History audiobooks

Sin in the Second City

By: Karen Abbott

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history—and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago's notorious Levee district at the dawn of the twentieth century, the club's proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and... Read more

Don't Know Much About Anything - Abridged

By: Kenneth C. Davis

Narrated by: Jeff Woodman

Length: 4 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Don't Know Much About Anything: Everything You Need to Know But Never Learned About Famous People, Exceptional Places, Historical Happenings, Holidays and Traditions, Everyday Objects, Remarkable Inventions, Space, Sports, Food, Entertainment and More! is a compendium of around 275 columns, sorted into the subject categories listed in the... Read more

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States

By: Various

Narrated by: Frank Langella & Boyd Gaines

Length: 48 minutes

Abridged: No

The two most treasured documents of American freedom together on one audiobook.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…
Drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 as an act of rebellion, The Declaration of Independence powerfully expresses the political principles of an emerging nation. As justification for severing ties... Read more

No Excuses

By: Robert Shrum

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 22 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

He was named by The Atlantic Monthly "the most sought-after strategist in the Democratic party." He was targeted by National Review as the Democratic Party's "poet goon." From his unique perspective, Robert Shrum gives us an epic and personal story of the struggle for power in America during the past four decades.



With wit and humor, rare candor,... Read more

Savage Kingdom

By: Benjamin Woolley

Narrated by: David Drummond

Length: 13 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first American colony, Savage Kingdom presents a bold, even reckless, political adventure driven by a sense of imperial destiny and dogged by official hostility.



Four centuries ago, and fourteen years before the Mayflower, a group of men—led by a one-armed ex-pirate, an epileptic aristocrat,... Read more

The Blair Years - Abridged

By: Alastair Campbell

Narrated by: Alastair Campbell

Length: 6 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The Blair Years is the most compelling and revealing account of contemporary politics you will ever read. Taken from Alastair Campbell's daily diaries, it charts the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair's leadership, providing the first important record of a remarkable decade in our national life.

Here are the defining... Read more

Our First Revolution

By: Michael Barone

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

The ideals of freedom and individual rights that inspired America's Founding Fathers did not spring from a vacuum. Along with many other defining principles of our national character, they can be traced directly back to one of the most pivotal events in British history—the late-seventeenth-century uprising known as the Glorious Revolution.



In a... Read more

Lone Survivor - Abridged

By: Marcus Luttrell

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 5 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Follow along a Navy SEAL's firsthand account of American heroism during a secret military operation in Afghanistan in this true story of survival and difficult choices.

On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a... Read more

The Education of Henry Adams

By: Henry Adams

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 19 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

As a journalist, historian, and novelist born into a family that included two past presidents of the United States, Henry Adams was constantly focused on the American experiment. An immediate bestseller awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919, The Education of Henry Adams recounts his own and the country's education from 1838, the year of his birth,... Read more

The Long March

By: Sun Shuyun

Narrated by: Laural Merlington

Length: 10 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1934, the fledgling Chinese Communist Party and its 200,000 soldiers were forced off their bases by Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalist troops.They walked more than 8,000 miles over mountains, grasslands, and swamps, ending up in the remote, barren north of China. Only one-fifth survived. They went on to launch the revolution that transformed... Read more

Land of Lincoln

By: Andrew Ferguson

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 10 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Before he grew up and became one of Washington's most respected reporters and editors, Andrew Ferguson was, of all things, a Lincoln buff. Like so many sons of Illinois before him, he hung photos of Abe on his bedroom wall, memorized the Gettysburg Address, and read himself to sleep at night with the Second Inaugural or the "Letter to Mrs.... Read more

Way Off the Road

By: Bill Geist

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 7 hours

Abridged: No

Celebrated roving correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning and bestselling author Bill Geist serves up a rollicking look at some small-town Americans and their offbeat ways of life.



"In rural Kansas, I asked our motel desk clerk for the name of the best restaurant in the area. After mulling it over, he answered: 'I'd have to say the Texaco, 'cuz... Read more

The Conviction of Richard Nixon

By: James Reston, Jr.

