History

A Short History of Nearly Everything

• UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By William Roberts
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A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. He takes subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry, and particle physics, and aims to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. In the company of some extraordinary scientists, Bill Bryson reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

An Economic History of the World since 1400

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 29 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Donald J. Harreld

Most of us have a limited understanding of the powerful role economics has played in shaping human civilization. This makes economic history - the study of how civilizations structured their environments to provide food, shelter, and material goods - a vital lens through which to think about how we arrived at our present, globalized moment. Designed to fill a long-empty gap in how we think about modern history, these 48 lectures are a comprehensive journey through more than 600 years of economic history.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 49 mins)
• By J. D. Vance
• Narrated By J. D. Vance
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Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis - that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over 40 years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Mary Beard
• Narrated By Phyllida Nash
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Ancient Rome matters. Its history of empire, conquest, cruelty and excess is something against which we still judge ourselves. Its myths and stories - from Romulus and Remus to the rape of Lucretia - still strike a chord with us. And its debates about citizenship, security and the rights of the individual still influence our own debates on civil liberty today. SPQR is a new look at Roman history from one of the world's foremost classicists.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

• UNABRIDGED (57 hrs and 13 mins)
• By William L. Shirer
• Narrated By Grover Gardner

Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer’s monumental study of Hitler’s German empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of the 20th century’s blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.

Mythos

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Stephen Fry
• Narrated By Stephen Fry

The Greek myths are amongst the greatest stories ever told, passed down through millennia and inspiring writers and artists as varied as Shakespeare, Michelangelo, James Joyce and Walt Disney. They are embedded deeply in the traditions, tales and cultural DNA of the West. You'll fall in love with Zeus, marvel at the birth of Athena, wince at Cronus and Gaia's revenge on Ouranos, weep with King Midas and hunt with the beautiful and ferocious Artemis.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 19 mins)
• By Jack Weatherford
• Narrated By Jack Weatherford, Jonathan Davis
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The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

Diary of a Young Girl

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Anne Frank
• Narrated By Helena Bonham Carter
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In Amsterdam, in the summer of 1942, the Nazis forced teenager Anne Frank and her family into hiding. For over two years, they, another family and a German dentist lived in a 'secret annexe', fearing discovery. All that time, Anne kept a diary.An intimate record of tension and struggle, adolescence and confinement, anger and heartbreak, Anne Frank's diary is one of those unique documents, famed throughout the world.It portrays innocence and humanity, suffering and survival in the starkest and most moving terms.

Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 43 mins)
• By David Hunt
• Narrated By David Hunt

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia.... In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia's past, from megafauna to Macquarie - the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are. Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of "felony of sock", and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia.

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Anna Funder
• Narrated By Denica Fairman

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. Anna Funder tells extraordinary tales from the underbelly of the former East Germany. In a country where the headquarters of the secret police could become a museum literally overnight, and one in 50 East Germans were informing on their fellow citizens, there are thousands of captivating stories.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Jared Diamond
• Narrated By Doug Ordunio
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Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.

The Art of War

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 7 mins)
• By Sun Tzu
• Narrated By Aidan Gillen

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

The Operator: Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 42 mins)
• By Robert O'Neill
• Narrated By Robert O'Neill

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

True Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 15 mins)
• By David Hunt
• Narrated By David Hunt

First there was Girt. Now comes...True Girt. In this side-splitting sequel to his best-selling history, David Hunt takes us to the Australian frontier. This was the Wild South, home to hardy pioneers, gun-slinging bushrangers, directionally challenged explorers, nervous indigenous people, Caroline Chisholm and sheep. Lots of sheep.

The Wife Drought

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Annabel Crabb
• Narrated By Annabel Crabb
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'I need a wife'. It's a common joke among women juggling work and family, but it's no joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a godsend on the domestic front and an asset on the work front and is an advantage enjoyed by vastly more men than women. Full of candid and funny stories from politics and the media, The Wife Drought shares intriguing research about the attitudes pulsing beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.

Kokoda (by Peter FitzSimons)

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 58 mins)
• By Peter FitzSimons
• Narrated By Lewis FitzGerald
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For Australians, Kokoda is the iconic battle of World War II, yet few people know just what happened and just what our troops achieved. Now, best-selling author Peter FitzSimons tells the Kokoda story in a gripping, moving story for all Australians.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

• UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Peter Frankopan
• Narrated By Laurence Kennedy
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The sun is setting on the Western world. Slowly but surely, the direction in which the world spins has reversed: where for the last five centuries the globe turned westward on its axis, it now turns to the east.... For centuries, fame and fortune were to be found in the West - in the New World of the Americas. Today it is the East that calls out to those in search of adventure and riches. The region stretching from Eastern Europe and sweeping right across Central Asia, deep into China and India, is taking center stage.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 38 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By Bill Bryson
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Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business. This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, considering how the ordinary things in life came to be.

