High-Quality Free Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, History & Culture

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628470 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Shattered Air: A True Account of Catastrophe and Courage on Yosemite’s Half Dome Author: Bob Madgic Narrator: Anthony Heald Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 13 minutes Release date: November 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: On the evening of July 27, 1985, five hikers made a fateful choice to climb Yosemite's fabled Half Dome, even as the sky darkened and thunder rolled. By night's end, two would be dead from a lightning strike, three gravely wounded, and desperate EMTs would be overseeing a harrowing midnight helicopter rescue. Shattered Airis a haunting account of recklessness, tragedy, courage, and rescue, a book whose depiction of Nature's power is tempered by unforgettable portraits of human courage and the will to survive. Listeners are sure to walk away with a newfound respect for lightning—and nature in general—after hearing this incredible true story.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/624420 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Lion in the White House: A Life of Theodore Roosevelt Author: Aida D. Donald Narrator: Pam Ward Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 7 minutes Release date: October 22, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: New York state assemblyman, assistant secretary of the Navy, New York City police commissioner, governor of New York, vice president, and, at forty-two, the youngest president ever, Theodore Roosevelt—in his own words—'rose like a rocket.' He was also a cowboy, a soldier, a historian, an intrepid explorer, and an unsurpassed environmentalist—all in all, perhaps the most accomplished chief executive in our nation's history. Roosevelt built the Panama Canal and engaged the country in world affairs, putting a temporary end to American isolationism. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize, the only sitting president so honored. In Lion in the White House, historian Aida Donald masterfully chronicles the life of this first modern president, illustrating the courage of this great leader.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628441 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Young Stalin Author: Simon Sebag Montefiore Narrator: James Adams Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 16 hours 27 minutes Release date: October 16, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Young Stalin tells the story of an exceptional, charismatic, darkly turbulent young man born into obscurity, fancying himself a poet and a priest, and finally embracing revolutionary idealism as his Messianic mission in life. Equal parts scholar and terrorist, a mastermind of bank robberies, extortion, piracy, and murder, he was so impressive in his brutality that Lenin made him, along with Trotsky, his chief henchman. Here is Stalin the supreme dictator in the making—his psychology, his loves and hatreds, his intellectual interests, his knowledge of the world—learning how to triumph in the Kremlin and create the USSR in his profoundly flawed image. Based on exhaustive research and astonishing new evidence, Young Stalin is a brilliant prehistory of the USSR from the perspective of those who would bring it into being.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/627738 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Eisenhower Series: Part of The Great Generals Series Author: John Wukovits Narrator: Brian Emerson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 53 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This new addition to Wesley Clark’s Great Generals Series features the principal architect of the Allied invasion of Europe during World War II and his relevance today. World War II expert John Wukovits explores Dwight D. Eisenhower’s contributions to American warfare. American general and thirty-fourth president of the United States, Eisenhower led the assault on the French coast at Normandy and held together the Allied units through the European campaign that followed. The book reveals Eisenhower’s advocacy in the pre-war years of the tank, his friendships with George Patton and Fox Conner, his service in the Philippines with Douglas MacArthur, and his culminating role as supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe. Wukovits skillfully demonstrates how Eisenhower’s evolution as a commander, his military doctrine, and his diplomatic skills are of extreme importance in understanding modern warfare.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/625773 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Stonewall Jackson: A Biography Series: Part of The Great Generals Series Author: Donald A. Davis Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 6 hours 53 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Deemed “irreplaceable” by Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson assumed his nickname during the Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War. It is said that the Army of Northern Virginia never fully recovered from the loss of Jackson’s leadership when he was accidentally shot by one of his own men and died in 1863. Davis highlights Stonewall Jackson as a general who emphasized the importance of reliable information and early preparedness, who so believed in information that he had a personal mapmaker with him at all times, and he details Jackson’s many lessons in strategy and leadership.