Military Audiobooks | History

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

"From the Washington Post's two-time Pulitzer-winning senior Pentagon reporter, the definitive military chronicle of the Iraq War-and a searing judgment of its gross strategic blindness-drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time. Unabridged CDs - 20 CDs, 24 hours"

Thomas E. Ricks (Author), James Lurie (Narrator)

Audiobook

The War of the World

"The abridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Niall Ferguson's comprehensive The War of the World, read by Sean Barrett. The world at the beginning of the 20th century seemed for most of its inhabitants stable and relatively benign. Globalizing, booming economies married to technological breakthroughs seemed to promise a better world for most people. Instead, the 20th century proved to be overwhelmingly the most violent, frightening and brutalized in history with fanatical, often genocidal warfare engulfing most societies between the outbreak of the First World War and the end of the Cold War. What went wrong? How did we do this to ourselves? The War of the World comes up with compelling, fascinating answers. It is Niall Ferguson's masterpiece."

Niall Ferguson (Author), Sean Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

Simple Courage: The True Story of Peril on the Sea

"“HEAVEN HELP THE SAILOR ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS.” –old folk prayer In late December 1951, laden with passengers and nearly forty metric tons of cargo, the freighter S.S. Flying Enterprise steamed westward from Europe toward America. A few days into the voyage, she hit the eye of a ferocious storm. Force 12 winds tossed men about like playthings and turned drops of freezing Atlantic foam into icy missiles. When, in the space of twenty-eight hours, the ship was slammed by two rogue waves–solid walls of water more than sixty feet high–the impacts cracked the decks and hull almost down to the waterline, threw the vessel over on her side, and thrust all on board into terror. Flying Enterprise’s captain, Kurt Carlsen, a seaman of rare ability and valor, mustered all hands to patch the cracks and then try to right the ship. When these efforts came to naught, he helped transfer, across waves forty feet high, the passengers and the entire crew to lifeboats sent from nearby ships. Then, for reasons both professional and intensely personal, and to the amazement of the world, Carlsen defied all requests and entreaties to abandon ship. Instead, for the next two weeks, he fought to bring Flying Enterprise and her cargo to port. His heroic endeavor became the world’s biggest news. In a narrative as dramatic as the ocean’s fury, acclaimed bestselling author Frank Delaney tells, for the first time, the full story of this unmatched bravery and endurance at sea. We meet the devoted family whose well-being and safety impelled Carlsen to stay with his ship. And we read of Flying Enterprise’s buccaneering owner, the fearless and unorthodox Hans Isbrandtsen, who played a crucial role in Kurt Carlsen’s fate. Drawing on historical documents and contemporary accounts and on exclusive interviews with Carlsen’s family, Delaney opens a window into the world of the merchant marine. With deep affection–and respect–for the weather and all that goes with it, he places us in the heart of the storm, a “biblical tempest” of unimaginable power. He illuminates the bravery and ingenuity of Carlsen and the extraordinary courage that the thirty-seven-year-old captain inspired in his stalwart crew. This is a gripping, absorbing narrative that highlights one man’s outstanding fortitude and heroic sense of duty. “One of the great sea stories of the twentieth century… [a] surefire nautical crowd-pleaser.” --Booklist é (starred review) “Frank Delaney has written a completely absorbing, thrilling and inspirational account of a disaster at sea that occasioned heroism of the first order. In the hands of a gifted storyteller, the ‘simple courage’ of the ship’s captain and the young radio man who risked their lives to bring a mortally wounded ship to port reveals the essence and power of all true courage– a stubborn devotion to the things we love.” –Senator John McCain"

Frank Delaney (Author), Frank Delaney (Narrator)

Audiobook

My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope

"'Baghdad was Burning' With these words, Ambassador L. Paul 'Jerry' Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us form the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir takes us behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush, and we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council - George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice - as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. My Year in Iraq is required listening for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis."

L. Paul Bremer (Author), Boyd Gaines (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom

"The film The Way Back, starring Colin Farrell and Ed Harris, is based on this amazing true story. Twenty-six-year-old cavalry officer Slavomir Rawicz was captured by the Red Army in 1939 during the German-Soviet partition of Poland and sent to the Siberian Gulag. In the spring of 1941, he escaped with six of his fellow prisoners, including one American. Thus began their astonishing trek to freedom. With no map or compass but only an ax head, a homemade knife, and a week’s supply of food, the compatriots spent a year making their way on foot to British India, through four thousand miles of the most forbidding terrain on earth. They braved the Himalayas, the desolate Siberian tundra, icy rivers, and the great Gobi Desert, always a hair’s breadth from death. Finally returning home, Rawicz reenlisted in the Polish army to fight the Germans. This is his story."

Slavomir Rawicz (Author), John Lee (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Great Raid: Rescuing the Doomed Ghosts of Bataan and Corregidor

"Before General Douglas MacArthur could fulfill his stirring promise of "I shall return" and retake the Philippines from Japanese control, a remarkable rescue mission would have to take place. Captured American soldiers had been held at the notorious Cabanatuan prison camp for more than thirty-three months. Emaciated and ill from brutal mistreatment, a mere 511 POWs remained from the 25,000-strong fighting force that MacArthur had been ordered to abandon on February 23, 1942. On the morning of January 28, 1945, a small band of Army Rangers set out on an audacious and daring rescue effort to penetrate thirty miles into Japanese controlled territory, storm the camp, and escape with the POWs, carrying them if necessary. The Great Raid is a thrilling true-life adventure story and an inspiring testament to American heroism and grit."

