History audiobooks

Making of the Atomic Bomb

By: Richard Rhodes

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 37 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award**

The definitive history of nuclear weapons—from the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—this epic work details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to... Read more

The Fabric of Civilization

By: Virginia I. Postrel

Narrated by: Caroline Cole

Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, explore the global history of textiles and the world they weave together in this enthralling and educational guide.The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture.In... Read more

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem

By: Kliph Nesteroff

Narrated by: Kliph Nesteroff

Length: 9 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

*A Best Book of the Year by NPR and Esquire*

"A remarkable book." —Steve Martin

"An illumating and stereotype-busting history of Native Americans and comedy" (The Washington Post) from Kliph Nesteroff, “the human encyclopedia of comedy” (VICE).

It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill’s stand-up routine: “My people are from... Read more

Stories I Only Tell My Friends

By: Rob Lowe

Narrated by: Rob Lowe

Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

Actor Rob Lowe's memoir presents a wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye.

A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child... Read more

Lincoln vs. Davis

By: Nigel Hamilton

Narrated by: Rick Adamson

Length: 32 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

From a renowned biographer comes the greatest untold story of the Civil War: how two American presidents faced off as the fate of the nation hung in the balance—and how Abraham Lincoln came to embrace emancipation as the last, best chance to save the Union. 

Of all the books written on Abraham Lincoln, there has been one surprising gap: the... Read more

Box Office Poison

By: Tim Robey

Narrated by: Tim Robey

Length: 8 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

"A wild success." — Publishers Weekly

"A surefire hit." —Library Journal STARRED review

"A brilliant star turn." —Andrew O’Hagan

A riotous and revealing story of Hollywood’s most spectacular flops and how they ended careers, bankrupted studios and changed film history.

"Failure fascinates, for all the reasons that success is a drag…”

From grand... Read more

Hitler's People

By: Richard J Evans

Narrated by: Leighton Pugh

Length: 21 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews

“A fascinating and instructive book . . . elegantly written and perceptive.” —Wall Street Journal

“Kaleidoscopic . . . A fascinating exploration of individual agency that never loses sight of the larger context . . . Just the kind of probing, nuanced and unsparing study to help us think things... Read more

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

By: Nick Offerman

Narrated by: Nick Offerman

Length: 11 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

A humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman

Nick Offerman has always felt a particular affection for the Land of the... Read more

Kingmaker

By: Sonia Purnell

Narrated by: Louise Brealey

Length: 16 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, an electrifying re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players

When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing – and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan... Read more

A Rome of One's Own

By: Emma Southon

Narrated by: Danielle Cohen

Length: 14 hours

Abridged: No

From the acclaimed author of A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum comes a wildly entertaining new history of Rome that uses the lives of twenty-one extraordinary women to upend our understanding of the ancient worldThe history of Rome has long been narrow and one-sided, essentially a history of “the Doing of Important Things.” It is a... Read more

The Chancellor

By: Kati Marton

Narrated by: Alex Allwine & Kati Marton

Length: 10 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: No

The “captivating” (The New York Times), definitive biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, detailing the extraordinary rise and political brilliance of the most powerful—and elusive—woman in the world.

Angela Merkel has always been an outsider. A pastor’s daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany, she spent her twenties working as a... Read more

When Crack Was King

By: Donovan X. Ramsey

Narrated by: Donovan X. Ramsey

Length: 11 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A “vivid and frank” (NPR) account of the crack cocaine era and a community’s ultimate resilience, told through a cast of characters whose lives illuminate the dramatic rise and fall of the epidemic
 
“A master class in disrupting a stubborn narrative, a monumental feat for the fraught subject of addiction... Read more

My Promised Land

By: Ari Shavit

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 20 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“A deeply reported, deeply personal history of Zionism and Israel that does something few books even attempt: It balances the strength and weakness, the idealism and the brutality, the hope and the horror, that has always been at Zionism’s heart.”—Ezra... Read more

SPQR

By: Mary Beard

Narrated by: Phyllida Nash

Length: 18 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

A sweeping, revisionist history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists. Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power... Read more

Miss May Does Not Exist

By: Carrie Courogen

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

Length: 13 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

As part of the legendary comedy team known as Nichols and May, May revolutionized sketch comedy before striking out on her own to make history as the third woman to be admitted into the Directors Guild of America when she wrote, directed, and starred in 1971’s A New Leaf. Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, May was one of Hollywood’s top... Read more

The Forbidden Garden

By: Simon Parkin

Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick

Length: 11 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

From the award-winning author of The Island of Extraordinary Captives, the riveting, untold true story of the botanists at the world’s first seed bank who faced an impossible choice during the Siege of Leningrad: eat the collection to prevent starvation, or protect their life’s work to help end world hunger?

In the summer of 1941, German troops... Read more

Night

By: Elie Wiesel

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 4 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

An enduring classic of Holocaust literature, Night offers a personal and unforgettable account of the appalling horrors of Hitler's reign of terror. Through the eyes of 14-year-old Eliezer, we behold the tragic fate of the Jews from the little town of Sighet. Even as they are stuffed into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz, the townspeople refuse... Read more

Trail of the Lost

By: Andrea Lankford

Narrated by: Kristi Burns

Length: 10 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

From an award-winning former law enforcement park ranger and investigator, this female-driven true crime adventure follows the author’s quest to find missing hikers along the Pacific Crest Trail by pairing up with an eclectic group of unlikely allies.  ​
 
As a park ranger with the National Park Service's law enforcement team, Andrea Lankford... Read more

Meditations

By: Marcus Aurelius

Narrated by: Richard Armitage

Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Richard Armitage, star of Peter Jackson'sThe Hobbit trilogy and also known for his roles in Ocean's 8 and Spooks. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Diskin Clay.

Originally written only for his personal consumption, Marcus Aurelius's Meditations has become a key... Read more

The Choice

By: Edith Eva Eger

Narrated by: Tovah Feldshuh

Length: 12 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times Bestseller

“I’ll be forever changed by Dr. Eger’s story…The Choice is a reminder of what courage looks like in the worst of times and that we all have the ability to pay attention to what we’ve lost, or to pay attention to what we still have.”—Oprah

“Dr. Eger’s life reveals our capacity to transcend even the greatest of horrors... Read more

Napoleon

By: Andrew Roberts

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 32 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the New York Times bestselling author of The Storm of War

Austerlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are among the greatest in history, but Napoleon Bonaparte was far more than a military genius and astute leader of men. Like George Washington and his own hero Julius Caesar, he was one... Read more

How Music Works

By: David Byrne

Narrated by: Andrew Garman & David Byrne

Length: 13 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation.

“How Music Works is a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey,... Read more

Beaverland

By: Leila Philip

Narrated by: Christine Lakin

Length: 12 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver—the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future.  From award-winning writer Leila Philip, Beaverland is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how... Read more

Reaganland

By: Rick Perlstein

Narrated by: Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Jacques Roy ...

Length: 45 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020

From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.

Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the... Read more