History audiobooks

The Bush Tragedy

By: Jacob Weisberg

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 9 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

In this first important consideration of the George W. Bush presidency and its profound impact on the state of the world, Jacob Weisberg traces the evolution of Bush’s political philosophy from its roots in his early life and his years as governor of Texas through the events of 9/11 and his turbulent two terms in office. With careful analyses,... Read more

The People's Tycoon

By: Steven Watts

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 29 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car... Read more

Modern Times

By: Paul Johnson

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 37 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Earning the eleventh spot on National Review's list of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Century, this fast-paced, all-encompassing narrative history covers the great events, ideas, and personalities of the six decades following the end of World War I, and offers a full-scale—if controversial—analysis of how the modern age came into being and... Read more

The Boys' Crusade

By: Paul Fussell

Narrated by: Joel Leffert

Length: 4 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

National Book Award Winner Paul Fussell tells the breathtaking story of WWII from the young soldiers' points of view. WWII was not the glorified picture it is often depicted to be. For the American soldier it was a tiring, emotional, and gruesome experience. Fussell's extensive details and insight help to make this story come alive. Read more

A History of the Jews

By: Paul Johnson

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 28 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

This historical magnum opus covers 4,000 years of the extraordinary history of the Jews as a people, a culture, and a nation. It shows the impact of Jewish character on the world: their genius, imagination and, most of all, their ability to persevere despite severe persecutions. Compelling insights into events and individuals are chronologically... Read more

The Balkans

By: Mark Mazower

Narrated by: Robert O'Keefe

Length: 6 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

In this fascinating work, winner of the Wolfson Prize for History Mark Mazower uncovers the history of the Balkans with detail and clarity. He explores the reasons for current conflicts and examines the Balkans as a religious, cultural, and economic melting pot for Europe and Asia. Through Robert O'Keefe's articulate narration, listeners will be... Read more

The Assassins' Gate

By: George Packer

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 19 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award, George Packer is a venerated staff writer for The New Yorker-with four tours on assignment in Iraq. With The Assassins' Gate, he offers a penetrating work of journalism on the United States' occupation of Iraq. The Assassins' Gate, dubbed so by American soldiers, is the entrance to the American zone in the... Read more

Aristotle's Children

By: Richard E. Rubenstein

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 13 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread like wildfire across Europe, offering the scientific view that the natural world, including the soul of... Read more

Baseball

By: George Vecsey

Narrated by: Alan Nebelthau

Length: 6 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Best-selling author George Vecsey is an esteemed and award-winning sports journalist for the New York Times. In Baseball, he recounts the history of America's national pastime. Baseball has been around in various forms for thousands of years, but within the last 200 years it has become an American institution. Growing from a sport played in open... Read more

The Battle of Gettysburg

By: Frank Haskell

Narrated by: Tom West

Length: 3 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

The Battle of Gettysburg is a vivid firsthand account of the most famous battle of the Civil War. Two weeks later, while his memory was fresh and his adrenaline still high, Union Lieutenant Frank Haskell-a Medal of Honor recipient-wrote this book, one of the most honest and accurate eyewitness accounts of war ever written. Haskell, an officer in... Read more

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

By: Benjamin Franklin

Narrated by: Adrian Cronauer

Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

"From the poverty and obscurity in which I was born I have raised myself up." In his own words Benjamin Franklin steps off the pages of history, brimming with candor, bright ideas, and common sense, and with something of an eye for the ladies. Read more

Andersonville Diary

By: John Ransom

Narrated by: Adrian Cronauer

Length: 7 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

John Ransom was a young Union soldier when he was captured by Confederate forces and taken to Andersonville, the worst of the brutal Civil War prison camps. Insightful, adventurous, and powerful, his diary preserves a rare portrait of the harsh life of the Confederate prisons. Yet it also sings with the hope of a man who loves life and manages... Read more

Tom Cruise - Abridged

By: Andrew Morton

Narrated by: John Hinch

Length: 6 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In 2006 Forbes magazine ranked Tom Cruise as the most powerful celebrity in the world. With three Golden Globe awards, three Academy Award nominations, and 27 films with an average box office gross of nearly $100 million, People Magazine's choice for the "Sexest Man Alive" in 1990 is unquestionably one of the biggest movie stars of our time.

