Discover the New Releases Audiobooks in History, Military

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Title: The Greatest Battles in History: The Battle of El Alamein

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Colin Fluxman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-29-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

"The desert was quivering with heat. The gun detachments and the platoons squatted in their pits and trenches, the sweat running in rivers down their dust-caked faces. There was a terrible stench. The flies swarmed in black clouds upon the dead bodies and excreta and tormented the wounded. The place was strewn with burning tanks and carriers, wrecked guns and vehicles, and over all drifted the smoke and the dust from bursting high explosives and from the blasts of guns." - Cecil Ernest Lucas-Phillips

"It may almost be said, 'Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.'" - Winston Churchill

The United States began 1942 determined to avenge Pearl Harbor, but the Allies, now including the Soviet Union by necessity, did not agree on war strategy. In 1941, both the Germans and British had moved armies into North Africa, where Italy had already tried and failed to reach the Suez Canal. The British sought American help in North Africa, where British General Bernard Montgomery was fighting the legendary "Desert Fox", General Erwin Rommel. At the same time, Stalin was desperate for Allied action on the European continent that could free up the pressure on the besieged Soviets. Roosevelt eventually sided with Churchill and decided to land American forces on North Africa to assist the British against Rommel, much to Stalin's chagrin.

With the Axis forces trying to push through Egypt towards the Suez Canal and the British Mandate of Palestine, American forces landed to their west in North Africa. This ultimately compelled Rommel to try to break through before the Allies could build up and overwhelm them with superior numbers.

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Title: Fromelles and Pozières

Subtitle: In the Trenches of Hell

Author: Peter FitzSimons

Narrator: Richard Aspel

Format: Unabridged

Length: 27 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-02-15

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

On 19 July 1916, 7,000 Australian soldiers - in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front - attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles, in Northern France. By the next day, no fewer than 5,500 were wounded, and just under 1,900 were dead - a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history'.

Just days later, three Australian divisions attacked German positions at nearby Pozières, and over the next six weeks they suffered another 23,000 casualties.

Of that bitter battle, the great Australian war correspondent Charles Bean would write, 'The field of Pozières is more consecrated by Australian fighting and more hallowed by Australian blood than any field which has ever existed....'

Yet the sad truth is that nearly a century on from those battles, Australians know only a fraction of what occurred. This book brings the battles back to life and puts the listener in the moment, illustrating both the heroism displayed and the insanity of the British plan. With his extraordinary vigour and commitment to research, Peter FitzSimons shows why this is a story about which all Australians can be proud. And angry.

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Title: Captives in Blue

Subtitle: The Civil War Prisons of the Confederacy

Author: Roger Pickenpaugh

Narrator: Jack Chekijian

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-21-16

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

In June of 1861, only a few weeks after the first shots at Fort Sumter ignited the Civil War, Union prisoners of war began to arrive in Southern prisons. One hundred and fifty years later, Civil War prisons and the way prisoners of war were treated remain contentious topics. Partisans of each side continue to vilify the other for POW maltreatment.

In Captives in Blue, Pickenpaugh tackles issues such as the ways the Confederate Army contended with the growing prison population, the variations in the policies and practices in the different Confederate prison camps, the effects these policies and practices had on Union prisoners, and the logistics of prisoner exchanges. Digging further into prison policy and practices, Pickenpaugh explores conditions that arose from conscious government policy decisions and conditions that were the product of local officials or unique local situations. One issue unique to Captives in Blue is the way Confederate prisons and policies dealt with African American Union soldiers. Black soldiers held captive in Confederate prisons faced uncertain fates; many former slaves were returned to their former owners, while others were tortured in the camps.

Drawing on prisoner diaries, Pickenpaugh provides compelling first-person accounts of life in prison camps often overlooked by scholars in the field.

