Listen to Top 100 Audiobooks in History, American

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Title: Signing Their Lives Away

Subtitle: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence

Author: Denise Kiernan, Joseph D'Agnese

Narrator: Susan Larkin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-25-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

In the summer of 1776, fifty-six men risked their lives and livelihood to defy King George III and sign the Declaration of Independence - yet how many of them do we actually remember? Signing Their Lives Away introduces listeners to the eclectic group of statesmen, soldiers, slaveholders, and scoundrels who signed this historic document - and the many strange fates that awaited them. Some prospered and rose to the highest levels of United States government, while others had their homes and farms seized by British soldiers. Signer George Wythe was poisoned by his nephew; Button Gwinnett was killed in a duel; Robert Morris went to prison; Thomas Lynch was lost at sea; and of course Sam Adams achieved fame as a patriot/brewer. Signing Their Lives Away provides an entertaining and enlightening narrative for history buffs of all ages.

Editorial Reviews:

Most people know what happened to George Washington after he signed the Declaration of Independence. (If you dont, Ill tell you for a quarter.) But what happened to the brave men who founded America but were then lost to history? Authors Denise Kierman and Joseph D'Agnese dig up surprising answers, introducing little-known founding fathers who were eventually poisoned, killed, financially ruined, and lost at sea. A concise, fascinating, and sometimes playful history, this book will have you wowing your history-minded friends for weeks. Narrator Susan Larkin blows the dust off this chapter of history with her lively reading of this surprising book.

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Title: Secret Lives of the Supreme Court

Subtitle: What Your Teachers Never Told you About America's Legendary Justices

Author: Robert Schnakenberg

Narrator: Gregory St. John

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs

Language: English

Release date: 09-24-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Youll discover that:

And much, much more! With chapters on everyone from John Jay to Samuel Alito, Secret Lives of the Supreme Court tackles all the tough questions that other history books are afraid to ask: How many of these judges took bribes? How many were gay? And how could so many sink into dementia while serving on the highest court in the land? American history was never this much fun in school!

Editorial Reviews:

Like the other volumes in the "Secret Lives" series from Quirk Books, Robert Schnakenberg's colorful exposé of America's Supreme Court justices is often snarky and irreverent. The fun is in the details, like in the sound-bite gems that Benjamin Cardozo "likely died a virgin" and that every year Harry Blackmun celebrated the anniversary of his appendectomy.

Gregory St. John performs this audiobook with a wry amusement befitting the eccentric material. The personality of each justice might be exaggerated for entertainment value, but the writer has done his research, thus the biographical treatments in Secret Lives are equal parts history and sadistic tabloid.

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Title: Who is My Neighbor

Subtitle: MLK Speaks: A 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Collection

Author: Martin Luther King

Narrator: Martin Luther King

Format: Original Recording

Length: 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-04-13

Publisher: Intellect Inspire

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the Co-Founding President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Found in the archives at the SCLC were eight never before heard audio works of Dr. King in which he prophetically articulates his vision for a better America and world. These unique messages are the embodiment of his cause of justice, jobs, and freedom. For the first time ever, these messages are being released to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The title of this message is "Who Is My Neighbor."

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Title: Latino Americans

Subtitle: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation

Author: Ray Suarez

Narrator: Ray Suarez

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-03-13

Publisher: HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

As the largest minority in the country, Latino Americans make up an integral part of American history and continue to make major social, cultural, and political contributions. Latino Americans, vividly and candidly tells how the story of Latino Americans is the story of the United States, revealing the personal struggles and successes of immigrants, poets, soldiers, and others who have made an impact on history.

Author and acclaimed journalist Ray Suarez explores lives of Latino American men and women across a four-hundred-year span, encompassing an epic range of experiences from the early European settlements to Manifest Destiny; the Wild West to the Cold War; the Great Depression to Globalization; and the Spanish-American War to the Civil Rights movement.

