History audiobooks

The Greatest Generation Speaks

By: Tom Brokaw

Narrated by: Tom Brokaw

Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful selection of the letters Tom Brokaw received in response to his towering #1 bestseller The Greatest Generation.
 
“When I wrote about the men and women who came out of the Depression, who won great victories and made lasting sacrifices in World War II and then returned home to begin building the world we have... Read more

Common Sense

By: Thomas Paine

Narrated by: George Vafiadis

Length: 2 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

"...well orated by reader George Vafiadis. The language and sentiment are not as outmoded as some listeners might expect and it definitely feels patriotic to hear again the fundamentals of America's beginnings." - - Kliatt Magazine

George Washington wrote, "I find that Common Sense is working a powerful change there (Virginia) in the minds... Read more

King of Hearts

By: G. Wayne Miller

Narrated by: John Lescault

Length: 7 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Few of the great stories of medicine are as palpably dramatic as the advent of open heart surgery, yet, until now, no one has brought to life all of the thrilling specifics of this triumph. G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed the amazing true story of how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt... Read more

WWII Airmen

By: Multiple Authors

Narrated by: Various

Length: 2 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

These amazing accounts of airmen recorded during the war include stories of air combat, music of the time, and recordings made on bomb runs over Europe and Japan.

Eagles over Europe: (1) Introduction; (2) AAF Intro; (3) Bomb run over Germany, A-26; (4) Lt. Gilman, AT-9 Trainer; (5) Lt. Anderson, AT-7 Trainer; (6) Jack the Ripper air raid; (7)... Read more

Endurance - Abridged

By: Alfred Lansing

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Length: 6 hours

Abridged: Yes

In August 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew set sail from England for Antarctica, where Shackleton hoped to be the first man to cross the uncharted continent on foot. Five months later, the Endurance—just a day's sail short of its destination—became locked in an island of ice, and its destiny and men became locked in history. For ten... Read more

Days of Infamy: Military Blunders of the 20th Century

By: Michael Coffey

Narrated by: Robert Abia

Length: 8 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

A fascinating look behind more than fifty of the most historic military blunders of our century. Lively and engaging, in-depth and informative, this companion to an upcoming series on the History Channel goes beyond mere footage to delve into the facts of some well-remembered but little understood incidents and accidents of modern military history. Read more

James Joyce

By: Edna O'Brien

Narrated by: Donada Peters

Length: 5 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Ireland's best current novelists provides a thumbnail sketch of Ireland's greatest writer. A passionate and sensuous portrait, James Joyce is a return to the land of politics, history, saints, and scholars that shaped the creator of the twentieth century's groundbreaking novel Ulysses. O'Brien traces Joyce's early days as a rambunctious... Read more

The Kissinger Transcripts - Abridged

By: William Burr & Richard Gilliland

Narrated by: Theodore Bikel

Length: TBA

Abridged: Yes

Henry Kissinger is one of the most controversial Secretaries of State in U.S. history— serving under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, never-before-seen transcripts of Kissinger's conversations, including top-secret talks with Beijing and Moscow, provide an unvarnished record of his... Read more

The Greatest Speeches of All Time

By: Barack Obama, Stephanie Beacham, Theodore Bikel...

Narrated by: Barack Obama

Length: 1 hour 41 minutes

Abridged: No

"This baker's dozen of speeches capture historic moments and feature some of the most compelling orators of all time—from Socrates, Queen Elizabeth, Patrick Henry, and Abraham Lincoln to such twentieth century icons as Susan B. Anthony, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition to the recreation of speeches, this collection... Read more

What If...? Vol 1 - Abridged

By: Robert Cowley

Narrated by: John Cunningham & Janet Zarish

Length: 4 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Historians and inquisitive laymen alike love to ponder the dramatic what-ifs of history. In these never-before-published essays, some of the keenest minds of our time ask the big, tantalizing questions: Where might we be if history had not unfolded the way it did? Why, how, and when was our fortune made real? The answers are surprising,... Read more

Day of Deceit - Abridged

By: Robert Stinnett

Narrated by: Rafael Ferrer

Length: 3 hours 13 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett delivers the definitive final chapter on America's greatest secret and our worst military disaster.

