jews, written by Josephus during the reign of Vespasian. It features the arrival of the... Read more

The Teapot Dome Scandal

By: Laton McCartney

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 10 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

The Teapot Dome scandal of the early 1920s was all about oil—hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petroleum. When the scandal finally broke, the consequences were tremendous. President Harding’s legacy was forever tarnished, while “Oil Cabinet” member Albert Fall was forced to resign and was imprisoned for a year. Others implicated in the... Read more

Did Lincoln Own Slaves?

By: Gerald J. Prokopowicz

Narrated by: Norman Dietz

Length: 10 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Our most revered president gets a unique and uniquely engaging biography fashioned from the answers to the most frequent—and most unusual and surprising—questions asked about Abraham Lincoln.



What kind of law did Lincoln practice? Did he imprison his political enemies? What was it in his youth that put him on the path to greatness? These are some... Read more

A Short History Of Ireland

By: Jonathan Bardon

Narrated by: Frances Tomelty

Length: 22 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

From The Ice Age to Northern Ireland's Peace Settlement and everything in between, the acclaimed academic Dr Jonathan Bardon presents a history of Ireland spanning 10,000 years.

Beginning with the Ice Age and Ireland's first plants and wildlife, this history encompasses the arrival of Christianity, the age of the Celts, the Viking era, Brian... Read more

Communism

By: Richard Pipes

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

From the acclaimed Modern Library Chronicles comes an exploration of a promising theory that when put to practice wreaked havoc on the world. An expert on communism, Richard Pipes follows the history of the Soviet Union from the 1917 revolution to the Cold War, and finally, to its deterioration and collapse. Read more

The Persian Expedition

By: Xenophon

Narrated by: Pat Bottino

Length: 10 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Xenophon, after being exiled from Athens, spent the last years of his life hunting, writing, and recalling in his books the great days of the Persian expedition. This record of one of the most famous marches in history contains an account of the day-to-day life of ordinary men and soldiers. It demonstrates how Greek theories of government and... Read more

Sailing Alone Around the World

By: Joshua Slocum

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 6 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Joshua Slocum was the first man ever to sail around the world single-handedly. He completed his voyage in 1895, without radio and modern technology, when native pirates roamed the seas. It makes for an exciting tale-all 46,000 miles and three years of it. Read more

The Company

By: John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 6 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Chosen by BusinessWeek as One of the Top Ten Business Books of the YearWith apologies to Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, the basic unit of modern society is neither the state, nor the commune, nor the party; it is the company. From this bold premise, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge chart the rise of one of history’s great catalysts for good and... Read more

The Conquest of Constantinople

By: Geoffroy de Villehardouin

Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins

Length: 4 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Statesman and soldier Geoffroy de Villehardouin played a leading role in the Fourth Crusade of the 13th century. Medieval knights were led to believe that they could battle their way to Heaven on a road paved by earthly plunder and Christian blood. Villehardouin's first-hand account provides insight into the noble and barbaric motivations of the... Read more

Stories from Xenophon—Excerpts

By: Xenophon

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 4 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Xenophon records the history of the Peloponnesian War beginning in 411 with the final years of the struggle between Athens and Sparta for mastery of Greece. His tales are portraits of democracy in crisis; of military dominance; of fratricidal strife; of the beginning of the slow, inexorable decline of the culture-that of Homer, and the Greek... Read more

Daydream Believers

By: Fred Kaplan

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 7 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

America’s power is in decline, its foreign policy adrift, its allies alienated, its soldiers trapped in a war that even generals regard as unwinnable. What has happened these past eight years is well known. Why it happened continues to puzzle. In Daydream Believers, celebrated Slate columnist Fred Kaplan combines in-depth reporting and... Read more

The Art of War

By: Sun Tzu

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 9 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

Master Sun said: “Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting.”For more than two thousand years, The Art of War has stood as a cornerstone of Chinese culture, a lucid text that reveals as much about psychology, politics, and economics as it does about battlefield strategy. For those... Read more

Storm and Conquest

By: Stephen Taylor

Narrated by: James Adams

Length: 12 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The Indian Ocean was the final battleground for Nelson’s navy and France. At stake was Britain’s lifeline to India and its strategic capacity to wage war in Europe.In one fatal season, the natural order of maritime power since Trafalgar was destroyed, when Britain lost fourteen of her great Indiamen, either sunk or taken by enemy frigates. Many... Read more

A Savage War of Peace

By: Alistair Horne

Narrated by: James Adams

Length: 29 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It brought down six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, returned de Gaulle to power, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. Above all, the war was... Read more

The Bloody Shirt

By: Stephen Budiansky

Narrated by: Phil Gigante

Length: 9 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

From 1866 to 1876, more than three thousand free African Americans and their white allies were killed in cold blood by terrorist organizations in the South.Over the years this fact would not only be forgotten, but a series of exculpatory myths would arise to cover the tracks of this orchestrated campaign of atrocity and violence. Little memory... Read more

The Histories

By: Caius Cornelius Tacitus

Narrated by: James Adams

Length: 10 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Caius Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman orator and public official, is considered one of the greatest historians as well as one of the greatest prose stylists of the Latin language. In The Histories, he describes and interprets the period in which he lived, beginning with the political situation that followed Nero's death in AD 69 and ending with the... Read more