Download the Top 100 Audiobooks in History, American

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Title: Speaking My Mind

Subtitle: Selected Speeches with Personal Reflections

Author: Ronald Reagan

Narrator: Ronald Reagan

Format: Original Recording

Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-22-04

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 137 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

One man, more than any other, has helped define the most important issues of our time. His name is Ronald Reagan, one of our nation's most powerful and popular Presidents. This extraordinary audio collection includes historical excerpts from selected addresses that span his political career, laying out his vision for America and the world. From his cornerstone 1964 speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater to his moving farewell address in January of 1989, here is President Reagan as we came to know him: the public figure, the political leader, the private man. Included are personal reflections from President Reagan recorded exclusively for this production, in an audio presentation that captures the voice, the spirit, and the intellect of the greatest communicator America has ever known.

©1989 Ronald Reagan; (P)1989 Simon & Schuster Inc. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Members Reviews:

Speaking My Mind

Very Good, It reenforces my Memory of Ronald Reagan as a Great President.

A Great President

Excellent audio on President Reagans speeches. Some are serious, sad and funny. A great insite to a President who cared about the United States and the welfare of the American people.

Reasons Behind a Speech

Do you ever wonder why President Reagan said what he said in his speeches.....It's all in this audio book.

I miss Ronnie! Wish he was here.

People ask me who I want to vote for. I usually respond Ronald Reagan or Abe Lincoln but they're not running. I suspect Trump will win and I hope he surprises us in a good way. I think he can but not sure he will. Pray for our country and our representatives in government to exercise integrity and do the right thing.

Very Good Reflection

If you could sum up Speaking My Mind in three words, what would they be?

Optimistic, Hopeful, Unwaivering

What did you like best about this story?

The personal reflections of the President.

Which character as performed by Ronald Reagan was your favorite?

The man himself

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

A renewed optmism and hopeful outlook

Any additional comments?

No

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Title: The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors

Author: James D. Hornfischer

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-04

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 83 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Filled with riveting detail and based on the author's extensive interviews and correspondence with veterans, unpublished eyewitness accounts, declassified documents, and rare Japanese sources, this is war at sea as it has seldom been presented before. It is an unforgettable narrative that captures the essence of heroism, the power of loyalty, and the way in which the unadorned truth is more stirring than legend itself.

Also, this audio program contains excerpts of exclusive interviews with Navy veterans conducted by the author.

Critic Reviews:

"Readable from beginning to end, this popular history magnificently brings to life men and times that may seem almost as remote as Trafalgar to many in the early twenty-first century....One of the finest World War II volumes to appear in years." (Booklist)

"One of the finest WWII naval action narratives in recent years....reads like a very good action novel." (Publishers Weekly)

"Hornfischer is a powerful stylist whose explanations are clear as well as memorable....a dire survival-at-sea saga." (Denver Post)

Members Reviews:

Outstanding

This book contains an exceptional detailed account of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, focusing on the engagement off the coast of Somar. This battle should be taught to school children in order to demonstrate the resilience of America's finest generation. The book is well written conclusion to a lot of hard work and research. I encourage any one with an interest in Naval history to give it a chance.

The reader does a great job.

Greatest Navel Battle

This is an excellent account of a little know battle. The Sailors and Commanders do an impossible task with next to nothing. They really are the greatest heros ever born. The reader is great.

Wow!

This book came highly recommended in the World of Warship community. Within the few a minutes the narrator brought the book to life. The writing was amazing and the story and accounts were captivating. For me the balance of historical facts and the human elements was so well done. Heard historical details followed by notes written by the crew brought the events to life.

Simply an amazing book. Amazing narrator. And an amazing group of men. This is a must buy plain and simple.

Can't follow in the book!!

What would have made The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors better?

None. Awesome story

What was most disappointing about James D. Hornfischers story?

The story is awesome the reader was terrible. The reader was clear but you couldn't follow because of him skipping sections of the book.

How could the performance have been better?

If the reader read the whole book and did not abbreviate the story. He skipped whole sections, paragraphs, and chapters.

