History audiobooks

John Paul Jones

By: Evan Thomas

Narrated by: Dan Cashman

Length: 13 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of battle, was the great American hero of the Age of Sail. He was to history what Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower are to fiction. Ruthless, indomitable, clever; he vowed to sail, as he put it, "in harm's way."



John Paul Jones is more than a great sea story. Jones is a... Read more

A Man of Contradictions

By: Richard Ollard

Narrated by: Geoffrey Howard

Length: 11 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

A. L. Rowse proclaimed himself a genius and raged against the slightest criticism from fellow scholars; he was a Marxist who despised the 'Idiot People'; he could be generous and affectionate yet hurled insults at his friends; he inveighed against Puritanism but was himself in many ways a Puritan.

In this clear-sighted and absorbing biography,... Read more

America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918

By: Richard Brookhiser

Narrated by: Dan Cashman

Length: 9 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Richard Brookhiser has won a wide and loyal following for his stylish, pointed, and elegant biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. In America's First Dynasty, Brookhiser tells the story of America's longest and still greatest dynasty -- the Adamses, the only family in our history to play a leading role in American affairs for... Read more

Silent Night

By: Stanley Weintraub

Narrated by: Edward Holland

Length: 5 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

In the early months of World War I, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides of the trenches laid down their arms and joined in a spontaneous celebration. Despite orders to continue shooting, the unofficial truce spread across the front lines. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible: Germans placed candlelit Christmas trees on... Read more

The Borderlands of Science

By: Michael Shermer

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 13 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

As author of the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things and How We Believe, and Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer has emerged as the nation's number one scourge of superstition and bad science. Now, in The Borderlands of Science, he takes us to the place where real science (such as the big bang theory), borderland science... Read more

Castles of Steel

By: Robert K. Massie

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Length: 40 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

In a work of extraordinary narrative power, filled with brilliant personalities and vivid scenes of dramatic action, Robert K. Massie, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and Dreadnought, elevates to its proper historical importance the role of sea power in the winning of the Great War.

The predominant... Read more

Robert E. Lee

By: Roy Blount, Jr.

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 5 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general, a complex soul, and a Southerner to the core. Tapped by Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army in the Civil War, his Virginian roots led him to command the Confederates instead. A charismatic though reluctant leader, his military audacity and tactical genius were combined with a genuine and sorrowful... Read more

Joseph Smith

By: Robert V. Remini

Narrated by: Del Roy

Length: 6 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

The most important reformer and innovator in American religious history, Joseph Smith has remained a fascinating enigma to many, both inside and outside the Mormon Church he founded. Born in 1805, Smith grew up during the "Second Great Awakening," when secular tumult had spawned radical religious fervor and countless new sects. His... Read more

The Bravest Man

By: William Tuohy

Narrated by: E.H. Jones

Length: 15 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

“There’s no margin for mistakes in submarines. You’re either alive or dead.”
–Richard O’Kane

Hailed as the ace of aces, captain Richard O’Kane, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his consummate skill and heroism as a submarine skipper, sank more enemy ships and saved more downed fliers than anyone else.

Now Pulitzer Prize—winning author... Read more

A Thread Across the Ocean

By: John Steele Gordon

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 6 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Today, in a world in which news flashes around the globe in an instant, time lags are inconceivable. In the mid-nineteenth century, communication between the United States and Europe -- the center of world affairs -- was only as quick as the fastest ship could cross the Atlantic, making the United States isolated and vulnerable.

But in 1866, the... Read more

American Patriots

By: Gail Buckley

Narrated by: Robert Stuart

Length: 15 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

American Patriots is one of the great untold stories in American history. There have been books on individual black soldiers, but this is the first to tell the full story of the black American military experience, starting with the Revolution and culminating with Desert Storm.

