History audiobooks

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

South to America

By: Imani Perry

Narrated by: Imani Perry

Length: 16 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

“An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South—and thus of America—by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration.” —Isabel Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste: The Origins of Our DiscontentsAn essential, surprising journey... Read more

Empires of the Steppes

By: Kenneth W. Harl

Narrated by: Corey M. Snow

Length: 17 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

A narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization.

The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the... Read more

John Lewis

By: David Greenberg

Narrated by: David Sadzin

Length: 24 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

A comprehensive, authoritative biography of Civil Rights icon John Lewis, “the conscience of the Congress,” drawing on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents.

Born into poverty in rural Alabama, Lewis would become second only to Martin... Read more

From the Ashes

By: Sarah Jaffe

Narrated by: Sarah Jaffe

Length: 11 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

From a social critic and journalist, a poignant book that encourages publicly grieving what we've lost in order to move towards a hopeful future.

Our era is one of significant and substantial loss, of unraveling hopes and expectations, of dreams curtailed, of aspirations desiccated. At the same time, we are denied the means of mourning the... Read more

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated

By: Robert D. Putnam

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 21 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

*The basis for the documentary Join or Die—now streaming on Netflix!*

Updated to include a new chapter about the influence of social media and the Internet—the 20th anniversary edition of Bowling Alone remains a seminal work of social analysis, and its examination of what happened to our sense of community remains more relevant than ever in... Read more

Member of the Family

By: Dianne Lake & Deborah Herman

Narrated by: Dianne Lake

Length: 12 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most notorious criminals and life as one of his ""girls.""At... Read more

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

By: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Narrated by: Laural Merlington

Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the U.S. settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history.




Roxanne... Read more

The Soul of America

By: Jon Meacham

Narrated by: Fred Sanders & Jon Meacham

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear.

“Gripping and inspiring, The Soul of America is Jon Meacham’s declaration of his faith in America.”—Newsday

ONE OF... Read more

The Exceptions

By: Kate Zernike

Narrated by: Kathe Mazur

Length: 14 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Notable Book

As late as 1999, women who succeeded in science were called “exceptional” as if it were unusual for them to be so bright. They were exceptional, not because they could succeed at science but because of all they accomplished despite the hurdles.

“Gripping…one puts down the book inspired by the women’s grit, tenacity,... Read more

1177 B.C.

By: Eric H. Cline

Narrated by: Eric H. Cline

Length: 10 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and bestselling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark AgesIn 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy defeated them, but the victory so weakened... Read more

The Story of the World, Vol. 1 Audiobook

By: Susan Wise Bauer

Narrated by: Jim Weiss

Length: 8 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

History will never be the same again! This spirited reading of the first in Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World history series brings to life the stories and records of the peoples of ancient times. Now more than ever, other countries and customs affect our everyday lives-and our children need to learn about the people who live all around the... Read more

Worn

By: Sofi Thanhauser

Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman

Length: 13 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A sweeping and captivatingly told history of clothing and the stuff it is made of—an unparalleled deep-dive into how everyday garments have transformed our lives, our societies, and our planet.

“We learn that, if we were a bit more curious about our clothes, they would offer us rich, interesting and often... Read more

Vulture Capitalism

By: Grace Blakeley

Narrated by: Grace Blakeley

Length: 11 hours 45 minutes

Abridged: No

In the vein of The Shock Doctrine and Evil Geniuses, this timely and “galvanizing” (Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author) manifesto illustrates how corporate and political power brokers have used capitalism to advance their own interests at the expense of the rest of us—and how we can take back our economy.

It’s easy to look at the... Read more

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

By: Sarah Vowell

Narrated by: Alexis Denisof, John Slattery, Sarah Vowell, Pa...

Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette—the one Frenchman we could all agree on—and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality.

On August 16, 1824, an elderly French gentlemen sailed into New York Harbor and giddy... Read more

Mediocre

By: Ijeoma Oluo

Narrated by: Ijeoma Oluo

Length: 10 hours

Abridged: No

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, an  “illuminating” (New York Times Book Review) history of white male identity.

What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color,... Read more

Dark Money

By: Jane Mayer

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

Length: 16 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
     The... Read more

Debt - Updated and Expanded

By: David Graeber

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 17 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Now in audio, the updated and expanded edition : David Graeber’s “fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking . . . and exceedingly timely” (Financial Times) history of debt

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years,... Read more

The Future Is History (National Book Award Winner)

By: Masha Gessen

Narrated by: Masha Gessen

Length: 16 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 

WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD  

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST,  BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NEWSWEEK, PASTE,... Read more

American Midnight

By: Adam Hochschild

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

Length: 15 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor""A riveting, resonant... Read more

Ordinary Men

By: Christopher R. Browning

Narrated by: Kevin Gallagher

Length: 10 hours

Abridged: No

“A remarkable—and singularly chilling—glimpse of human behavior. . .This meticulously researched book...represents a major contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.""—Newsweek 
Now available in audio for the first time, Christopher R. Browning’s shocking account of how a unit of average middle-aged Germans became the cold-blooded murderers... Read more

The Worst Hard Time

By: Timothy Egan

Narrated by: Jacob York

Length: 12 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows.
 
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through... Read more

The Fourth Turning

By: William Strauss & Neil Howe

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Length: 19 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Now available as an unabridged recording for the first time

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play.
 
First comes a High, a period of... Read more

Isaac's Storm

By: Erik Larson

Narrated by: Richard Davidson

Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The riveting true story of the Galveston hurricane of 1900, still the deadliest natural disaster in American history—from the acclaimed author of The Devil in the White City

“A gripping account ... fascinating to its core, and all the more compelling for being true.” —The New York Times Book Review

September 8, 1900,... Read more