You didnt love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I love this book but not the audible version

Any additional comments?

Redo the audible version with the whole book being read.

Exceptional narrative!

Clearly one of my favorite books to date!! Vivid details of the actual naval combat as it progressed interwoven with a myriad of details regarding the background and build up to the engagements. The author is not only a well skilled wordsmith, but is an expert military historian. Praise for both a well conceived story line and an innate ability to bring excitement even to mundane topics necessary to link each sequence of events.

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Title: Lone Star Nation

Subtitle: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence

Author: H.W. Brands

Narrator: Chuck Montgomery

Format: Abridged

Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-12-04

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 34 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

H. W. Brands tells the turbulent story of Texas through the eyes of a colorful cast of characters who have become a permanent fixture in the American landscape: Stephen Austin, the state's reluctant founder; Sam Houston, the alcoholic former governor who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory; William Travis, James Bowie, and David Crockett, the unforgettable heroic defenders of the doomed Alamo; Santa Anna, the Mexican generalissimo and dictator whose ruthless tactics galvanized the colonists against him; and the white-haired President Andrew Jackson, whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background. Beyond these luminaries, Brands unearths the untold stories of the forgotten Texans, the slaves, women, unknown settlers, and children left out of traditional histories, who played crucial roles in Texas's birth.

By turns bloody and heroic, tragic and triumphant, this riveting history of one of our greatest states reads like the most compelling fiction, and further secures H. W. Brands' position as one of the premier American historians.

Critic Reviews:

"It's hard to think that the story could be better told." (Publishers Weekly)

"Brands' impressive integrative account of the fabled Texas revolution of the 1830s relates key incidents and displays trenchant psychological insights, engraving both with the fundamental forces involved....[An] excellent, fair-minded chronicle." (Booklist)

"The author is so conversant with the intricacies of his subject that he assumes a degree of familiarity in the reader....Of the legendary characters who died there, Mr. Brands is notably clear-eyed." (The New York Times)

Members Reviews:

Great book on Texas History

I loved it. My six year old son and I lived it. I need to get to San Jacinto.

Great narrative.

Lots of good information that I seem to have missed in history class. Proud to be a Texan.

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Title: The Pearl Harbor Collection

Author: Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon

Narrator: Tony Roberts

Format: Abridged

Length: 9 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 06-12-01

Publisher: HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 52 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, 37 years in the making, tells the story of Pearl Harbor from both the American and Japanese perspectives. Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History places the attack in a larger context via a fascinating look at its precursors and consequences. And December 7, 1941 is a riveting, moment-by-moment account that captures the diplomatic intrigue, the brutal combat, and the human beings whose lives were irrevocably altered on that fateful morning.

Critic Reviews:

"Mr. Prange has been called 'the dean of Pearl Harbor historians'. The accolade...is deserved." (The Wall Street Journal)

Contact me for any questions: [email protected]

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Title: Inside the C.I.A.

Author: Ronald Kessler

Narrator: Chris Lane

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-07-00

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 177 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In this unparalleled work of investigative journalism, Ronald Kessler reveals the inner world of the C.I.A. Based on extensive research and hundreds of interviews, including two with active directors of Central Intelligence, William H. Webster and Robert M. Gates, and with three former D.C.I.s,

Inside the C.I.A. is the first in-depth, unbiased account of the Agency's core operations, its abject failures, and its resounding successes.

©1992 by Ronald Kessler (P)1998 by Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic Reviews:

"This tour is never dull, especially since it features so much .007 gadgetry, from water-spraying silent drills to eavesdropping devices that work by zapping laser beams through windows." (Los Angeles Times)

Members Reviews:

Pre- 9/11 look at CIA's strengths and weaknesses

Sometimes fascinating, sometimes boring, and ultimately somewhat tragic, Kessler's review of the CIA provides some valuable context for readers of the 9/11 Commission report. Written before 1999, this book has little to say about terrorism, and even less to say about the direction of the CIA under Woolsey in the Clinton years. Kessler devotes a large amount of time to subjects like Iran-Contra, Aldrich Ames, the contrasting styles of Casey and Webster, and the basic structure of the CIA. The reader will get a good feel for the CIA's culture, as well as a more realistic (that is, less fictionalized and romantic) view of what the CIA does and how it operates.

