Audiobooks by Charles River Editors

1811 German Coast Uprising, The: The History and Legacy of America’s Largest Slave Revolt

While Nat Turner’s rebellion remains famous today, a far larger uprising took place a generation earlier. In January 1811, hundreds of slaves in Louisiana attempted to make a new beginning for themselves or die trying. Armed with muskets, cane knives, and axes, and wearing stolen United States militia uniforms, they set out to conquer the city of New Orleans. The goal was to establish a free republic where slavery was outlawed and blacks had control over their own lives. Understandably discontented with their status and no longer willing to accept it, they were ready to engage in extreme violence to win their freedom, fully aware that death would be the only alternative. Between the arrival of first slave ship in Virginia in 1619 and the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, there were more than 250 incidents of rebellions by 10 or more slaves on present-day United States territory, dating as far back as the 1739 Stono rebellion in South Carolina. But the German Coast Uprising in 1811 was the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in American history, and more than 100 slaves died during or as a result of the German Coast Uprising, whereas fewer than 30 were killed in action or as punishment for Nat Turner’s uprising. The 1811 insurrection also involved the largest mix of slave participants, combining African- and American-born slaves, and both men and women. The rebels of 1811 were inspired to a great degree by the most successful slave uprising in history, which had occurred the previous decade in the French colony of Saint Domingue (modern Haiti). There, thousands of enslaved workers there launched an organized rebellion, expelling all whites from the territory and establishing an independent state. The German Coast Uprising was also inspired by charismatic, powerful, and dedicated leaders.

Charles River Editors (Author), Daniel Houle (Narrator)

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1889-1890 Flu Pandemic, The: The History of the 19th Century’s Last Major Global Outbreak

The first known influenza pandemic may have occurred in China in 6000 BCE, and the renowned Greek physician Hippocrates described the symptoms of influenza around 600 BCE. The first well-documented pandemic, however, occurred in 1580. It originated in East Asia, spread through Central Asia and the Russian Empire, and then on to Europe. In Rome, about 8,000 people perished and some settlements in Spain disappeared entirely. Europeans brought it to the Americas in the 16th century, where it may contributed to decimating the indigenous populations. After that, flu epidemics hit Europe sporadically for more than 200 years, with that of 1830–33 being one of the worst, when about 25% of 135 million Europeans were infected. Therefore, when an outbreak of flu occurred in the Central Asian city of Bukhara in 1889, it could not have excited any great concern. Certainly, some nearby communities may have anxiously braced themselves, but epidemics had occurred before and Europe had survived. Besides, then – as now – influenza was a disease that affected mostly the elderly and ill. But Europe – and the world – had changed profoundly in recent times. Its states had been industrializing, experimenting with new methods of communication, transportation, and trade, and these very innovations would be the means of spreading the flu, not just through Europe, but across the entire world. For the first time in its history, the world faced a pestilence that would cross every geographical barrier, even the oceans. This meant it would not be an epidemic but a pandemic, embracing the entire globe in its deadly grip.

Charles River Editors (Author), Gregory T. Luzitano (Narrator)

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1914: The History and Legacy of World War I’s First Year

Needless to say, the First World War came at an unfortunate time for those who would fight in it. After an initial period of relatively rapid maneuver during which the German forces pushing through Belgium and the French and British forces attempting to stymie them made an endless series of abortive flanking movements that extended the lines to the sea, a stalemate naturally tended to develop. The infamous trench lines soon snaked across the French and Belgian countryside, creating an essentially futile static slaughterhouse whose sinister memory remains to this day. If trench warfare was an inevitability during the war, it is only because the events leading up to the First Battle of the Marne were quite different. The armies at the beginning of the war moved quickly through the land, but the First Battle of the Marne devolved into a bloody pitched battle that led to the construction of trenches after the Germans retreated, blocked in their pursuit of Paris. When the aftermath disintegrated into a war between trenches, some Germans thought they had the upper hand since they were occupying French territory, but with fewer soldiers than the combined Allied nations and fewer resources and supplies, it was possibly only a matter of time before they were ultimately defeated. The commander of the German armies, General Helmuth von Moltke, allegedly said to Kaiser Wilhelm II immediately after the First Battle of the Marne, 'Your Majesty, we have lost the war.' Winston Churchill himself would later reference that anecdote, writing, “Whether General von Moltke actually said to the Emperor, ‘Majesty, we have lost the war,’ we do not know. We know anyhow that with a prescience greater in political than in military affairs, he wrote to his wife on the night of the 9th, ‘Things have not gone well. The fighting east of Paris has not gone in our favour, and we shall have to pay for the damage we have done.’'

