List
My Favorite Audiobook Histories on Hoopla
I listen to a lot of histories on audiobook and rarely am I completely disappointed. These audiobooks, though, stand out as particular favorites. All are available for immediate download on the Hoopla app or website.
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1776
2005 by McCullough, David G.Get this itemThe survival of the embryonic United States was an astonishingly close run thing as David McCullough demonstrates in his chronicle of the crucial year 1776. This account will both quicken and warm the heart of any American patriot.
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Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy
2011 by Norwich, John JuliusGet this itemYou can't go wrong with anything written by John Julius Norwich so it was hard to settle on one book. He excels at sweeping histories like this which includes saints as well as sinners such as the Borgia pope Alexander VI, Michelangelo's tormenter Julius II, and that chain of rogues whose consecutive rule was known as the "pornocracy."
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The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800
2007 by Winik, JayGet this itemJay Winik makes the most of his rich material as he describes a decade when Catherine the Great plotted with Potemkin, the French decided the fates of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and Alexander Hamilton schemed against Thomas Jefferson to set the course for the fledgling United States.
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The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I
2014 by Tuchman, Barbara W.Get this itemOne of the best nonfiction books of the century, this tale of tragic folly won the Pulitzer Prize and influenced John F. Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's still a great read decades after it was written.
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Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East
2014 by Russell, GerardGet this itemThis isn't a history but rather a portrait of some of history's great survivors: the endangered religious minorities of the Middle East including the Copts, the Yazidis, and even the Samaritans. In this travelogue, Gerard Russell seeks them out in their enclaves and relates their remarkable histories.
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The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin From the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides
2005 by Parparov, FyodorGet this itemOn the one hand, this is a colorful, gossipy biography of Adolf Hitler. On the other, it is a historic artifact itself as it was written for the eyes of none other than Joseph Stalin himself. There are many more authoritative biographies of Hitler to choose from, but none this intriguing.
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Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization
2008 by Baker, NicholsonGet this itemThis is a history book like no other. Nicholson Bakes combs through a mountain of primary sources to offer a series of disquieting historical vignettes from 1892 to 1941, all presented without comment, in order to call into question any simplistic good-versus-evil view of the Second World War. Unforgettable and disturbing though tendentious.
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The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
2013 by Jones, DanGet this itemDan Jones is a true literary artist who knows how to tell a sinewy story with flair and verve. Since he's dealing here with England's Plantagenets from Henry II to Richard II, he has no shortage of rousing material to work with.
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The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
1997 by Chang, IrisGet this itemNot for the faint of heart, this audiobook brings to light and to life a shocking atrocity that stands out even amidst the carnage of the Second World War. Iris Chang has done the world a great though painful service.
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Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II
2013 by Lowe, KeithGet this itemThe months immediately following the Second World War were a ghastly time of massive suffering and continuing atrocities as Keith Lowe makes clear in this unsparring account. It's a wonder Europe was ever able to emerge from the ruins that he so powerfully describes.
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What If?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been : Essays
1999Get this itemAn array of great historians including Stephen Ambrose, David McCullough, and James McPherson let their hair down to speculate on how history could have turned out differently in this collection of fascinating essays. I wish more historians indulged in this kind of counterfactual thinking.
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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
2006 by Egan, TimothyGet this itemDuring the Dust Bowl it was dusty, right? Thanks to Timothy Egan and those eyewitnesses whose personal accounts of the disaster he gathered, we can learn just how powerful and devastating the dust storms were to those who felt their fury. This is an inspiring tale of human resilience.
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