World

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Tobruk

• UNABRIDGED (23 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Peter FitzSimons
• Narrated By Humphrey Bower
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In the early days of April 1941, the 14,000 Australian forces garrisoned in the Libyan town of Tobruk were told to expect reinforcements and supplies within eight weeks. Eight months later these heroic, gallant, determined "Rats of Tobruk" were rescued by the British Navy having held the fort against the might of Rommel's never-before-defeated Afrika Corps.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

• ABRIDGED (5 hrs and 48 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson’s quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know.

A History of the World

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Andrew Marr
• Narrated By Andrew Marr, David Timson

From the earliest civilizations to the 21st century: a global journey through human history, published alongside a landmark BBC One television series. Our understanding of world history is changing, as new discoveries are made on all the continents and old prejudices are being challenged. In this truly global journey, Andrew Marr revisits some of the traditional epic stories, from classical Greece and Rome to the rise of Napoleon, but surrounds them with less familiar material, from Peru to the Ukraine, China to the Caribbean.

Error Australis

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Ben Pobjie
• Narrated By Jim Pike

Australia is a proud country full of proud people, but exactly what are we proud of? Comedian and history buff Ben Pobjie delves deep into Australia's past and has a good old rummage amongst the nation's personal effects. With wit, perspicacity and a healthily elastic attitude to historical accuracy, the great saga of Australia is unravelled like an old woolly jumper. For anyone who snoozed through history class at school, this is the book to get you all caught up.

The Fall and Rise of China

• ORIGINAL (24 hrs and 10 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Richard Baum

For most of its 5,000-year existence, China has been the largest, most populous, wealthiest, and mightiest nation on Earth. And for us as Westerners, it is essential to understand where China has been in order to anticipate its future. These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history.

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Susan Wise Bauer
• Narrated By John Lee
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This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.

Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Peter FitzSimons
• Narrated By Robert Meldrum
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In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade. Though brief and doomed to fail, the battle is legend in both our history and in the Australian mind. Henry Lawson wrote poems about it, its symbolic flag is still raised, and even the nineteenth-century visitor Mark Twain called it: "a strike for liberty". Was this rebellion a fledgling nation’s first attempt to assert its independence under colonial rule? Or was it merely rabble-rousing by unruly miners determined not to pay their taxes?

The Nuremberg Trial

• UNABRIDGED (25 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Ann Tusa, John Tusa
• Narrated By Ralph Cosham

Here is a gripping account of the major postwar trial of the Nazi hierarchy in World War II. The Nuremberg Trial brilliantly recreates the trial proceedings and offers a reasoned, often profound examination of the processes that created international law. From the whimpering of Kaltenbrunner and Ribbentrop on the stand to the icy coolness of Goering, each participant is vividly drawn.

Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years

• UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 48 mins)
• By David Graeber
• Narrated By Grover Gardner
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Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

The Catholic Church: A History

• ORIGINAL (19 hrs and 12 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor William R. Cook

How did the Catholic Church become one of the most influential institutions in the world-a force capable of moving armies, inspiring saints, and shaping the lives of a billion members? Explore these and other questions as you follow the development of this important institution in 36 informative, fascinating lectures. With Professor Cook by your side, you'll step into the world of the early church, witness the spread of Christendom, and learn about the origins of fundamental church institutions.

The Dig Tree: A True Story of Bravery, Insanity, and the Race to Discover Australia's Wild Frontier

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 25 mins)
• By Sarah Murgatroyd
• Narrated By Catherine Milte

> In 1860, an eccentric Irish police officer named Robert O'Hara Burke led a cavalcade of camels, wagons and men out of Melbourne. Accompanied by William Wills, a shy English scientist, he was prepared to risk everything to become the first European to cross the Australian continent. A few months later, an ancient coolibah tree at Cooper Creek bore a strange carving: 'Dig Under 3ft NW'. Burke, Wills and five other men were dead.

Journeys in English

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 47 mins)
• By Bill Bryson
• Narrated By Bill Bryson

This highly entertaining BBC Radio 4 series is written and presented by Bill Bryson and based on his best-selling book, Mother Tongue. In it, he romps through the history of Britain to reveal how English became such an infuriatingly complex - but ultimately world-beating - language.

