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History

Travel through time with the best history audiobooks that bring the past vividly to life. Our collection covers ancient civilizations, world wars, cultural movements, and pivotal moments that shaped our world – all narrated by engaging storytellers who make historical events feel immediate and relevant.

Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Audiobook: A Riveting Journey Through Revolution – Free Download

This program features an introduction read by Bill O’Reilly.

The Revolutionary War as never told before.

The breathtaking latest installment in Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s mega-bestselling Killing series transports listeners to the most important era in our nation’s history, the Revolutionary War. Told through the eyes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Great Britain’s King George III, Killing England chronicles the path to independence in gripping detail, taking the listener from the battlefields of America to the royal courts of Europe. What started as protest and unrest in the colonies soon escalated to a world war with devastating casualties.

O’Reilly and Dugard recreate the war’s landmark battles, including Bunker Hill, Long Island, Saratoga, and Yorktown, revealing the savagery of hand-to-hand combat and the often brutal conditions under which these brave American soldiers lived and fought. Also here is the reckless treachery of Benedict Arnold and the daring guerilla tactics of the “Swamp Fox” Frances Marion.

A must listen, Killing England reminds one and all how the course of history can be changed through the courage and determination of those intent on doing the impossible.

Hiroshima Audiobook: A Haunting Oral History Masterpiece – Free Download

A journalistic masterpiece. John Hersey transports us back to the streets of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945-the day the city was destroyed by the first atomic bomb. Told through the memories of six survivors, Hiroshima is a timeless, powerful classic that will awaken your heart and your compassion. In this new edition, Hersey returns to Hiroshima to find the survivors-and to tell their fates in an eloquent and moving final chapter.

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Audiobook: A Geopolitical Masterclass – Free Download

In this New York Times bestseller, updated for 2016, an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers fans of geography, history, and politics (and maps) will be enthralled” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.

All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In one of the best books about geopolitics” (The Evening Standard), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders.

Offering a fresh way of looking at maps” (The New York Times Book Review), Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical. In an ever more complex, chaotic, and interlinked world, Prisoners of Geography is a concise and useful primer on geopolitics” (Newsweek) and a critical guide to one of the major determining factors in world affairs.

History of the Vikings: Norse Sagas, Medieval Marauders, and Far-flung Settlements Audiobook: A Scholarly Journey – Free Download

Navigate Viking history, culture, and literature with world-renowed medievalist Christopher R. Fee, Ph.D., named  by the Princeton Review as one of America’s best professors.

Frequently depicted as “Scandinavian scavengers,” warlike pirates, raiders, and invaders, the Vikings have lately surfaced from the depths of history to become pop culture’s most adored ruffians. For Prof. Fee, this recent craze for all-things Viking is a mixed blessing. The spike in popular fascination often occasions a need to separate the wheat from the chaff: fact from fiction, history from myth, literature from legend.

This 24-lecture audio series rights the ship by offering you a scholarly and comprehensive overview of Viking history, geography, literature, religion, and culture. Prof. Fee leads this series with canny and personable teaching. 

As you meet the great Viking adventurers, you’ll explore pivotal events such as the raid on the monastery at Lindisfarne in 739 and the Norman invasion of Britain in 1066, as well as lesser-known curiosities: the etymology of the term “Viking,” the story of the Vikings known as Varangians who guarded the Byzantine Emperor, and the origins of the state that we now know as Russia. 

From runic inscriptions to heroic sagas, pagan belief to Danelaw, you’ll ponder the Vikings’ lasting significance as you immerse yourself in the seen and unseen record of their fascinating civilization. 

This course is part of the Learn25 collection.

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy Audiobook: Why It Redefines Political Journalism – Free Download

2021 GRAMMY® Winner for Best Spoken Word Album

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy—Winner Take All

“A rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting, and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today.”—The New York Times Book Review

In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014, Ukrainian revolutionaries raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon. Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry.

With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way, and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S. election. She deftly shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West’s most important alliances, and the United States. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature.”

Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world’s most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.”

Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America Audiobook: A Gritty Journey Through America’s Underbelly – Free Download

In the tenth audiobook in the multimillion-selling Killing series, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take on their most controversial subject yet: The Mob.

Killing the Mob is the tenth audiobook in Bill O’Reilly’s #1 New York Times bestselling series of popular narrative histories, with sales of nearly 18 million copies worldwide, and over 320 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th Century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation’s most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers, and especially, mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O’Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face Nelson. In addition, the authors highlight the creation of the Mafia Commission, the power struggles within the “Five Families,” the growth of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the mob battles to control Cuba, Las Vegas and Hollywood, as well as the personal war between the U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

O’Reilly and Dugard turn these legendary criminals and their true-life escapades into a listen that rivals the most riveting crime novel. With Killing the Mob, their hit series is primed for its greatest success yet.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning Audiobook: A Political Thriller in Audio – Free Download

Read by Liz Cheney with 50+ audio source material clips included, Oath and Honor is a gripping first-hand account from inside the halls of Congress as Donald Trump and his enablers betrayed the American people and the Constitution–leading to the violent attack on our Capitol on January 6th, 2021—by the House Republican leader who dared to stand up to it.
 
In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and many around him, including certain other elected Republican officials, intentionally breached their oath to the Constitution: they ignored the rulings of dozens of courts, plotted to overturn a lawful election, and provoked a violent attack on our Capitol.   Liz Cheney, one of the few Republican officials to take a stand against these efforts, witnessed the attack first-hand, and then helped lead the Congressional Select Committee investigation into how it happened. In Oath and Honor, she tells the story of this perilous moment in our history, those who helped Trump spread the stolen election lie, those whose actions preserved our constitutional framework, and the risks we still face.
 

Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Audiobook: A Harrowing Journey Through War-Torn Africa – Free Download

In A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah tells a riveting story in his own words: how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

This is how wars are fought now by children, hopped up on drugs, and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty violent conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers.

Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.

This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.