Charles River Editors (Author), Elias Anderson (Narrator)

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19th Century America's Most Influential Naval Officers: The Lives, Careers, and Battles of Stephen D

Americans had few things to celebrate during the Barbary Wars or the War of 1812, but one of them was the growing prestige of the U.S. Navy, and among those who were instrumental in its development, few were as influential as Stephen Decatur Jr. Decatur had an impact on nearly every war America fought in between the 1780s until his death in 1820, and his stardom ensured that he was a fixture among Washington, D.C.'s elite in his own lifetime. While generals like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman received the lion's share of the credit for Union victories, especially in the Western Theater, naval forces were instrumental in the capture of New Orleans and Vicksburg, as well as at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, and Farragut was immediately recognized for his service. Congress made him the nation's first Rear Admiral in history in 1862, and Farragut would also go on to become the first man in the history of the U.S. Navy to attain the rank of Admiral. Similarly, Porter was recognized throughout the Civil War for his service, even as he was subjected to the kind of politicking that marked the war effort in Washington, and he became just the second man in the history of the U.S. Navy to attain the rank of Admiral. He would also have a distinguished career after the war as he helped reform the Navy. The Spanish-American War was famously labeled a 'splendid little war'. by John Hay, US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt, and while it is often overlooked today due to its brief and one-sided nature, the conflict produced one of the most popular military heroes in American history.A former veteran of various naval engagements in the Civil War, Dewey managed to find himself in charge of the Asiatic Squadron, and in its most famous battle at Manila Bay, Dewey scored a decisive victory that destroyed Spain's Pacific fleet and subdued Manila's shore batteries while suffering just one American death.

Charles River Editors (Author), Gregory T. Luzitano (Narrator)

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19th Century America’s Forgotten Wars: The History and Legacy of the Overseas Conflicts that Influen

By the second half of the 19th century, still less than a century old, the United States had become a regional power. It had soundly defeated its southern neighbor, Mexico, and greatly enlarged itself in the process. America’s navy and merchant marines were becoming common sights on the high seas, and the country was at the beginning of the end of its drawn-out conquest of the Native Americans. However, it was a country divided deeply along political and economic lines, a tottering edifice many predicted would split apart. Even before the final tremors from the Mexican-American War had stopped disrupting the southern border, the United States found itself in a bloody civil war. For a time, all foreign adventure ceased, but within three decades, U.S. military personnel found themselves in accidental conflict with an isolationist Asian nation, getting drawn into a tribal fight over kingship on a remote set of islands, and inheriting a former empire’s long-running foreign insurgency, an insurgency that eerily foreshadowed America’s most divisive war of the 20th century. These were wars that, while less remembered than the conflicts with Mexico and Spain, nevertheless helped shape foreign policy and prepared the nation to face greater global responsibilities and challenges in the 20th century.

Charles River Editors (Author), Scott Clem (Narrator)

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A Day That Will Live in Infamy: The History and Legacy of Japan’s Initial Attacks against the United

All Americans are familiar with the “day that will live in infamy.” At 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, the advanced base of the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet, was ablaze. It had been smashed by aircraft launched by the carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. All eight battleships had been sunk or badly damaged, 350 aircraft had been knocked out, and over 2,000 Americans lay dead. Indelible images of the USS Arizona exploding and the USS Oklahoma capsizing and floating upside down have been ingrained in the American conscience ever since. In less than an hour and a half the Japanese had almost wiped out America’s entire naval presence in the Pacific. Less than 24 hours earlier, Japanese and American negotiators had been continuing their diplomatic efforts to stave off conflict in the region, but as they did, President Roosevelt and his inner circle had seen intelligence reports strongly suggesting an imminent attack - though they did not know where. The U.S. rightly believed that Japan would take action to prevent the Americans from interfering with their military activities in Southeast Asia, and American military forces in the Philippines were already bracing for a potential attack. However, as the negotiations were ongoing, the powerful Japanese carrier fleet had been surging southwards through the Pacific while maintaining radio silence, preparing to strike the blow that would ignite war in an area spanning half the globe. Posted on the other side of the world, it was early on the morning of December 8 in the Philippines when American general Douglas MacArthur received news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor hours earlier. With that, it could only be a matter of time before the Japanese attacked the Philippines. Although MacArthur and Allied forces tried to hold out, they could only fight a delaying action, and the Japanese managed to subdue all resistance by the spring of 1942.

Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Caufield (Narrator)

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Academy Award Winning Sisters: The Lives of Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine

Olivia de Havilland was one of the last living actresses who worked during the Golden Era of Hollywood, but also one of the most decorated, winning dozens of awards over the course of a 50 year career. Among those, she most notably won the Academy Award for Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), more than a decade after she got her start as an 18 year old in Hollywood. Of course, de Havilland isn’t well remembered for any of those accolades or other movies but because she played Melanie Hamilton in Gone With the Wind (1939), perhaps the most famous movie in American history. Although she was a veteran actress at the time, de Havilland’s career hadn’t progressed much since she started, and rumor has it that she eventually got the role after her own sister, Joan Fontaine, was asked to audition for the part and recommended Olivia instead. Although Fontaine and de Havilland would make history by becoming the only sisters to both win an Academy Award for Best Actress, that anecdote was just one of the various stories about the siblings that has shed light on their notoriously contentious and complicated relationship. As Fontaine once put it, “I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!' De Havilland herself once said, 'Joan is very bright and sharp and can be cutting.' Meanwhile, Joan Fontaine won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941). She also earned a nomination for her performance in The Constant Nymph (1943), and in a television career that spanned several decades, she earned an Emmy nomination for her work on Ryan’s Hope in 1980, nearly 40 years after winning the Academy Award for Suspicion. Fontaine even appeared on Broadway in a couple of productions that ran for several years.

Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)

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Achaemenid Persian Empire's Most Famous Kings, The: The Lives and Reigns of Cyrus the Great, Darius

At one point in antiquity, the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the largest empire the world had ever seen, but aside from its role in the Greco-Persian Wars and its collapse at the hands of Alexander the Great, it has been mostly overlooked. When it has been studied, the historical sources have mostly been Greek, the very people the Persians sought to conquer. Needless to say, their versions were biased. It was not until excavations in the region during the 20th century that many of the relics, reliefs, and clay tablets that offer so much information about Persian life could be studied for the first time. Through archaeological remains, ancient texts, and work by a new generation of historians, a picture can today be built of this remarkable civilization and their most famous leaders. When considering this empire’s rulers, the two most often referenced are Xerxes, the leader of the Persian invasion of Greece which caused the heroic sacrifice of the Spartans and their allies at Thermopylae, or Cyrus the Great, the man who created the empire. While he was one of the most influential men in the ancient world, research on Cyrus the Great is simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. The Persians’ ancestors did not write (in fact, in their epic poems and myths, they claim that it was something taught to man by demons and therefore something to be avoided), and though the Iranians had taken up writing in their governmental and administrative functions by the time Cyrus lived, the kings still did not learn to write. Put simply, it was considered a functional skill, but not of the greatest importance. As a result, while plenty of ancient sources mention the great Persian king, Persian sources themselves are rare, and those sources that do exist, such as the Babylonian Chronicle, are largely dry and state only the basic facts and large events.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Johnston (Narrator)

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Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Life and Legacy of America’s Most Influential Naval Strategist

Alfred Thayer Mahan is arguably the most influential military strategist in American history, and one of the world’s most important naval theorists. His work has been nearly as influential as the famous German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), and the lesser-known but nearly as influential Swiss military writer Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779-1869). Alfred decided to go to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, which he was admitted to via the influence of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. He graduated in 1859 and started a career lasting almost 40 years. He served aboard a wide variety of ships, from a powerful frigate under sail to a variety of steam sloops, corvettes, and gunboats, many of which were side wheelers and all of which had auxiliary sails. He started as a Midshipman and worked his way up the naval ranks to Captain and Commander. He also had several independent commands. He was stationed off the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico during the Union blockade of the Confederacy. He was on a sidewheeler tasked with keeping an eye on the French in Mexico, where Napoleon II had installed a Hapsburg archduke as emperor. He spent more than two years on station in the Far East, spent a couple of years with the South Atlantic Squadron based in Montevideo in Uruguay, and then a year off the west coast of South America, in a ship observing events during the War of the Pacific. After a lengthy naval career, Mahan had assignments at the Naval Academy and the Brooklyn Naval Yard. He was invited to lecture at the Naval War College, and it was there that he collected together his notes and wrote a book, The Influence of Naval Power upon History, which somehow became an international bestseller in 1890. His book resulted in an invitation to dine with the Queen in Britain. It was translated into German and the Kaiser ordered a copy be placed on every German warship and in every school.