Quibbles:

The narrator is, frankly, not very dynamic. Kessler also repeats some details relentlessly; the controversy over the sale of CIA-themed coffee cups and the re-defection of Vitaly Yurchenko are two particularly annoying examples. The combination of a dull, lifeless narration with frequent repetition of details occasionally makes the book a bit boring. Nevertheless, if you are interested in the CIA's history up to about 1994 this is a must-have book.

Good But Not Thrilling

This audiobook features good information on the history, organization and politics of the CIA. However, it would have been more interesting if the author had written more about covert activities.

Underwhelmed

While there was a lot of good material in this book, I'm not sure I'd recommend it:

1. The reader for this book was poor, and had difficulty pronouncing words

2. Kessler's writing is pretty repetitive. Seriously, I counted six times that we're reminded of the fact that we don't spy on Great Britain or Australia, and several other facts are repeated to a ridiculous degree.

3. Kessler also has a tendency to wander off on off-topic tangents, such as almost 10 minutes discussing the shortcomings of late Soviet era hotels, which really doesn't have anything to do with the CIA

Half and half...

I give four stars to the book and one to the reader. This is why there are professionals who read books. The author has a lisp that made me wince every time he would get to CIA (or thee eye a). Someone really should have talked him into getting Scott Brick or the like to handle this long book. Subject matter was great otherwise.

Painfully boring

After sitting through the first half of this audio book I found it almost impossible to sit through part two. The amount of detail captured in the book is way too much for the casual listener who's looking for anything but an in depth history of the CIA.

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Title: Lincoln at Gettysburg

Subtitle: The Words that Remade America

Author: Garry Wills

Narrator: Garry Wills

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-16-99

Publisher: Phoenix Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 120 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 1993

Critic Reviews:

"A grand book Lincoln would have loved to read." (James David Barber, author of The Presidential Character)

"...stimulating, original, and altogether absorbing work." (David Herbert Donald, Harvard University)

Members Reviews:

A Review in 292

Fundamentally, the thing I love about criticism is the ability to read a damn fine book about a damn speech and recognize the author of the book wrote a little more than a page for every word (292) in the Gettysburg Address. If you count appendixes and notes (why wouldn't you when the appendix and notes matter?).

I once teased my wife, during my early wooing stage, that I wanted to write an ode to every hair on her head (a load of odes). Garry Wills did. This book is both academic criticism (one chapter is infused with new historicism, one is textual criticism, one is formalist, one is mythological) and an ode to Lincoln, Language, and this damn fine speech. I could see Garry Wills publishing each chapter in some well-funded Civil War journal and eventually weaving each paper together. I'm not sure how it really happened. Wills might just have used the chapters and forms of literary criticism as an organizational framework. I am not going to do an exegesis on the book to find out. That would be far too meta.

Anyway, it was a quick and fascinating read and significantly deepened my understanding of Lincoln's motives for the speech while also acting as an Entmythologisierung* of the text. No. Lincoln did not write the text on the back of a napkin while on a train TO Gettysburg. Anyway, a must read for those who love history, the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, or Transcendentalism.

* I'm using the German here as a joke, since there were several instances when Wills referenced Everett bringing back the seeds of Transcendentalism and higher criticism from their studies there. I'm also using it because it is 1.5x as fun as just saying demystification.

Good listen, poorly recorded

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Well composed analysis of how and why the Gettysburg Address was written as it was. Places the ideas, grammar and intent at the time of its creation. Definitely of interest for anyone wanting to explore the address in terms of the currents of the time. Less convincing is Wills' proposition that the address forever altered political oratory. If brevity an concision are the thrust here, 'vene, vidi, vici'. While the book is excellent, and the reading good, the recording is not. This is one of the fuzziest files I've ever downloaded from Audible.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Not really a story about characters

What three words best describe Garry Willss voice?

A historian, dispassionately presenting his thesis.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Ken Burns already covered it.

