World Audiobooks | History

The Second Coming of Steve Jobs Audiobook

From the acclaimed Vanity Fair and GQ journalist-an unprecedented, in-depth portrait of the man whose return to Apple precipitated one of the biggest turnarounds in business history. With a new epilogue on Apple's future survival in today's roller-coaster economy, here is the revealing biography that blew away the critics and stirred controversy within industry and media circles around the country.

Alan Deutschman, Alan Deutshcman (Author), Charles Stransky (Narrator)

Audiobook

Flags of Our Fathers

Now abridged for young people, Flags of Our Fathers is the unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history: the raising of the U. S. flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima-and into history. The son of one of the flag raisers has written a powerful account of six very different men who came together in the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island.

James Bradley, Ron Powers (Author), Barry Bostwick (Narrator)

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The End of the Road

As national spokesman for the Motel 6 chain, as a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and as creator of the nationally syndicated radio program The End of the Road, Tom Bodett has a voice familiar to millions. Now you can listen, at your pleasure, to his stories about likable, genuine, slightly wacky people who live in the little Alaska town at the end of the road. Follow the romantic misadventures of sixties throwback Tamara Dupree, vegetarian activist and New Age missionary; join Stormy Storbock and Ed Flannigan on their sightseeing tour across America by fire truck; meet local ne'er-do-well Doug McDoogan, who has a bright new future in the arts. Come to Alaska and share in the emergence of a true American humorist - funny, farcical, nostalgic, provocative, and always touching.

Tom Bodett (Author), Tom Bodett (Narrator)

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The Great Republic

The Great Republic is Sir Winston Churchill’s personal vision of American history, from the arrival of the first European settlers to the dawn of the Cold War, edited by his grandson, the historian and journalist Winston S. Churchill. The book is a magnificent retelling of the American story, including some of the best short histories of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War ever written. The bulk of this book, America’s history up to the twentieth century, has until now been found only within Churchill’s much longer four-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953. The chapters on America from that larger work have been knit together into a whole, and to them Winston S. Churchill has added essays and speeches of his grandfather’s, many never before published in book form, to bring the book up to the mid-twentieth century. Sir Winston Churchill’s renown as a statesman has tended to overshadow his great gifts as a historian. History was the work of his heart’s delight, and few subjects were dearer to him than America. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was American, and all of his life Churchill harbored a deep warmth of feeling for this country and a sense of its special destiny. With fondness, he called America "the Great Republic," and in his later years he trained all of his powers on the history this book contains. The Great Republic is stirring in its sweep and breathtaking in the flash and vigor of its insights. Only an author with Sir Winston Churchill’s special perspective on America, his experience as a leader and strategist, his intimacy with the responsibilities of guiding a nation, and his great gifts as a narrative historian could have written a book that lays out America’s history, character, and destiny with this book’s special brilliance. Statesman and historian Sir Winston Churchill led Great Britain through the Second World War as prime minister. He was the author of forty-two books, including the six-volume history The Second World War, which was chosen by the National Review as the nonfiction "book of the century."

Winston S. Churchill (Author), Winston S. Churchill (Narrator)

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How the Irish Saved Civilization

The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars" -- and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost -- they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization. From the Hardcover edition.

Thomas Cahill (Author), Donal Donnelly (Narrator)

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Don't Know Much About the Civil War

Millions of Americans, bored by dull textbooks, are in the dark about the most significant event in our history. Now New York Times bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis comes to the rescue, deftly sorting out the players, the politics, and the key events—Emancipation and Reconstruction, Shiloh and Gettysburg, Generals Grant and Lee, Harriet Beecher Stowe—and much more. Drawing on moving eyewitness accounts, Davis includes a wealth of “hidden history” about the roles played by women and African Americans before and during the war, along with lesser-known facts that will enthrall even learned Civil War buffs. Vivid, informative, and hugely entertaining, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War is the only audiobook you’ll ever need on “the war that never ended.”

Kenneth C. Davis (Author), Kenneth C. Davis, Various Narrators (Narrator)

Audiobook

Five Days in London: May 1940

In May 1940, the course of history hung in the balance for five long days while Churchill's War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or continue opposition. In this compelling narrative, scholar and renowned author John Lukacs draws on memoirs and papers to convey the drama of those troubled times. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, regarded by many to be hotheaded, has only been in office for a fortnight when a quarter of a million British solders become trapped by the Germans at Dunkirk. With the public ill-informed and the Cabinet divided on what action to take, Churchill fights an uphill battle to gain both political and popular support. As the events unfold hour by hour, Churchill struggles to rally the citizenry and persuade the politicians to stand fast. John Lukacs' literary style and aelred Rosser's compelling interpretation transport you to London to listen in on the high level talks at 10 Downing Street and observe the mood of the people in the street.

John Lukacs (Author), Aelred Rosser (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Greatest Generation

In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear George Bush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learned about life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book who found fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), friends for life.

Tom Brokaw (Author), Tom Brokaw (Narrator)

Audiobook

What If...? Vol 3: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been

Historians and inquisitive laymen alike love to ponder the dramatic what-ifs of history. In these never-before-published essays, some of the keenest minds of our time ask the big, tantalizing questions: Where might we be if history had not unfolded the way it did? Why, how, and when was our fortune made real? The answers are surprising, sometimes frightening, and always entertaining. This provocative collection of essays features today's foremost historians speculating on these "what ifs", providing a fascinating new perspective on history's most pivotal events. The essays include: * Infectious Alternatives: The Plague that Saved Jerusalem by William H. McNeil * No Glory That Was Greece: The Persians Win at Salamis by Victor Davis Hanson * Conquest Denied: Alexander the Great's Premature Death by Josiah Ober * Furor Teutonicus: The Teutoburg by Lewis Lapham * The Dark Ages Made Lighter: The Consequences of Two Defeats by Barry S. Strauss * The Death that Saved Europe: The Mongols Turn Back by Cecilia Holland * If Only It Had Not Been Such a Wet Summer by Theodore K. Rabb * The Immolation of Hern Cort by Ross Hassig

Robert Cowley (Author), Murphy Guyer (Narrator)

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Microsoft First Generation: The Success Secrets of the Visionaries Who Launched a Technology Empire

This is a story with all the ingredients of a modern legend, representing nothing less than the proverbial American Dream-writ extra-large. It is a story of hard work, brilliance, and extraordinary commitment, featuring the story's original cast members, who could not possibly have foreseen the unprecedented success that awaited them: the forging of a technology empire that would change the world forever. What began as a modest start-up partnership only twenty-five years ago has already surpassed all the giants of contemporary capitalism. How did Microsoft achieve all of this in so short a time? Cheryl Tsang steps inside the famous culture of loyalty, the storied "maniacal work ethic," and the hardcore world of reckless risk-taking to reveal, once and for all, exactly what makes Microsoft tick.

Cheryl Tsang (Author), Mary Woods (Narrator)

Audiobook

Harry Hoxsey, Healer Before His Time

Kenny Ausubel (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

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Joan of Arc

Mary Gordon is the author of six previous novels, two memoirs, a short-story collection, and Reading Jesus, a work of nonfiction. She has received many honors, among them a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an O. Henry Award, an Academy Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Story Prize. She is the State Writer of New York. Gordon teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.

Mary Gordon (Author), Mari Devon (Narrator)

Audiobook

World Audiobooks in History