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Hollywood’s Favorite Screwball Actresses: The Lives and Legacies of the Women Who Popularized the Co
“If I couldn't laugh, I'd rather die.” – Claudette Colbert The 1930s were the height of the classical Hollywood era, known for lavish studio productions by heavyweights like MGM, RKO, Warner Brothers, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox, which were operating at the height of their powers. Every major studio possessed a long roster of contract players, and films were released at such a rapid pace that it made for an especially competitive environment within the industry. Even while America remained in the throes of the Great Depression, the film industry continued to flourish, and movies easily supplanted the theater as the main attraction for American entertainment. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to claim that the film industry reached its zenith during the decade precisely because it offered an affordable (if very temporary) escape from the anxieties of the economic woes of the era. When the American Film Institute ranked its top 50 screen legends of the 20th century, many of the people named had careers spanning several decades, but one of them managed the feat despite living less than three decades. Ranked as the 22nd greatest actress of the 20th century, Jean Harlow was on the screen for less than 10 years, but in that time the “Blonde Bombshell” became the most popular actress of the 1930s, eclipsing superstars like Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer along the way. In fact, the platinum blonde accomplished that feat as a leading lady for just five years before her premature death of renal failure at the age of 26. Carole Lombard has been memorialized in many fitting ways as an actress, and one of her biggest contributions to Hollywood was the blond archetype that the film industry used successfully for decades in screwball comedies, paving the way for the success of women like Marilyn Monroe. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of that fact is that it was actually based on Carole’s gushing personality.
Charles River Editors (Author), Mary Rossman (Narrator)
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The Great Escapes of World War I: The History of the Most Famous Prisoner Breakouts during the Great
In the first half of the 20th century, war was fought on a global and industrial scale. Millions of men were flung into the grinder of World War I and World War II, leading to commensurately huge numbers of prisoners of war (POWs). Camps were built to hold thousands of captives, with their own barracks blocks, parade grounds, and even farms. In World War I, there were several fronts in the war - Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany faced each other on the Western Front, fought mostly in northeast France and Belgium, while Germany and Austria Hungary faced Russia on the Eastern Front, where much of the war was fought in East Prussia and what is now Poland. The Italians and Austrians fought in the region of northeast Italy, and the Austrians and Bulgarians faced Serbia and then later an Allied army based in Salonica in the Balkans. The Ottomans faced Russia in northeast Anatolia, the British and Allied forces in the Mesopotamian campaign (mainly in today’s Iraq), the British in Palestine, and the Allies at Gallipoli. Regardless of rank, throughout the war, many of these men did not sit idle. Many spent their time preparing elaborate escape plans in the hopes of returning to their home nations and back to the fight. Following World War I, several books were published giving romantic accounts of successful escapes. For example, the wildly popular film The Great Escape (1963), has been a main factor in how the public views prisoners of war, and while that film was based on a book that details a mass escape of British and Allied prisoners from a World War II German prison camp for aviators, Stalag Luft III, a real escape from a German prisoner camp in World War I inspired the 1944 great escape from Stalag Luft III.
Charles River Editors (Author), Jim D. Johnston (Narrator)
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The World’s Deadliest Plagues: The History and Legacy of the Worst Global Pandemics
Human beings seem to have a particular fascination for microbiological threats. They are invisible, unpredictable and mysterious, and it is only in the past 150 years or so that scientists have begun to understand microorganisms and the maladies they can cause. Modern society has long been horrified and enthralled by accounts of such pestilences as the Black Death, which exterminated up to 60% of the population of Europe from 1347-1351. Less known is the Plague of Justinian which was even more deadly in that it carried away a quarter of the world’s population within the space of one year (542 CE). The Great Plague of London, which killed 100,000 in 1666, is another infamous pestilence, as is the Spanish Flu of 1918, which took the lives of as many as one million worldwide, making that epidemic even deadlier than the medieval Black Death. Such virulent outbreaks of disease are by no means distant historical events. While scientific and technological advances have limited and in many places eradicated such community-devastating diseases as cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague, typhus, Salmonella and yellow fever, new microscopic threats have arisen, including Ebola, SARS, bird flu, and most recently Coronavirus 2. The terror associated with pestilence speaks to people’s insecurities concerning the unknown and invisible. The ancients had no knowledge of microorganisms that caused disease-instead they postulated that pestilence was caused by miasma, air fouled by decomposing matter. That said, modern awareness of microscopic viruses and bacteria does nothing to lessen humanity’s insecurity. If anything, it is terrifying that such tiny creatures have the capacity to overthrow powerful and vibrant societies. This is one of the themes of H. G. Wells’ famous War of the Worlds (1897).
Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)
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[Spanish] - Extraña Radio: Una colección de transmisiones de espionaje, estaciones no identificadas
Desde hace más de un siglo, la radio ha sido parte de la vida de las personas. Nadie que esté vivo hoy recuerda algún tiempo en el que no haya estado siempre ahí, como una fuente familiar y confiable de información y entretenimiento. Hoy en día parece algo mundana, sobrepasada por el Internet y la televisión satelital. Incluso en la década de 1980, el surgimiento y desarrollo de la televisión por cable (cincuenta canales en lugar de cinco) y el comienzo de MTV hicieron que la radio pareciera pintoresca o, como muchos afirmaran alguna vez, que “La radio está muerta”. No lo estaba, por supuesto. La radio es todavía muy popular, con tantas estaciones como siempre y sigue siendo una parte del mundo que se toma por sentada. Si bien aún no muere, su familiaridad la ha hecho parecer algo mundana, pero la gente no debería pensar de esa manera. De hecho, las ondas radiales siempre han sido un lugar de misterio, un campo de batalla de ideologías en competencia, y una fuente de voces anónimas. La radio se ha usado para apoyar esfuerzos de guerra, derrocar gobiernos, comunicarse en secreto, e incluso para intentar comunicarse con los muertos. Extraña radio: Una colección de transmisiones de espionaje, estaciones no identificadas y otros misterios de las ondas radiales incluye extrañas historias que harán que este familiar medio parezca un poco menos familiar, y mucho más interesante.
Charles River Editors (Author), Nina Reyes (Narrator)
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The Bohemian Club: The History of One of America’s Most Secretive and Controversial Private Clubs
Conspiracy theories, and particularly the belief that elements of the world are secretly controlled by individuals or groups, have been around for as long as people have lived in groups. Perhaps that’s inevitable - after all, those who are excluded from power are very likely to be inclined to see their position not as an outcome of their own choices or situation but because of the secret machinations of shadowy groups. One topic that has been a constant in Internet debates is the group known as the Bohemian Club. Founded in 1872 in San Francisco, this began as a club for journalists with an interest in the arts, but over the subsequent 150 years, it appears to have changed into a vehicle for the annual conclave of some of the most wealthy and powerful men on the planet. Each year, hundreds of men gather in a luxurious camp known as Bohemian Grove in a remote forest in California to do something. Just what it is they do is a secret, which has inevitably led to some intense speculation. Is it no more than a fun-filled frolic where the super-rich and powerful can go to escape their cares for a few days, or is it something more sinister, a cabal in which secret decisions are made that affect everybody else? Finding out about the Bohemian Club and the annual gatherings at Bohemian Grove isn’t easy. Most of those invited to join this exclusive club remain members until they die, meaning there are no disaffected former members willing to talk about what goes on there. Current members are unwilling to talk about the club or its activities. It’s this secrecy that has led to some bizarre speculation about just what it is that happens in Bohemian Grove every summer. Coming up with answers is no easy feat, as the group takes its secrecy seriously and members have the wealth and power to make sure the club’s business stays secret.
Charles River Editors (Author), Kc Wayman (Narrator)
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Red Cloud’s War: The History and Legacy of the Only 19th Century War Won by Native Americans against
In the summer of 1866, Colonel Henry B. Carrington set out from Fort Laramie to establish a series of forts along the Bozeman Trail with the goal of protecting migrants moving along the trail. The Bozeman Trail ran through the Powder River country, which included the traditional hunting grounds of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. Carrington had about 1,000 people in his column, of which about 700 were soldiers and 300 were civilians, likely soldiers’ families and migrants. The ongoing hostilities, which included the notorious Fetterman's Massacre, ultimately convinced American officials to head back to the negotiating table with the Native Americans, and as a result, Red Cloud has often been labeled the only Indian chief to win a war against the Americans. After that, however, Red Cloud continued to lead his people to reservations first near the Black Hills and later westward after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Though he was respected as a war chief, it was his political functions as a spokesman of the Oglala that truly allowed Red Cloud to leave his mark over the last several decades of his life. Whereas Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse suffered premature deaths, Red Cloud outlived the other important leaders of the Sioux until dying in 1909 at 87 years old. Near the end of his life, he reportedly said, “They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one -- they promised to take our land...and they took it.” Red Cloud’s War: The History and Legacy of the Only 19th Century War Won by Native Americans against the United States analyzes the seminal moments that brought about the war, the war’s most famous battles, and the aftermath.
Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Walsh (Narrator)
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The Race for Nuclear Weapons during World War II: The History and Legacy of Both Sides’ Efforts to B
Before the Second World War, military conflicts were fought under orthodox conditions, usually termed “conventional warfare,” but several innovations had significantly changed combat, leading inextricably to the race for a nuclear weapon in the 1930s and 1940s. Conflicts had been fought by armies on horseback with guns of varying sophistication since the 16th century, but mechanized warfare and machine guns changed this calculus and set the stage for future combat by the end of World War I. Other sinister changes entered the fray during this conflict, such as chemical weapons like chlorine and mustard gas. The total warfare brought about by World War I and ensuing wars like the Spanish Civil War made the quest for the most powerful weapons somewhat necessary. The Manhattan Project would ultimately yield the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” bombs that released more than 100 Terajoules of energy at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as it turned out, the Axis were not far behind with their own nuclear weapons program. When the Nazis’ quest for a nuclear weapon began in earnest in 1939, no one really had a handle on how important nuclear weapons would prove to war and geopolitics. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, along with the Cold War-era tests and their accompanying mushroom clouds, would demonstrate the true power and terror of nuclear weapons, but in the late 1930s these bombs were only vaguely being thought through, particularly after the successful first experiment to split the atom by a German scientist. The nuclear age itself was in its infancy, barely 35 years old, but within a few short years the advent of nuclear war loomed over the world and the prospect of the enemy winning the nuclear race kept Allied leaders awake at night.
Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Caufield (Narrator)
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World War II in 1940: The History of the Fighting that Culminated with the German Conquest of Wester
One of the most famous people in the world came to tour the city of Paris for the first time on June 28, 1940. Over the next three hours, he rode through the city’s streets, stopping to tour L’Opéra Paris. He rode down the Champs-Élysées toward the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower, where he had his picture taken. After passing through the Arc de Triomphe, he toured the Pantheon and old medieval churches, though he did not manage to see the Louvre or the Palace of Justice. Heading back to the airport, he told his staff, “It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris. I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled today.” Four years after his tour, Adolf Hitler would order the city’s garrison commander, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to destroy Paris, warning his subordinate that the city 'must not fall into the enemy's hand except lying in complete debris.' Of course, Paris was not destroyed before the Allies liberated it, but it would take more than 4 years for them to wrest control of France from Nazi Germany after they took the country by storm in about a month in 1940. The surrender of more than 1,200,000 isolated troops followed quickly in June 1940, yet in the midst of this disaster, the Allies contrived one coup that took even the victorious Wehrmacht aback: the evacuation of over 300,000 soldiers from the port of Dunkirk. This escape, hailed as “miraculous” at the time, provided England with a solid defensive force, the French with the kernel of a “Free French” army for the future, and the Western Allies with an invaluable boost to their morale during one of the war's darkest moments. With the clarity of historical hindsight, events proved Churchill correct. Operation Dynamo, as the British named the Dunkirk evacuation mission, bolstered British morale and defenses sufficiently to keep the “Sceptered Isle” in the war.
Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Caufield (Narrator)
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Reaching the Moon: The History of the NASA Programs that Led to the Successful Apollo Missions
The Apollo Program is the most famous and celebrated in American history, but the first successful landing of men on the Moon during Apollo 11 had complicated roots dating back over a decade, and it also involved one of NASA’s most infamous tragedies. From 1959-1963, the United States worked toward putting satellites and humans into orbit via the Mercury program, but Eisenhower’s administration was already designing plans for the Apollo program by 1960, a year before the first Russian orbited the Earth and two years before John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. At the same time, America would begin missions to the Moon as early as 1958. On March 27, 1958, Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy announced a lunar project for the International Geophysical Year, consisting of three Air Force launches followed by two Army launches of a JPL-designed lunar probe. ARPA directed the Air Force to launch its probes 'as soon as possible consistent with the requirement that a minimal amount of useful data concerning the Moon be obtained.' Throughout the 1960s, NASA would spend tens of billions on missions to the Moon, the most expensive peacetime program in American history to that point, and Apollo was only made possible by the tests conducted through earlier missions, including the historic Ranger Program. Conceived as an early part of the attempt to land a man on the Moon, Ranger was designed to photograph the lunar surface in preparation for future landings. Until Ranger, images of the Moon were only available through Earth-based telescopes, which lacked the detail necessary to determine safe sites for landing a spacecraft. Ranger aimed to fill in that gap of knowledge, and like many of NASA’s missions during the 1960s, the program exemplified both the successes and the failures of the agency’s early years.
Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Walsh (Narrator)
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Georgy Zhukov: The Life and Legacy of the Soviet Union’s Greatest General during World War II
In the warm predawn darkness of June 22, 1941, 3 million men waited along a front hundreds of miles long, stretching from the Baltic coast of Poland to the Balkans. Ahead of them in the darkness lay the Soviet Union, its border guarded by millions of Red Army troops echeloned deep throughout the huge spaces of Russia. This massive gathering of Wehrmacht soldiers from Adolf Hitler's Third Reich and his allied states – notably Hungary and Romania – stood poised to carry out Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise attack against the country of his putative ally, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Of the Soviet generals, none played as crucial a role in the war as Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, one of the most highly decorated army officers in Russian military history. At critical stages during the Second World War, it seemed as if it was Zhukov alone who stood between Russian defeat and German victory. Zhukov was ultimately involved in all the major battles on the Eastern Front, including Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk, Bagration, and the final assaults into Poland and Germany to capture Berlin. Stalin came to depend on Zhukov’s ruthless military skills for victory, but in the cut-throat Soviet Union, that was always a double-edged sword, because it seemed that Stalin envied Zhukov and feared him as well. Zhukov, who could be as aggressive and blunt as Stalin, was one of the few people prepared to stand up to the Soviet dictator and argue with him, and as many Soviet politicians and generals learned to their detriment, going toe to toe with one of the most brutal leaders of the 20th century was a highly risky venture. However, the mutual understanding they forged as they confronted the Germans may have played the biggest role in Hitler’s demise.
Charles River Editors (Author), Steve Knupp (Narrator)
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Joan Crawford and Bette Davis: The Lives and Careers of the Actresses Who Became Hollywood’s Most Fa
The life of Joan Crawford is one of the most famous Hollywood rags-to-riches tales. While it is common to think of Hollywood as a land offering great opportunity to hard-working actresses, the Horatio Alger myth rarely applies in reality, but it applied almost perfectly to Joan Crawford. Crawford grew up in relative poverty, with both of her childhood father figures abandoning the family before she became a teenager, and she relied on undying ambition in order to progress through the ranks of the show business circuit and then the Hollywood studio system. This drive to succeed continued throughout her entire career, and Crawford’s public battles with both studios (MGM in particular) and other stars (first Norma Shearer and later Bette Davis) were borne out of an unmatched competitive streak. Joan Crawford’s life and career also shed light on the treatment of women in pop culture and in cinema during the early 20th century. Bette Davis presided over Hollywood at a time in which the film industry was at its most influential. Every actress from Katharine Hepburn to Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rodgers, themselves now considered among Hollywood’s greatest icons, lived in the shadow of Bette Davis. Not only was Davis a box office sensation and commercial success - she became the highest paid actress in 1938 - but she garnered more critical acclaim than any other actress during the time period, as evidenced by the fact that she was the first actress to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Recently, her place in history was cemented when she was named as the second greatest actress of the 20th century by the American Film Institute behind only Katharine Hepburn (AFI 100 Years…100 Stars).
Charles River Editors (Author), Mary Rossman (Narrator)
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The French Revolution: The History and Legacy of the World’s Most Famous Social Revolution
As one of the seminal social revolutions in human history, the French Revolution holds a unique legacy, especially in the West. The early years of the Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system that gave the royalty and aristocracy decisive advantages over the lower classes. But history remembers the French Revolution in a starkly different way, as the same leaders who sought a more democratic system while out of power devolved into establishing an incredibly repressive tyranny of their own once they acquired it. The early years of the French Revolution were fueled by Enlightenment ideals, seeking the social overthrow of the caste system that gave the royalty and aristocracy decisive advantages over the lower classes. But history remembers the French Revolution in a starkly different way, as the same leaders who sought a more democratic system while out of power devolved into establishing an incredibly repressive tyranny of their own once they acquired it. The height of Republican France’s tyranny came during a 10 month period forever known as the Reign of Terror, the most notorious and arguably most memorable part of the French Revolution. One of the first victims of the Reign of Terror was its most famous: former French Queen Marie Antoinette. But Antoinette was followed by thousands more, including everyone from aristocrats to clergy to prostitutes and even instrumental revolutionaries like Danton, Desmoulins, and, most notably, Robespierre. It was Robespierre whose position on the Committee of Public Safety made him the Reign of Terror’s instrumental figure until he himself became a victim of it in July 1794. Robespierre’s date with the guillotine is often considered the official end of the Reign of Terror, but by then it is estimated that at least 16,000 people were guillotined in that time and possibly 25,000 more were summarily executed across the country.
Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)
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