Discover Top 100 Audiobooks in History, American Popular Titles

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Title: Outlaws and Gunslingers

Author: Alton Pryor

Narrator: Marlin May

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-27-17

Publisher: Stagecoach Publishing

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Western outlaws terrorized the country during the late 1800s and early 1900s, robbing stagecoaches, banks, trains, and merchants. While they were fearsome, some became folk heroes and legends.

The killer of Jesse James was vilified as a coward rather than as a hero.

Billy the Kid's reputation outgrew his actual deeds. Legend says he killed 21 men in his 21-year life. The actual number was considerably less, maybe as few five.

The west's fastest gun was "Jelly" Bryce, an FBI agent who could drop a coin from shoulder height and with the same hand, draw and shoot the coin before it reached his waist.

Members Reviews:

Inaccurate and way to jumbled

I had higher hopes, but it is full of inaccuracies and reads like it was taken from Wikipedia.

Because the author elected to cut short, or leave out, some of the details of a person's life, it tends to jump not only from place to place, but years in time.

Maybe a good place to start if you have never heard of these people, but I found it lacking in detail and facts.

Perhaps a good book for kids.

11 yr old enjoys it

My 11 yr old is hard to please when it comes to books. He seems to enjoy this one. He likes the old west and he likes non fiction so this book fits the bill. He also likes that each chapter is about a different person so it is broken up into a lot of smaller pieces. Sometimes a 200 page chapter book on one subject is too much for him.

Great for old west buffs

Excellent book if you are a fan of the old west. It highlights many of the less famous or better worded infamous men of the time. I learned many new things I had never heard of in reading this

good book!

I thought this book was very interesting...it just gave a preview into the outlaws and gunslingers without going into their entire biography. I did learn about outlaws in my local area! Recommend it to anybody

Nice book.

Very readable narrative. Nice book.

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Title: How Cities Won the West

Subtitle: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America

Author: Carl Abbott

Narrator: Rhett Samuel Price

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-16-17

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Cities rather than individual pioneers have been the driving force in the settlement and economic development of the western half of North America. Throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, western urban centers served as starting points for conquest and settlement. As these frontier cities matured into metropolitan centers, they grew from imitators of eastern culture and outposts of eastern capital into independent sources of economic, cultural, and intellectual change.

From the Gulf of Alaska to the Mississippi River and from the binational metropolis of San Diego-Tijuana to the Prairie Province capitals of Canada, Carl Abbott explores the complex urban history of western Canada and the United States. The evolution of western cities from stations for exploration and military occupation to contemporary entry points for migration and components of a global economy reminds us that it is cities that won the West. And today, as cultural change increasingly moves from west to east, Abbott argues that the urban West represents a new center from which emerging patterns of behavior and changing customs will help to shape North America in the 21st century.

Critic Reviews:

"Exquisitely crafted...Highly recommended." (Choice)

"This is a wonderful book, beautifully written and expansive in scope." (The Journal of Arizona History)

Members Reviews:

A text worth reading

This book was assigned in a university course I am taking so it meant a potentially dry read. Instead, the language is interesting and reads well. If you are curious about how we came to live in cities, you will find this full of fascinating facts.

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Title: Friendly Fire

Author: C.D.B. Bryan

Narrator: Mauro Hantman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-13-16

Publisher: Dreamscape Media, LLC

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Drafted into the US Army, Michael Mullen left his family's Iowa farm in September 1969 to fight for his country in Vietnam. Six months later, Michael was killed, not by the North Vietnamese, but by artillery fire from friendly forces. With the government failing to provide the precise circumstances of his death, Mullen's devastated parents, Peg and Gene, demanded to know the truth. A year later, Peg Mullen was under FBI surveillance. In a riveting narrative that moves from the American heartland to the jungles of Vietnam, to an interview with Mullen's battalion commander, Lt. Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Bryan brings to life a military mission gone wrong, a family's explosive confrontation with their government, and the tragedy of a nation at war with itself.

