Audiobooks Narrated by Ryan Durham

Richard Sorge: The Life and Legacy of the German Journalist Who Became the Soviet Union’s Most Effec

Spies are a feature of countless works of fiction in which they often discover secrets on which the fate of nations hang in the balance. Reality is generally rather more mundane, as spies often gather low-level intelligence that only makes sense when it is examined by analysts and compared to information from other sources. Espionage provides clues to what the enemy is planning, but on its own, it rarely changes the course of a war. Moreover, real spies are generally anonymous, not the bold, swashbuckling action heroes depicted in fiction. Spies must hide in plain sight, and that is best achieved by being as innocuous as possible. However, there are exceptions. Occasionally, a spy will be so successful that they are able to place themselves in a position where they have access to information at the highest levels, secrets that really can change the course of world events. Sometimes, these spies may even be as handsome, charming, charismatic, and bold as their fictional counterparts. One such spy was a man named Richard Sorge. Experiencing the horrors of World War I at first-hand turned Sorge into an ardent communist, after which he worked as a spy for the USSR in Germany, China, and Japan before and during World War II. He obtained vital military and political secrets and maintained his cover for over nine years despite frantic searches for the spy who was leaking information to Russia. His effortless charm meant that he didn’t need to steal secrets: people told him willingly, including the many women that he seduced.

Charles River Editors (Author), Ryan Durham (Narrator)

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The Ludlow Massacre: The History of the National Guard’s Attack on Striking Miners during the Colora

As labor unions and movements began to form and coalesce in the 19th century, the tensions between workers and companies led to demonstrations, encounters, and even conflicts that descended into violence. Among those, few were as notorious as the fight that took place on April 20, 1914 at Ludlow in the southern Colorado coalfields, during which two units of the Colorado National Guard had a firefight with striking miners who lived in a United Mine Workers (UMW) camp. The Guardsmen had at least one machine gun, and the strikers were also armed. The gunfire lasted most of the day, and at the day’s end, the miners were routed and fled the camp with their families. Perhaps as many as a dozen miners in the camp were killed during the fighting, but after it was over, the Guardsmen cautiously entered the camp, did some looting, and then soaked the miners’ tents with kerosene in order to burn the whole camp to the ground. The Guard’s arsonists were unaware that in one tent, four women and 11 children had hidden themselves in a sort of cellar under a tent, seeking protection from the gunfire. After the camp burned, a deeply disturbing aspect of the fighting was discovered: two of those women and all 11 children had been asphyxiated from the smoke of their burning tent. These grim deaths marked Ludlow as more than just another regrettable coal war battle and earned it the title of the Ludlow Massacre. In the previous several decades, there had been a number of violent incidents during strikes in several states that killed more people, but in 1914, Victorian sentimentality about women and children was still prevalent, and the Ludlow tragedy deeply shocked the nation.

Charles River Editors (Author), Ryan Durham (Narrator)

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Prehistoric Warfare: The History of Early Human Conflicts

Most scientists believe the evolution of humans has a history nearly as long as life itself. Anatomically modern humans and all other life that has existed on the planet first came about from the single-celled microorganisms that emerged approximately 4 billion years ago. Through the processes of mutation and natural selection, all forms of life developed, and this continuous lineage of life makes it difficult to say precisely when one species completely separates from another. In other words, scientists still debate when a human became a human rather than the ancestor species that came before. Among paleontologists, the question of human propensity for warfare in prehistoric eons has persisted. Primitive conflict that in time grew into a modern military phenomenon has become an increasing avenue of study. Scientists seek to ascertain whether the distant ancestral line of humans is genetically disposed toward the act of war, or whether social and geographical development have created a circumstantial environment for large-scale societal collisions.  Depictions of humans pierced with arrows began to appear in the Aurignacian-Périgordian eras (30,000 years ago), and in the early Magdalenian era (17,000 years ago). A work of Mesolithic art (20,000 to 10,000 years ago) shows an explicit battle between groups of archers, and in Valencia, a group of three archers are seen surrounded by four of the similarly armed enemy in the Cova del Roure la Vella in Castellón. In the Ares del Maestrat in Alcañiz of Aragon, another work depicts warriors fleeing a group of eight archers, while a similar work at Val del Charco del Agua in Aragon shows seven archers with plumed headgear. Other examples show warriors in lines and columns with a “distinctly garbed leader at the front.” In a sense, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that the earliest people were violent and engaged in warfare the same way people did throughout more recent eras. 

Charles River Editors (Author), Ryan Durham (Narrator)

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