History audiobooks

The Power of Gold - Abridged

By: Peter L. Bernstein

Narrated by: Eric Conger

Length: 6 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

Over the centuries, gold had stirred the passions for power and glory, for beauty and security, and even for immortality.  No other object has commanded so much veneration over such a long period of time.  The most striking feature of this long history is that gold led most of the protagonists in the drama into the ditch.  Gold had them, rather... Read more

Leonardo Da Vinci

By: Sherwin Nuland

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 4 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

In Leonardo Da Vinci, Sherwin Nuland completes his 20-year quest to understand an unlettered man who was a painter, architect, engineer, philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. What was it that propelled Leonardo's insatiable curiosity? Nuland finds clues in his subject's art, relationships, and scientific studies. He detects the siren... Read more

Ethnic Diversity:  A Time of Change

By: Ronald Takaki

Narrated by: Michael Toms

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: No

Ronald Takaki, a third-generation American of Japanese ancestry and professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley for over two decades, reflects on the past and the future of America's expanding ethnic diversity and how this diversity will affect the way we relate as individuals and as a nation to the rest of the world. Read more

Lost and Found Sound

By: The Kitchen Sisters & Jay Allison

Length: 2 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

On January 1, 1999, All Things Considered aired the first in a series of richly layered stories that trace the soundtrack of the 20th century. Broadcast weekly through 1999, continuing monthly through 2000, Lost & Found Sound chronicles, reflects, and celebrates the human experience in rare recordings and "sonic snapshots" submitted by... Read more

Tales from the Tummy Trilogy - Abridged

By: Calvin Trillin

Narrated by: Calvin Trillin

Length: 2 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Calvin Trillin is America’s funniest food writer. He is passionate about good cooking—not haute cuisine but genuine good food. Read more

Married to Laughter - Abridged

By: Jerry Stiller

Narrated by: Jerry Stiller

Length: 5 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara began performing together in coffehouses in Greenwich Village in the 1960's, and then as frequent guests on The Ed Sullivan Show. They based their standup characters on exaggerated vrsions of themselves, especially in the irrepressible commercials for Blue Nun wine. Offstage they raised two children, Amy and... Read more

Nothing Like It In The World

By: Stephen E. Ambrose

Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn

Length: 15 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

In this New York Times bestseller, Stephen Ambrose brings to life the story of the building of the transcontinental railroad, from the men who financed it to the engineers and surveyors who risked their lives to the workers who signed on for the dangerous job.

Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of... Read more

Nothing Like it In The World - Abridged

By: Stephen E. Ambrose

Narrated by: Jeffrey DeMunn

Length: 7 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In this New York Times bestseller, Stephen Ambrose brings to life the story of the building of the transcontinental railroad, from the men who financed it to the engineers and surveyors who risked their lives to the workers who signed on for the dangerous job.

Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of... Read more

Desire of the Everlasting Hills

By: Thomas Cahill

Narrated by: Brian F. O'Byrne

Length: 9 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization comes a compelling historical narrative about Jesus—an obscure rabbi from a backwater of the Roman Empire who became the central figure in Western Civilization.

"Divertingly instructive...gratifying...[Cahill] makes Jesus a still-living literary presence." —The... Read more

How the Irish Saved Civilization

By: Thomas Cahill

Narrated by: Donal Donnelly

Length: 8 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent... Read more

Seven Years in Tibet - Abridged

By: Heinrich Harrer

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 2 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Dramatized in a motion picture starring Brad Pitt, Seven Years in Tibet is the autobiographical account of a young Austrian adventurer and the escape from an internment camp that changed his life forever. In 1943, Heinrich Harrer, a noted mountain climber and skier, slipped out of captivity in India and made his way through the Himalayan passes... Read more

The Book of Honor - Abridged

By: Ted Gup

Narrated by: Frank Muller

Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: Yes

A national bestseller, this extraordinary work of investigative reporting uncovers the identities, and the remarkable stories, of the CIA secret agents who died anonymously in the service of their country.

