History audiobooks

Embracing Defeat

By: John W. Dower

Narrated by: Edward Lewis

Length: 21 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

In this illuminating study, Dower explores the ways in which the shattering defeat of the Japanese in World War II, followed by over six years of American military occupation, affected every level of Japanese society. He describes the countless ways in which the Japanese met the challenge of "starting over"—from top-level manipulations... Read more

Living Biographies of Religious Leaders

By: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 8 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: No

This absorbing book presents the lives of twenty great founders and leading advocates of the world’s foremost religions. Here are the historical facts and legends associated with these forceful personalities who have inspired and influenced humankind through the centuries.In the telling of these vivid and fascinating life stories, the authors... Read more

Living Biographies of Famous Women

By: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas

Narrated by: S. Patricia Bailey

Length: 9 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Each of the individuals featured in this book played an important role in history. Their accomplishments span a wide range of fields, from the literary and the political to the medical. They include Cleopatra; Theodora; Joan of Arc; Mary, Queen of Scots; Queen Christina; Madame de Maintenon; Charlotte Brontë; George Eliot; Elizabeth Barrett... Read more

The Great Chase

By: Harvey Rosenfeld

Narrated by: Barrett Whitener

Length: 12 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is the longest-standing rivalry in baseball history—a feud that began in the late nineteenth century when both clubs were based in New York City. Then, on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson's "shot heard around the world" ended their pennant race—one of the most dramatic ever. Interviews, contemporary newspaper articles,... Read more

A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 6

By: Clarence B. Carson

Narrated by: Mary Woods

Length: 9 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Carson’s full-scale treatment of American history combines scholarly exactness with evocative passages that lead the listener to a clearer understanding of the people and events, the triumphs and the shortcomings, which have shaped this nation. “For Carson, history is the product of the actions of countless individuals, each under the influence... Read more

The Sage of Monticello

By: Dumas Malone

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 18 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

The Sage of Monticello is the sixth and final volume of distinguished historian Dumas Malone’s epic masterwork, Jefferson and His Time, a biography begun in 1943 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1975. More wide ranging than the preceding volumes, The Sage of Monticello brilliantly recounts the accomplishments, friendships, and family... Read more

Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805

By: Dumas Malone

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 18 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

The fourth volume in this Pulitzer Prize–winning work recounts Thomas Jefferson's eventful first presidential term. Though characterized by calmer seas than his second presidential voyage, Jefferson's first years in office find him confronting a nation deeply divided following the administrations of Washington and Adams. During this term he... Read more

Jefferson and the Ordeal of Liberty

By: Dumas Malone

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 19 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

The third volume in Dumas Malone's distinguished, Pulitzer Prize–winning study of Thomas Jefferson and his time deals with one of the most fascinating and controversial periods of Jefferson's life. It includes the story of the final and most crucial phase of his secretaryship of state; his retirement to Monticello; his assumption of the... Read more

Dorothy Day

By: Robert Coles

Narrated by: C. M. Hébert

Length: 6 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Robert Coles first met Dorothy Day over thirty-five years ago when, as a medical student, he worked in one of her Catholic Worker soup kitchens. He remained close to this inspiring and controversial woman until her death in 1980. His book, an intellectual and psychological portrait, confronts candidly the central puzzles of her life: the... Read more

East to the Dawn

By: Susan Butler

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 18 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Amelia Earhart captured the hearts of the nation after becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1928—and her disappearance on an around-the-world flight in 1937 is an enduring mystery.The image we have of Amelia Earhart today—a tousle-haired, androgynous flier clad in shirt, silk scarf, leather jacket, and goggles—is only one... Read more

Living Biographies of Great Painters

By: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas

Narrated by: Pat Bottino

Length: 11 hours

Abridged: No

To appreciate the meaning and beauty of the great works of art, we must be familiar with the lives of the geniuses who created them, for in their personalities and life-stories lie the key to their masterpieces. Here are the vivid stories of these twenty painters who dreamed, struggled, and suffered so that they might give expression to their... Read more

In the Hands of Providence

By: Alice Rains Trulock

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 12 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Joshua Chamberlain of Maine forged an incredible career during the Civil War. An academic and theologian by training, this modest young professor left Bowdoin College to accept a commission as lieutenant colonel of the Twentieth Maine. He fought at Antietam and Fredericksburg, then led his regiment to glory at Gettysburg, where he ordered the... Read more

