Discover Legally Popular Titles Full Audiobooks in History, Military

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Title: Sacrifice on the Steppe

Subtitle: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942-1943

Author: Hope Hamilton

Narrator: James Langton

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 16 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

When Germanys Sixth Army advanced to Stalingrad in 1942, its long-extended flanks were mainly held by its allied armies - the Romanians, Hungarians, and Italians. But as history tells us, these flanks quickly caved in before the massive Soviet counter-offensive which commenced that November, dooming the Germans to their first catastrophe of the war. However, the historical record also makes clear that one allied unit held out to the very end, fighting to stem the tide - the Italian Alpine Corps.

As a result of Mussolinis disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany, by the fall of 1942, 227,000 soldiers of the Italian Eighth Army were deployed on a 270km front along the Don River to protect the left flank of German troops intent on capturing Stalingrad. Sixty thousand of these were alpini, elite Italian mountain troops. When the Don front collapsed under Soviet hammerblows, it was the Alpine Corps that continued to hold out until it was completely isolated, and which then tried to fight its way out through both Russian encirclement and General Winter, to rejoin the rest of the Axis front. Only one of the three alpine divisions was able to emerge from the Russian encirclement with survivors. In the all-sides battle across the snowy steppe, thousands were killed and wounded, and even more were captured. By the summer of 1946, 10,000 survivors returned to Italy from Russian POW camps. This tragic story is complex and unsettling, but most of all it is a human story. Mussolini sent thousands of poorly equipped soldiers to a country far from their homeland, on a mission to wage war with an unclear mandate against a people who were not their enemies. Raw courage and endurance blend with human suffering, desperation and altruism in the epic saga of this withdrawal from the Don lines, including the demise of thousands and survival of the few.

Hope Hamilton, fluent in Italian and having spent many years in Italy, has drawn on many interviews with survivors, as well as massive research, in order to provide this first full English-language account of one of World War IIs legendary stands against great odds.

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Title: Shadow Commander

Subtitle: The Epic Story of Donald D. Blackburn - Guerrilla Leader and Special Forces Hero

Author: Mike Guardia

Narrator: Jason Huggins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 14 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

The fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942 - illuminating the white flags of surrender against the nighttime sky. Woefully outnumbered, outgunned, and ill-equipped, battered remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces of the Rising Sun. Yet amongst the chaos and devastation of the American defeat, Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay down his arms.

After the war, Blackburn remained on active duty and played a key role in initiating Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia. In 1958, as commander of the 77th Special Forces Group, he spearheaded Operation White Star in Laos - the first major deployment of American Special Forces to a country with an active insurgency. Seven years later, Blackburn took command of the highly classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG), charged with performing secret missions now that main-force Communist incursions were on the rise.

In the wake of the CIA's disastrous Leaping Lena program, in 1964 Blackburn revitalized the Special Operations campaign in South Vietnam. Sending cross-border reconnaissance teams into Cambodia and North Vietnam, he discovered the clandestine networks and supply nodes of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. Taking this information directly to General Westmoreland, Blackburn received authorization to conduct full-scale operations against the NVA and Viet Cong operating in Laos and Cambodia. In combats large and small, the Communists realized they had met a master of insurgent tactics - and he was on the US side.

Following his return to the United States, Blackburn was appointed "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities," where he was the architect of the infamous Son Tay Prison Raid. Officially termed Operation Ivory Coast, the Son Tay raid was the largest POW rescue mission - and indeed, the largest Special Forces operation - of the Vietnam War.

During a period when United States troops in Southeast Asia faced guerrilla armies on every side, it has been little recognized today that America had a superb covert commander of its own, his guerrilla skills honed in resistance against Japan. This book follows Donald D. Blackburn through both his youthful days of desperate combat against an Empire, and through his days as a commander, imparting his lessons to the newly-realized ranks of America's own Special Forces.

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Title: Sun Tzu at Gettysburg

Subtitle: Ancient Military Wisdom in the Modern World

Author: Bevin Alexander

Narrator: Edoardo Ballerini

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 05-31-11

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 62 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Ten major battles or campaigns that could have been won by using the principles of The Art of War.

Imagine the impact on world history if Robert E. Lee had listened to General Longstreet at Gettysburg and withdrawn to higher ground instead of sending Pickett uphill against the entrenched Union line. Or if Napolon, at Waterloo, had avoided mistakes he'd never made before. The advice that would have changed the outcome of these crucial battles is found in a book on strategy written centuries before Christ was born.

Lee, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler never read Sun Tzu's The Art of War; the book only became widely available in the West in the mid-20th century. But as Bevin Alexander shows, Sun Tzu's maxims often boil down to common sense, in a particularly pure and clear form. The lessons of contemporary military practice, or their own experience, might have guided these commanders to success. It is stunning to see, however, the degree to which the precepts laid down 2,400 years ago apply to warfare of the modern era.

Editorial Reviews:

Military history audiobooks call for extra special attention: the bloody manoeuvres and counterattacks need to be followed step-by-step otherwise the thread of action is easily lost. Sun Tzu at Gettysburg comes with its own downloadable maps but thanks to Edoardo Ballerini's matchlessly clear reading they're barely necessary. It's an important point: in applying Sun Tzu's maxims to decisive battles of the past, author Bevin Alexander puts those battles under a microscope and Ballerini's measured delivery ensures the listener knows where he or she stands.

