Listen to Popular Titles Audiobooks in History, 20th Century

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Title: The Greatest Battles in History

Subtitle: The Battle of the Bulge

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Timothy Roselle

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-06-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"We were across the Saar River in Dellingen, where the Battle of the Bulge started. That was where Axis Sally told us about the Bulge. The Germans had a loudspeaker back in the woods, and she was talking on that. They played a few American records first. I don't remember everything she said. She said, 'Your wives and girlfriends are probably home in a nice warm building, dancing with some other men. You're over here in the cold.'" (Dent Wheeler)

After the successful amphibious invasion on D-Day in June 1944, the Allies began racing east toward Germany and liberating France along the way. By the end of August 1944, the German Army in France was shattered, with 200,000 killed or wounded and a further 200,000 captured. However, Adolf Hitler reacted to the news of invasion with glee, figuring it would give the Germans a chance to destroy the Allied armies that had water to their backs. As he put it, "The news couldn't be better. We have them where we can destroy them." Today Americans know it best as the Battle of the Bulge.

Regardless of the term for it, and despite how desperate the Germans were, the Battle of the Bulge was a massive attack against primarily American forces that inflicted an estimated 100,000 American casualties, the worst American losses in any battle of the war. However, while the German forces did succeed in bending and at some points even breaking through Allied lines (thus causing the "bulge reflected in the moniker), the Germans ultimately failed. As Winston Churchill himself said of the battle, "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war, and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory."

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Title: American Sniper: Adelbert Waldron

Subtitle: The Myth and Mystique Behind Vietnam's Most Mysterious Soldier

Author: Richard Quarry

Narrator: Sam Graves

Format: Unabridged

Length: 23 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-02-15

Publisher: Richard Quarry

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

Before there was American Sniper Chris Kyle, there was Adelbert "Bert" Waldron. Waldron had over 109 confirmed kills in the Vietnam War. He received two Distinguished Service Crosses as well as a Silver Star for his exploits and heroism during the war. Yet he remains largely unknown to the public. This book discusses some of the mystery and myths regarding Waldron, his number of kills, the reasons behind his questionable discharge, and his shady dealings with international arms dealer Mitchell Werbell III.

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Title: The Maginot Line

Subtitle: The History of the Fortifications that Failed to Protect France from Nazi Germany During World War II

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Colin Fluxman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-30-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"We could hardly dream of building a kind of Great Wall of France, which would in any case be far too costly. Instead we have foreseen powerful but flexible means of organizing defense, based on the dual principle of taking full advantage of the terrain and establishing a continuous line of fire everywhere." - Andre Maginot

As the power of Nazi Germany grew alarmingly during the 1930s, the French sought means to defend their territory against the rising menace of the Thousand-Year Reich. As architects of the most punitive measures in the Treaty of Versailles following World War I, the French government made natural targets for Teutonic retribution, so the Maginot Line, a series of interconnected strongpoints and fortifications running along much of France's eastern border, helped allay French fears of invasion. The popular legend of the Maginot Line portrays the frontier defenses as a useless "white elephant" project that was prompted by a gross misapprehension of warfare's new realities in the mid-20th century and quickly overwhelmed by the forceful advance of the German blitzkrieg. English idiom today invokes this vision of the Maginot Line as a metaphor for any defensive measure strongly believed in but actually useless. Indeed, usages such as "Maginot Line mentality," describing an overly defensive, reactive mindset, perpetuate the legend. As a French author and military liaison with the British, Andre Maurois, wrote about his disillusionment with the defensive line he originally enthusiastically supported: "We know now that the Maginot line-complex was a dangerous disease of the mind; but I publish this as it was written in January, 1940."

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Title: To Command the Sky

Subtitle: The Battle for Air Superiority Over Germany, 1942-1944

Author: Stephen L. McFarland, Wesley Phillips Newton

Narrator: Patrick Ross

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-26-15

Publisher: University Press Audiobooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 31 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

To Command the Sky is a scholarly record of the fight for domination of the skies over Western Europe during World War II. It also explains the technical details of the tactics used to defeat the Luftwaffe. This book is important for serious students of World War II or military aviation.

The book is published by The University of Alabama Press.