Victoria & Abdul (Movie Tie-in): The True Story of the Queen's Closest Confidant

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 9 mins)
• By Shrabani Basu
• Narrated By Elizabeth Jasicki

Tall and handsome, Abdul was just 24 years old when he arrived in England from Agra to wait at tables for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Within a year Abdul had grown to become a powerful figure at court; the queen's teacher, or Munshi; her counsel on Urdu and Indian affairs; and a friend close to the queen's heart. "I am so very fond of him," Queen Victoria would write in 1888. "He is so good and gentle and understanding...a real comfort to me."

The Vietnam War: An Intimate History

• UNABRIDGED (31 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Geoffrey C. Ward, Ken Burns
• Narrated By Ken Burns, Fred Sanders, Brian Corrigan

More than 40 years after it ended, the Vietnam War continues to haunt our country. We still argue over why we were there, whether we could have won, and who was right and wrong in their response to the conflict. When the war divided the country, it created deep political fault lines that continue to divide us today. Now, continuing in the tradition of their critically acclaimed collaborations, the authors draw on dozens and dozens of interviews in America and Vietnam to give us the perspectives of people involved at all levels of the war.

Air Force Blue: The RAF in World War Two - Spearhead of Victory

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 1 min)
• By Patrick Bishop
• Narrated By Tim Frances
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In a return to sweeping social history of wartime, Patrick Bishop explores the lives and wartime experiences of thousands of men and women who served in all units of the air force. On 1st April 2018, the Royal Air Force will be 100 years old - a short life by military standards but an extraordinarily important and eventful one. From the start it was special, standing sometimes awkwardly but always proudly a little apart from the existing services.

The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 25 mins)
• By David Friend
• Narrated By David Friend

The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido examines the scandal-strafed decade when our public and private lives began to blur due to the rise of the web, reality television, and the wholesale tabloidization of pop culture. In this comprehensive and often hilarious time capsule, David Friend combines detailed reporting with first-person accounts from many of the decade's singular personalities, from Anita Hill to Monica Lewinsky, Lorena Bobbitt to Heidi Fleiss, Jesse Jackson to key members of the Clinton, Dole, and Bush teams.

Native American Tribes: The History and Culture of the Seminole

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 12 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Bill Hare

From the “Trail of Tears” to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture.

Emigrants: Why the English Sailed to the New World

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 58 mins)
• By Evans James
• Narrated By David Shaw Parker
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During the course of the 17th century, nearly 400,000 people left Britain for the Americas, most of them from England. Crossing the Atlantic was a major undertaking, the voyage long and treacherous. There was little hope of returning to see the friends and family who stayed behind. Why did so many go?

Nero and the Golden House (The wonders of Archaeology)

• UNABRIDGED (23 mins)
• By Maria Grazia Nini
• Narrated By Clive Riche

The story of Emperor Nero and the building of his Golden Palace. The reconstruction of the great fire of 64 AD, which destroyed the capital of the Empire, and the Golden Palace of Nero: from the crumbling insulae of the Suburra to the sumptuous architecture of the Domus Aurea, from Nero's artificial lake to the Colosseum, from the Neronian porticoes on the Via Sacra to the glories of the Imperial Fora, from the imposing bulk of the Colossus of Nero to the architectural revolution of the Octagonal Hall.

Off the Deep End: A History of Madness at Sea

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Nic Compton
• Narrated By Dugald Bruce Lockhart

Off the Deep End is the first detailed study of the effect on sanity that the vastness, loneliness and inestimable power of the sea has always had on sailors' sanity, confusing the senses and making rational thought difficult. Eminently listenable, it explores accounts that span the centuries, from desperate stories of shipwreck and cannibalism in the Age of Sail, to inexplicable multiple murders, to Donald Crowhurst's suicide in the middle of the 1968 solo Golden Globe Race.

How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS

• UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 27 mins)
• By David France
• Narrated By Rory O'Malley
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How to Survive a Plague by David France is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease.

The Lost Airman: A True Story of Escape from Nazi-Occupied France

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 41 mins)
• By Seth F. Stevens, Peter Meyerowitz
• Narrated By Jonathan Todd Ross
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The remarkable untold WWII story of the US airman who was shot down over Nazi-occupied France and evaded Gestapo pursuers for more than six months. Arthur Meyerowitz was on his second air mission over France when he was shot down in 1943. He was one of only two men on the B-24 Liberator known as Harmful Lil' Armful who escaped death or immediate capture on the ground. After fleeing the wreck, Meyerowitz knocked on the door of an isolated farmhouse....

