History audiobooks

On the Horizon

By: Lois Lowry

Narrated by: Lois Lowry

Length: 38 minutes

Abridged: No

From two-time Newbery medalist and living legend Lois Lowry comes a moving account of the lives lost in two of WWII’s most infamous events: Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima

Lois Lowry looks back at history through a personal lens as she draws from her own memories as a child in Hawaii and Japan, as well as from historical research, in this stunning... Read more

Labyrinth of Ice

By: Buddy Levy

Narrated by: Will Damron

Length: 13 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

"Listen to this if you want to hear a narrator at the top of his game recount a fascinating--and at times disturbing--true story of adventure, disaster, discovery, cannibalism, and more. Will Damron makes Levy's fascinating account of the Greely (Polar) Expedition come to life...This is a harrowing adventure story and a great listen." —... Read more

The Ghosts of Eden Park

By: Karen Abbott

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro & Cassandra Campbell

Length: 11 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic true crime story of the most successful bootlegger in American history and the murder that shocked the nation, from the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy

“Gatsby-era noir at its best.”—Erik Larson

An ID Book Club Selection • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST... Read more

Ghosts of Gold Mountain

By: Gordon H. Chang

Narrated by: David Shih

Length: 9 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

A groundbreaking, breathtaking history of the Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, helping to forge modern America only to disappear into the shadows of history until now.



From across the sea, they came by the thousands, escaping war and poverty in southern China to seek their fortunes in America. Converging on the enormous... Read more

The Color of Compromise

By: Jemar Tisby

Narrated by: Jemar Tisby

Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

An acclaimed, timely narrative of how people of faith have historically--up to the present day--worked against racial justice. And a call for urgent action by all Christians today in response. The Color of Compromise is both enlightening and compelling, telling a history we either ignore or just don't know. Equal parts painful and inspirational,... Read more

Heirs of the Founders

By: H. W. Brands

Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin

Length: 14 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

From New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how, in nineteenth-century America, a new set of political giants battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the future of our democracy

In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a... Read more

The Ravenmaster

By: Christopher Skaife

Narrated by: Christopher Skaife

Length: 6 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

"[Christopher Skaife's] natural storyteller's charm results in a performance that is conversational, funny, and self-deprecating...Ravenmaster is a joyful listening experience." — AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by the author.

The first behind-the-scenes account of life with the legendary ravens at the world’s eeriest monument.

The ravens... Read more

How to Invent Everything

By: Ryan North

Narrated by: Ryan North

Length: 12 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

An NPR Best Book of 2018

"How to Invent Everything is such a cool book. It's essential reading for anyone who needs to duplicate an industrial civilization quickly." --Randall Munroe, xkcd creator and New York Times-bestselling author of What If?

The only book you need if you're going back in time

What would you do if a time machine hurled you... Read more

The Last Palace

By: Norman Eisen

Narrated by: Jeff Goldblum

Length: 15 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa’s greatest houses—and the lives of its occupants
 
When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover... Read more

The Woman's Hour

By: Elaine Weiss

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert & Elaine Weiss

Length: 16 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

"Both a page-turning drama and an inspiration for every reader"--Hillary Rodham Clinton

Soon to Be a Major Television Event

The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.

"With a skill reminiscent of Robert Caro, [Weiss]... Read more

The Stowaway

By: Laurie Gwen Shapiro

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

The spectacular, true story of a scrappy teenager from New York’s Lower East Side who stowed away on the most remarkable feat of science and daring of the Jazz Age, The Stowaway is “a thrilling adventure that captures not only the making of a man but of a nation” (David Grann, bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon).

It was 1928: a time... Read more

American Wolf

By: Nate Blakeslee

Narrated by: Mark Bramhall & Nate Blakeslee

Length: 9 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The enthralling true story of the rise and reign of O-Six, the celebrated Yellowstone wolf, and the people who loved or feared her.
 
Before men ruled the earth, there were wolves. Once abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 states by the 1920s. But in... Read more

Sons and Soldiers

By: Bruce Henderson

Narrated by: Brett Barry

Length: 13 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Joining the ranks of Unbroken, Band of Brothers, and Boys in the Boat, the little-known saga of young German Jews, dubbed The Ritchie Boys, who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, came of age in America, and returned to Europe at enormous personal risk as members of the U.S. Army to play a key role in the Allied victory.In 1942, the U.S. Army... Read more

Terror in the City of Champions

By: Tom Stanton

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Length: 9 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Detroit, mid-1930s: In a city abuzz over its unrivaled sports success, gun-loving baseball fan Dayton Dean became ensnared in the nefarious and deadly Black Legion. The secretive, Klan-like group was executing a wicked plan of terror, murdering enemies, flogging associates, and contemplating armed rebellion. The Legion boasted tens of thousands... Read more

The Glass Universe

By: Dava Sobel

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

Length: 12 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Dava Sobel, the "inspiring" (People), little-known true story of women's landmark contributions to astronomy

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017

Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Economist, Smithsonian, Nature, and NPR's Science Friday

Nominated for the PEN/E.O. Wilson... Read more

Irena's Children

By: Tilar J. Mazzeo

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin

Length: 10 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot comes an extraordinary and gripping account of Irena Sendler—the “female Oskar Schindler”—who took staggering risks to save 2,500 children from death and deportation in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

In 1942, one young social worker, Irena Sendler, was granted access to... Read more

Hero of the Empire

By: Candice Millard

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

From New York Times bestselling author of Destiny of the Republic and The River of Doubt, a thrilling narrative of Winston Churchill's extraordinary and little-known exploits during the Boer War
 
At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had... Read more

Secondhand Time

By: Svetlana Alexievich

Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Mark Bramhall, Cassandra Campbel...

Length: 22 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia

When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing “a new kind of literary genre,”... Read more

Valiant Ambition

By: Nathaniel Philbrick

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 13 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Bestseller
Winner of the George Washington Prize

A surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold, from the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and In the Hurricane's Eye.

"May be one of the greatest... Read more

Island of the Lost

By: Joan Druett

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.



In 1864 Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton... Read more

All the Single Ladies

By: Rebecca Traister

Narrated by: Candace Thaxton

Length: 11 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

* NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2016 SELECTION * BEST BOOKS OF 2016 SELECTION BY THE BOSTON GLOBE * ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY * NPR * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY *

The New York Times bestselling investigation into the sexual, economic, and emotional lives of women is “an informative and thought-provoking book for anyone—not just the single ladies—who... Read more

The Oregon Trail

By: Rinker Buck

Narrated by: Rinker Buck

Length: 16 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • #1 Indie Next Pick • Winner of the PEN New England Award

“Enchanting…A book filled with so much love…Long before Oregon, Rinker Buck has convinced us that the best way to see America is from the seat of a covered wagon.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Amazing…A real nonfiction thriller.” —Ian Frazier, The New York... Read more

If Walls Could Talk

By: Lucy Worsley

Narrated by: Anne Flosnik

Length: 9 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two "dirty centuries?" Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why, for centuries, did rich people fear fruit?

In her brilliantly and creatively researched book, Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom, bathroom,... Read more

The River of Doubt

By: Candice Millard

Narrated by: Paul Michael

Length: 12 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the... Read more