Poor Reader

The book is pretty good. But the reader pro-noun-ces ev-ery syl-lable as a sep-er-ate word. After a few hours it drives you crazy. I had to give up on listening to it.

One of my favorite listens

I come back to this again and again. dense yet completely accessible. the authors narration is a great addition. format makes out easy to pick up and put back down. nice companion to Team of Rivals.

Great History!!!

Wonderful insight into the Real Gettysburg Experience..........

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Title: Railroads and the American People

Subtitle: Railroads Past and Present

Author: H. Roger Grant

Narrator: Todd Barsness

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-26-13

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 16 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In this social history of the impact of railroads on American life, H. Roger Grant concentrates on the railroad's "Golden Age," 1830-1930. To capture the essence of the nation's railroad experience, Grant explores four fundamental topics - trains and travel, train stations, railroads and community life, and the legacy of railroading in America. Grant recalls the lasting memories left by train travel, both of luxurious Pullman cars and the grit and grind of coal-powered locals.

He discusses the important role railroads played for towns and cities across America, not only for the access they provided to distant places and distant markets but also for the depots that were a focus of community life. Finally, Grant reviews the lasting heritage of the railroads as it has been preserved in word, stone, paint, and memory. Railroads and the American People is a sparkling paean to American railroading by one of its finest historians.

The book is published by Indiana University Press.

Critic Reviews:

"With its wealth of vignettes... Railroads and the American People does a fine job of humanizing the iron horse" (Wall Street Journal)

"With plenty of detail, Grant brings a bygone era back to life, addressing everything from social and commercial appeal, racial and gender issues, safety concerns, and leaps in technology. But Grant never loses sight of the big picture and the essential role the railroads played in American life. He writes with authority and clarity in a work that can appeal to both casual and hardcore enthusiasts." (Publishers Weekly)

"Is it necessary to comment on an established author such as Roger Grant. Heavens, he is a fine scholar and writes better than Hemingway!" (John White, author of The American Railroad Passenger Car)

Members Reviews:

great history of railroad life in America

If you could sum up Railroads and the American People in three words, what would they be?

History, Railroads, Culture

What was one of the most memorable moments of Railroads and the American People?

I enjoyed the history of depots and the agents who lived there

Which character as performed by Todd Barsness was your favorite?

Not really in characters in this one

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

How railroads created America

Any additional comments?

Great history of railroads and life in America.

interesting to a point

But really no need to give 25 examples when 3 are adequate. Tghten it up.

Fascinating Story, Poor Editing, Strange Narration

What would have made Railroads and the American People better?

Terrible Editing

While I am not a extreme railroad fan, I am very interested in its history especially in the United States, but the writing and editing was amateurish. The writer seemed to have a thesaurus at one side and a list of cliches on the other. He used a number of unnecessary words such as "opined." He uses "opined a modern day hobo" or "opined a writer" or "opined a youthful railroad fan." He uses "reported" 28 times. He uses "said one" five times which doesn't mean anything. "Said one engineer" or "said one resident" as if he took a survey and determined that only person had that thought or he was in a group and only one spoke up.

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Title: The Gunning of America

Subtitle: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture

Author: Pamela Haag

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Format: Unabridged

Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-19-16

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 11 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Americans have always loved guns. This special bond was forged during the American Revolution and sanctified by the Second Amendment. It is because of this exceptional relationship that American civilians are more heavily armed than the citizens of any other nation. Or so we're told.

In The Gunning of America, historian Pamela Haag overturns this conventional wisdom. American gun culture, she argues, developed not because the gun was exceptional but precisely because it was not: guns proliferated in America because throughout most of the nation's history they were perceived as an unexceptional commodity, no different from buttons or typewriters.

Focusing on the history of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, one of the most iconic arms manufacturers in America, Haag challenges many basic assumptions of how and when America became a gun culture. Under the leadership of Oliver Winchester and his heirs, the company used aggressive, sometimes ingenious sales and marketing techniques to create new markets for their product. Guns have never "sold themselves"; rather, through advertising and innovative distribution campaigns, the gun industry did.