Drawing on twenty years of research and access to scores of previously classified documents, Stinnett proves that Pearl Harbor was not an accident, a mere failure of American intelligence, or a brilliant Japanese... Read more

Corporate Creativity - Abridged

By: Sam Stern & Alan G. Robinson

Narrated by: Sam Stern

Length: 3 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Most companies know that their creative performance falls far short of potential, but they don't know what to do about it. Corporate Creativity has the answers. Read more

When Pride Still Mattered - Abridged

By: David Maraniss

Narrated by: David Maraniss

Length: 6 hours 10 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and his God.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high... Read more

Fire on the Mountain - Abridged

By: John N. Maclean

Narrated by: John N. Maclean

Length: 6 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: Yes

On the morning of July 3, 1994, the site of a forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado was wrongly recorded by the district's Bureau of Land Management office as taking place in South Canyon, thereby mislabeling forever one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. That seemingly small human error foreshadowed the numerous... Read more

All the Best, George Bush - Abridged

By: George H.W. Bush

Narrated by: Barbara Bush & George H.W. Bush

Length: 6 hours 35 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Former President George H.W. Bush, revealed through his letters and writings from 1941 to 2010, is “worth its weight in gold…a valuable update of the life of an honorable American leader” (The Washington Post).

“Who knew that beneath George Bush’s buttoned-up propriety pulsed the warm heart of a prolific and occasionally poetic writer with a... Read more

Kaddish - Abridged

By: Leon Wieseltier

Narrated by: Theodore Bikel

Length: 4 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: Yes

After his father died, Leon Wieseltier began to observe the traditional year-long period of mourning, going to the synagogue three times a day to recite the prayer known as the mourner's Kaddish. Struck by the profound, yet unexpected power of this practice and the poverty of his knowledge about it, Leon began to study the history and meaning of... Read more

Havana Dreams

By: Wendy Gimbel

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 6 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

This is the fascinating true story of four generations of Cuban women whose personal lives are woven with the story of their nation. At its center is Naty, a socialite born in 1925, who becomes intoxicated with Castro and his revolution. Here, published for the first time, are the letters they exchanged while Castro was in jail. Naty raises... Read more

Vietnam

By: Stanley Karnow

Narrated by: Edward Holland

Length: 27 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

In this comprehensive history, Stanley Karnow demystifies the tragic ordeal of America’s war in Vietnam. The book’s central theme is that America’s leaders, prompted as much by domestic politics as by global ambitions, carried the United States into Southeast Asia with little regard for the realities of the region. Karnow elucidates the... Read more

Comrades - Abridged

By: Stephen E. Ambrose

Narrated by: Stephen E. Ambrose

Length: 3 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: Yes

From the author of Undaunted Courage and D-Day comes this celebration of male friendship, taken both from the pages of history and from Ambrose’s own life.

Acclaimed historian Stephen Ambrose begins his examination with a glance inward—he starts this book with his brothers, his first and forever friends, and the shared experiences that join them... Read more

Before the Wind - Abridged

By: Charles Tyng

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 4 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In seafaring literature, no fictional sailor's story can match this true, real-life adventure. Before the Wind is the memoir of early nineteenth-century sea captain Charles Tyng— from his childhood and love affair with the sea to his rise through the ranks to captain and ship owner in the tea and sugar trade. Before the Wind takes... Read more

Nixon in Winter

By: Monica Crowley

Narrated by: Anna Fields

Length: 18 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Monica Crowley served as a personal assistant to former president Richard M. Nixon from July 1990 until his death in April 1994. This remarkable story of his final public and private years is based on full reconstructions of the conversations she had with him at the time. Nixon in Winter puts the reader behind the scenes with the former... Read more

Endgame - Abridged

By: Scott Ritter

Narrated by: Scott Ritter

Length: 3 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: Yes

WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT IRAQ?
Scott Ritter spent seven years in Iraq as an arms inspector for the United Nations. His 1998 resignation as the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector there made front-page headlines around the world. In Endgame, Ritter draws on his experiences to take us inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq and to explain where U.S. policy in... Read more

American Heritage's Great Minds of American History - Abridged

By: American Heritage

Narrated by: David McCullough & Stephen E. Ambrose

Length: 3 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In a series of fascinating interviews, today's best and brightest historians weigh in on the crucial moments in American history.

American Heritage's Great Minds of American History takes you to critical moments in American history, imbuing the past with an immediacy that goes well beyond the scope of formal histories. Roger Mudd's highly... Read more

Black Hawk Down - Abridged

By: Mark Bowden

Narrated by: Joe Morton

Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Ninety-nine elite American soldiers are trapped in the middle of a hostile city. As night falls, they are surrounded by thousands of enemy gunmen: Their wounded are bleeding to death. Their ammunition and supplies are dwindling. This is the story of how they got there -- and how they fought their way out.
This is the story of war.
Black Hawk Down... Read more