History audiobooks

Mahalia Jackson

By: Montrew Dunham

Narrated by: Pam Ward

Length: 1 hour 55 minutes

Abridged: No

“Halie” Jackson grew up in poverty on the levees of New Orleans, hunting for alligators for food along the Mississippi River with her brother, Peter. But every Sunday young Mahalia sang proudly in the church choir, the youngest member at age five. She left school after eighth grade and worked as a maid to help support her family. However, her... Read more

George Rogers Clark

By: Katharine E. Wilkie

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

Abridged: No

George Rogers Clark was a famous general in the Revolutionary War, and his explorations served as the inspiration for his younger brother, William, the leader of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. Now you can read about the boyhood of George and share in the first adventures of this lifelong hero.Praised by parents, teachers, and historians,... Read more

Under Drake’s Flag

By: G. A. Henty

Narrated by: Fred Williams

Length: 12 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

In the days when England and Spain struggled for the supremacy of the sea, a young lad sails with Sir Francis Drake, the daring sixteenth-century privateer, in this action-packed story based on true historical events. Drake’s superb navigational skill enabled him to outrun or outmaneuver his incessant pursuers. He escaped so often and so... Read more

The English Governess at the Siamese Court

By: Anna Harriette Leonowens

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 10 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

This 1870 memoir, which was the basis for the musical The King and I, vividly recounts the experiences of Anna Harriette Leonowens, who served as a governess for the sixty-plus children of King Mongkut of Siam and as translator and scribe for the King himself. Bright, young, and energetic, Leonowens was well-suited to her role, and her writings... Read more

Pensées

By: Blaise Pascal

Narrated by: William Sutherland

Length: 12 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Compiled after his death in 1662, Pascal's"pens├®es" (thoughts) are his ideas for a book in defense of faith in a rational world. These fragments give evidence of a profoundly original thinker who had resolved the conflict between his scientific mind and his heart-felt faith.The book begins with an analysis of the difference between mathematical... Read more

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy

By: Jacob Burckhardt

Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard

Length: 14 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

This great work redefined our sense of the European past, wholly reinterpreting what has since been known simply as the Italian Renaissance. Within the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt finds the first stirrings of the modern world—and in the Renaissance Italian, the first modern man. In this landmark study... Read more

The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War

By: Leonard L. Richards

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

Length: 10 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

In this revelatory study, award-winning historian Leonard L. Richards outlines the links between the Gold Rush and the Civil War.Richards explains how Southerners envisioned California as a new market for slaves in the gold fields, schemed to tie California to the South via railroad, and imagined splitting off the state’s southern half for a... Read more

John Hancock

By: Kathryn Cleven Sisson

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 2 hours

Abridged: No

Young Patriots Series The life of John Hancock, contemporary of Samuel Adams and Paul Revere and first person to sign the Declaration of Independence, is featured in this volume of the Young Patriots series. Detailing Hancock's early years, this work focuses on his relationship with boyhood friend, John Adams, and his academic struggles with... Read more

Laurel Canyon

By: Michael Walker

Narrated by: Lloyd James

Length: 8 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Laurel Canyon was the neighborhood perched above the clubs and record companies of Sunset Strip where Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Graham Nash, Cass Elliot, Carole King, Don Henley, and Peter Tork, just to name a few, lived and collaborated to make an indelible mark on our music and our culture. Starting with The Byrds in 1965, these musicians... Read more

The Jihad Next Door

By: Dina Temple-Raston

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

Length: 7 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Dina Temple-Raston uncovers a strange corner of the war on terror in Lackawanna, New York, home of the first homegrown al-Qaeda terrorist cell in America. Or was it?The “Lackawanna Six” were young men, born of Yemeni families long settled in upstate New York, who took a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan and spent time in an al-Qaeda training... Read more

Dancing in the Streets

By: Barbara Ehrenreich

Narrated by: Pam Ward

Length: 9 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

From bestselling social commentator and cultural historian Barbara Ehrenreich comes this fascinating exploration of one of humanity’s oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and... Read more

The Long Walk

By: Slavomir Rawicz

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 9 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

The film The Way Back, starring Colin Farrell and Ed Harris, is based on this amazing true story.Twenty-six-year-old cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and sent to the Siberian Gulag. In the spring of 1941, he escaped with six of his fellow prisoners, including one... Read more