Through the meticulous examination of gun-industry archives, Haag challenges the myth of a primal bond between Americans and their firearms. Over the course of its 150-year history, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company sold over eight million guns. But Oliver Winchester - a shirtmaker in his previous career - had no apparent qualms about a life spent arming America. His daughter-in-law, Sarah Winchester, was a different story. Legend holds that Sarah was haunted by what she considered a vast blood fortune and became convinced that the ghosts of rifle victims were haunting her.

In this provocative and deeply researched work of narrative history, Haag fundamentally revises the history of arms in America and, in so doing, explodes the clichés that have created and sustained our lethal gun culture.

Members Reviews:

Interesting but all over the place

The topic is certainly relevant and interesting. However the book is all over the place. I think the book would have been better served by starting with the epilogue, and sticking to the sales and marketing tactics used by the gun industry with more emphasis on the nra and its tactics. The Sarah Winchester story was dragged out well past being interesting.

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Title: Fort Laramie: Military Bastion of the High Plains (Frontier Military)

Author: Douglas C. McChristian

Narrator: George Utley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-08-17

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Of all the US Army posts in the West, none witnessed more history than Fort Laramie, positioned in the northern Great Plains join the Rocky Mountains. From its beginnings as a trading post in 1834 to its abandonment by the army in 1890, it was involved in the buffalo hide trade, overland migrations, Indian wars and treaties, the Utah War, Confederate maneuvering, and the coming of the telegraph and first transcontinental railroad.

Douglas C. McChristian has written the first complete history of Fort Laramie, chronicling every critical stage in its existence, including its addition to the National Park System. He draws on an extraordinary array of archival materials including those at Fort Laramie National Historic Site to present new data about the fort and new interpretations of historical events.

Emphasizing the fort's military history, McChristian documents the army's vital role in ending challenges posed by American Indians to US occupation and settlement of the region, and he expands on the fort's interactions with the many Native peoples of the Central Plains and Rocky Mountains. He provides a particularly lucid description of the infamous Grattan fight of 1854, which initiated a generation of strife between Indians and US soldiers, and he recounts the 1851 Horse Creek and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties.

Meticulously researched and gracefully told, this is a long-overdue military history of one of the American West's most venerable historic places.

The book is published by University of Oklahoma Press.

Members Reviews:

The book really ties the area's history together. The ...

The book really ties the area's history together. The fort's significance as a jumping off point for western expansion and military expeditions is the central theme of the book. It provides a true appreciation for how the West was truly won.

One of two or three best resources on Fort Laramie

One of two or three best resources on Fort Laramie. I am using it as a resourse for another book and have found it invaluable.

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Title: The American Fisherman

Subtitle: How Our Nation's Anglers Founded, Fed, Financed, and Forever Shaped the U.S.A.

Author: Willie Robertson, William Doyle

Narrator: Nick Sullivan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-15-16

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

From the Duck Dynasty star and New York Times best-selling author comes a rollicking popular history of fishing in America.

American Fisherman traces the impact fishing has had in shaping America's history and reveals the influential role it has played in defining our lives.

Willie Robertson persuasively argues that America became what it is today in no small part because of the anglers that call it home. From harvesting New England cod to fly fishing for Yellowstone trout to raising Pacific Northwest salmon, the fishing industry has long played an essential role in the establishment of many of the nation's earliest ports, most notably along the East Coast. Robertson explores how fishing has informed our culture in literature, movies, and television, from classics like The Old Man and the Sea, A River Runs Through It, and Moby-Dick to The Perfect Storm, In the Heart of the Sea, and The Deadliest Catch to popular local television fishing programs from coast to coast.

Robertson also analyzes the economics of this $50 billion annual business, which supports a host of industries, including tourism and manufacturing as well as conservationism. Told in Robertson's charming down-home voice, American Fisherman is a spirited and unique look at America and its people.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

Members Reviews:

history and fishing mixed into a story

heavy on trout & fly-fishing

a little deep sea & very little on bass fishing. loaded with history but sometimes to much detail that it drags the story to long