Experience our world: as it was, as it is, as it might become with these audiobooks about history, the arts, culture, education, and politics. Don't miss Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, or Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Writers, or Gwen Ifill's The Breakthrough.
An incisive biography of E. E. Cummings's early life, including his World War I ambulance service and subsequent imprisonment, inspirations for his inventive poetry. Learn More
A captivating feat of historical fiction set during the 1880s clash between the prohibitionists and the three most powerful brewers in Iowa City—known as "The Beer Mafia." Learn More
A fascinating and in-depth exploration of how the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon shaped Beethoven's political ideals and inspired his groundbreaking compositions. Learn More
Structured around twenty questions you need to ask to help prevent, prepare, and cope, this book is a friendly, authoritative guide for anyone facing dementia and those who care for them. Exploring why disease is a social construct just as much as a biological construct, it helps us understand what it means to live with or care for someone with dementia. Learn More
A prize-winning scholar draws on astonishing new research to demonstrate how Black people used the law to their advantage long before the Civil Rights Movement. Learn More
A compelling insider's account by the trusted adviser and confidante to America's presidential giants and political legends as he draws the curtains back on his most private moments with Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon during revolutionary changes in our economy, politics, communications, foreign policy, and culture. Learn More
In Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective, the author discusses why some philosophers think that evil is a myth or a fantasy, while others think that evil is real. Along the way he asks whether evil is always horrific and incomprehensible, or if it can be banal. The book also engages with ongoing discussions over psychopathy and empathy, analyzing the psychology behind evildoing. Learn More
by Phillip Margulies; read by Elizabeth Wiley & Graham Rowat
Told with unflagging wit and verve, Belle Cora brings to life a turbulent era and an untamed America on the cusp of greatness. Its heroine is a woman in conflict with her time, who nevertheless epitomizes it with her fighting spirit, her gift for self-invention, and her determination to chart her own fate. Learn More
In Belonging, Stanford University professor Geoffrey L. Cohen applies his and others' groundbreaking research to the myriad problems of communal existence and offers concrete solutions for improving daily life. Learn More
Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant follows Franklin's remarkable career through the lens of the trends and innovations that the Protestant Reformation started (both directly and indirectly) almost two centuries earlier. Learn More
Some of America's foremost historians—including Bruce Catton, David McCullough, James McPherson and Stephen Sears—tell extraordinary stories of courage, disaster, and triumph in this collection of the best articles from sixty years of American Heritage. Learn More
Better Days Will Come Again, based on groundbreaking research and including unprecedented access to Arthur Briggs's oral memoir, is a crucial document of jazz history, a fast-paced epic, and an entirely original tale of survival. Learn More
The idea of American musical theatre often conjures up images of bright lights and big city, but its lifeblood is found in amateur productions at high schools, community theatres, afterschool programs, summer camps, and dinner theatres. In Beyond Broadway, author Stacy Wolf looks at the widespread presence and persistence of musical theatre in US culture. Learn More
by Governor George Pataki with Trey Radel; read by Trey Radel
An unprecedented, insider view into 9/11 and the inner workings of the political climate that emerged after the attacks, which continues to shape our future—politically and culturally—and how we as a country can bridge the Great Divide. Learn More
Bibliophobia is a book about material books, how they are cared for, and how they are damaged, throughout the 5000-year history of writing from Sumeria to the smartphone. Learn More