Wounds: A Memoir of War and Love

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Fergal Keane
• Narrated By David McFetridge

A family story of blood and memory and the haunting power of the past. After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane has gone home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It is a family story of war and love, and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present. Wounds is a powerful memoir about Irish people who found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Rising, and in the pitiless violence of civil war in north Kerry after the British left in 1922.

War Stories: Gripping Tales of Courage, Cunning and Compassion

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 27 mins)
• By Peter Snow, Ann MacMillan
• Narrated By Peter Snow
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A uniquely intimate account of ordinary men and women who rose to the challenge of war with acts of great heroism and humanity. War Stories is a fascinating account of ordinary men and women swept up in the turbulence of war. These are the stories - many untold until now - of 34 individuals who have pushed the boundaries of love, bravery, suffering and terror beyond the imaginable. They span four centuries and four continents.

The History of Syria: 1900-2012

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 31 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Dan Gallagher

People may know what's going on in Syria today, but how did Syria get to where it is today, at the forefront of the Arab Spring? The history of Syria in the last century is one of turbulence, violence, and political intrigue, with local religious sects battling for control of the land while foreign powers vied to maintain influence over the region. What resulted was a toxic and twisted mess that has precipitously affected the entire region, from Israel and Lebanon to Iran and Iraq.

The North African Campaign of World War II: The History and Legacy of the Decisive Allied Victory in North Africa

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Colin Fluxman

The fighting in North Africa during World War II is commonly overlooked, aside from the famous battle at El Alamein that pitted the British under General Bernard Montgomery against the legendary "Desert Fox", Erwin Rommel. But while the Second Battle of El Alamein would be the pivotal action in North Africa, the conflict in North Africa began all the way back in the summer of 1940 when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared Italy's entrance into the war.

George Rogers Clark: The Life and Legacy of the Revolutionary War's Conqueror of the Old Northwest

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 3 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Scott Clem

The last days of the colonial era in America seemed to spawn a number of Renaissance men, unique individuals who were as comfortable in a log cabin as a ballroom and could write as well as they could hunt. George Rogers Clark was one of these men, and in many ways he was a paler, less-accomplished version of his illustrious neighbor, George Washington.

Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr

• UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 18 mins)
• By Michael Vinson Williams
• Narrated By Brandon Church

This biography of a seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow), his two remaining siblings, friends, grade-school-to-college schoolmates, and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual, leader, husband, brother, and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers, the NAACP Papers, oral history collections, FBI files, Citizen Council collections, and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers, to list a few, provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and more.

History for Kids: The Life of Wyatt Earp

• UNABRIDGED (16 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By David Zarbock

Of all the colorful characters that inhabited the West during the 19th century, the most famous of them all is Wyatt Earp (1848-1929), who has long been regarded as the embodiment of the Wild West. Considered the toughest and deadliest gunman of his day.

A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the 20th Century

• UNABRIDGED (23 hrs and 19 mins)
• By Paul Kengor
• Narrated By James Anderson Foster
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Even as historians credit Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II with hastening the end of the Cold War, they have failed to recognize the depth or significance of the bond that developed between the two leaders. cclaimed scholar and best-selling author Paul Kengor changes that. In this fascinating book, he reveals a singular bond - which included a spiritual connection between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president - that drove the two men to confront what they knew to be the great evil of the 20th century: Soviet communism.

Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
• Narrated By Robert Petkoff

The breathtaking latest installment in Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard's mega-best-selling Killing series transports listeners to the most important era in our nation's history, the Revolutionary War. Told through the eyes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Great Britain's King George III, Killing England chronicles the path to independence in gripping detail, taking the listener from the battlefields of America to the royal courts of Europe.

The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, and the Deadliest Day of the US War in Afghanistan

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 1 min)
• By Ed Darack
• Narrated By John Pruden
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The downing of Extortion 17 spurred a number of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the shootdown was revenge for bin Laden's death. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and the events of that fateful day is interwoven into a rich, complex narrative that also discusses modern joint combat operations and the history of the Afghan war to that date.

Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 57 mins)
• By Michael Korda
• Narrated By John Lee
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An epic of remarkable originality, Alone captures the heroism of World War II as movingly as any book in recent memory. Bringing to vivid life the world leaders, generals, and ordinary citizens who fought on both sides of the war, Michael Korda, the best-selling author of Clouds of Glory, chronicles the outbreak of hostilities, recalling as a prescient young boy the enveloping tension that defined pre-Blitz London, and then as a military historian the great events that would alter the course of the 20th century.

The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Doug Stanton
• Narrated By CJ Wilson
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A powerful work of literary military history from the New York Times best-selling author of In Harm's Way and Horse Soldiers - the harrowing and redemptive account of an American army platoon fighting for survival during the Vietnam War.