Members Reviews:

Good read

Shows the struggle this family faved even after the tragic loss of their son in a war so controversial yet to this day

Worth reading

Excellent history and book.

Five Stars

Well written eye opener on the Vietnam era

In depth book

In depth book about what took place, when a young man from Iowa, was killed by "Friendly Fire" in Viet Nam. A mother & father who rebelled against the US Government & remained bitter, the rest of their lives.

Antiwar Memoir of Bereaved Farm Family

Bryan was a journalist and author during the mid-twentieth century, and Friendly Fire, which originally began as a story for the New Yorker and grew into something more, tells the story of the Mullen family and their response to the death of Michael, a clean-cut young man that answered his draft notice, dutifully served and was killed by friendly fire not long after he was sent to Vietnam. Thanks goes to Open Road Integrated Media and to Net Galley for the invitation to read and review. This is right up my alley and I found it compelling. It was published digitally May 10, 2016 and is now available for purchase.

Michael Mullen was the favorite son of Iowan farmers Gene and Peg Mullen, working farmers steeped in traditional values and respect for authority, who had never questioned the US involvement in Vietnam. If the government said that US forces were fighting there to contain the spread of communism and keep Americans safe, then it must be so. Michael was the kind of young man that called people âmaâamâ and âsirâ. When his effects were delivered to his family following his death, there were no fewer than three rosaries heâd carried on his person. He had expected to return from service, as his father had done from an earlier war, and inherit the family farm. His family was part of the Silent Majority to which governmental authorities referred when defending the role of the USA in Indochina.

In short, they were the last people anyone would have expected to see become anti-war activists.

Michaelâs death rocked parents Peg and Gene, and their grief eventually alienated them from the three children left to them. The part of their story that galvanized me was in reading their intelligent, sharp responses during the initial period following their bereavement. For many of us facing the loss of any loved oneâand the death of a child is the worst loss of allâferreting out information about that personâs days, weeks, even months is our last link to them. But Peg and Gene took it to another level when they realized that some of the information they had received was untrue.

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Title: Lyndon B. Johnson

Author: John L. Bullion

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Format: Unabridged

Length: 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-19-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was sworn in aboard Air Force One hours after JFKs assassination in Dallas, used his ample skills in cajoling and arm-twisting to push through the most significant civil rights legislation in American history, in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, after Kennedys death. A towering Texan, LBJ also believed in using political muscle to overpower the intransigent courts and legal precedent that stood in his way. He thus managed to use the Commerce Clause cases of the New Deal era to advance his Great Society agenda. Yet when LBJ left office after a single full term, he was bitter, frustrated, and exhausted, having been engulfed by public controversy over the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, Lyndon Johnson left in place one of the greatest constitutional and legislative achievements in the nations history.

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Title: Grover Cleveland, Second Term

Author: Donald Grier Stephenson Jr.

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-19-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Grover Clevelands second term, after a four-year hiatus in private life, was marked by a willingness (once again) to take bold action. When socialist union leader Eugene Debs led a railroad strike that threatened to cripple rail transportation and the postal service, President Cleveland and his attorney general used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to obtain an injunction and to successfully prosecute Debs, creating a new weapon in the arsenal of executive powers. Cleveland demonstrated that, as the unitary head of the executive branch, the president enjoyed power as a symbolic leader. This power was as potent as his formal powers under the Constitution, thus helping to shape the modern presidency.

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Title: John F. Kennedy

Author: Barbara A. Perry

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Format: Unabridged

Length: 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-19-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

President John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic elected as the nations chief executive, tried to dodge politically sensitive issues, maintaining a cautious, moderate approach. Yet, try as he might, JFK was unable to maintain such a position toward civil rights. After riots by segregationists and the murder of innocent blacks in the Deep South, President Kennedy abandoned his cautious posture and advocated sweeping civil rights reform. An assassins bullet cut his life and presidency short, changing the national mood and laying the foundation for the greatest civil rights revolution since the Civil War. Thus, JFK may have accomplished in death what had eluded him during his crisis-filled presidency.

