History audiobooks

Master Slave Husband Wife

By: Ilyon Woo

Narrated by: Janina Edwards & Leon Nixon

Length: 12 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Biography

“A rich narrative of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant, exploiting assumptions about race, class, and disability to hide in public on their journey to the North, where they... Read more

Henry V

By: Dan Jones

Narrated by: Dan Jones

Length: 14 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

"Ambitious... With meticulous research and in lively style, Jones presents us with the man beyond the Shakespeare character."—The New York Times

“The best biography yet of England’s greatest king."—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs and Jerusalem

The New York Times bestselling author returns with a biography examining the dramatic life... Read more

A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

By: Emma Southon

Narrated by: Sophie Ward

Length: 11 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

An entertaining and informative look at the unique culture of crime, punishment, and killing in ancient RomeIn ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city, Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theater, Claudius was poisoned at dinner, and Galba... Read more

Book and Dagger

By: Elyse Graham

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the warAt the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the... Read more

Vanderbilt

By: Anderson Cooper & Katherine Howe

Narrated by: Anderson Cooper

Length: 8 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in... Read more

The Six

By: Loren Grush

Narrated by: Inés del Castillo

Length: 11 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

“Vivid.” —The Guardian * “Engrossing.” —Booklist * “Suspenseful, meticulously observed, enlightening.” —Margot Lee Shetterly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Figures

In this account of America’s first women astronauts “Grush skillfully weaves a story that, at its heart, is about desire: not a nation’s desire to conquer space, but... Read more

Midnight in Chernobyl

By: Adam Higginbotham

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Length: 13 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

One of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2019!

A New York Times Best Book of the Year
A Time Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Winner
One of NPR’s Best Books of 2019

Journalist Adam Higginbotham’s definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power... Read more

A Short History of Nearly Everything

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Length: 18 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the world’s most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer.

In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. In In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to... Read more

Ask Not

By: Maureen Callahan

Narrated by: Gabra Zackman

Length: 11 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

From New York Times bestseller Maureen Callahan, a fierce, character-driven exposé of the real Kennedy Curse—the family’s generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem.

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and—above all else—integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the... Read more

Before We Were Trans

By: Dr. Kit Heyam

Narrated by: Dr. Kit Heyam

Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

A groundbreaking global history of gender nonconformity  

Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.  
 
Before We Were Trans illuminates... Read more

Erasing History

By: Jason Stanley

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 4 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

“I’ve never read a book that is as timely, urgent and essential as this one. A battle plan for keeping this nation from falling into fascism.” —Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author of The Condemnation of Blackness

From the bestselling author of How Fascism Works, a searing confrontation with the far right’s efforts to rewrite history and undo a... Read more

The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist

By: Radley Balko & Tucker Carrington

Narrated by: Robert Fass

Length: 14 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

A shocking and deeply reported account of the persistent plague of institutional racism and junk forensic science in our criminal justice system, and its devastating effect on innocent lives

After two three-year-old girls were raped and murdered in rural Mississippi, law enforcement pursued and convicted two innocent men: Kennedy Brewer and... Read more

The Story of Art Without Men

By: Katy Hessel

Narrated by: Katy Hessel

Length: 10 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

The story of art as it's never been told before, from the Renaissance to the present day.



How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway?



Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering... Read more

Fearless Speech

By: Mary Anne Franks

Narrated by: Soneela Nankani & Mary Anne Franks

Length: 8 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

A powerful debunking of First Amendment orthodoxy that critiques "reckless speech," which endangers vulnerable groups, and elevates "fearless speech," which seeks to advance equality and democracy.

Freedom of speech has never been more important—or more controversial. From debates about what's permissible on social media, to the politics of... Read more

The Spy and the Traitor

By: Ben Macintyre

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 13 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War.

“The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie... Read more

Oath and Honor

By: Liz Cheney

Narrated by: Liz Cheney

Length: 12 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Read by Liz Cheney with 50+ audio source material clips included, Oath and Honor is a gripping first-hand account from inside the halls of Congress as Donald Trump and his enablers betrayed the American people and the Constitution--leading to the violent attack on our Capitol on January 6th, 2021—by the House Republican leader who dared to stand... Read more

Code Breaker, Spy Hunter

By: Laurie Wallmark

Narrated by: Romy Nordlinger

Length: 42 minutes

Abridged: No

In this biography, young listeners will learn all about Elizebeth Friedman (1892-1980), a brilliant American code breaker who smashed Nazi spy rings, took down gangsters, and created the CIA's first cryptology unit. Her story came to light when her secret papers were finally declassified in 2015. From thwarting notorious rumrunners with only... Read more

I Never Thought of It That Way

By: Mónica Guzmán

Narrated by: Mónica Guzmán

Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions.

Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool... Read more

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here

By: Jonathan Blitzer

Narrated by: André Santana & Jonathan Blitzer

Length: 18 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

A National Bestseller • One of Barack Obama's Summer Reading List Picks • Nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction • One of Washington Post's 50 Notable Books of 2024

“What an incredibly thorough documentation of the causes of the immigration crisis, the discussions that have been going on... Read more

A Woman of No Importance

By: Sonia Purnell

Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson

Length: 13 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, the Seattle Times, the Washington Independent Review of Books, PopSugar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, BookBrowse, the Spectator, and the Times of London

Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography

“Excellent…This book is as riveting as... Read more

The Jakarta Method

By: Vincent Bevins

Length: 9 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ

“A radical new history of the United States abroad” (Wall Street Journal) which uncovers U.S. complicity in the mass-killings of left-wing activists in Indonesia, Latin America and around the world

In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill... Read more

Some People Need Killing

By: Patricia Evangelista

Narrated by: Patricia Evangelista

Length: 11 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

TIME’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“Patricia Evangelista’s searing account is not only the definitive chronicle of a reign of terror in the Philippines, but a warning to the rest of the world about the true dangers of despotism—its nightmarish consequences and its terrible human... Read more

Believe

By: Jeremy Egner

Narrated by: Christopher Grove

Length: 10 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

The definitive book on the TV show Ted Lasso, written by New York Times journalist and editor Jeremy Egner, celebrating the show’s improbable rise and cultural impact while never losing sight of the heart, friendship, and passion that have made it an enduring favorite for the ages

When Ted Lasso first aired in 2020, nobody—including those who... Read more

Blood and Thunder

By: Hampton Sides

Narrated by: Don Leslie

Length: 20 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Ghost Soldiers comes an eye-opening history of the American conquest of the West—"a story full of authority and color, truth and prophecy" (The New York Times Book Review).

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed... Read more