History audiobooks

The Lost Painting

By: Jonathan Harr

Narrated by: Campbell Scott

Length: 6 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. 

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to... Read more

The River of Doubt - Abridged

By: Candice Millard

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

Length: 6 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: Yes

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the... Read more

Team of Rivals - Abridged

By: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Narrated by: Richard Thomas

Length: 9 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: Yes

One of the most influential books of the past fifty years, Team of Rivals is Pulitzer Prize–winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s modern classic about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, his unlikely presidency, and his cabinet of former political foes.

Winner of the prestigious Lincoln Prize and the... Read more

Character Is Destiny - Abridged

By: John McCain & Mark Salter

Narrated by: John McCain

Length: 4 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In Character is Destiny, McCain tells the stories of celebrated historical figures and lesser-known heroes whose values exemplify the best of the human spirit. He illustrates these qualities with moving stories of triumph against the odds, righteousness in the face of iniquity, hope in adversity, and sacrifices for a cause greater than ... Read more

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare - Abridged

By: James Shapiro

Narrated by: James Shapiro

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, ""succeed[ing] where others have fallen short."" (Boston Globe)1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year,... Read more

First Man - Abridged

By: James R. Hansen

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 9 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Now a major motion picture, this is the first—and only—definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, the man whose “one small step” changed history.

When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over fifty... Read more

Burn Before Reading

By: Stansfield Turner

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 10 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

As never before, the American public is fascinated by how the United States government gathers intelligence. And there is no one better than Admiral Stansfield Turner, CIA Director under President Carter, to reveal the politics and personal issues that can interfere with how the President of the United States deals with the Intelligence... Read more

Longitude

By: Dava Sobel

Narrated by: Kate Reading & Neil Armstrong

Length: 4 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

An exciting scientific adventure from the days of wooden ships and iron men, LONGITUDE is full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd. It is also a captivating brief history of astronomy, navigation and clockmaking.

During the great ages of exploration, "the longitude problem" was the gravest of all scientific challenges. Lacking the... Read more

American Hostage - Abridged

By: Micah Garen & Marie-Helene Carleton

Narrated by: Micah Garen & Marie-Helene Carleton

Length: 6 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton were journalists and filmmakers working in Iraq on a documentary with their Iraqi translator Amir Doshi. In the late summer of 2004, they began to wrap up their work, and Marie-Helene returned home while Micah remained for a final two weeks of filming. As Micah and Amir were filming in a Nasiriyah market,... Read more

The Age of Anxiety - Abridged

By: Haynes Johnson

Narrated by: Kristoffer Tabori

Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Pulitzer-Prize winner Haynes Johnson boldly revisits the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era to examine parallels today in this new age of terror and threat with a mix of narrative history, political commentary, and contemporary reporting. Read more

Imperial Ambitions - Abridged

By: Noam Chomsky & David Barsamian

Narrated by: Noam Chomsky & David Barsamian

Length: 4 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In this first collection of interviews since the bestselling 9-11: Was There an Alternative?, our foremost intellectual activist examines crucial questions of U.S. foreign policy.

Timely, urgent, and powerfully elucidating, this important volume of previously unpublished interviews conducted by award-winning radio journalist David Barsamian... Read more

A Crack in the Edge of the World

By: Simon Winchester

Narrated by: Simon Winchester

Length: 12 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

The international bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces... Read more

Seize the Fire - Abridged

By: Adam Nicolson

Narrated by: Adam Nicolson

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

“Strikingly original. . . . Nicolson brings to life superbly the horror, devastation, and gore of Trafalgar.” —The EconomistAdam Nicolson takes the great naval battle of Trafalgar, fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets, and uses it to examine our idea of heroism and the heroic. A story rich with modern resonance, Seize the Fire... Read more

A Crack in the Edge of the World - Abridged

By: Simon Winchester

Narrated by: Simon Winchester

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

The international bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces... Read more

Andrew Jackson - Abridged

By: H. W. Brands

Narrated by: Chuck Montgomery

Length: 8 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

The extraordinary story of Andrew Jackson—the colorful, dynamic, and forceful president who ushered in the Age of Democracy and set a still young America on its path to greatness—told by the bestselling author of The First American.