The best histories are about more than facts and events — they... Read more

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

By: Samuel P. Huntington

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 16 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Since its initial publication, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order has become a classic work of international relations and one of the most influential books ever written about foreign affairs. An insightful and powerful analysis of the forces driving global politics, it is as indispensable to our understanding of American... Read more

Preachers of Hate

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 13 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Like no book before it, Preachers of Hate uncovers an ancient hatred that threatens the life and livelihood of every American. The “new” anti-Semitism targets not only Jews, but Americans specifically and the West in general. It targets our values, our lifestyle, and our freedoms. It is the single most important issue we face when trying to make... Read more

Like No Other Time

By: Tom Daschle

Narrated by: Stephen Hoye

Length: 11 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Tom Daschle, the Majority Leader of the historic 107th Senate, presents a candid insider’s account of the workings of the U.S. government during two of the most tumultuous years in the nation’s history.

The 107th Congress faced a time like no other in the life of the nation. This was the era of the first presidential election to be decided by the... Read more

Darby's Rangers - Abridged

By: William O. Darby

Narrated by: Don Leslie

Length: 2 hours

Abridged: Yes

The exciting true story of a legendary leader and the men who fought by his side in World War II, told in his own words

From the moment they hit the beaches in North Africa to their last desperate struggle at Anzio, Darby’s Rangers asked for only one thing in World War II—the chance to fight. Experts at amphibious landings, night attacks, and... Read more

The Pirate Hunter

By: Richard Zacks

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 18 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer, fabulously rich, burying treasure up and down the eastern seaboard. But it turns out that most everyone, from novelists to scholars, has the story all wrong. Captain William Kidd was no career cutthroat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to... Read more

The Age of Sacred Terror

By: Daniel Benjamin & Steven Simon

Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz

Length: 17 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the 2004 Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations

From two of the world’s foremost experts on the new terrorism comes the definitive book on the rise of al-Qaeda and America’s efforts to combat the most innovative and dangerous terrorist group ever. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon trace the growth of radical Islam... Read more

Sleeping With the Devil - Abridged

By: Robert Baer

Narrated by: Robert O'Keefe

Length: 5 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Former CIA operative Robert Baer examines the dangers behind America's collaboration with Saudi Arabia. Nominally based on a "harmony of interests" - the Saudis sold their oil to the American government very inexpensively - what we offered in exchange has damaged our position in the Middle East and left our country vulnerable to economic and... Read more

Intelligence in War

By: John Keegan

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Length: 15 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In fiction, the spy is a glamorous figure whose secrets make or break peace, but, historically, has intelligence really been a vital step to military victories? In this breakthrough study, the preeminent war historian John Keegan goes to the heart of a series of important conflicts to develop a powerful argument about military intelligence.

In... Read more

Sailing the Wine Dark Sea

By: Thomas Cahill

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 7 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, his fourth volume to explore “the hinges of history,” Thomas Cahill escorts the reader on another entertaining—and historically unassailable—journey through the landmarks of art and bloodshed that defined Greek culture nearly three millennia ago.

In the city-states of Athens and Sparta and throughout the Greek... Read more

Franklin and Winston

By: Jon Meacham

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 13 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this “beautifully written and superbly researched dual biography” (Los Angeles Times Book Review), Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham “paints a powerful portrait of the enormous friendship between World War II allies [Franklin] Roosevelt and [Winston] Churchill” (Vanity Fair).
 
“Intense and compelling... Read more

There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere

By: Kara Swisher & Lisa Dickey

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Length: 12 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

“AOL had found itself at the edge of disaster so frequently that one of its first executives, a brassy Vietnam veteran and restaurateur named Jim Kimsey, had taken the punch line of an old joke popularized by Ronald Reagan and made it into an unlikely mantra for the company. It concerned a very optimistic young boy who happened upon a huge pile... Read more

Horatio's Drive

By: Dayton Duncan & Ken Burns

Narrated by: Dayton Duncan, Ken Burns & Tom Hanks

Length: 3 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

The companion volume to the PBS documentary film about the first—and perhaps most astonishing—automobile trip across the United States.

In 1903 there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire nation and most people had never seen a “horseless buggy”—but that did not stop Horatio Nelson Jackson, a thirty-one-year-old Vermont doctor, who... Read more

Benjamin Franklin - Abridged

By: Walter Isaacson

Narrated by: Boyd Gaines

Length: 7 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character.

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In a sweeping narrative... Read more