Sun Tzu at Gettysburg plays the "what if?" game of historical conjecture, and plays it well. Military wisdom that's over 2,000 years old is if nothing else a fresh angle on famous episodes in war, and if some of Alexander's findings seem to be more due to common sense that ancient Chinese wisdom, he has an un-showy persuasiveness that makes for an entertaining listen. Chapters range from the British defeat at the hands of American colonists through the Napoleonic and two World Wars to the North Korean War. Each chapter is peppered with references to what would Sun Tzu do ("The situation called for an intense application of a Sun Tzu axiom"). This approach also brings into relief other aspects, such as the difference between orthodox "cheng" and unorthodox "chi" strategies: according to Alexander, Stonewall Jackson used both in his manoeuvres against the Union.

Sometimes there's a hint of smugness to hindsight ("Rommel was wrong of course.") but Alexander's approach does highlight mistakes and how they happened. His chapter on the liberation of France in 1944 is especially illuminating, showing how Eisenhower, attempting to accommodate the interests of both the British and Americans, hobbled Patton in favour of Montgomery and led to disastrous consequences and arguments for years to come. "The allies," writes Alexander, "won the war in the wrong way." His clever application of Sun Tzu shows why that happened and, as Ballerini carefully adds up each word one after the other, the logic of his argument is self-evident.

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Title: Airborne

Subtitle: The Combat Story of Ed Shames of Easy Company

Author: Ian Gardner

Narrator: P.J. Ochlan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-21-15

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 15 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Some men are born to be warriors, and Ed Shames is one of these men. His incredible combat record includes service at D-Day, Operation Market Garden, and Bastogne and finally in Germany itself.

He was the first man in the Dachau concentration camp and captured Hitler's infamous Eagle's Nest. Shames appeared in Band of Brothers, but now, with the comprehensive support of the man himself, the full story of his life and experiences can be told. Written by the author of Tonight We Die as Men, this is a searing account of the combat career of a remarkable young lieutenant serving at the sharp end of World War II.

His insistence on high standards together with a perfection of tactics and techniques did not always win him friends, but that was never the intention. His aim was to win each encounter, each battle, and ultimately the war itself with a minimum loss of life among his men. He was once told by one of his subordinates, "Shames, you are the meanest, roughest son of a bitch I've ever had to deal with. But you brought us home."

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Title: Cursed Victory

Subtitle: Israel and the Occupied Territories; A History

Author: Ahron Bregman

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-15-15

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 24 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

In a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, and Sinai Peninsula in 1967's brief but pivotal Six Day War. Cursed Victory is the first complete history of the war's troubled aftermath - a military occupation of the Palestinian territories that is now well into its fifth decade.

Drawing on unprecedented access to high-level sources, top-secret memos, and never-before-published letters, the audiobook provides a gripping and unvarnished chronicle of how what Israel promised would be an "enlightened occupation" quickly turned sour and the anguished diplomatic attempts to bring it to an end. Bregman sheds fresh light on critical moments in the peace process, taking us behind the scenes as decisions about the fate of the territories were made and, more often, as crucial opportunities to resolve the conflict were missed.

As the narrative moves from Jerusalem to New York, Oslo to Beirut, and from the late 1960s to the present day, Cursed Victory provides vivid portraits of the key players in this unfolding drama, including Moshe Dayan, King Hussein of Jordan, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat. Yet Bregman always reminds us how diplomatic and backroom negotiations affected the daily lives of millions of Arabs and how the Palestinian resistance, especially during the first and second intifadas, in turn shaped political developments. As Bregman concludes, the occupation has become a dark stain on Israel's history and an era when international opinion of the country shifted decisively.

Cursed Victory is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in the region.

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Título: El libro de los cinco anillos (The Book of Five Rings)

Autor: Miyamoto Musashi

Narrador: Joaquin Rodrigo Madrigal

Formato: Unabridged

Duración: 1 hr and 50 mins

Idioma: Español

Fecha de publicación: 09-26-14

Editor: Alberich Ediciones Mexico

Calificaciones: 4 de 5 de 4 votos

Categorías: History, Military

Resumen del editor:

Este Audiolibro es mucho más que un "código samurai", mucho es más que un texto sobre las condiciones culturales del Japón de los guerreros, mucho más que una serie de retratos sobre la vida de un ronin o un conjunto de saberes relacionados con la ciencia de las artes marciales. Es un tratado sobre el manejo de los sables, escrito en su madurez y con completo conocimiento de las artes marciales. El libro de los cinco anillos es una profunda reflexión sobre la estrategia como modo de aprehender la vida en todos sus sentidos. Conocer a nuestros enemigos y a nuestros aliados, pero sobre todo conocer nuestras propias fortalezas y debilidades, a través del tiempo, procesos de lucha y maestría en todos los campos de lavida, mateniéndose así como lectura obligada para grandes líderes y grandes estrategas.

Please note: This audiobook is in Spanish.

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