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.
Long before NASA began contemplating a visit to our neighboring world, a turn-of-the-century Mars craze invaded the public's imagination, here thrillingly retold in David Baron's The Martians. Learn More
In this gripping work, Benjamin Franklin is given a biography as rich and complex as his own intellectual life by master literary historian Kevin J. Hayes. Learn More
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time. In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives. Learn More
In this definitive biography of the most infamous female outlaw of the nineteenth century, bestselling historian Michael Wallis challenges a notorious legacy. Learn More
Mount Everest is known to everyone—but what of the person after whom it was named? This book traces the life and profession of that person, George Everest. Learn More
Have you ever wondered about the place-names that appear on Scotch whisky bottles? What language the names come from, what they mean, or if they are even real places? If you feel baffled about where to start looking for such information, then this reliable and informative book is for you. Learn More
A leading intellectual historian shows how free speech, once viewed as both hazardous and unnatural, was reinvented as an unalloyed good, with enormous consequences for our society today. Learn More
In this Oxford Guide to Film Musicals, author Hannah Lewis gives listeners fascinating new insights into the development, style, and reception of the 2016 film musical La La Land. Learn More
Spelunky is Boss Fight's first autobiographical book: the story of a game's creation as told by its creator. Using his own game as a vehicle, Derek Yu discusses such wide-ranging topics as randomization, challenge, indifferent game worlds, player feedback, development team dynamics, and what's required to actually finish a game. Learn More
From the bestselling author of Three Ordinary Girls, the gripping, remarkably little-known true story of how the people of Denmark banded together during WWII to rescue nearly all of their Jewish citizens from Nazi persecution by ferrying them just a few at a time to sanctuary in Sweden. Learn More
Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens believe this danger is unprecedented in our history. But Americans have weathered many constitutional crises, often accompanied by the same violence and chaos experienced on January 6. However, these crises occurred on the state level. In Sedition, Marcus Alexander Gadson uncovers these episodes of civil unrest and examines how state governments handled them. Learn More
by Ashley Jackson and Andrew Stewart; read by Michael Langan
F O R T H C O M I N G ! Available July
History tells us that the Second World War broke Britain as a great power, diminishing its military strength, ruining its economy, and precipitating a striking wave of decolonization. Nationalists and new superpowers dominated the post-war landscape, and the country was on the slide. But no one knew this in 1945—the leading politicians, the top civil servants, and the most knowledgeable experts, all expected the British Empire to remain intact long into the future. How do we account for the difference between what it was thought would happen and the actual course of events? Learn More