History audiobooks

Robert Oppenheimer

By: Ray Monk

Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom

Length: 35 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Robert Oppenheimer was among the most brilliant and divisive of men. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis in the race to develop the first atomic bomb—a breakthrough that was to have eternal ramifications for mankind and that made Oppenheimer the “Father of the Atomic Bomb.” But with his... Read more

The War Below

By: James Scott

Narrated by: Donald Corren

Length: 14 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

The riveting story of the submarine force that helped win World War II by ravaging Japan's merchant fleet and destroying its economyThe War Below is a dramatic account of extraordinary heroism, ingenuity, and perseverance—and the vital role American submarines played in winning the Pacific War. Focusing on the unique stories of the submarines... Read more

The Feud

By: Dean King

Narrated by: Dan Woren

Length: 12 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

For more than a century, the enduring feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys has been American shorthand for passionate, unyielding, and even violent confrontation. Yet despite numerous articles, books, television shows, and feature films, nobody has ever told the in-depth true story of this legendarily fierce-and far-reaching-clash in the... Read more

Southern League

By: Larry Colton

Narrated by: Fleet Cooper

Length: 12 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

"Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings in Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation."

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Letter... Read more

The Guns at Last Light - Abridged

By: Rick Atkinson

Narrated by: Rick Atkinson

Length: 11 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: Yes

The eagerly awaited final volume in Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Atkinson's New York Times bestselling Liberation Trilogy.

It is the twentieth century’s unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson... Read more

Street Without Joy

By: Bernard B. Fall

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 13 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

In this classic account of the French war in Indochina, Bernard B. Fall vividly captures the sights, sounds, and smells of the savage eight-year conflict in the jungles and mountains of Southeast Asia from 1946 to 1954. The French fought well to the last, but even with the lethal advantages of airpower, they could not stave off the Communist-led... Read more

City of Fortune

By: Roger Crowley

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 14 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea charts Venice’s astounding five-hundred-year voyage to the pinnacle of power in an epic story that stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. City of Fortune traces the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminates in... Read more

The Barbarous Years

By: Bernard Bailyn

Narrated by: Henry Strozier

Length: 26 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

They were a mixed multitude-- from England, the Netherlands, the German and Italian states, France, Africa, Sweden, and Finland. They moved to the western hemisphere for different reasons, from different social backgrounds and cultures, and under different auspices and circumstances. Even the majority that came from England fit no distinct... Read more

The Devonshires

By: Roy Hattersley

Narrated by: Michael Jayston

Length: 21 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

The story of the Cavendish family and the first eight Dukes of Devonshire is the story of England. From 1381 – when Sir John Cavendish, Lord Chief Justice of England, was killed during the Peasant’s Revolt – to 1906, when the Duke of Devonshire’s resignation brought down the Tory government: the family’s fortunes (and misfortunes) mirrored the... Read more

The Armada Legacy

By: Scott Mariani

Narrated by: Jack Hawkins

Length: 10 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

A GRIPPING THRILLER FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR ‘Deadly conspiracies, bone-crunching action and a tormented hero with a heart . . . packs a real punch’ Andy McDermott A sunken secret. A missing woman. A race against time. Former SAS major Ben Hope is relaxing at his home in... Read more

Perilous Question

By: Antonia Fraser

Narrated by: Mike Grady

Length: 11 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Internationally bestselling historian Antonia Fraser's book brilliantly evokes one year of pre-Victorian political and social history - the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832, an eventful and violent year that featured riots in Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham.
The time-span of the book is from Wellington's intractable declaration in... Read more

A Disease in the Public Mind

By: Thomas Fleming

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 11 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

By the time his body hung from the gallows for his crimes at Harper's Ferry, abolitionists had made John Brown a "holy martyr" in the fight against Southern slave owners. But Northern hatred for Southerners had been long in the making. Northern rage was born of the conviction that New England, whose spokesmen and militia had begun the American... Read more

Chain of Blame

By: Mathew Paul & Padilla Muolo

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Read more

A Curious Man

By: Neal Thompson

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Length: 11 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

A Curious Man is the marvelously compelling biography of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, the enigmatic cartoonist turned globetrotting millionaire who won international fame by celebrating the world's strangest oddities, and whose outrageous showmanship taught us to believe in the unbelievable.