The War in the West - A New History: Volume 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 42 mins)
• By James Holland
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh
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Are you ready for the truth about World War Two? In the first of an extraordinary three-volume account of the war on land, in the air and at sea, James Holland not only reveals the truth behind the familiar legends of the Second World War but he also unveils those lesser known events which were to have the greatest significance. The first book to consider the economic, political and social as well as the military aspects of World War Two, this is a unique retelling of a monumental event in all its terrible and majestic glory.

Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Life, and Culture

• ORIGINAL (12 hrs and 27 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Andrew R. Wilson PhD

A knowledge of China's imperial history is vital for any understanding of its present, as modern China is linked in many ways to the extraordinary culture of its empire. These 24 lectures take you to the heart of life during China's imperial era, through the lives of individual subjects of all social ranks. Across the arc of the course, you'll witness what daily life was like for government bureaucrats, for scholars, for women of the court, for soldiers, merchants, craftspeople, courtesans, imperial cooks, and many others.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tokyo Rose: The History and Legacy of Iva Toguri and Japan's Most Famous Propaganda Campaign During World War II

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 13 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Colin Fluxman
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The subtle art of propaganda campaigns directed against one's enemies has been a feature of war since ancient times. However, its potential for mass psychological impact truly began with the invention of modern electronic communications. An American citizen stranded in Japan as an enemy alien during World War II, Iva Toguri was a regular broadcaster of what she saw as entertainment for American sailors and their counterparts. Learn more about the controversial legacy of the war's most famous radio propaganda campaign.

The Last Christians: Stories of Persecution, Flight, and Resilience in the Middle East

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 52 mins)
• By Andreas Knapp
• Narrated By Brett A. Barry

Inside Syria and Iraq, and even along the refugee trail, they're a religious minority persecuted for their Christian faith. Outside the Middle East, they're suspect because of their nationality. A small remnant of Christians are on the run from the Islamic State. If they are wiped out, or scattered to the corners of the earth, the language that Jesus spoke may be lost forever - along with the witness of a church that has modeled Jesus' way of nonviolence and enemy-love for two millennia.

A Timeline History of Hezbollah

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 44 mins)
• By Charles River Editors
• Narrated By Dan Gallagher

A Timeline History of Hezbollah charts the rise of the organization to power, the influential leaders behind it, the group's fighting against Israel, and what the future might hold. This history will bring listeners up to speed on one of the world's most important groups today.

The Origins of the Lost Fleet of the Mongol Empire: Ed Rachal Foundation Nautical Archaeology Series

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Randall James Sasaki
• Narrated By Damian Salandy

Randall Sasaki provides a starting point for understanding the technology of the failed Mongol invasion of Japan in AD 1281 as well as the history of shipbuilding in East Asia. He has created a timber category database, analyzed methods of joinery, and studied contemporary approaches to shipbuilding in order to ascertain the origins and types of vessels that composed the Mongol fleet.

Alcohol: A History

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 27 mins)
• By Rod Phillips
• Narrated By Fajer Al-Kaisi
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Whether as wine, beer, or spirits, alcohol has had a constant and often controversial role in social life. In his innovative book on the attitudes toward and consumption of alcohol, Rod Phillips surveys a 9,000-year cultural and economic history, uncovering the tensions between alcoholic drinks as healthy staples of daily diets and as objects of social, political, and religious anxiety.

The Age of the Horse: An Equine Journey Through Human History

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 44 mins)
• By Susanna Forrest
• Narrated By Pearl Hewitt
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Fifty-six million years ago, the earliest equid walked the earth-and beginning with the first-known horse-keepers of the Copper Age, the horse has played an integral part in human history. Combining fascinating anthropological detail and incisive personal anecdotes, Susanna Forrest draws from an immense range of archival documents as well as literature and art to illustrate how our evolution has coincided with that of horses.