William B. Breuer (Author), Patrick Lawlor (Narrator)

Audiobook

Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign that Decided the Civil War

"In 1862, Ulysses S. Grant achieved what President Lincoln had sought since the start of the war: the first decisive Union victory. Fought on the western edge of the theater, the Forts Henry and Donelson campaign was a gruesome omen of what was to come. Grant, until then an obscure brigadier general with a reputation for drink, became the fighting man of the hour, earning the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant for his relentless pounding of the Confederates. But he had a match in ruthlessness in Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest, cavalry commander in the Henry and Donelson campaign, proved a counterweight to Grant: quick and nimble to the former's steady plodding, a ruthless slaveholder and future KKK Grand Wizard to Grant's abolitionism. Hurst captures the battle of these two great men and armies in all its destructive glory."

Jack Hurst (Author), Tom Weiner (Narrator)

Audiobook

House to House: An Epic Memoir of War

"This is the personal side of battle, where emotion, courage, and strength are stretched to the limits. Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, House to House is far more than just another war story-it is one of the most compelling combat narratives ever written. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of characters, it develops the intensely close relationships that form between soldiers under fire. Their friendships, tested in brutal combat, would never be quite the same. What happened to them in their bloody embrace with America's most implacable enemy is a harrowing, unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, and the resiliency of the human spirit. Staff Sergeant David Bellavia, army infantry platoon leader, gives a teeth-rattling, first-hand account of eleven straight days of heavy house-to-house fighting during the climactic second battle of Fallujah. His actions in the firefight, which included killing five insurgents in hand-to-hand combat, earned Bellavia the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, and New York state's highest military honor, the Conspicuous Service Cross. He has been nominated for the Medal of Honor and for the army's second highest combat medal, the Distinguished Service Cross."

David Bellavia (Author), Ray Porter (Narrator)

Audiobook

The History of the Peloponnesian War

"Thucydides' classic chronicle of the war between Athens and Sparta from 431 to 404 BCE persists as one of the most brilliant histories of all time. As one who actually participated in the conflict, Thucydides recognized the effect it would have on the history of Greece above all other wars. With a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth and romance, he compiled an exhaustively factual record of the disaster that eventually ended the Athenian empire. Conflicts between Athens and Sparta over shipping, trade, and colonial expansion came to a head in 431 BCE, when the entire Greek world was plunged into twenty-seven years of war. This watershed event concerns not only military prowess but also perennial conflicts between might and right, imperial powers and subject peoples. Extraordinary writing, scrupulous methods, and keen political insight make this account a joy to read."

Thucydides (Author), Pat Bottino (Narrator)

Audiobook

Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam

"The Civil War battle waged on September 17, 1862, at Antietam Creek, Maryland, was one of the bloodiest in the nation’s history. On this single day, the battle claimed nearly twenty-three thousand casualties. In Landscape Turned Red, the renowned historian Stephen Sears draws on a remarkable cache of diaries, dispatches, and letters to recreate the vivid drama of Antietam as experienced not only by its leaders but also by its soldiers, both Union and Confederate. Combining brilliant military analysis with narrative history of enormous power, Landscape Turned Red is the definitive work on this climactic and bitter struggle."

Stephen W. Sears (Author), Barrett Whitener (Narrator)

Audiobook

In Time of War: Hitler’s Terrorist Attack on America

"It's a true story that reads like gripping fiction: in 1942, eight German terrorists landed by submarine on American shores on a sabotage mission devised by Hitler. When one of them, a hapless US citizen, betrayed the mission to the FBI, Roosevelt appointed a special military tribunal to authorize the death penalty omitting proper legal procedure. Army Colonel Kenneth Royall, a respected lawyer charged with defending the saboteurs, courageously fought the lost cause for the saboteurs' Constitutional rights. More than sixty years later, George W. Bush, in the wake of 9/11, cited Roosevelt's act as a precedent for indefinitely imprisoning US citizens and suspected "enemy combatants" without charge. O'Donnell illustrates the parallels between then and now, offering a cautionary tale of the danger of unchecked executive power in a time of crisis."

Pierce O’donnell (Author), Raymond Todd (Narrator)

Audiobook

11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944

"11 Days in December tells the dramatic story of one of the grimmest points of World War II and its Christmas Eve turn toward victory. In December 1944, the Allied forces thought their campaign for securing Europe was in its final stages. But Germany had one last great surprise attack still planned, leading to some of the most intense fighting in World War II: the Battle of the Bulge. After ten days of horrific weather conditions and warfare, General Patton famously asked God, 'Sir, whose side are you on?' For the next four days, as the skies cleared, the Allies could fly again, the Nazis were contained, and the outcome of the war was ensured. Renowned historian and author Stanley Weintraub tells the remarkable story of the Battle of the Bulge as it has never been told before, from frozen foxholes to barn shelters to boxcars packed with wretched prisoners of war. Heweaves together the stories of ordinary soldiers and their generals to recreate this dramatic, crucial narrative of a miraculous shift of luck in the midst of the most significant war of the modern era."

Stanley Weintraub (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

Audiobook

Military Audiobooks in History