As portrayed by acclaimed biographer Neal... Read more

The Body Economic

By: David Stuckler & Sanjay Basu

Narrated by: Tim Andres Pabon

Length: 6 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Politicians have talked endlessly about the seismic economic and social impacts of the recent financial crisis, but many continue to ignore its disastrous effects on human health—and have even exacerbated them, by adopting harsh austerity measures and cutting key social programs at a time when constituents need them most. The result, as... Read more

Capital Ideas Evolving

By: Peter L. Bernstein

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Read more

the Axmann Conspiracy

By: Scott Andrew Selby

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 8 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

A trusted member of Hitler’s inner circle, Artur Axmann, the head of the Hitler Youth, witnessed the Führer commit suicide in Berlin—but he would not let the Reich die with its leader. Evading capture, and with access to remnants of the regime’s wealth, Axmann had enough followers to reestablish the Nazi party in the very heart of... Read more

The Roberts Court

By: Marcia Coyle

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 12 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Seven minutes after President Obama put his signature to a landmark national health care insurance program, a lawyer in the office of Florida GOP attorney general Bill McCollum hit a computer key, sparking a legal challenge to the new law that would eventually reach the nation's highest court. Health care is only the most visible and recent... Read more

Back in the Fight

By: Joseph Kapacziewski & Charles W. Sasser

Narrated by: Johnny Heller & Jo Anna Perrin

Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

The inspiring and thrilling combat memoir of the only Army Ranger serving in direct combat operations with a prosthetic limb.

On October 3, 2005, Kapacziewski and his soldiers were coming to the end of their tour in Northern Iraq when their convoy was attacked by enemy fighters. A grenade fell through the gunner's hatch and exploded, shattering... Read more

Macarthur's War

By: Bevin Alexander

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 6 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Douglas MacArthur famously said there is no substitute for victory . . .



As a United States general, he had an unparalleled genius for military strategy, and it was under his leadership that Japan was rebuilt into a democratic ally after World War II. But MacArthur carried out his zero-sum philosophy both on and off the battlefield. During the... Read more

The Secret Rescue

By: Cate Lineberry

Narrated by: Erin Bennett

Length: 8 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

The compelling untold story of a group of stranded U.S. Army nurses and medics fighting to escape Nazi-occupied Europe.

When 26 Army nurses and medics-part of the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron-boarded a cargo plane for transport in November 1943, they never anticipated the crash landing in Nazi-occupied Albania that would lead... Read more

The Real Jane Austen

By: Paula Byrne

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 13 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the revered writer through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work. Going beyond previous traditional biographies which have traced Austen’s daily life from Steventon to Bath to Chawton to Winchester, Paula Byrne’s portrait—organized... Read more

Saving Italy

By: Robert M. Edsel

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 11 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Robert M. Edsel's contributions as a WWII historian have brought wide attention and a National Humanities Medal to his Monuments Men Foundation. In Saving Italy, Edsel recounts how, in May 1944, General Eisenhower sent two men--artist Deane Keller and scholar Fred Hartt--on a desperate hunt to locate priceless works of art fallen into Nazi... Read more

Noise A Human History - The Complete Series

By: Matt Thompson

Narrated by: David Hendy

Length: 7 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

This 30-part Radio 4 series explores how our interactions with sound have shaped us over 100,000 years. These specially extended episodes, recorded on location around the world and in collaboration with curators of the British Library Sound Archive, take us from prehistory to the present, encompassing the shamanistic music of our cave-dwelling... Read more