Rebel in the Ranks: Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the Conflicts That Continue to Shape Our World

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 45 mins)
• By Brad S. Gregory
• Narrated By Sean Runnette
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For five centuries Martin Luther has been lionized as an outspoken and fearless icon of change who ended the Middle Ages and heralded the beginning of the modern world. In Rebel in the Ranks, Brad Gregory, renowned professor of European history at Notre Dame, recasts this long-accepted portrait. Luther did not intend to start a revolution that would divide the Catholic Church and forever change Western civilization. Yet his actions would profoundly shape our world in ways he could never have imagined.

Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Elizabeth Rosner
• Narrated By Elizabeth Rosner

Beyond preserving the firsthand testimonies of participants and witnesses, individuals and societies must continually take responsibility for learning the painful lessons of the past in order to offer hope for the future. Survivor Café offers a clear-eyed sense of the enormity of our 21st-century human inheritance - not only among direct descendants of the Holocaust, but also in the shape of our collective responsibility to learn from tragedy.

American Memories: Atrocities and the Law

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 10 mins)
• By Joachim J. Savelsberg, Ryan D. King
• Narrated By Dr. Bill Brooks
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In the long history of warfare and cultural and ethnic violence, the 20th century was exceptional for producing institutions charged with seeking accountability or redress for violent offenses and human rights abuses across the globe, often forcing nations to confront the consequences of past atrocities. The Holocaust ended with trials at Nuremberg, apartheid in South Africa concluded with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Gacaca courts continue to strive for closure in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.

The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 21 mins)
• By Ronald Hutton
• Narrated By Gildart Jackson
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Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history. The witch came to prominence - and often a painful death - in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early modern state.

Courage: Roy Blanchard's Journey in America's Forgotten War

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 36 mins)
• By Paul T. Dean
• Narrated By Paul T. Dean

World War I is difficult to grasp for many Americans. Most WWI soldiers didn't keep a diary, and few spoke of what they saw and experienced. Through Courage, listeners will understand what pulled the world into this devastating conflict, see why the United States came out of isolation to side with the Allies, and gain a personal look into the lives of WWI fighters. Through the eyes of Roy Blanchard, listeners will see, hear, and feel what it was like to bravely face the terror of the First World War.

History of China

• UNABRIDGED (40 mins)
• By Bryan Smith
• Narrated By J D Kelly

Written records of the history of China can be found from as early as BC 1500 under the Shang dynasty. Ancient historical texts, such as the Records of the Grand Historian (ca., BC 100), and the Bamboo Annals (before BC 296), describe a Xia dynasty (ca., BC 2070 - 1600), which had no system of writing on a durable medium, before the Shang. The Yellow River's Yellow river civilization is said to be the cradle of Chinese civilization, although cultures originated at various regional centers along both the Yellow River, and the Yangtze River's Yangtze civilization.

100 Years of Air Power and Aviation: Centennial of Flight Series

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 35 mins)
• By Robin Higham
• Narrated By Douglas R. Pratt

In 100 Years of Air Power and Aviation, Robin Higham, regarded by many as the dean of aviation historians, presents a critical history of British, American, Soviet, German, Italian, French, Japanese, and Israeli aviation. He moves easily from theory to concrete example and back again, in the process discussing the social, economic, and political components of air power, the major wars and police actions in which aircraft have been employed, the composition of air forces, and the creation of aviation industries.

The Sunken Gold: A Story of World War I Espionage and the Greatest Treasure Salvage in History

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 25 mins)
• By Joseph A. Williams
• Narrated By Paul Boehmer

On January 25, 1917, HMS Laurentic struck two German mines off the coast of Ireland and sank. The ship was carrying 44 tons of gold bullion to the still-neutral United States via Canada in order to finance the war effort for Britain and its allies. Britain desperately needed that sunken treasure, but any salvage had to be secret, since the British government dared not alert the Germans to the presence of the gold. Lieutenant Commander Guybon Damant was the most qualified officer to head the risky mission.

Mirror to Damascus

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Colin Thubron
• Narrated By Sean Barrett

Described by the author as simply 'a work of love', Mirror to Damascus provides an enthralling and fascinating history of Damascus from the Amorites of the Bible to the revolution of 1966, as well as being a charming and witty personal record of a city well-loved. In explaining how modern Damascus is rooted in immemorial layers of culture and tradition, Colin Thubron explores the historical, artistic, social and religious inheritance of the Damascenes in an amusing and perceptive manner.