History

Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years

• UNABRIDGED (44 hrs and 17 mins)
• By Carl Sandburg
• Narrated By Arthur Morey

Originally published in six volumes, which sold more than one million copies, Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln was praised as the most noteworthy historical biography of Sandburg’s generation. He later distilled this monumental work into one volume that critics and readers alike consider his greatest work of nonfiction, as well as the most distinguished, authoritative biography of Lincoln ever published.

Growing up in an Illinois prairie town, Sandburg listened to stories of old-timers who had known Lincoln. By the time this single-volume edition was competed, he had spent a lifetime studying, researching, and writing about our 16th president.

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Andrew Chaikin
• Narrated By Bronson Pinchot

Audie Award, History/Biography, 2016. On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Based on in-depth interviews with 23 of the 24 moon voyagers, as well as those who struggled to get the program moving, A Man on the Moon conveys every aspect of the Apollo missions with breathtaking immediacy and stunning detail.

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Nathaniel Philbrick
• Narrated By George Guidall
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as best-selling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a 55-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Mary Beard
• Narrated By Phyllida Nash
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.

The Untold History of the United States

• UNABRIDGED (30 hrs and 35 mins)
• By Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick
• Narrated By Peter Berkrot

Aided by the latest archival findings and recently declassified documents and building on the research of the world’s best scholars, Stone and Kuznick construct an often shocking but meticulously documented "people’s history" of the American empire that challenges the notion of American exceptionalism. Stone and Kuznick will introduce listeners to a pantheon of heroes and villains as they show not only how far the United States has drifted from its democratic traditions but the powerful forces that have struggled to get us back on track.

Battle: The Story of the Bulge

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 44 mins)
• By John Toland
• Narrated By Dan Butler

Battle: The Story of the Bulge, John Toland's first work of military history, recounts the saga of beleaguered American troops as they resisted Hitler's deadly counter offensive in World War II's Battle of the Bulge - and turned it into an Allied victory. It is a gripping work, painstakingly researched and imbued with such vivid detail that listeners will feel as though they themselves witnessed these events. This is a book not to be missed by anyone interested in this tumultuous era of our world's history.

Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors: The History of England, Book 1

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Peter Ackroyd
• Narrated By Clive Chafer

In Foundation the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England's prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country's most distant past - a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house.

Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution: 25th Anniversary Edition

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 29 mins)
• By Steven Levy
• Narrated By Mike Chamberlain
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Steven Levy's classic book traces the exploits of the computer revolution's original hackers - those brilliant and eccentric nerds from the late 1950s through the early '80s who took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a radical new direction. With updated material from noteworthy hackers such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Stallman, and Steve Wozniak, Hackers is a fascinating story that begins in early computer research labs and leads to the first home computers.

The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945

• UNABRIDGED (41 hrs and 8 mins)
• By John Toland
• Narrated By Tom Weiner

This Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese empire, from the invasion of Manchuria and China to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Told from the Japanese perspective, The Rising Sun is, in the author’s words, "a factual saga of people caught up in the flood of the most overwhelming war of mankind, told as it happened - muddled, ennobling, disgraceful, frustrating, full of paradox."

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Colin Woodard
• Narrated By Lewis Grenville

In the early 18th century, the Pirate Republic was home to some of the great pirate captains, including Blackbeard, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane. Along with their fellow pirates - former sailors, indentured servants, and runaway slaves - this "Flying Gang" established a crude but distinctive democracy in the Bahamas, carving out their own zone of freedom in which servants were free, blacks could be equal citizens, and leaders were chosen or deposed by a vote.

Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WW II

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 36 mins)
• By Chester Nez, Judith Schiess Avila
• Narrated By David Colacci
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Chester Nez, the only surviving member of the original twenty-nine Navajo code talkers, shares the fascinating inside story of his life and service during World War II.

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Dan Jones
• Narrated By Clive Chafer
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The first Plantagenet king inherited a blood-soaked kingdom from the Normans and transformed it into an empire that stretched at its peak from Scotland to Jerusalem. In this epic history, Dan Jones vividly resurrects this fierce and seductive royal dynasty and its mythic world. We meet the captivating Eleanor of Aquitaine, twice queen and the most famous woman in Christendom; her son, Richard the Lionheart, who fought Saladin in the Third Crusade; and King John, a tyrant who was forced to sign Magna Carta, which formed the basis of our own Bill of Rights.

Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 4 mins)
• By Tom Holland
• Narrated By Derek Perkins

Author and historian Tom Holland returns to his roots in Roman history and the audience he cultivated with Rubicon - his masterful, witty, brilliantly researched popular history of the fall of the Roman republic - with Dynasty, a luridly fascinating history of the reign of the first five Roman emperors.

The Great Divide: The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson That Defined a Nation

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Thomas Fleming
• Narrated By David Rapkin

History tends to cast the early years of America in a glow of camaraderie when there were, in fact, many conflicts between the Founding Fathers - none more important than the one between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Their disagreement centered on the highest, most original public office created by the Constitutional Convention: the presidency. It also involved the nation's foreign policy, the role of merchants and farmers in a republic, and the durability of the union.

Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 8 mins)
• By Helen Rappaport
• Narrated By Karen Cass

Award-winning and critically acclaimed historian Helen Rappaport turns to the tragic story of the daughters of the last Tsar of all the Russias, slaughtered with their parents at Ekaterinburg. On 17 July 1918, four young women walked down 23 steps into the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg. The eldest was 22, the youngest only 17. Together with their parents and their 13-year-old brother, they were all brutally murdered. Their crime: to be the daughters of the last Tsar and Tsaritsa of All the Russias.

God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican

• UNABRIDGED (21 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Gerald Posner
• Narrated By Tom Parks

From a master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct, a magnificent investigation nine years in the making, this book traces the political intrigue and inner workings of the Catholic Church. Decidedly not about faith, belief in God, or religious doctrine, this audiobook is about the church's accumulation of wealth and its byzantine entanglements with financial markets across the world.

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Julia Scheeres
• Narrated By Robin Miles
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In A Thousand Lives, the New York Times best-selling memoirist Julia Scheeres traces the fates of five individuals who followed Jim Jones to South America as they struggled to first build their paradise, and then survive it. Each went for different reasons - some were drawn to Jones for his progressive attitudes towards racial equality, others were dazzled by his claims to be a faith healer. But once in Guyana, Jones' drug addiction, mental decay, and sexual depredations quickly eroded the idealistic community.

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Sebastian Junger
• Narrated By Sebastian Junger
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians - but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the incredibly intimate bonds of platoon life.

The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume 3: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965

• UNABRIDGED (53 hrs and 27 mins)
• By William Manchester, Paul Reid
• Narrated By Clive Chafer, Paul Reid

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944

• UNABRIDGED (27 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Ian Toll
• Narrated By P. J. Ochlan
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The devastation of Pearl Harbor and the American victory at Midway were prelude to a greater challenge: rolling back the vast Japanese Pacific empire island by island. This masterful history encompasses the heart of the Pacific War - the period between mid-1942 and mid-1944 - when parallel Allied counteroffensives north and south of the equator washed over Japan's far-flung island empire like a "conquering tide", concluding with Japan's irreversible strategic defeat in the Marianas.

Today in History: May 29, 2016

• ORIGINAL (1 min)
• By Associated Press
• Narrated By Camille Bohannon

Welcome to Today in History, your daily time capsule to historical happenings by the Associated Press. Featuring multiple moments from years past, Today in History brings you back in time to the world’s most impactful events.

Today in History: May 28, 2016

• ORIGINAL (1 min)
• By Associated Press
• Narrated By Camille Bohannon

Welcome to Today in History, your daily time capsule to historical happenings by the Associated Press. Featuring multiple moments from years past, Today in History brings you back in time to the world’s most impactful events.

The Black Death: The World's Most Devastating Plague

• ORIGINAL (12 hrs and 10 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Dorsey Armstrong

Many of us know the Black Death as a catastrophic event of the medieval world. But the Black Death was arguably the most significant event in Western history, profoundly affecting every aspect of human life, from the economic and social to the political, religious, and cultural. In its wake the plague left a world that was utterly changed, forever altering the traditional structure of European societies and forcing a rethinking of every single system of Western civilization: food production and trade, the church, political institutions, law, art, and more.