Charles River Editors (Author), Roger Wood (Narrator)

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Admiral Chester W. Nimitz: The Life and Legacy of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's Commander in Chief during

“It is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy so that it is not fought on U.S. soil.” – Admiral Nimitz All Americans are familiar with the “day that will live in infamy.” At 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, the advanced base of the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet, was ablaze. It had been smashed by aircraft launched by the carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. All eight battleships had been sunk or badly damaged, 350 aircraft had been knocked out, and over 2,000 Americans lay dead. Indelible images of the USS Arizona exploding and the USS Oklahoma capsizing and floating upside down have been ingrained in the American conscience ever since. In less than an hour and a half the Japanese had almost wiped out America’s entire naval presence in the Pacific. Despite fighting in North Africa and the Atlantic, the United States still had the resources and manpower to fight the Japanese in the Pacific. Though the Japanese had crippled the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, its distance from Japan made an invasion of Pearl Harbor impossible, and Japan had not severely damaged important infrastructure. Thus, the United States was able to quickly rebuild a fleet, still stationed at Pearl Harbor right in the heart of the Pacific. This forward location allowed the United States to immediately push deeply into the Pacific theater. The Americans would eventually push the Japanese back across the Pacific, and one of the most instrumental leaders in the effort was Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who commanded the U.S. Pacific Fleet and helped coordinate joint operations with the legendary General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area. The ensuing strategies would lead to decisive operations at places like Midway, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and others before the use of the atomic bombs compelled Japan’s surrender in August 1945.

Charles River Editors (Author), Gregory T. Luzitano (Narrator)

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Admiral David Farragut: The Life and Legacy of the American Civil War's Most Famous Naval Officer

Americans have long been fascinated by the Civil War, marveling at the size of the battles, the leadership of the generals, and the courage of the soldiers. Since the war's start over 150 years ago, the battles have been subjected to endless debate among historians and the generals themselves. The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history, and had the two sides realized it would take 4 years and inflict over a million casualties, it might not have been fought. Since it did, however, historians and history buffs alike have been studying and analyzing the biggest battles ever since. After the first year of the Civil War, the Confederacy was faced with a serious problem. While the South had enjoyed some stunning victories on land, they had been all but cut off from the world at sea. The more industrialized North had realized that in case of an extended war, the best way to defeat the Confederacy was to starve it of supplies. The rebels started the war with no real navy to speak of, and so the federal government quickly set up a blockade of all Southern ports and river mouths. By depriving the South of revenues derived from its main export, cotton, the North seriously injured the Southern economy. Meanwhile, the North managed to have spectacular success jointly coordinating operations between the Army and Navy, thanks in large measure to the leadership of officers like David Farragut. While generals like Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman received the lion's share of the credit for Union victories, especially in the Western Theater, naval forces were instrumental in the capture of New Orleans and Vicksburg, as well as at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, and Farragut was immediately recognized for his service. Congress made him the nation's first Rear Admiral in history in 1862, and Farragut would also go on to become the first man in the history of the U.S. Navy to attain the rank of Admiral.

Charles River Editors (Author), Gregory T. Luzitano (Narrator)

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Admiral George Dewey: The Life and Legacy of the Most Decorated Naval Officer in American History

"Didn't Admiral Dewey do wonderfully well? I got him the position out there in Asia last year, and I had to beg hard to do it; and the reason I gave was that we might have to send him to Manila. And we sent him - and he went!" - Theodore Roosevelt, 1898 In 1898, one of Spain's last possessions in the New World, Cuba, was waging a war for independence, and though Cuba was technically exempted from the Monroe Doctrine because it was already a Spanish territory when the Monroe Doctrine was issued, many Americans believed that the United States should side with Cuba against Spain. Initially, Republican President William McKinley wanted to avoid any wars, and for its part, Spain also wanted to avoid any conflict with United States and its powerful navy. However, Spain also wanted to keep Cuba, which it regarded as a province of Spain rather than a colony. Cuba was very important to the Spanish economy as well, as it produced valuable commodities such as sugar and also had a booming port at Havana. The Spanish-American War was famously labeled a "splendid little war." by John Hay, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt, and while it is often overlooked today due to its brief and one-sided nature, the conflict produced one of the most popular military heroes in American history. While many are familiar with Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, the naval exploits of George Dewey were seemingly nothing short of miraculous. A former veteran of various naval engagements in the Civil War, Dewey managed to find himself in charge of the Asiatic Squadron, and in its most famous battle at Manila Bay, Dewey scored a decisive victory that destroyed Spain's Pacific fleet and subdued Manila's shore batteries while suffering just one American death. Dewey's success in the war led to ticker tape parades upon his return to America, and he was so popular that he briefly ran for president in 1900.

Charles River Editors (Author), Gregory T. Luzitano (Narrator)

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