Critic Reviews:

"Captives in Blue is an excellent book that more thoroughly details life in Confederate-run prisons than anything currently available. I think it will stand as the starting place for all future studies of Southern prisoner of war facilities for a long time." (James M. Gillispie, author of Andersonvilles of the North)

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Title: The Somme

Author: Peter Hart

Narrator: Tim Pigott-Smith

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-21-06

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Limited

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 16 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

The Somme has remained a byword for the futility of war ever since. In this major new history of the war, Peter Hart describes how the battle looked from the point of view of those who fought it. Using never-heard-before interviews taken from the Imperial War Museum oral archives this will be a unique audio full of passion, joy, and heart rending stories.

Critic Reviews:

"[Hart] has produced a remarkably even-handed account....and the first-person accounts he has unearthed are rich in vivid images." (Sunday Times)

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Title: Jungle of Snakes

Subtitle: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq

Author: James R. Arnold

Narrator: Mark Ashby

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-26-13

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 18 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

A gripping history of a new kind of warfare, with sobering lessons for Americas future.

The end of the Cold War promised a new era of international peace. But instead, violence has proliferated across the globe, not in the form of a superpower arms race or a clash of armies, but in bitter local conflicts marked by terrorism, insurgency, and guerrilla warfare. Former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey likened the post-Cold-War world to "a jungle full of snakes". The emergence of this new, potentially never-ending struggle has forced our military to reevaluate strategies or risk losing hearts, minds, and soldiers the world over.

James Arnold delivers a gripping narrative of a century of counterinsurgent warfare, from the Philippine War to present-day Iraq, analyzing wars won and lost: the British in Malaya, the French in Algeria, and the United S tates in Vietnam. Arnold explains the tug-of-war for civilian support and illustrates the high stakes of any counterinsurgency effort. The epilogue examines the occupation of Iraq, where America, to its cost, ignored the lessons of previous conflicts.

A veteran military historian, Arnold combines storytelling ability with strategic insight. Jungle of Snakes will be essential reading for those who want to understand the ongoing series of struggles that the Pentagon calls "the Long War".

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Title: Weather and Warfare

Author: Robert Child

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-05-13

Publisher: Rob Child and Associates

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Weather and Warfare dramatically retraces the meteorological forces during battlefield engagements that doomed or saved civilizations. In 1588 more than half of the Spanish Armada, on its way around northern Britain, was destroyed by storms in retreat back to Spain. Napoleon's attack on Russia was stopped cold by winter weather, as was Hitler's siege of Leningrad. In WWI, it was all quiet on the western front during mud season. The miracle at Dunkirk took place under cover of heavy fog, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was launched under cover of Pacific storms and the D-day invasion of Normandy was launched based on the most critical weather forecast in history.

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Title: Fly

Author: Michael Veitch

Narrator: Michael Veitch

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-01-08

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 74 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Michael Veitch's life-long obsession with the aircraft of the Second World War led him to conclude that every single person who flew, or flew in them, has at least one extraordinary story to tell. With most of these veterans in their 80's, he knew that it was a matter of urgency to find them now, before their personal stories disappear forever. So, over the course of a year, Veitch interviewed over 50 former aircrew across Australia, many of whom had never spoken about their experiences before, even to their families. The result was Flak - a collection of vivid, unforgettable stories from RAAF veterans about their experiences of combat in World War II - and Fly is the second instalment of stories.

From bomber pilots to fighter aces, from rear gunners to bomb aimers, from stories of death and fear to tales of humour and comradeship, Michael has helped unearth the extraordinary stories of ordinary men living and fighting in extraordinary times.

Editorial Reviews:

A unique collection of stories from World War II airmen, ably narrated by Australian actor and broadcaster Michael Veitch, who collected them. Most of the octogenarian airmen here - pilots, bombers, and runners alike - are Australian or British, but their experiences run the gamut of emotions experienced during war, from terror to comedy, mourning to joy. Military history aficionados will greatly appreciate this collection of rare material, and marvel anew at the sacrifices made during these unforgettable battles.

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