Archaeology: An Introduction to the World's Greatest Sites

• ORIGINAL (12 hrs and 41 mins)
• By The Great Courses
• Narrated By Professor Eric H. Cline

The work of archaeologists has commanded worldwide attention and captivated the human imagination since the earliest days of exploration, with groundbreaking discoveries such as the treasures of ancient Egypt, the lost kingdoms of the Maya, and the fabled city of Troy. Archaeology brings us face-to-face with our distant ancestors, with treasures of the past, and with life as it was lived in long-ago civilizations.

The Crimean War: A History

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 17 mins)
• By David Johnson
• Narrated By Lori L. Parker

The Crimean War was a military conflict fought between October, 1853 - March, 1856 in which Russia lost to an alliance of France, the United Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia. The immediate cause involved the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights of Catholics, while Russia promoted those of the Eastern Orthodox Christians.

The Lost Colony of the Confederacy

• UNABRIDGED (5 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Eugene C. Harter
• Narrated By Karey James Kimmel

The Lost Colony of the Confederacy is the story of a grim, quixotic journey of 20,000 Confederates to Brazil at the end of the American Civil War. Although it is not known how many Confederates migrated to South America - estimates range from 8,000 to 40,000 - their departure was fueled by bitterness over a lost cause and a distaste for an oppressive victor. Encouraged by Emperor Dom Pedro, most of these exiles settled in Brazil.

Today in History: May 27, 2016

• ORIGINAL (1 min)
• By Associated Press
• Narrated By Camille Bohannon

Welcome to Today in History, your daily time capsule to historical happenings by the Associated Press. Featuring multiple moments from years past, Today in History brings you back in time to the world’s most impactful events.

Britain's War: Volume 1, Into Battle, 1937-1941

• UNABRIDGED (35 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Daniel Todman
• Narrated By Ric Jerrom

The most terrible emergency in Britain's history, the Second World War, required an unprecedented national effort. An exhausted country had to fight an unexpectedly long war and found itself much diminished amongst the victors. The outcome of the war was nonetheless a triumph, not least for a political system that proved well adapted to the demands of a total conflict and for a population who had to make many sacrifices but who were spared most of the horrors experienced in the rest of Europe.

Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now That We Didn't Know Then

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs)
• By James H. Fetzer
• Narrated By Alan J. Gardner

This volume contains startling information about the Kennedy assassination, emphasizing photographic evidence and the handling of the event by the media. The contributors, all experts within the research community, reveal the many inconsistencies and unsupported conclusions in the Warren Commission report on the assassination of JFK.

The Kamikaze Hunters: Fighting for the Pacific, 1945

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 57 mins)
• By Will Iredale
• Narrated By Jonathan Keeble

In May 1945, with victory in Europe established, the war was all but over. But on the other side of the world, the Allies were still engaged in a bitter struggle to control the Pacific. And it was then that the Japanese unleashed a terrible new form of warfare: the suicide pilots, or kamikaze.

As Far as the Eye Could Reach: Accounts of Animals Along the Santa Fe Trail, 1821-1880

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 35 mins)
• By Phyllis S. Morgan
• Narrated By Sally Martin

Travelers and traders taking the Santa Fe Trail's routes from Missouri to New Mexico wrote vivid eyewitness accounts of the diverse and abundant wildlife encountered as they crossed arid plains, high desert, and rugged mountains. Most astonishing to these observers were the incredible numbers of animals, many they had not seen before - buffalo, antelope (pronghorn), prairie dogs, roadrunners, mustangs, grizzlies, and others. They also wrote about the domesticated animals they brought with them.

East West Street

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 24 mins)
• By Philippe Sands
• Narrated By Philippe Sands, David Rintoul

When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.

The English Reformation and the Puritans Teaching Series

• ORIGINAL (4 hrs and 33 mins)
• By Michael Reeves
• Narrated By Michael Reeves

Few stories contain heroism, betrayal, ricocheting monarchs, bold stands against repressive authorities, and redemption like this one. And fewer generations have modeled commitment to the gospel and the application of God's Word like the Puritans of England. In this 12-part series, Dr. Michael Reeves surveys Puritan theology and the work of the Holy Spirit when the Reformation flourished in England.

