History audiobooks

Powers and Thrones

By: Dan Jones

Narrated by: Dan Jones

Length: 24 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

"Not only an engrossing read about the distant past, both informative and entertaining, but also a profoundly thought-provoking view of our not-really-so-‘new’ present . . . All medieval history is here, beautifully narrated."—Wall Street Journal

"A lively history . . . [Jones] has managed to touch every major topic. As each piece of the puzzle... Read more

Cooked

By: Michael Pollan

Narrated by: Michael Pollan

Length: 13 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and How to Change Your Mind, explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen in Cooked. 

Cooked is now a Netflix docuseries based on the book that focuses on the four kinds of "transformations" that occur in cooking. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker... Read more

Preparing for War

By: Bradley Onishi

Narrated by: Bradley Onishi

Length: 7 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War.



Combining his own... Read more

Reaganland

By: Rick Perlstein

Narrated by: Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Jacques Roy ...

Length: 45 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020

From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power.

Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the... Read more

The Gene

By: Siddhartha Mukherjee

Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris

Length: 19 hours 22 minutes

Abridged: No

2017 Audie Award Finalist for Non-Fiction

The #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller
The basis for the PBS Ken Burns Documentary The Gene: An Intimate History

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies—a fascinating history of the gene and “a magisterial account of how human minds have laboriously, ingeniously picked apart what... Read more

Work Won't Love You Back

By: Sarah Jaffe

Narrated by: Sarah Jaffe

Length: 12 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

A deeply-reported examination of why "doing what you love" is a recipe for exploitation, creating a new tyranny of work in which we cheerily acquiesce to doing jobs that take over our lives.

You're told that if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Whether it's working for "exposure" and "experience," or enduring poor... Read more

Ministry of Truth

By: Steve Benen

Narrated by: Rachel Maddow

Length: 5 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

A searing, vital investigation of the Republican Party’s dangerous campaign to rewrite history in real time, from the Emmy Award-winning Rachel Maddow Show producer and bestselling author of The Impostors.“There is nobody…who has more influence on the way I think about politics than Steve Benen.” —Rachel Maddow For as long as historical records... Read more

The Fire Next Time

By: James Baldwin

Narrated by: Jesse Martin

Length: 2 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement in the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. - “The finest essay I’ve ever read.” —Ta-Nehisi CoatesAt once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the... Read more

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

By: Yuval Noah Harari

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the world’s most innovative thinkers explores what it means to be human in an age of bewilderment.

“Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century.”—Bill Gates, The New... Read more

Confronting the Presidents

By: Bill O'Reilly & Martin Dugard

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

Length: 16 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Every American president, from Washington to Biden: Their lives, policies, foibles, and legacies, assessed with clear-eyed authority and wit.

Authors of the acclaimed Killing books, the #1 bestselling narrative history series in the world, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard begin a new direction with Confronting the Presidents.

From Washington to... Read more

The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum

By: Margalit Fox

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

Abridged: No

America’s first great organized-crime lord was a lady—a nice Jewish mother named Mrs. Mandelbaum.

“A tour de force . . . With a pickpocket’s finesse, Margalit Fox lures us into the criminal underworld of Gilded Age New York.”—Liza Mundy, author of The Sisterhood

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New... Read more

Forget the Alamo

By: Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson & Jason Stanford

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 12 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times bestseller!

“Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review

"Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal

“Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle

Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why... Read more

Mortal Republic

By: Edward J. Watts

Narrated by: Matt Kugler

Length: 10 hours 33 minutes

Abridged: No

Learn why the Roman Republic collapsed -- and how it could have continued to thrive -- with this insightful history from an award-winning author.

In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. For centuries, even as Rome... Read more

Yes to Life

By: Viktor E. Frankl

Narrated by: David Rintoul

Length: 3 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

Find hope even in these dark times with this rediscovered masterpiece, a companion to his international bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning.

Eleven months after he was liberated from the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor E. Frankl held a series of public lectures in Vienna. The psychiatrist, who would soon become world famous, explained his... Read more

The Burning Earth

By: Sunil Amrith

Narrated by: Esh Alladi

Length: 11 hours 36 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2024



In this magisterial book, historian Sunil Amrith twins the stories of environment and Empire, of genocide and eco-cide, of an extraordinary expansion of human freedom and its planetary costs. Drawing on an extraordinarily rich diversity of primary sources, he reckons with the ruins of... Read more

The Fabric of Civilization

By: Virginia I. Postrel

Narrated by: Caroline Cole

Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, explore the global history of textiles and the world they weave together in this enthralling and educational guide.The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture.In... Read more

Crypt

By: Alice Roberts

Narrated by: Alice Roberts

Length: 9 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

THE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER
CHOSEN BY WATERSTONES AS ONE OF THEIR BEST HISTORY BOOKS OF 2024

'Compulsive . . . A wonderful display of how modern archaeology can bring hidden histories to life' Daily Telegraph 

'Gripping . . . I found it hard to put down' Evening Standard

'Another really good book from archaeologist Alice Roberts . . . Helps... Read more

Reagan

By: Max Boot

Narrated by: Graham Winton

Length: 32 hours 6 minutes

Abridged: No

In this “monumental and impressive” biography, Max Boot, the distinguished political columnist, illuminates the untold story of Ronald Reagan, revealing the man behind the mythology. Drawing on interviews with over one hundred of the fortieth president’s aides, friends, and family members, as well as thousands of newly available documents, Boot... Read more

The Plantagenets

By: Dan Jones

Narrated by: Dan Jones

Length: 21 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The New York Times bestseller that tells the story of Britain’s greatest and worst dynasty—“a real-life Game of Thrones” (The Wall Street Journal)—by the author of Powers and Thrones.

The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In... Read more

The Siege

By: Ben Macintyre

Narrated by: Ben Macintyre

Length: 14 hours 26 minutes

Abridged: No

“For six days, it was the Iranian Embassy on Princes Gate in London that riveted the world. . . . Macintyre’s superb reconstruction restores it to vivid, complex life.”—The Washington Post

A thrilling tick-tock recounting one of the most harrowing hostage situations and daring rescue attempts of our time—from the true-life espionage master and... Read more

She-Wolves

By: Helen Castor

Narrated by: Esther Wane

Length: 16 hours

Abridged: No

In the tradition of Antonia Fraser, David Starkey, and Alison Weir, prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds—and one who never got the chance.



Exploring the narratives of the Empress Matilda,... Read more

Power and Progress

By: Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 15 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson overturn conventional wisdom about how economies work--revealing the untold story of who wins and who loses the rewards of prosperity--in a work that fundamentally transforms how we look at and understand the world.

Throughout history, technological change — whether it... Read more

Oathbreakers

By: Matthew Gabriele & David M. Perry

Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni

Length: 9 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

""This is a serious, meticulous history that will also appeal to Game of Thrones fans, who will discover intriguing parallels between history and fiction.” — Booklist""An enlightening portrait of the medieval mindset.” — Publishers WeeklyThe authors of The Bright Ages return with a real-life Game of Thrones—the story of the Carolingian Civil... Read more

How to Stop Fascism

By: Paul Mason

Narrated by: Paul Mason

Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

Brought to you by Penguin.

The far right is on the rise across the world. From Modi's India to Bolsonaro's Brazil and Erdogan's Turkey, fascism is not a horror that we have left in the past; it is a recurring nightmare that is happening again - and we need to find a better way to fight it.

In How to Stop Fascism, Paul Mason offers a radical,... Read more