Critic Reviews:

"To Command the Sky is an indispensable addition to the bookshelf of any serious student of World War II or military aviation." (Alan L. Gropman, The Journal of American History)

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Title: 1920

Subtitle: The Year That Made the Decade Roar

Author: Eric Burns

Narrator: Christopher Lane

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-25-15

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 25 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

One of the most dynamic eras in American history, the 1920s began with a watershed year that would set the tone for the century to follow.

The Roaring Twenties is the only decade in American history with a widely applied nickname, and our collective fascination with this era continues. But how did this surge of innovation and cultural milestones emerge out of the ashes of World War I?

Acclaimed author Eric Burns investigates the year 1920, which was not only a crucial 12-month period of its own but one that foretold the future. The year 1920 foreshadowed the rest of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, whether it was Sacco and Vanzetti or the stock market crash that brought this era to a close.

Burns sets the record straight about this most misunderstood and iconic of periods. Despite being the first full year of armistice, 1920 was not a peaceful period - it contained the greatest act of terrorism in American history to that time. And while 1920 is thought of as the beginning of a prosperous era, for most people life had never been more unaffordable. Meanwhile, African Americans were putting their stamp on culture. And though people today imagine the frivolous image of the flapper dancing the night away, the truth was that a new kind of power had been bestowed on women, and it had nothing to do with the dance floor.

From prohibition to immigration, the birth of jazz, the rise of expatriate literature, and the original Ponzi scheme, 1920 was truly a year like no other.

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Title: The Eruption of Mount St. Helens

Subtitle: The Deadliest Volcanic Eruption in American History

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: James Weippert

Format: Unabridged

Length: 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-11-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 10 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"One big 'Aha!' for geologists was that an entire mountain could collapse." (Peter Frenzen)

"Mount St. Helens certainly reminds us of the power of nature, and we can certainly see that in the evidence of the 1980 eruption that's all around us. And here we just have an opportunity to see sort of another chapter in its history and to understand the forces that lie beneath our feet." (Peter Frenzen)

In 1980, the United States suffered the deadliest and most destructive volcanic eruption in its history when Mount St. Helens literally blew its lid off, the result of seismic activity during the eruption. What made the eruption all the more remarkable was that a fair amount of preparations had gone into anticipating it, after an earthquake in the area a few months earlier alerted federal geologists to the possibility of activity there. In fact, Mount St. Helens had been the cause of the earthquake itself, the result of its own lava flows under the surface.

Despite the warning signs, the volcanic eruption wound up being so powerful that it devastated hundreds of square miles around it and spewed volcanic ash in a giant plume that managed to scatter and deposit ash across 11 different states. Furthermore, another earthquake on May 18 managed to make the north face of the mountain collapse, shocking observers and scientists as it created the largest landslide ever recorded. Taken together, Mount St. Helens ultimately inflicted over $1 billion in damage and killed 57 people, including US scientists studying the volcano on the day it exploded. When President Carter saw the area he remarked, "Someone said this area looked like a moonscape. But the moon looks more like a golf course compared to what's up there."

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Title: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Subtitle: The History and Legacy of New York City's Deadliest Industrial Disaster

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Todd Mansfield

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-26-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"Word had spread through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that the plant of the Triangle Waist Company was on fire and that several hundred workers were trapped. Horrified and helpless, the crowds - I among them - looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies. The emotions of the crowd were indescribable. Women were hysterical, scores fainted; men wept as, in paroxysms of frenzy, they hurled themselves against the police lines." (Louis Waldman, a New York State Assemblyman)

During the afternoon of March 25, 1911, shortly before workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the Asch Building left for the day, a fire broke out in a scrap bin on the eighth floor of the building. Fires were nothing new in such situations, and the industrial journal The Insurance Monitor noted that garment factories were, "[F]airly saturated with moral hazard." On this particular day, the spread of the fire to the main staircase made it impossible for workers still stuck on the ninth and 10th floors to escape. Furthermore, without today's labor regulations in place, an advanced warning of the fire never even made it to the ninth floor, despite the fire starting just one floor below, and the door to the only other stairway had been locked.