He... Read more

The Americas

By: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

Felipe FernAndez-Armesto is a world-renowned scholar, professor of history and geography at Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of the Faculty of Modern History of Oxford University. The Americas, part of the acclaimed Modern Library Chronicles series, offers an intriguing history of the world's western hemisphere. Read more

The Prince

By: Niccolo Machiavelli

Narrated by: Nelson Runger

Length: 3 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Witty, informative, and devilishly shrewd, this work is a must-listen for anyone interested in politics and power. The world-renowned philosopher's classic treatise reveals the techniques and strategies for gaining and keeping political control. "How we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what... Read more

The Age of Napoleon

By: Alistair Horne

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Alistair Horne is a leading scholar of French history. Here he trains his sights on one of the most compelling figures of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte. Far from a mere dictator, Napoleon was a military, political and social visionary whose legacy can still be felt in France and all over the world. Horne examines the one-time emperor at... Read more

American Ground

By: William Langewiesche

Narrated by: Richard Davidson

Length: 7 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Noted author, war correspondent, and award-winning writer for the Atlantic Monthly, William Langewiesche furnishes a riveting firsthand account of the excavation of the World Trade Center ruins following its destruction on September 11, 2001. American Ground is an inspiring look at the often contentious mixture of personalities, politics, and... Read more

Adams vs. Jefferson

By: John Ferling

Narrated by: Jack Garrett

Length: 11 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

It was a contest of titans: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two heroes of the Revolutionary era, once intimate friends, now icy antagonists locked in a fierce battle for the future of the United States. The election of 1800 was a thunderous clash of a campaign that climaxed in a deadlock in the Electoral College and led to a crisis in which the... Read more

The Age of Shakespeare

By: Frank Kermode

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 5 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Britain's most esteemed scholar of 16th and 17th century literature, Frank Kermode is also a noted author and professor. In this Modern Library Chronicle, he uses the context of the Elizabethan Era to link each of Shakespeare's plays to their probable years of creation. By portraying the bard's England in terms of its society, economy, and arts,... Read more

The American Revolution

By: Gordon S. Wood

Narrated by: Jack Garrett

Length: 6 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

The American Revolution signalled a great change in the course of world history and progress. From this colonial revolt sprouted ideals of liberty and democracy, and all the aspirations and ambitions of a new people. In this work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood discusses the character and consequences of the revolution,... Read more

The Age of Extremes

By: Joy Hakim

Narrated by: Christina Moore

Length: 6 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

For the captains of industry-men like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Ford-the Gilded Age is a time of big money. Technology boomed with the invention of trains, telephones, electric lights, harvesters, vacuum cleaners, and more. But for millions of immigrant workers, it is a time of big struggles, with adults and... Read more

Rev Up Your Creative Genius Like Edison

By: Michael Gelb, Ph.D.

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Thomas Edison was an exceptional genius, but the greatest product of his genius was the establishment of a systematic approach to success that he believed anyone could emulate. In this conversation, Michael Gelb describes the easy-to-apply system of five competencies one needs to complete in order to find what Edison called, "Your own astounding... Read more

Zeit - Postmoderne - Abridged

By: Karlheinz A. Geißler

Narrated by: Karlheinz A. Geißler

Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

Abridged: Yes

WAS IST ZEIT? Es gibt unterschiedliche Zeitverständnisse. Mit den jeweils herrschenden Zeitvorstellungen wird in der Gesellschaft Ordnung gemacht und auch die Individuen strukturieren mit ihrem Zeitverständnis ihr Leben und dessen Verlauf. In der Postmoderne wird das Zeitverständnis und das Zeithandeln weitgehend von den... Read more

Zeit - Vormoderne & Moderne - Abridged

By: Karlheinz A. Geißler

Narrated by: Karlheinz A. Geißler

Length: 1 hour 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

WAS IST ZEIT? Es gibt unterschiedliche Zeitverständnisse. Mit den jeweils herrschenden Zeitvorstellungen wird in der Gesellschaft Ordnung gemacht und auch die Individuen strukturieren mit ihrem Zeitverständnis ihr Leben und dessen Verlauf. DER UMGANG MIT DER ZEIT IN VERSCHIEDENEN EPOCHEN In der Vormodernde fand man die Zeit bei Gott, bzw.... Read more