In the entrance of the CIA headquarters looms a huge marble wall into which seventy-one stars are carved-each representing an agent who has... Read more

The Greatest Generation - Abridged

By: Tom Brokaw

Narrated by: Tom Brokaw

Length: 3 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The instant classic that changed the way we saw World War II and an entire generation of Americans, from the beloved journalist whose own iconic career has lasted more than fifty years.

In this magnificent testament to a nation and her people, Tom Brokaw brings to life the extraordinary stories of a generation that gave new meaning to courage,... Read more

How the Irish Saved Civilization - Abridged

By: Thomas Cahill

Narrated by: Liam Neeson

Length: 3 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent... Read more

The Greatest Generation Speaks - Abridged

By: Tom Brokaw

Narrated by: Tom Brokaw

Length: 3 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: Yes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful selection of the letters Tom Brokaw received in response to his towering #1 bestseller The Greatest Generation.
 
“When I wrote about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War II and then returned home to begin building the world we have... Read more

Stalin - Abridged

By: Edvard Radzinsky

Narrated by: David McCallum

Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: Yes

From the author of The Last Tsar, the first full-scale life of Stalin to have what no previous biography has fully obtained: the facts. Granted privileged access to Russia's secret archives, Edvard Radzinsky paints a picture of the Soviet strongman as more calculating, ruthless, and blood-crazed than has ever been described or imagined. Stalin... Read more

Flags of Our Fathers - Abridged

By: James Bradley & Ron Powers

Narrated by: Barry Bostwick

Length: 6 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Now abridged for young people, Flags of Our Fathers is the unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history: the raising of the U. S. flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

In February 1945, American... Read more

Don't Know Much About the Civil War - Abridged

By: Kenneth C. Davis

Narrated by: Kenneth C. Davis

Length: 5 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: Yes

“Distinct, clear, and balanced. . . . Davis has a gift for deftly rendering the essentials.”—New York Times Book Review

“Lively and relevant.” —USA Today

 
Millions of Americans, bored by dull textbooks, are in the dark about the most significant event in our history. Now New York Times bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis comes to the rescue,... Read more

The Great Republic - Abridged

By: Winston S. Churchill

Narrated by: Winston S. Churchill

Length: 6 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The Great Republic is Sir Winston Churchill's personal vision of American history, from the arrival of the first European settlers to the dawn of the Cold War, edited by his grandson, the historian and journalist Winston S. Churchill. The book is a magnificent retelling of the American story, including some of the best short histories of the  ... Read more

Notes From a Small Island - Abridged

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Bill Bryson

Length: 5 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Bill Bryson is an unabashed Anglophile who, through a mistake of history, happened to be born and bred in Iowa. Righting that error, he spent 20 years in England before deciding to repatriate. This was partly to let his wife and children experience life in Bryson's homeland - and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed... Read more

The End of the Road - Abridged

By: Tom Bodett

Narrated by: Tom Bodett

Length: 2 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Culled from Bodett's syndicated radio show, these interconnected stories captures the essence of life in America--especially Homer, Alaska, the sort of place where the keys are left in the snowplow in case someone gets stuck after hours. Read more

Seabiscuit - Abridged

By: Laura Hillenbrand

Narrated by: Campbell Scott

Length: 5 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: Yes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of the runaway phenomenon Unbroken comes a universal underdog story about the horse who came out of nowhere to become a legend.

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than ... Read more

Confederates in the Attic - Abridged

By: Tony Horwitz

Narrated by: Michael Beck

Length: 5 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: Yes

When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to... Read more

Howard Hughes

By: Peter Harry Brown & Pat H. Broeske

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 18 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

In this luminous memoir, Rita Moreno shares her remarkable journey from a young girl with simple beginnings in Puerto Rico to Hollywood legend—and one of the few performers, and the only Hispanic, to win an Oscar, Grammy, Tony and two Emmys.

Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in the idyll of Puerto Rico, Moreno, at age five, embarked on a harrowing sea... Read more