New Reviews: History

This audiobook about the months before and weeks after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration is sensitively narrated by Golden Voice Arthur Morey. The author takes us through a series of events culminating in the attack on Fort Sumter, which began the Civil War. Documenting the multiple attempts to prevent the conflict from occurring, he focuses on the largely forgotten Washington... Read More

British accents such as the one Zeinab Badawi employs in her narration have told a lot of Africa's stories over the years. Here, Badawi puts her British accent toward recounting African history from the African point of view as she shares tales of long-ago kingdoms and struggles against colonial control. Her narration is punctuated by wonder at visits to places such as the... Read More

In an expressive voice, narrator Holter Graham recounts the long and complicated history of Latin America, beginning with the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Grandin examines the relationship between Europe and the Americas as Europe's power in the hemisphere declined and the United States emerged as the hegemonic power of the hemisphere. Grandin does not shy away from difficult... Read More

This audiobook takes a sideways look at the history of capitalism by profiling some of its critics from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to today's digital revolution. Some names and movements will be familiar, such as Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and the English Luddites. Many others are less widely known. Nathaniel Priestly narrates the work in a steady professional... Read More

Narrator Michael David Axtell excels in ease, clarity, and pacing, qualities essential to audiobooks that address the active mind, rather than the edge of the seat. In Poland in the 1980s, copies of Orwell's 1984 and other forbidden books circulated hand to hand, fueling a popular uprising that by decade's end had spread across Eastern Europe. American operatives fueled this... Read More

Machelle Williams delivers this sweeping, detailed history of Harriet Tubman's work with a consistent, engaging voice that doesn't waver. While Tubman's name is widely associated with the Underground Railroad, Fields-Black's Pulitzer Prize-winner provides a vivid account of Tubman as an embedded spy who collected information for the Union Army to attack the South's resources of... Read More

Narrator Timothy Andrés Pabon brings numerous essential skills to this richly detailed history of El Paso, Texas. Most important are his command of languages and accents, and a degree of conviction that supports the author's distinctly Southwestern and multicultural perspective. Parker, a respected journalist who, sadly, died the week this book was published, argues that El... Read More

Author and narrator are both at their best here. This second installment brings Atkinson's monumental history of the Revolutionary War to nearly 60 hours, with the conclusion still to come. It's an investment timely and richly rewarded. Grover Gardner isn't the most melodic of narrators, but he is steady, consistent, and subtly expressive, the very qualities needed for serious... Read More

Author/narrator William Dalrymple shares his fascination with the remarkable history of India's profound worldwide intellectual influence. His idiosyncratic and charming British speech and manner, along with his amiability and intelligence, are engaging throughout. His pacing and phrasing are natural, unaffected, and dictated by the material. He varies longish pauses--which... Read More

Narrator Julian Elfer has undertaken many daunting subjects: the pharmacist of Auschwitz, the Borgias, lost expeditions to the Greenland ice cap. Here, he faces down the challenge of a 300-year generational narrative in which all the principals are named either Ptolemy or Cleopatra. At the early death of Alexander, Ptolemy, his shrewdest commander, took the grandest prize:... Read More

Narrator Timothy Andrés Pabon, a gifted storyteller, is an excellent choice for this sweeping retrospective of the counterculture movement of the 1950s-1960s and what made it so influential. Pabon deftly manages long lists of names, deep scholarship, and stories of bohemian life. McNally's scholarship shines with Pabon's voice. Pabon shares what could have been dry research in... Read More

This powerful audiobook history of the closing months of the Civil War is fascinating and compelling. However, its narration by author Scott Ellsworth proves stiff, and several beats too slow. The listener will be riveted by Ellsworth's descriptions of the brutal battles that finally crushed Lee's army, Sherman's calculated ravaging of the Confederate heartland, and the... Read More

John Sackville's academic-sounding British accent does quite well in narrating this audiobook. A scholar of the national socialist period in Germany, Rees draws many parallels between how Hitler came to power and present-day politics in the West. However, while he decries the "us versus them" dichotomy--the propensity for humans to act in tribes--he seems to find it difficult... Read More

The topic of this audiobook--the evolution of language--requires a wide range of skills. Actor Emma Spurgin-Hussey's rich, expressive voice demonstrates the linguistic relationships and shifts. Her performance is adept in every syllable and accent. Why do so many of today's languages share a common Eurasian root? Linguists and archaeologists find answers in similarities and... Read More

Catherine Fletcher delivers her examination of ancient Roman roads, including their subsequent history and her current-day adventures discovering their traces. She narrates with energy, engagement, and amiability, and with the authenticity of recounting her own research and experiences. These characteristics help the listener move past her vocal quality, which is rather... Read More

Architects and mathematicians, in particular, will relish the intricacies of this fine audiobook history of the repairs to St. Peter's dome in Vatican City in the 1740s. But every listener will comprehend the historical shift in thinking that underlies the work. The basilica was designed by Michelangelo but finished after his death, and two centuries later was near collapse.... Read More

Jefferson Mays's no-nonsense delivery works well for this revisionist history of WWII. Chamberlain, a professor of history at Columbia, begins this detailed work with commentary on WWI, viewing it as "the child of colonialism and the father of superpower neo-imperialism." Mays's baritone is steady and clear and appropriate in expression throughout. He does well at pronouncing... Read More

Kate Udall narrates this updated audiobook, first released in 2005. The focus is the ensuing 20 years of the Women's National Basketball League's (WNBA) growth and challenges. Udall's assured tone and smooth pacing keep listeners anchored throughout this comprehensive must-listen history. Rich with detail, it delves into the nascent sport's initial development at 19th-century... Read More

This account of the international politics of the American Revolution is given a steady narration by Jason Keller. The author goes into the role of the French, as well as the Spanish and Dutch, in joining forces to support the American colonists against their common enemy, the British. He does not spare descriptions of the brutality of the war or the political machinations... Read More

Robin Miles narrates this important study of the Civil Rights movement, its effects on the Tennessee Highlander School in Topeka, Kansas, the significance of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and steps taken to desegregate schools, especially in the South. The author focuses on four activists--Septima Clark, Myles Horton, Esau Jenkins, and Bernice Johnson--and their roles in... Read More

As the U.S. entered WWII, a group of 25 women went to England to ferry aircraft for the RAF. Laurel Lefkow ably presents the story of 9 of these women. The women came from various backgrounds and areas of the U.S. and were every bit as hard-charging, thrill seeking, and wild as their male pilot compatriots. These spitfires (nice play on words) operated the widest range of... Read More