History audiobooks

Fields, Factories, and Workshops

By: Pyotr Kropotkin

Narrated by: Peter Kenny

Length: 7 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Pyotr Kropotkin (1842-1921) was one of the most interesting figures to emerge from the Russian Communist movement, developing the path of Communist Anarchism: he was not associated, either in theory or practice with the violence associated with that time of great change. Born into a Russian aristocratic land-owning family, he was affected by the... Read more

Blackshirts and Reds

By: Michael Parenti

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Length: 5 hours 29 minutes

Abridged: No

A bold and entertaining exploration of the epic struggles of yesterday and today.

Blackshirts & Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology. These terms are often bandied about, but seldom explored in the original and exciting way that has become Michael Parenti's... Read more

Black on Both Sides

By: C. Riley Snorton

Narrated by: C. Riley Snorton

Length: 8 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America's first prominent transsexual, narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives. Their erasure from trans history masks the ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on... Read more

Troy

By: Stephen Fry

Narrated by: Stephen Fry

Length: 11 hours

Abridged: No

In this brilliant conclusion to his bestselling Mythos trilogy, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry retells the tale of the Trojan War.

Full of tragic heroes, intoxicating love stories, and the unstoppable force of fate, there is no conflict more iconic than the Trojan War. Troy is the story of the epic battle retold by Fry with drama, humor,... Read more

How Women Made Music

By: National Public Radio, Inc & Alison Fensterstock

Length: 10 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

NPR’s launch of the multi-platform series Turning the Tables in 2017, suddenly pushed more women onto “Best of” lists and into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. With How Women Made Music, acclaimed critic and TtT co-founder Ann Powers and contributor Alison Fensterstock draw from every Turning the Tables season and the full 50-years of NPR... Read more

The Black Utopians

By: Aaron Robertson

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 10 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

This program is read by by four-time Audie Award winner, Odyssey Award winner, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Award–winning audiobook narrator, Dion Graham.

One of Literary Hub's most anticipated books of 2024

A lyrical meditation on how Black Americans have envisioned utopia—and sought to transform their lives.

How do the disillusioned, the... Read more

Jerusalem

By: Simon Sebag Montefiore

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 25 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of... Read more

The Dead of Winter

By: Sarah Clegg

Narrated by: Hannah Curtis & Sarah Clegg

Length: 4 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Discover the monsters, witches, and other ghoulish creatures that make up lesser known Christmas folklore in this gleefully creepy guide–perfect for horror fans who love the wintry holidays.

When you think about Christmas, you likely picture mangers, glowing fireplaces, sweet carolers, and snow-blanketed hills. But behind all this bright magic,... Read more

Revolutionary Spring

By: Christopher Clark

Narrated by: Christopher Clark

Length: 33 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

From the bestselling author of The Sleepwalkers comes an epic history of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe, and the charismatic figures who propelled them forward, with deep resonance and frightening parallels to today.

As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions... Read more

It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful

By: Jack Lowery

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Length: 14 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The story of art collective Gran Fury—which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda—offers lessons in love and grief.

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out... Read more

Reagan

By: Max Boot

Narrated by: Graham Winton

Length: 32 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot... Read more

Crashed

By: Adam Tooze

Narrated by: Simon Vance & Adam Tooze

Length: 25 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

WINNER OF THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK

"An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European... Read more

Grandma Gatewood's Walk

By: Ben Montgomery

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 7 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, sixty-seven-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. And in September 1955, atop Maine's... Read more

The Social Climber

By: Amanda Pellegrino

Narrated by: Kristen Sieh

Length: 9 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

When you’re on top, you can get away with anything...

It’s the week before her wedding, and all of Eliza’s meticulous planning is about to pay off. She’s become the exact type of woman who would marry into the prominent, blue-blood Walker family – Ivy League credentials, a high-powered PR job, and a designer label wardrobe. 

But as the big day... Read more

Surprise, Kill, Vanish

By: Annie Jacobsen

Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen

Length: 19 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units.
Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace.
When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA... Read more

A People’s History of the World

By: Chris Harman

Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan

Length: 29 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Chris Harman describes the shape and course of human history as a narrative of ordinary people forming and re-forming complex societies in pursuit of common human goals. Interacting with the forces of technological change as well as the impact of powerful individuals and revolutionary ideas, these societies have engendered events familiar to... Read more

Work Won't Love You Back

By: Sarah Jaffe

Narrated by: Sarah Jaffe

Length: 12 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives.

You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor... Read more

JFK Jr.

By: RoseMarie Terenzio & Liz McNeil

Narrated by: Michael David Axtell, Kevin R. Free, Lanna Joff...

Length: 14 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

“Fascinating…the fullest portrait of Kennedy ever written.” —The Washington Post

The first oral biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. is an extraordinarily intimate and detailed look at the real man behind the myth. Sharing never-before-told stories, his closest friends, confidantes, lovers, classmates, teachers, and colleagues paint a vivid portrait... Read more

The Deadline

By: Jill Lepore

Narrated by: Jill Lepore

Length: 22 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

A book to be listened to and kept for posterity, The Deadline is the art of the essay at its best. Few, if any, historians have brought such insight, wisdom, and empathy to public discourse as Jill Lepore. Arriving at The New Yorker in 2005, Lepore, with her panoptical range and razor-sharp style, brought a transporting freshness and a literary... Read more

Lay Them to Rest

By: Laurah Norton

Narrated by: Laurah Norton

Length: 13 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

Take a fascinating deep dive into the dark world of forensic science as experts team up to solve the identity of an unknown woman by exploring the rapidly evolving techniques being used to break the most notorious cold cases. Fans of true crime shows like CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order know that when it comes to “getting the bad... Read more

A Brief History of Black Holes

By: Dr Becky Smethurst

Narrated by: Dr Becky Smethurst

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

This audio edition is narrated with dazzling enthusiasm by the author, Dr Becky Smethurst.

Right now, you are orbiting a black hole.

The Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the centre of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole, the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy.

In A Brief History of Black Holes, the award-winning... Read more

From Here to Equality

By: William A. Darity, Jr. & A. Kirsten Mullen

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Length: 14 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. Perhaps no moment was more opportune than the early days of Reconstruction, when the US government temporarily implemented a major... Read more

The 272

By: Rachel L. Swarns

Narrated by: Karen Murray

Length: 9 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

“An absolutely essential addition to the history of the Catholic Church, whose involvement in New World slavery sustained the Church and, thereby, helped to entrench enslavement in American society.”—Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello and On Juneteenth

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice... Read more

The Pope at War

By: David I. Kertzer

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Length: 17 hours 32 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The most important book ever written about the Catholic Church and its conduct during World War II.”—Daniel Silva

“Kertzer brings all of his usual detective and narrative skills to [The Pope at War] . . . the most comprehensive account of the Vatican’s relations to the Nazi and fascist regimes before and during the... Read more