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/627519 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Life of Thomas More Author: Peter Ackroyd Narrator: Frederick Davidson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 18 hours 6 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: This book, as much a work of history as a biography, is a masterful reconstruction of the life and imagination of one of the most remarkable figures in history. Thomas More (1478–1535) was a renowned statesman; the author of a political treatise, Utopia, that gave a political worldview; and, most famously, a Catholic martyr and saint. Born into the professional classes, Thomas More applied his formidable intellect and well-placed connections to become the most powerful man in England, second only to the king. In reconstructing the life of Thomas More, Peter Ackroyd provides an unmatched portrait of the everyday, religious, and intellectual life of the early sixteenth century. More emerges in the fullness of his complex humanity, with unexpected characteristics—such as his preference for bawdy humor—and indisputable moral courage.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628016 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Secret War against Hitler Author: William Casey Narrator: Peter Kjenaas Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 42 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: William Casey, former director of the CIA, gives an autobiographical account of his World WarII service with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, which later evolved into the CIA) and the role such early intelligence organizations played in the defeat of Hitler. Casey recounts how the Allies gathered intelligence, thwarted Germany's atomic bomb development, and convinced German intelligence that the Normandy D-day landings were to be a diversionary move while the main landing was to take place in Calais. Casey wrote this book because, as he says, 'I believe that it is important today to understand how clandestine intelligence, covert action, and organized resistance saved blood and treasure in defeating Hitler. These capabilities may be more important than missiles and satellites in meeting crises yet to come.'

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628196 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Michael and Natasha: The Life and Love of Michael II, The Last of the Romanov Tsars Author: Rosemary Crawford, Donald Crawford Narrator: Wanda Mccaddon Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 18 hours 14 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: He was Grand Duke Michael, handsome brother of Tsar Nicholas II. She was the beautiful twice-divorced daughter of a Moscow lawyer. Everything was wrong…yet for Michael, it was love at first sight—an obsession that would lead to disgrace, humiliation, and exile. Their scandalous love affair and their runaway marriage to Vienna in 1912, trailed by the Tsar’s secret police, caused uproar in Russia and was the talk in all of Europe. Based on hundreds of letters long hidden in the Russian state archive, as well as Michael’s private diaries held by the Forbes Collection, here is an extraordinary tale of enduring love and ultimate tragedy that, until now, has never been told. Michael and Natasha is both an astonishing love story and an illuminating look at the last glorious days of the Romanovs and the brutal revolution that ended their reign.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628213 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Josephine: A Life of the Empress Author: Carolly Erickson Narrator: Anna Fields Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 13 hours 3 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: When, in 1804, Josephine Bonaparte knelt before her husband Napoleon to receive the imperial diadem, few in the vast crowd of onlookers were aware of the dark secrets hidden behind the imperial fa├ºade. To her subjects, she appeared to be the most favored woman in France: alluring, wealthy, and with the devoted love of a remarkable husband who was the conqueror of Europe. In actuality, Josephine's life was far darker: her celebrated allure was fading, her wealth was compromised by massive debt, and her marriage was corroded by infidelity and abuse. Josephine's life story was as turbulent as the age—an era of revolution and social upheaval, frenzied hedonism and the guillotine. With telling psychological depth and compelling literary grace, Carolly Erickson brings the complex, charming, ever-resilient Josephine to life, carrying us along every twist and turn of the empress' often thorny path,from the sensual richness of her childhood in the tropics to her final lonely days at Malmaison.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628197 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Mussolini Author: Jasper Ridley Narrator: Wanda Mccaddon Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 15 hours 33 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: History & Culture Publisher's Summary: Historian Jasper Ridley brings us this comprehensive biography of the man who invented fascism: Benito Mussolini, widely regarded as one of the arch villains of the twentieth century. A complex and contradictory figure, Mussolini won the fascination of many statesmen and writers—and their wives. From his early years, raised in the traditions of revolutionary Italian Socialism, to his violent execution by Communist partisans at the end of World War II, we watch Mussolini's power ambitions erode his political ideals as he evolves from brilliant orator and journalist to empire-building dictator, enforcing his authority by death squads. A man initially admired by such Western luminaries as Winston Churchill, or underestimated as a posturing buffoon, he eventually showed his true colors as a racist and persecutor of the Jews. He sought equal stature with Hitler, but his alliance with him would prove disastrous.