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Title: The Weapons of World War I: A History of the Guns, Tanks, Artillery, Gas, and Planes Used During the Great War

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Colin Fluxman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-21-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

World War I, also known in its time as the "Great War" or the "War to End all Wars", was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite. Tens of millions of artillery shells and untold hundreds of millions of rifle and machine gun bullets were fired in a conflict that demonstrated man's capacity to kill each other on a heretofore unprecedented scale, and as always, such a war brought about technological innovation at a rate that made the boom of the Industrial Revolution seem stagnant.

The arms race before the war and the attempt to break the deadlock of the Western and Eastern Fronts by any means possible changed the face of battle in ways that would have previously been deemed unthinkable. Before 1914, flying machines were objects of public curiosity; the first flights of any account on rotor aircraft had been made less than 5 years before and were considered to be the province of daredevils and lunatics. By 1918, all the great powers were fielding squadrons of fighting aircraft armed with machine-guns and bombs, to say nothing of light reconnaissance planes. Tanks, a common feature on the battlefield by 1918, had not previously existed outside of the realm of science fiction stories written by authors like H.G. Wells. Machine guns had gone from being heavy, cumbersome pieces with elaborate water-cooling systems to single-man-portable, magazine-fed affairs like the Chauchat, the Lewis Gun, and the M1918 BAR. To these grim innovations were added flamethrowers, hand grenades, zeppelins, observation balloons, poison gas, and other improvements or inventions that revolutionized the face of warfare.

The Weapons of World War I analyzes the technological advancements in weaponry that produced the deadliest conflict in history up to that time.

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Title: The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 & the 1989 Bay Area Earthquake: The History of California's Two Deadliest Earthquakes

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Kat Marlowe

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-06-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

On April 18, 1906, most of the residents of the city of San Francisco were sound asleep when the ground started to shake around 5:15 a.m., but what started as fairly soft tremors turned into violent shaking in all directions. The roar of the earthquake unquestionably woke up residents, at least those fortunate enough not to be immediately swallowed by the cracks opening up in the ground. The earthquake lasted about a minute, but it had enough destructive force to divert the course of entire rivers and level much of what was, at the time, the ninth largest city in America.

Unfortunately for San Franciscans, the worst was yet to come. During the earthquake the city's gas mains and water mains were ruptured, which had the effects of starting a number of fires and preventing the residents from being equipped to fight them. Without water to truly fight the blaze, the city's officials actually resorted to demolishing buildings in hopes of containing the fires, and witnesses reported seeing San Franciscans trapped in the burning buildings being shot by authorities instead of letting them burn alive. The fires lasted three days, and by the time they were done, 80 percent of the city was in ruins, about 60 percent of the residents were homeless, and an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 were dead. In fact the fires were so devastating that contemporary San Franciscans called the disaster "The Fire".

Although the resulting fires may have done the most damage, the widespread destruction made clear to city leaders that new buildings would need better safety codes and protection against subsequent earthquakes. The city reinforced new buildings against earthquakes and fixed surviving buildings to better deal with future earthquakes.

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Title: The Titanic: The History and Legacy of the World's Most Famous Ship from 1907 to Today

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Gregg Rizzo

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 17 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-06-15

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, 20th Century

Publisher's Summary:

"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel." (Captain Edward J. Smith)

Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic, the largest ship in the world, hit an iceberg, starting a chain of events that would ultimately make it history's most famous and notorious ship. In the over 100 years since it sank on its maiden voyage, the Titanic has been the subject of endless fascination, as evidenced by the efforts to find its final resting spot, the museums full of its objects, and the countless books, documentaries, and movies made about the doomed ocean liner. Thanks to the dramatization of the Titanic's sinking and the undying interest in the story, millions of people are familiar with various aspects of the ship's demise and the nearly 1,500 people who died in the North Atlantic in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912. The sinking of the ship is still nearly as controversial now as it was over 100 years ago, and the drama is just as compelling.

The Titanic was neither the first nor the last big ship to sink, so it's clear that much of its appeal stems from the nature of the ship itself. Indeed the Titanic stands out not just for its end but for its beginning, specifically the fact that it was the most luxurious passenger ship ever built at the time. In addition to the time it took to come up with the design, the giant ship took a full three years to build, and no effort or cost was spared to outfit the Titanic in the most lavish ways.

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