Parliament Ltd: A journey to the dark heart of British politics

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Martin Williams
• Narrated By Esther Wane, Luke Thompson

In Parliament Ltd, investigative journalist Martin Williams reveals the true extent of greed and corruption in Westminster. Containing explosive new revelations about the activities of those at the top, this is a shocking untold tale that goes to the rotten heart of British politics.

The Stories of the Months and Days

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 20 mins)
• By Reginald C Couzens
• Narrated By Jack Chekijian

The names of the months and the days of the week come from a time in the ancient past. Collected here are the stories which these names tell. Gods, heroes, and planets come into play with the names of the months and the sunlit countries of Greece and Rome, and the names of the days and the cold and stormy northern lands of the Norsemen.

Summary of First Women by Kate Andersen Brower | Includes Analysis

• UNABRIDGED (27 mins)
• By Instaread
• Narrated By Patricia Santomasso

Kate Andersen Brower's First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies examines how women from Jackie Kennedy to Michelle Obama have negotiated the personal and political challenges of being married to the president of the United States.

Today in History: May 26, 2016

• ORIGINAL (1 min)
• By Associated Press
• Narrated By Camille Bohannon

Welcome to Today in History, your daily time capsule to historical happenings by the Associated Press. Featuring multiple moments from years past, Today in History brings you back in time to the world’s most impactful events.

Waterloo: Napoleon, Wellington, and the Battle That Changed Europe

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 10 mins)
• By Jack Steinberg
• Narrated By Jim Johnston

The Napoleonic Wars brought Wellesley and Napoleon into conflict with each other, and eventually, they collided during the Waterloo Campaign. This campaign culminated in the Battle of Waterloo, which would come to be regarded as one of the bloodiest - but also one of the most important - battles in history.

Fierce Ruthless Warriors Who Shaped Ancient History, Vol. II: Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Andre T. Smith
• Narrated By Alan Munro

In this second exclusive volume of ancient leaders, we take an in-depth look at the lives, battles, and accomplishments of three more of the most renowned warrior leaders and the military strategies that made them legendary.

Summary of The Rise and Fall of American Growth: by Robert J. Gordon | Includes Analysis

• UNABRIDGED (23 mins)
• By Instaread
• Narrated By Dwight Equitz

Throughout most of human history, economic growth was basically flat or advanced very slowly. After the Civil War in the United States, however, life began to improve exponentially. This was due to a series of "Great Inventions," including, most notably, electricity, the means of channeling and directing electricity, and the internal combustion engine. Homes became tied to systems of electricity, heat, and sewage.

The Great Divide: The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson That Defined a Nation

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Thomas Fleming
• Narrated By David Rapkin

History tends to cast the early years of America in a glow of camaraderie when there were, in fact, many conflicts between the Founding Fathers - none more important than the one between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Their disagreement centered on the highest, most original public office created by the Constitutional Convention: the presidency. It also involved the nation's foreign policy, the role of merchants and farmers in a republic, and the durability of the union.

A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 53 mins)
• By Julia Scheeres
• Narrated By Robin Miles
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In A Thousand Lives, the New York Times best-selling memoirist Julia Scheeres traces the fates of five individuals who followed Jim Jones to South America as they struggled to first build their paradise, and then survive it. Each went for different reasons - some were drawn to Jones for his progressive attitudes towards racial equality, others were dazzled by his claims to be a faith healer. But once in Guyana, Jones' drug addiction, mental decay, and sexual depredations quickly eroded the idealistic community.

Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific: A Young Marine's Stirring Account of Combat in World War II

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 27 mins)
• By Robert Leckie
• Narrated By James Badge Dale, Tom Hanks
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 57 mins)
• By E. B. Sledge
• Narrated By Marc Vietor, Joe Mazzello, Tom Hanks
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The celebrated 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, winner of eight Emmy Awards, was based on two classic books about the War in the Pacific, Helmet for My Pillow and With The Old Breed. Audible Studios, in partnership with Playtone, the production company co-owned by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and creator of the award-winning HBO series Band of Brothers, John Adams, and The Pacific, as well as the HBO movie Game Change, has created new recordings of these memoirs, narrated by the stars of the miniseries.

