History audiobooks

The Dawn of Everything

By: David Graeber & David Wengrow
Length: 24 hours 2 minutes
Abridged: No

A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and...

How the Word Is Passed

By: Clint Smith
Narrated by: Clint Smith
Length: 10 hours 7 minutes
Abridged: No

Instant #1 New York Times bestseller

Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction

Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central...

The 1619 Project

By: Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman & Jake Silverstein
Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones & Full Cast
Length: 18 hours 56 minutes
Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Marie Claire
 
In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of... Read more »

A Promised Land

By: Barack Obama
Narrated by: Barack Obama
Length: 29 hours 9 minutes
Abridged: No

A riveting, deeply personal account of history in the making—from the president who inspired us to believe in the power of democracy

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Jennifer... Read more »

Mythos

By: author
Narrated by: Stephen Fry
Length: 15 hours 24 minutes
Abridged: No

Mythos is a modern collection of Greek myths, stylishly retold by legendary writer, actor, and comedian Stephen Fry. Fry transforms the adventures of Zeus and the Olympians into emotionally resonant and deeply funny stories, without losing any of their original wonder.

This stunning book features classical artwork inspired by the myths, as well... Read more »

Talking to Strangers

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
Length: 8 hours 42 minutes
Abridged: No

A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Pres
Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers -- and why they often go wrong.
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a... Read more »

The Devil in the White City

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: Scott Brick
Length: 14 hours 58 minutes
Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth... Read more »

Caste (Oprah's Book Club)

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
Length: 14 hours 25 minutes
Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • “An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that... Read more »

The Betrayal of Anne Frank

By: Rosemary Sullivan
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
Length: 10 hours 41 minutes
Abridged: No

Less a mystery unsolved than a secret well kept...

Using new technology, recently discovered documents and sophisticated investigative techniques, an international team—led by an obsessed retired FBI agent—has finally solved the mystery that has haunted generations since World War II: Who betrayed Anne Frank and her family? And why?

Over thirty...

Sapiens

By: Yuval Noah Harari
Narrated by: Derek Perkins
Length: 15 hours 17 minutes
Abridged: No

New York Times Bestseller

A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it...

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

By: Nick Offerman
Narrated by: Nick Offerman
Length: 11 hours 42 minutes
Abridged: No

A humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman

Nick Offerman has always felt a particular affection for the Land of the... Read more »

South to America

By: Imani Perry
Narrated by: Imani Perry
Length: 16 hours 32 minutes
Abridged: No

“An elegant meditation on the complexities of the American South—and thus of America—by an esteemed daughter of the South and one of the great intellectuals of our time. An inspiration.”

—Isabel Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

An essential, surprising journey...

Say Nothing

By: Patrick Radden Keefe
Narrated by: Matthew Blaney
Length: 14 hours 40 minutes
Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award • From the author of the New York Times bestseller Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions

"Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her... Read more »

Stamped from the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

By: Ibram X. Kendi
Narrated by: Christopher Dontrell Piper
Length: 18 hours 32 minutes
Abridged: No

WINNER OF THE 2016 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER IN RACE AND CIVIL RIGHTS
FINALIST FOR THE 2016 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION
THE MOST AMBITIOUS BOOK OF 2016 —The Washington Post
A BOSTON GLOBE BEST BOOK OF 2016
A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2016
A CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF... Read more »

Troy

By: Stephen Fry
Narrated by: Stephen Fry
Length: 11 hours
Abridged: No

In this brilliant conclusion to his bestselling Mythos trilogy, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry retells the tale of the Trojan War.

Full of tragic heroes, intoxicating love stories, and the unstoppable force of fate, there is no conflict more iconic than the Trojan War. Troy is the story of the epic battle retold by Fry with drama, humor,... Read more »

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

By: Ai Weiwei
Narrated by: David Shih
Length: 13 hours 7 minutes
Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • In Ai Weiwei’s widely anticipated memoir, “one of the most important artists working in the world today” (Financial Times) tells a century-long epic tale of China through the story of his own extraordinary life and the legacy of his father, the nation’s most celebrated poet.
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:... 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 »

All That She Carried

By: Tiya Miles
Narrated by: Janina Edwards
Length: 9 hours 29 minutes
Abridged: No

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft an extraordinary testament to people who are left out of the archives.

KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The... Read more »

Killers of the Flower Moon

By: David Grann
Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee & Danny Campbell
Length: 9 hours 4 minutes
Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST 

"Disturbing and riveting...It will sear your soul." —Dave Eggers, New York Times Book Review

SHELF AWARENESS'S BEST BOOK OF 2017

Named a best book of the year by Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, NPR's... Read more »

The Splendid and the Vile

By: Erik Larson
Narrated by: John Lee & Erik Larson
Length: 17 hours 48 minutes
Abridged: No

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2020 BY The Washington Post • HuffPost • The Seattle Times • Lit Hub • The Week • PopSugar

On Winston Churchill’s first day as... Read more »

The Library Book

By: Susan Orlean
Narrated by: Susan Orlean
Length: 12 hours 8 minutes
Abridged: No

A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK

A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018

“A constant pleasure to read…Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book.” —The Washington Post

“CAPTIVATING…DELIGHTFUL.” —Christian Science Monitor * “EXQUISITELY... Read more »

Four Hundred Souls

By: Ibram X. Kendi & Keisha N. Blain
Narrated by: Various
Length: 14 hours 1 minutes
Abridged: No

A chorus of extraordinary voices comes together to tell one of history’s great epics: the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present—edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire.

The story begins in 1619—a year before the Mayflower—when the White Lion... Read more »

Girly Drinks

By: Mallory O'Meara
Narrated by: Mallory O'Meara
Length: 11 hours 29 minutes
Abridged: No

“At last, the feminist history of booze we’ve been waiting for!” —Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist

From Los Angeles Times bestselling author Mallory O’Meara comes a lively and engrossing feminist history of women drinking through the ages

Strawberry daiquiris. Skinny martinis. Vodka sodas with lime. These are the cocktails that come in... Read more »

Blood in the Garden

By: Chris Herring
Narrated by: Brian Hutchison
Length: 11 hours 3 minutes
Abridged: No

The definitive history of the 1990s New York Knicks, illustrating how Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley, and Anthony Mason resurrected the iconic franchise through oppressive physicality and unmatched grit.

For nearly an entire generation, the New York Knicks have been a laughingstock franchise. Since 2001, they’ve spent more... Read more »