Top History Audiobooks

Operation Ajax is the gripping, unsettling true story of one of the Cold War’s most influential covert missions—the 1953 coup that removed Iran’s elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, and restored the Shah to power.

Operation Ivy Bells required specially modified submarines, crews trained to operate in extreme secrecy, and divers willing to descend into near-total darkness to perform delicate technical work on the ocean floor.

The Cold War is often remembered as a contest of missiles, rhetoric, and nuclear brinkmanship. But beneath the headlines, another kind of power quietly held Europe together. It wasn’t glamorous.

In Operation Condor, Miles Dunsford uncovers how this transnational machine functioned, from target lists and surveillance networks to renditions, black sites, and the deliberate use of disappearance as a tool of control.

An indispensable guide to understanding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and how we might yet still find a way out of it. "Ilan Pappe is the most original, radical and hard-hitting of Israel's 'new historians.'" -Avi Shlaim, author of Three Worlds The devastation of 7 October 2023 and the horrors...

The Convenient Terrorist is the definitive inside account of the capture, torture, and detention of Abu Zubaydah, the first “high-value target” captured by the CIA after 9/11....

A bold and entertaining exploration of the epic struggles of yesterday and today. Blackshirts and Reds explores some of the big issues of our time: fascism, capitalism, communism, revolution, democracy, and ecology. These terms are often bandied about but seldom explored in the original and...

From the moment Peter Mayle and his wife, Jennie, uprooted their lives in England and crossed the Channel permanently, they never looked back. Here the beloved author of A Year in Provence pays tribute to the most endearing and enduring aspects of his life in France—the charming and indelible...

In 1954, a small Central American nation became the testing ground for a new kind of power. Guatemala was not invaded by armies in the traditional sense. There was no formal declaration of war, no clear front line, no obvious foreign takeover.

Bloomsbury presents The Life and Death of Richard III by Anthony Cheetham, read by Jonathan Oliver and Dan Jones. With a new introduction and concluding chapter from bestselling medieval author Dan Jones. Richard III is one of the most mysterious figures in English history, and as such is the...

Imagine you were transported back in time to Medieval England and had to start a new life there. Without mobile phones, iPads, internet, and social media networks, when transport means walking or, if you're fortunate, horseback, how will you know where you are or what to do? Where will you live?...

How much should you pay for a return trip to the moon? How are Winnie the Pooh and the artificial heart related? Did teenagers exist before 1950? If not, who invented them? James May's 20th Century answers all these questions and more. In this exclusive download released to tie-in with the BBC...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu is much more than an ancient treatise on military strategy: it is a timeless guide on how to face challenges, make wise decisions, and win intelligently.

A literally world-changing book, Darwin put forward the anti-religious and scientific idea that humans in fact evolved over millions of generations from animals....

Wolfgang Faust was the driver of a Tiger I tank with the Wehrmacht Heavy Panzer Battalions, seeing extensive combat action on the Eastern Front in 1943-45....

Brought to you by Penguin. How can we create a better future – one that truly prioritises health and happiness? For too long, economic thinkers have left out acts of care - written off as 'women's work' for centuries - from their calculations. The result? Terrible real-world consequences today...

Lawrence Durrell's evocative memoir of living in Cyprus, just before the Greek/Turkish partition....

From the author of Make Your Bed, The Hero Code and The Wisdom of the Bullfrog, comes an uplifting selection of speeches, letters, toasts and poems that capture the essence of who we are as Americans. Admiral McRaven's name has become synonymous with indelible advice for changing your life...

Israel's genocide in Palestine and the complicity of powerful Western states is undermining international human rights and the UN system. The United States has imposed sanctions on lawyers, UN experts, and Palestinian officials in an attempt to bully and intimidate them into silence. One...

In 1909, a thin, pale young man stood on a street corner in Vienna selling painted postcards to tourists. He couldn't hold down a job. He couldn't maintain a friendship. He was sleeping in a homeless shelter and arguing with drifters about politics nobody cared about.