Unfinished People

By: Ruth Gay

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 10 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

Nearly three million Jews came to America from Eastern Europe between 1880 and the outbreak of World War I, filled with the hope of life in a new land. Most were young, single, uneducated, and unskilled; many were children or teens. They were, in a sense, unfinished citizens of either the old or the new world.Within two generations, these... Read more

A Basic History of the United States, Vol. 5

By: Clarence B. Carson

Narrated by: Mary Woods

Length: 14 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Carson’s full-scale treatment of American history combines scholarly exactness with evocative passages that lead the listener to a clearer understanding of the people and events, the triumphs and the shortcomings, which have shaped this nation. This fifth volume commences with the Great Depression and takes us to the mid-eighties. As the author... Read more

A History of Warfare

By: John Keegan

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 19 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

In this encyclopedically learned and immensely gripping book, one of our foremost military historians demolishes the famous dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means. Beginning with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in... Read more

Six Armies in Normandy

By: John Keegan

Narrated by: Fred Williams

Length: 17 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

In burnished, driving prose, John Keegan chronicles the 1944 invasion of Normandy, from D-day to the liberation of Paris. At the same time, he furthers his exploration of the "role which warfare and its institutions play in social life" by showing how each of the six armies, while resembling one another in purpose and authority, is a mirror of... Read more

The Gift of Valor

By: Michael M. Phillips

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 7 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

The true story of US Marine Corporal Jason Dunham's brave act that saved fellow Marines and earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Corporal Dunham was on patrol near the Syrian border, on April 14, 2004, when a black-clad Iraqi leaped out of a car and grabbed him around his neck. Fighting hand-to-hand in the dirt, Dunham saw his... Read more

Le futur de la vie terrestre

By: Hubert Reeves

Narrated by: Hubert Reeves

Length: 1 hour 12 minutes

Abridged: No

Notre planète va mal : réchauffement climatique, épuisement des ressources naturelles, pollution des sols et de l'eau provoquée par les industries civiles et guerrières, disparité des richesses, malnutrition des hommes, taux d'extinction effarant des espèces vivantes, etc. La situation est-elle vraiment dramatique ? Que penser des thèses qui... Read more

The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 3

By: Shelby Foote

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 47 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

In the third and final volume of this magnificent history, Shelby Foote brings to a close the story of four years of turmoil and strife that altered American life forever. Following the events of the war from 1862–1864, Foote discusses the strategies of both the North and the South and assesses the performance of the Union generals. The volume... Read more

A Hundred and One Days

By: Asne Seierstad

Narrated by: Josephine Bailey

Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul paints a stunning and intimate portrait of Baghdad under siege



From January until April 2003-for one hundred and one days-Asne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Bagdad for Scandinavian, German, and Dutch media. Through her articles and live television coverage she reported on the... Read more

Secrets of the Kingdom

By: Gerald Posner

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 9 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

In its final report, the 9/11 Commission famously called the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism." To Gerald Posner, the bestselling author of Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, this is a gross understatement. In his new book, Secrets of the Kingdom, Posner exposes the undeniable truth about... Read more

Brotherhood of Heroes

By: Bill Sloan

Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor

Length: 11 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

A Band of Brothers for the Pacific, this is the gut-wrenching but ultimately triumphant story of the Marines' most ferocious-yet largely forgotten-battle of World War II.


Between September 15 and October 15, 1944, the First Marine Division suffered more than 6,500 casualties fighting on a hellish little island in the Pacific. Peleliu was the... Read more

The Last Voyage of Columbus - Abridged

By: Martin Dugard

Narrated by: Simon Jones

Length: 6 hours 1 minute

Abridged: Yes

The Year is 1500. Christopher Columbus, stripped of his title Admiral of the Ocean Seas, waits in chains in a Caribbean prison built under his orders, looking out at the colony that he founded, nurtured, and ruled for eight years. Less than a decade after discovering the New World, he has fallen into disgrace, accused by the royal court of being... Read more

The Boys of Pointe du Hoc

By: Douglas Brinkley

Narrated by: Douglas Brinkley

Length: 6 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

""These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. Theseare the men who took the cliffs. These are thechampions who helped free a continent. Theseare the heroes who helped end a war.""—Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1984,Normandy, FranceAcclaimed historian and author of the ""New York Times"" bestselling Tour of Duty Douglas Brinkley tells the riveting account of... Read more