The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life

By: Hannah Whitall Smith

Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin

Length: 7 hours

Abridged: No

Hannah Whitall Smith wrote The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life in 1875, originally as an article for her husband's magazine. The book subsequently became a worldwide bestseller that has influenced generations of readers.In the preface she explains, "This is not a theological book. I frankly confess that I have not been trained in theological... Read more

God and Mr. Gomez

By: Jack Smith

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 6 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

When Jack and Denny Smith decided to build a vacation dream house in Baja, California, they had no idea they were entering a phase of their lives “that would capture the fancy of readers throughout the United States.” Through a series of strange and whimsical adventures, they would find that building a house takes God and Mr. Gomez.As their... Read more

The Story of My Life

By: Helen Keller

Narrated by: Mary Woods

Length: 7 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

A serious illness destroyed Helen Keller’s sight and hearing before she reached the age of two. At seven, she was introduced to Ann Sullivan, the beloved teacher and friend who helped Helen to make contact with her world. Through sheer determination and resolve, Helen learned to speak, read, and write, and prepared herself for entry into prep... Read more

Marie Antoinette

By: Evelyne Lever

Narrated by: Lorna Raver

Length: 14 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Married for political reasons at the age of fourteen, Marie Antoinette was naïve, impetuous, and ill equipped for the role in which history cast her. From her birth in Vienna in 1755 through her turbulent, unhappy marriage, the bloody turmoil of the French Revolution, her trial for high treason (during which she was accused of incest), and her... Read more

The Nicomachean Ethics

By: Aristotle

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 8 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Named for Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, who was the first to edit this work, The Nicomachean Ethics plays a prominent role in defining Aristotelian ethics. In the ten books of this work, Aristotle explains the good life for man: the life of happiness.For Aristotle, happiness exists when the soul is in accordance with virtue. Virtue exists in a... Read more

The Atomic Bazaar

By: William Langewiesche

Narrated by: Tom Weiner

Length: 5 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

In his shocking and revelatory new work, celebrated journalist William Langewiesche investigates the burgeoning threat of nuclear-weapons production and the inexorable drift of nuclear-weapons technology from the hands of the rich into the hands of the poor. As more unstable and undeveloped nations acquire the ultimate arms, the stakes of... Read more

House to House

By: David Bellavia

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 9 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

This is the personal side of battle, where emotion, courage, and strength are stretched to the limits.Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, House to House is far more than just another war story—it is one of the most compelling combat narratives ever written. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of... Read more

The Spartans

By: Paul Cartledge

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 8 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

The Spartans of ancient Greece were a powerful and unique people, radically different from any civilization before or since. A society of warrior-heroes, they were living exemplars of self-sacrifice, community endeavor, and achievement against all odds, qualities that today signify the ultimate in heroism. Scholars even believe that Thomas More... Read more

A Story of the Red Cross

By: Clara Barton

Narrated by: S. Patricia Bailey

Length: 4 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Clara Barton was one of those diminutive New England women of the nineteenth century who was determined to make the world a better place. In 1881, she founded the American Red Cross to help the unfortunate victims of war and disaster, and served as its president from 1882 to 1904. The Red Cross of today stands as a living memorial to the... Read more

Scott’s Last Expedition

By: Robert Falcon Scott

Narrated by: William Sutherland

Length: 18 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

In November 1910, the vessel Terra Nova left New Zealand carrying an international team of explorers led by Robert Falcon Scott, an Englishman determined to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Scott kept a detailed journal of his adventures until March 29, 1912, when he and the few remaining members of his team met their ends in a brutal... Read more

The Age of Lincoln

By: Orville Vernon Burton

Narrated by: Rich Mock

Length: 14 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Distinguished historian Orville Vernon Burton suggests that, while abolishing slavery was the age's most extraordinary accomplishment, it was the inscribing of personal liberty into the nation's millennial aspirations that was its most profound.America had always perceived providence in its progress, but in the 1840s and 1850s, a pessimism... Read more

South

By: Ernest Shackleton

Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard

Length: 12 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

In 1911, veteran explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to lead the first expedition across Antarctica, the last unknown continent. Instead, his ship, the Endurance, became locked in sea ice, and for nine months, Shackleton fought a losing battle with the elements before the drifting ship was crushed, marooning him and his crew.This gripping... Read more