History audiobooks

Lisbon

By: Neill Lochery

Narrated by: Robin Sachs

Length: 8 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Throughout the Second World War, Lisbon was at the very center of the world’s attention and was the only European city in which both the Allies and the Axis powers openly operated. Portugal was frantically trying to hold on to its self-proclaimed wartime neutrality but in reality was increasingly caught in the middle of the economic, and naval,... Read more

The Book of Charlie

By: David Von Drehle

Narrated by: David Von Drehle

Length: 7 hours

Abridged: No

One of our nation’s most prominent writers discovers the truth about how to live a long and happy life from the centenarian next door in this “original and highly readable account of a splendid American life” (The Wall Street Journal).

When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old.... Read more

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days

By: Rebecca Donner

Narrated by: Rebecca Donner

Length: 13 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

The INSTANT New York Times Bestseller

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
Winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award 
Winner of the Chautauqua Prize
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award
Finalist for the Plutarch Award
A New York Times Notable Book of 2021
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A New... Read more

Wandering in Strange Lands

By: Morgan Jerkins

Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins

Length: 8 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Buzzfeed's 24 New Books We Couldn’t Put Down“One of the smartest young writers of her generation.”—Book RiotFrom the acclaimed cultural critic and New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing—a writer whom Roxane Gay has hailed as “a force to be reckoned with”—comes this powerful story of her journey to understand her... Read more

When Time Stopped

By: Ariana Neumann

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In this astonishing story that “reads like a thriller and is so, so timely” (BuzzFeed) Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: “Like Anne Frank’s diary, it offers a story that needs to be told and heard” (Booklist, starred review).

In 1941, the first Neumann family member was taken by the Nazis, arrested in German-occupied... Read more

Imperfect Union

By: Steve Inskeep

Narrated by: Steve Inskeep

Length: 13 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple

John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in... Read more

Endurance

By: Alfred Lansing

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 10 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

This is a new reading of the thrilling account of one of the most astonishing feats of exploration and human courage ever recorded.In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October, 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir... Read more

Red Dead's History

By: Tore C. Olsson

Narrated by: Roger Clark

Length: 10 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

"A must-listen for fans of the beloved game."—Den of Geek

This program is read by Roger Clark, the iconic and award-winning full performance-capture actor of Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan, who returns to the wildly dramatic and gritty world of the American frontier in this audiobook edition of Red Dead's History. It also features a... Read more

Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party

By: Edward Dolnick

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 8 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

From the bestselling author of The Clockwork Universe and The Writing of the Gods, an “utterly delightful…hugely entertaining” (Air Mail) book about the eccentric Victorians who discovered dinosaur bones, leading to a whole new understanding of human history.

In the early 1800s the natural world was a safe and cozy place, or so people believed.... Read more

The Palace

By: Gareth Russell

Narrated by: John Telfer

Length: 14 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

A “riotously readable…tender and affectionate” (Daily Mail, London) exploration of five hundred years of British history—from King Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth II—as seen through the doorways of the exquisite Hampton Court Palace.

Architecturally breathtaking and rich in splendid art and décor, Hampton Court Palace has been the stage of some of... Read more

Over My Dead Body

By: Greg Melville

Narrated by: Will Tulin

Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

A lively tour through the history of US cemeteries that explores how, where, and why we bury our deadThe summer before his senior year in college, Greg Melville worked at the cemetery in his hometown, and thanks to hour upon hour of pushing a mower over the grassy acres, he came to realize what a rich story the place told of his town and its... Read more

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?

By: Séamas O'Reilly

Narrated by: Séamas O'Reilly

Length: 5 hours

Abridged: No

A heart-warming and hilarious family memoir of growing up as one of eleven siblings raised by a single dad in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles. Séamas O’Reilly’s mother died when he was five, leaving him, his ten (!) brothers and sisters, and their beloved father in their sprawling bungalow in rural Derry. It was the 1990s; the... Read more

The Three Death Sentences of Clarence Henderson

By: Chris Joyner

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

The story of Clarence Henderson, a Black sharecropper convicted and sentenced to death three times for a murder he didn’t commitThis is the story of Clarence Henderson, a wrongfully accused Black sharecropper, who was sentenced to die three different times for a murder he didn’t commit, and of the prosecution desperate to pin the crime on him... Read more

Off the Edge

By: Kelly Weill

Narrated by: Xe Sands

Length: 7 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

“A deep dive into the world of Flat Earth conspiracy theorists . . . that brilliantly reveals how people fall into illogical beliefs, reject reason, destroy relationships, and connect with a broad range of conspiracy theories in the social media age. Beautiful, probing, and often empathetic . . . An insightful, human look at what fuels... Read more

Down Along with That Devil's Bones

By: Connor Towne O'Neill

Narrated by: Geoffrey Cantor

Length: 7 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

“We can no longer see ourselves as minor spectators or weary watchers of history a­fter finishing this astonishing work of nonfiction.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
 
Connor Towne O’Neill’s journey onto the battlefield of white supremacy began with a visit to Selma, Alabama, in 2015. There he had a chance encounter with a group of people... Read more

The Ship of Dreams

By: Gareth Russell

Narrated by: Jenny Funnell

Length: 12 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

This original and “meticulously researched retelling of history’s most infamous voyage” (Denise Kiernan, New York Times bestselling author) uses the sinking of the Titanic as a prism through which to examine the end of the Edwardian era and the seismic shift modernity brought to the Western world. “While there are many Titanic books, this is one... Read more

The Great Pretender

By: Susannah Cahalan

Narrated by: Christie Moreau & Susannah Cahalan

Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

"One of America's most courageous young journalists" and the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Brain on Fire investigates the shocking mystery behind the dramatic experiment that revolutionized modern medicine (NPR).

Doctors have struggled for centuries to define insanity--how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you... Read more

Lakota America

By: Pekka Hamalainen

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 17 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America's history

This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and... Read more

Wasteland

By: W. Scott Poole

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden

Length: 11 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Historian and Bram Stoker Award nominee W. Scott Poole traces the confluence of history, technology, and art that gave us modern horror films and literature.In the early twentieth century, World War I was the most devastating event humanity had yet experienced. New machines of war left tens of millions killed or wounded in the most grotesque of... Read more

Red Famine

By: Anne Applebaum

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 17 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag and the National Book Award finalist Iron Curtain, a revelatory history of one of Stalin's greatest crimes—the consequences of which still resonate today

In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization—in effect a second Russian... Read more

The Unwomanly Face of War

By: Svetlana Alexievich

Narrated by: Julia Emelin & Yelena Shmulenson

Length: 14 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

A long-awaited English translation of the groundbreaking oral history of women in World War II across Europe and Russia—from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

“A landmark.”—Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

For more than three decades, Svetlana Alexievich has been the memory and conscience of... Read more

The Prisoner in His Palace

By: Will Bardenwerper

Narrated by: Danny Campbell

Length: 7 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

In the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, this haunting, insightful, and surprisingly intimate portrait of Saddam Hussein provides “a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power” (USA TODAY).

The “captivating” (Military Times) The Prisoner in His Palace invites us to take a journey with twelve young... Read more

The Lost City of the Monkey God

By: Douglas Preston

Narrated by: Bill Mumy

Length: 10 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning... Read more

The Guns of August

By: Barbara W. Tuchman

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 19 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

In this Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I.This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of kings and kaisers and czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed—and how horrible... Read more