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Title: Andrew Jackson

Author: Mark A. Graber

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Format: Unabridged

Length: 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-19-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Andrew Jackson ushered in a new age, in which populist democracy (at least for white males) was favored over the more deferential politics of an earlier era. During Jacksons presidency, the country stopped doing business with the Bank of the United States and left the business of internal improvements largely to the states, but it condemned Southern states that sought to ignore federal protective tariffs and it threatened military action against them. Jackson relied on public support in national elections to justify expansive presidential powers. All told, the Jackson era ended the founding notion that the presidency was above politics and joined the two, indissolubly.

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Title: James K. Polk

Author: Frank J. Williams

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-19-16

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

James K. Polk, who believed it was the nations Manifest Destiny to expand its boundaries and rebuild western lands in its own image, swiftly led America into war with Mexico. Polk claimed that Mexican forces had killed American soldiers on American soil, yet this claim was viewed with skepticism by members of Congress, including Representative Abraham Lincoln. Whether Polk had usurped Congresss power under the Constitution was a question that would stamp his presidency with a lingering question mark. Yet under Polks leadership, the country grew by more than a third (more than one million square miles) and was for the first time bounded by two oceans. Polk thus set out to use his constitutional powers to become an expansionist president and accomplished that goal.

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Title: Cherokee

Author: Meredith I. Anderson

Narrator: Lyle E. Kesterson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-29-16

Publisher: Meredith I. Anderson

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Cherokee: A wonderful people with a history longer than sand has passed through the hour glass of time. The nation's economy, like that of other southeastern tribes, was based primarily on agriculture; they were farmers growing corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and tobacco. Because of the abuse they had suffered at the hands of the Iroquois and Delaware, they practiced the art of war. Using their bows and arrows, they hunted bear, elk and deer. For smaller game, like turkeys, waterfowl, raccoons, rabbits and squirrels, they used long blowguns. This was a cane-stem into which a small wooden dart with feathers was inserted. The tribes of the Cherokee were matrilineal or matriarchal. This is defined as a form of hereditary succession or other inheritance through which the subject's female relatives are traced back in a matrilineal line.

Members Reviews:

Very Informative!

This book helps people understand the feelings of the Indians, it shows how greedy the white man is and how he feels he is better than any other race.

The final story in the book sad though it was, helps us understand why the Indians revolted against the settlers. I honestly can't blame them. Look what we did to every tribe of Indian there are, we stole their lands, we pushed them out, and tried to wipe them out. What does that say about us?

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Title: US Civil War

Author: IntroBooks

Narrator: Tracy Tupman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-29-16

Publisher: IntroBooks

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

War is always a negative entity that is associated with a lot of bloodshed, loss of life and destruction of infrastructure. Wars have always led civilizations to go back by several centuries. Children become orphans, the country becomes bankrupt and the whole scenario changes from a happy one to a highly depressed one. This depression is not merely mental but also economic and financial because it drains the people and their country of resources. That being said, war is also the instrument of much-anticipated change. It is said that it is only after destruction that the new creation can happen and this appears to be true of the US Civil War. This war was fought between the residents of the same country for the sake of the freedom of a section of the society that they lived in. This issue was that of the slavery of the African American people who had no rights in the society. The freemen of the land joined hands with their African American fellows and fought a war with other freemen who were against the abolition of this age old tradition. On one side there was a consideration for the human rights of the fellow humans who were being enslaved due to their skin color while on the other hand, the so-called masters of these slaves did not want to give them up, due to economic considerations. This war is known to have been fought not just between two governments but also between the people who had known each other since their birth such as neighbors, brothers and other family members, who fought on opposite sides for the sake of their beliefs.

The war lasted for four years and saw many drastic changes in American society. The oppression that had been widely accepted suddenly became something that was unacceptable and was viewed with criticism by one and all. The torch bearer of this change including the war was the then president of the US, Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln not only took the initiative of abolishing slavery but also brought all states under one central rule, making it clear to one and all that the United States of America is indivisible. This story is a major landmark in the history of the world that learned about equality of all human beings in spite of different skin color, origin and language.