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Donnie Eichar
• Narrated By Donnie Eichar
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In February 1959, a group of nine experienced hikers in the Russian Ural Mountains died mysteriously on an elevation known as Dead Mountain. Eerie aspects of the incident—unexplained violent injuries, signs that they cut open and fled the tent without proper clothing or shoes, a strange final photograph taken by one of the hikers, and elevated levels of radiation found on some of their clothes—have led to decades of speculation over what really happened.

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy

• UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Francis Fukuyama
• Narrated By Jonathan Davis

Fukuyama examines the effects of corruption on governance, and why some societies have been successful at rooting it out. He explores the different legacies of colonialism in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and offers a clear-eyed account of why some regions have thrived and developed more quickly than others. And he boldly reckons with the future of democracy in the face of a rising global middle class and entrenched political paralysis in the West.

Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 3 mins)
• By James M. Scott
• Narrated By L. J. Ganser
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The dramatic account of one of America's most celebrated - and controversial - military campaigns: the Doolittle Raid. In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 19 mins)
• By Jack Weatherford
• Narrated By Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Dana Goldstein
• Narrated By Nan McNamara
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In other nations, public schools are one thread in a quilt that includes free universal child care, health care, and job training. Here, schools are the whole cloth. Today we look around the world at countries like Finland and South Korea, whose students consistently outscore Americans on standardized tests, and wonder what we are doing wrong. Dana Goldstein first asks the often-forgotten question: "How did we get here?"

The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 29 mins)
• By James McPherson
• Narrated By Grover Gardner
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James M. McPherson considers why the Civil War remains so deeply embedded in our national psyche and identity. The drama and tragedy of the war help explain why the Civil War remains a topic of interest. But the legacy of the war extends far beyond historical interest or scholarly attention.

The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Andrei Lankov
• Narrated By Steven Roy Grimsley

Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state.

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 33 mins)
• By Vincent Bugliosi, Curt Gentry
• Narrated By Scott Brick
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

• UNABRIDGED (26 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Susan Wise Bauer
• Narrated By John Lee
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Denise Kiernan
• Narrated By Cassandra Campbell
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.

D DAY Through German Eyes: The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 7 mins)
• By Holger Eckhertz
• Narrated By P. J. Ochlan
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Almost all accounts of D-Day are told from the Allied perspective, with the emphasis on how German resistance was overcome on June 6, 1944. But what was it like to be a German soldier in the bunkers and gun emplacements of the Normandy coast, facing the onslaught of the mightiest seaborne invasion in history? What motivated the German defenders, what were their thought processes - and how did they fight from one strong point to another, among the dunes and fields, on that first cataclysmic day?

The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Longest Civil War

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 47 mins)
• By Victoria E. Bynum
• Narrated By Mahershala Ali
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Actor Mahershala Ali performs the gripping tale of an armed band of Confederate deserters and slaves living in a mixed-race community who rose up against the Confederate Cavalry in 1863 to form their own republic, free of slavery, in what is now the state of Mississippi. The community they formed - and the ambiguous racial identity of their descendants - confounded the rules of the segregated South well into the 20th century.

The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson

• UNABRIDGED (18 hrs and 46 mins)
• By Jeffrey Toobin
• Narrated By Stephen Bel Davies
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The definitive account of the O. J. Simpson trial, The Run of His Life is a prodigious feat of reporting that could have been written only by the foremost legal journalist of our time. First published less than a year after the infamous verdict, Jeffrey Toobin's nonfiction masterpiece tells the whole story, from the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman to the ruthless gamesmanship behind the scenes of "the trial of the century".

The Art of War

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 7 mins)
• By Sun Tzu
• Narrated By Aidan Gillen

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 7 mins)
• By Edward Dolnick
• Narrated By Alan Sklar
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Francis Fukuyama
• Narrated By Jonathan Davis
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.