History audiobooks

Spare

By: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex
Narrated by: Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex
Length: 15 hours 37 minutes
Abridged: No

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would... 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 »

Talking to Strangers

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
Length: 8 hours 57 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 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 »

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 • “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 has shaped America and shows... Read more »

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...

The Dawn of Everything

By: David Graeber & David Wengrow
Narrated by: Mark Williams
Length: 24 hours 13 minutes
Abridged: No

"An all-encompassing treatise on modern civilization, offering bold revisions to canonical understandings in sociology, anthropology, archaeology and political philosophy that led to where we are today." - The New York Times

A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social...

How the Word Is Passed

By: Clint Smith
Narrated by: Clint Smith
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes
Abridged: No

This compelling #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America—and how both history and memory continue to shape our everyday lives.

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...

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...

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 »

Cobalt Red

By: Siddharth Kara
Narrated by: Peter Ganim
Length: 11 hours 20 minutes
Abridged: No

This program includes an author's note read by the author.

An unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.

Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the...

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 »

We Don't Know Ourselves

By: Fintan O'Toole
Narrated by: Aidan Kelly
Length: 22 hours 10 minutes
Abridged: No

In We Don't Know Ourselves, Fintan O'Toole weaves his own experiences into Irish social, cultural, and economic change, showing how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a reactionary "backwater" to an almost totally open society—perhaps the most astonishing national transformation in modern history.

Born to a working-class family in the... Read more »

Master Slave Husband Wife

By: Ilyon Woo
Narrated by: Janina Edwards & Leon Nixon
Length: 12 hours 54 minutes
Abridged: No

The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as “his” slave.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of... Read more »

All That She Carried

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

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a “deeply layered and insightful” (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out of the archives.
 
WINNER: Frederick Douglass Book Prize, Harriet Tubman Prize,... Read more »

The Nineties

By: Chuck Klosterman
Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman & Dion Graham
Length: 12 hours 38 minutes
Abridged: No

An instant New York Times bestseller!

From the bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.

It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin... 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 »

A Little Devil in America

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: JD Jackson
Length: 9 hours 38 minutes
Abridged: No

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A sweeping, genre-bending “masterpiece” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) exploring Black art, music, and culture in all their glory and complexity—from Soul Train, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Whitney Houston, and Beyoncé

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Chicago Tribune, The... Read more »

Say Nothing

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

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of 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 Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a... 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 »

Vanderbilt

By: Anderson Cooper & Katherine Howe
Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
Length: 8 hours 50 minutes
Abridged: No

New York Times bestselling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times bestselling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty—his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts.

When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in...

Four Lost Cities

By: Annalee Newitz
Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
Length: 8 hours 14 minutes
Abridged: No

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes listeners on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site... Read more »

And There Was Light

By: Jon Meacham
Narrated by: Jon Meacham
Length: 17 hours 49 minutes
Abridged: No

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Jon Meacham chronicles the life of Abraham Lincoln, charting how—and why—he confronted secession, threats to democracy, and the tragedy of slavery to expand the possibilities of America.

“In his captivating new book, Jon Meacham has given us the Lincoln for our time.”—Henry Louis... Read more »

Debt - Updated and Expanded

By: David Graeber
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
Length: 17 hours 48 minutes
Abridged: No

Now in audio, the updated and expanded edition : David Graeber’s “fresh . . . fascinating . . . thought-provoking . . . and exceedingly timely” (Financial Times) history of debt 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,... Read more »