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Title: Fear Itself

Subtitle: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

Author: Ira Katznelson

Narrator: Scott Brick

Format: Unabridged

Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-08-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 88 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Redefining our traditional understanding of the New Deal, Fear Itself finally examines this pivotal American era through a sweeping international lens that juxtaposes a struggling democracy with enticing ideologies like Fascism and Communism. Ira Katznelson, "a towering figure in the study of American and European history" (Cornel West), boldly asserts that, during the 1930s and 1940s, American democracy was rescued yet distorted by a unified band of southern lawmakers who safeguarded racial segregation as they built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power. This original study brings to vivid life the politicians and pundits of the time, including Walter Lippmann, who argued that America needed a dose of dictatorship; Mississippis five-foot-two Senator Theodore Bilbo, who advocated the legal separation of races; and Robert Oppenheimer, who built the atomic bomb yet was tragically undone by the nations hysteria. Fear Itself is a necessary work, vital to understanding our world - a world the New Deal first made.

Editorial Reviews:

Democracies are constantly reminded of the problem of coming to fast compromise and agreement in the face of pressing hardship. The years of FDR and The New Deal were a time of constant uncertainty in America. In Europe possible benefits of Communism and Fascism over this issue seemed promising to some. The United States had to reshape itself in a way that has affected the countrys structure through today. Compromise was made, and Ira Katznelson argues, partially at the cost of accepting the racist tendencies of the eras southern democrats. Scott Brick performs this expansive, and unique look at one of the most important periods of shaping the modern United States. Brick gives a measured delivery, powerfully articulating this erudite and opinionated history lesson.

Critic Reviews:

"Fear Itself deeply reconceptualizes the New Deal and raises countless provocative questions." (David Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Freedom from Fear)

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Title: Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy

Author: Peter Carlson

Narrator: Danny Campbell

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-28-13

Publisher: HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 30 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Albert Richardson and Junius Browne, two correspondents for the New York Tribune, were captured at the Battle of Vicksburg and spent 20 months in horrific Confederate prisons before escaping and making their way to Union territory. Their amazing, long-forgotten odyssey is one of the great escape stories in American history, packed with drama, courage, horrors and heroics, plus many moments of antic comedy. They must endure the Confederacy's most notorious prison; rely on forged passes and the secret signals of a covert pro-Union organization in North Carolina; trust a legendary guerilla leader; be hidden by slaves during the day in plantation slave quarters; and ultimately depend on a mysterious, anonymous woman on a white horse to guide them to safety. They traveled for 340 miles, most of it on foot, much of it through snow, in 26 days.

This is a marvelous, surreal voyage through the cold mountains, dark prisons, and mysterious bands of misfits living in the shadows of the Civil War.

Critic Reviews:

"This absorbing story of two Northern war reporters who were captured by the Confederates at Vicksburg, imprisoned for 19 months, and escaped 200 miles to Union lines demonstrates that for the Civil War, truth is indeed more thrilling than fiction." (James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom)

"Peter Carlson is one of America's greatest storytellers, and this is his best story yet. Funny, thrilling, tragic, and impossible to put down.... [A] beautifully written, wondrous book." (David Finkel, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Good Soldiers)

"A rollicking story of imprisonment and escape... Carlson has taken full advantage of abundant material to deliver a vivid chronicle of two working Civil War reporters and their spectacular odyssey." (Kirkus)

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Title: A Companion to American Immigration

Author: Reed Ueda

Narrator: Melissa Edris

Format: Unabridged

Length: 29 hrs and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-20-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

A Companion to American Immigration is an authoritative collection of original essays by leading scholars on the major topics and themes underlying American immigration history. Focuses on the two most important periods in American Immigration history: the Industrial Revolution (1820-1930) and the Globalizing Era (Cold War to the present).

Provides an in-depth treatment of central themes, including economic circumstances, acculturation, social mobility, and assimilation.

