History

Opening Strategy

by Richard Whittington; read by Matthew Lloyd Davies

Opening Strategy recounts the origins and development of Strategy as a profession from the middle of the last century to the present day. Learn More

Operation Underworld

by Matthew Black; read by Jonathan Todd Ross

The never-before-told true story of how mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano—the US Mafia boss who put the "organized" into organized crime—was recruited by US Naval Intelligence to turn the tide of WWII. Learn More

Orchid Muse

by Erica Hannickel; read by Nicol Zanzarella

A kaleidoscopic journey into the world of nature’s most tantalizing flower, and the lives it has inspired. Learn More

Origin Story

by Howard Markel; read by Mike Cooper

NEW! Now Available

A lively account of how Darwin's work on natural selection transformed science and society, and an investigation into the mysterious illness that plagued its author. Learn More

The Origins of Elected Strongmen

by Erica Frantz, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, and Joseph Wright; read by Suzie Althens

F O R T H C O M I N G ! Available January

Since the end of World War II, democracies typically fell apart by coup d'état or through force. Today, however, they are increasingly eroding at the hands of democratically elected incumbents, who seize control by slowly chipping away at democratic institutions. To better understand these developments, this book examines the role of personalist political parties, or parties that exist primarily to further their leader's career as opposed to promote a specific policy platform. Learn More

The Other Paris

Luc Sante; read by the author

Paris, the City of Light. The city of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, of soft cheese and fresh baguettes. Or so tourist brochures would have you believe. In The Other Paris: The People's City, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Luc Sante reveals the city's hidden past, its seamy underside, one populated by working and criminal classes that, though virtually extinct today, have shaped Paris over the past two centuries. Learn More

The Other Side of Prospect

by Nicholas Dawidoff; read by Diontae Black

A landmark work of intimate reporting on inequality, race, class, and violence, told through a murder and intersecting lives in an iconic American neighborhood. Learn More

Our Man in Charleston

Christopher Dickey; read by Antony Ferguson

As tension over slavery and western expansion threatened to break the US into civil war, the Southern states found themselves squeezed between two nearly irreconcilable realities: the survival of the Confederate economy would require the importation of more slaves, a practice banned in America since 1807, but the existence of the Confederacy itself could not be secured without official recognition from Great Britain, who would never countenance reopening the Atlantic slave trade. How, then, could the first be achieved without dooming the possibility of the second? Learn More

Our Own Worst Enemy

by Tom Nichols; read by Tom Nichols

A contrarian yet highly engaging account of the spread of illiberal and anti-democratic sentiment throughout our culture that places responsibility on the citizens themselves. Learn More

Out of One, Many

by Jennifer T. Roberts; read by Petrea Burchard

NEW! Now Available

A sweeping new account of ancient Greek culture and its remarkable diversity. Learn More

Out of the Shadows

by Emily Midorikawa; read by Rachael Beresford

Queen Victoria's reign was an era of breathtaking social change, but it did little to create a platform for women to express themselves. But not so within the social sphere of the séance—a mysterious, lamp-lit world on both sides of the Atlantic, in which women who craved a public voice could hold their own. Learn More

Out of the Shadows

by Emily Midorikawa

Queen Victoria's reign was an era of breathtaking social change, but it did little to create a platform for women to express themselves. But not so within the social sphere of the séance—a mysterious, lamp-lit world on both sides of the Atlantic, in which women who craved a public voice could hold their own. Learn More

Out of the Shadows

by Walt Odets; read by Will Damron

A moving exploration of how gay men construct their identities, fight to be themselves, and live authentically. Learn More

Outsourcing Duty

by Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser; read by Rudy Sanda

Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way. Learn More