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Length: 5 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

The Watergate scandal began with a break-in at the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1971, and ended when President Gerald Ford granted Richard M. Nixon a pardon on September 8, 1974, one month after Nixon resigned from office in disgrace. Effectively removed from the reach of prosecutors, Nixon... Read more

In Defense of Our America

By: Anthony D. Romero & Dina Temple-Raston

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 7 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

From Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, and award-winning journalist Dina Temple-Raston, In Defense of Our America takes a critical look at civil liberties in this country at a time when constitutional freedoms are in peril. Using the stories of real Americans on the frontlines of the fight for civil liberties, In Defense of Our... Read more

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

By: Chris Hedges

Narrated by: Chris Hedges

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

As a veteran war correspondent, Chris Hedges has survived ambushes in Central America, imprisonment in Sudan, and a beating by Saudi military police. He has seen children murdered for sport in Gaza and petty thugs elevated into war heroes in the Balkans. Hedges, who is also a former divinity student, has seen war at its worst and knows too well... Read more

The Diana Chronicles

By: Tina Brown

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

Length: 21 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she “the people’s princess,” who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy?

Only Tina Brown, former editor-in-chief of Tatler–England’s glossiest gossip magazine–Vanity Fair,... Read more

Satan's Circus

By: Mike Dash

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 12 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Nearly five million men and women have served the United States as police officers. Only one has been executed for murder.

They called it Satan’s Circus–a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the twentieth century, murder was so common in the vice district that... Read more

The Forgotten Man

By: Amity Shlaes

Narrated by: Terence Aselford

Length: 14 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

It's difficult today to imagine how America survived the Great Depression. Only through the stories of the common people who struggled during that era can we really understand how the nation endured. In The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes offers a striking reinterpretation of the Great Depression. Rejecting the old emphasis on the New Deal, she... Read more

Death of a Dissident - Abridged

By: Alex Goldfarb & Marina Litvinenko

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 5 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko in November 2006 -- poisoned by the rare radioactive element polonium -- caused an international sensation. Within a few short weeks, the fit forty-three-year-old lay gaunt, bald, and dying in a hospital, the victim of a "tiny nuclear bomb." Suspicions swirled... Read more

Satan's Circus - Abridged

By: Mike Dash

Narrated by: David Ackroyd

Length: 6 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Nearly five million men and women have served the United States as police officers. Only one has been executed for murder.

They called it Satan’s Circus–a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the twentieth century, murder was so common in the vice district that... Read more

The Diana Chronicles - Abridged

By: Tina Brown

Narrated by: Tina Brown

Length: 5 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: Yes

"Intensely well researched and an un-put-down-able read, Tina Brown's extraordinary book parts the brocaded velvet and allows us an unprecedented look at the world and mind of the most famous person on the planet. A social commentary, a historical document and a psychological examination, written by a superb investigative journalist."

–Academy... Read more

The Secret History of the American Empire

By: John Perkins

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 11 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

In his stunning memoir, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins detailed his former role as an "economic hit man" in the international corporate skulduggery of a de facto American Empire. Now Perkins zeroes in on hot spots around the world, drawing on interviews to examine the current geopolitical crisis, and providing a compassionate... Read more

The Long Road Home

By: Martha Raddatz

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

Length: 9 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

From ABC White House correspondent Martha Raddatz comes the story of a brutal forty-eight-hour firefight that conveys in harrowing detail the effects of war not just on the soldiers but also on the families waiting back at home.



In April 2004, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division were on a routine patrol in Sadr City, Iraq, when they came under... Read more

A Special Mission

By: Dan Kurzman

Narrated by: George Wilson

Length: 9 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In September 1943, Adolf Hitler, furious at the ouster of Mussolini, sent German troops into Rome and ordered SS General Karl Wolff, who had been Heinrich Himmler's chief aide, to occupy the Vatican and kidnap (and perhaps kill) Pope Pius XII. At the same time, plans were being made to deport Rome's Jews to Auschwitz. Wolff began playing a... Read more