The most famous American of his time, Andrew Jackson is a seminal figure in American history. The first “common... Read more

One Bullet Away - Abridged

By: Nathaniel Fick

Narrated by: Nathaniel Fick

Length: 6 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

If the Marines are "the few, the proud," Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Only one Marine in a hundred qualifies for Recon, charged with working clandestinely, often behind enemy lines. Fick's training begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth, and advances to the pinnacle -- Recon -- four years... Read more

Deutsche Zustände (Drei Briefe)

By: Friedrich Engels

Narrated by: Eva Meckbach

Length: 1 hour 1 minute

Abridged: No

Diese Texte bieten die wunderbare Gelegenheit, deutsche Geschichte zu verstehen und zu begreifen: keine angestaubte Geschichtsstunde läuft hier ab, sondern ein brillanter Denker bringt hier die wichtigsten historischen Ereignisse mit viel Sprachwitz auf den Punkt. Bilderreich und einprägsam beginnen die Texte mit der einer geistvollen... Read more

Der Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen

By: Friedrich Engels

Narrated by: Uwe Neumann

Length: 31 minutes

Abridged: No

"Die Arbeit ist Quelle alles Reichtums, sagen die politischen Ökonomen. (...) Sie ist aber noch unendlich viel mehr als dies: sie ist erste Grundbedingung menschlichen Lebens, sie hat den Menschen selbst geschaffen." Diese Worte stehen gleich zu Beginn des packenden Fragments, in dem Engels einen wichtigen Aspekt der Evolutionstheorie... Read more

No True Glory: Fallujah and the Struggle in Iraq

By: Bing West

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 13 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

“This is the face of war as only those who have fought it can describe it.”—Senator John McCain
 
Fallujah: Iraq’s most dangerous city unexpectedly emerged as the major battleground of the Iraqi insurgency. For twenty months, one American battalion after another tried to quell the violence, culminating in a bloody, full-scale assault. Victory... Read more

Warren Beatty

By: Suzanne Finstad

Narrated by: Suzanne Finstad

Length: 24 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

“Whatever you have read or heard about me through articles or gossip, forget it. I am nothing like that Warren Beatty. I am nothing like what you have read.” —Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the... Read more

Imperial Grunts

By: Robert D. Kaplan

Narrated by: John H. Mayer

Length: 18 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

A fascinating, unprecedented first-hand look at the soldiers on the front lines on the Global War on Terror.
 
Plunging deep into midst of some of the hottest conflicts on the globe, Robert D. Kaplan takes us through mud and jungle, desert and dirt to the men and women on the ground who are leading the charge against threats to American... Read more

The City of Falling Angels

By: John Berendt

Narrated by: Holter Graham

Length: 12 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

It was seven years ago that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil achieved a record-breaking four-year run on the New York Times bestseller list. John Berendt's inimitable brand of nonfiction brought the dark mystique of Savannah so startlingly to life for millions of people that tourism to Savannah increased by 46%. It is Berendt and only... Read more

Warren Beatty - Abridged

By: Suzanne Finstad

Narrated by: Dylan Baker

Length: 7 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: Yes

“Whatever you have read or heard about me through articles or gossip, forget it. I am nothing like that Warren Beatty. I am nothing like what you have read.” —Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the... Read more

The City of Falling Angels - Abridged

By: John Berendt

Narrated by: John Berendt

Length: 5 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: Yes

It was seven years ago that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil achieved a record-breaking four-year run on the New York Times bestseller list. John Berendt's inimitable brand of nonfiction brought the dark mystique of Savannah so startlingly to life for millions of people that tourism to Savannah increased by 46%. It is Berendt and only... Read more