Includes an introductory essay by the volume editor.

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Title: Fateful Lightning

Subtitle: A New History of the Civil War and Reconstruction

Author: Allen C. Guelzo

Narrator: Brian Holsopple

Format: Unabridged

Length: 26 hrs and 24 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-17-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 86 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

The Civil War is the greatest trauma ever experienced by the American nation, a four-year paroxysm of violence that left in its wake more than 600,000 dead, more than 2 million refugees, and the destruction (in modern dollars) of more than $700 billion in property. The war also sparked some of the most heroic moments in American history and enshrined a galaxy of American heroes. Above all, it permanently ended the practice of slavery and proved, in an age of resurgent monarchies, that a liberal democracy could survive the most frightful of challenges.

In Fateful Lightning, two-time Lincoln Prize-winning historian Allen C. Guelzo offers a marvelous portrait of the Civil War and its era, covering not only the major figures and epic battles, but also politics, religion, gender, race, diplomacy, and technology. And unlike other surveys of the Civil War era, it extends the reader's vista to include the postwar Reconstruction period and discusses the modern-day legacy of the Civil War in American literature and popular culture. Guelzo also puts the conflict in a global perspective, underscoring Americans' acute sense of the vulnerability of their republic in a world of monarchies. He examines the strategy, the tactics, and especially the logistics of the Civil War and brings the most recent historical thinking to bear on emancipation, the presidency and the war powers, the blockade and international law, and the role of intellectuals, North and South.

Written by a leading authority on our nation's most searing crisis, Fateful Lightning offers a vivid and original account of an event whose echoes continue with Americans to this day.

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Title: To the Gates of Richmond

Subtitle: The Peninsula Campaign

Author: Stephen Sears

Narrator: Nelson Runger

Format: Unabridged

Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-16-13

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 40 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

It was the largest campaign ever attempted in the Civil War: the Peninsula campaign of 1862. General George McClellan planned to advance from Yorktown up the Virginia Peninsula and destroy the Rebel army in its own capital. But with Robert E. Lee delivering blows to the Union army, McClellans plan fell through at the gates of Richmond. Now, in a study of the great Civil War engagement that weaves together narrative, military analysis, and eyewitness accounts drawn from the diaries and letters of soldiers, historian Stephen W. Sears showcases all the reasons why Ken Burns, the producer of the PBS series The Civil War, calls Sears one of our best Civil War historians.

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Title: The U.S. Congress: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Donald A. Ritchie

Narrator: Bob Dunsworth

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-06-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 8 votes

Genres: History, American

Publisher's Summary:

Many scholars believe that the framers of the Constitution intended Congress to be the preeminent branch of government. Indeed, no other legislature in the world approaches its power. Yet most Americans have only a murky idea of how it works. In The U.S. Congress, Donald A. Ritchie, a congressional historian for more than 30 years, takes readers on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes tour of Capitol Hill - pointing out the key players, explaining their behavior, and translating parliamentary language into plain English. No mere civics lesson, this eye-opening book provides an insider's perspective on Congress, matched with a professional historian's analytical insight.

After a swift survey of the creation of Congress by the constitutional convention, he begins to unscrew the nuts and pull out the bolts. What is it like to campaign for congress? To attract large donors? To enter either house with no seniority? He answers these questions and more, explaining committee assignments (and committee work), the role of staffers and lobbyists, floor proceedings, parliamentary rules, and coalition building. Ritchie explores the great effort put into constituent service - as representatives and senators respond to requests from groups and individuals - as well as media relations and news coverage. He also explores how the grand concepts we all know from civics class - checks and balances, advise and consent, congressional oversight - work in practice, in an age of strong presidents and a muscular Senate minority (no matter which party is in that position).

In this sparkling addition to Oxford's Very Short Introduction series, Donald Ritchie moves beyond the cynicism and the platitudes to provide a gem of a portrait of how Congress really works.

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