A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins
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Narrated by:
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Piers Hampton
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By:
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Gareth Harney
About this listen
Hold the glory—and infamy—of ancient Rome in the palm of your hand in this extraordinary and accessible story of history’s greatest superpower, as told through humanity’s most universal object: the coin.
When Gareth Harney was first handed a Roman coin by his father as a child, he became entranced by its beauty, and its unique ability to connect us with the distant past. He soon learned that the Romans saw coins as far more than just currency—these were metal canvases on which they immortalized their sacred gods, mighty emperors, towering monuments, and brutal battles of conquest. Revealed in those intricate designs struck in gold, silver, and bronze was the epic story of the Roman Empire.
Now, with his “novel and highly readable” (Philip Matyszak, author of The Blood-Red Sunset) voice and engaging research, Harney traces ancient Rome’s rise, from a few huts on an Italian hilltop to an all-conquering empire spanning three continents, through the fascinating lives of twelve remarkable coins. A unique and enthralling work of history for experts and casual history buffs.
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Story
A 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer exhaustively examines his family’s legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience, in this riveting memoir. I Am Nobody’s Slave tells the story of one Black family's pursuit of the American Dream through the impacts of systemic racism and racial violence. This book examines how trauma from enslavement and Jim Crow shaped their outlook on thriving in America, influenced each generation, and how they succeeded despite these challenges.
By: Lee Hawkins
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Dark Brilliance
- The Age of Reason: From Descartes to Peter the Great
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
During the 1600s—between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment—Europe lived through an era known as The Age of Reason. By exploring all the key events and bringing to life some of the most influential characters of the era—including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Louis XIV, and Charles I—acclaimed historian Paul Strathern tells the vivid story of this paradoxical age, while also exploring the painful cost of creating the progress and modernity upon which the Western world was built.
By: Paul Strathern
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Blood and the Badge
- The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation
- By: Michael Cannell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
No episode in NYPD history surpasses the depravities of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two decorated detectives who covertly acted as mafia informants and paid assassins in the Scorsese world of 1980s Brooklyn. For more than ten years, Eppolito and Caracappa moonlighted as the mob's early warning alert system, leaking names of mobsters secretly cooperating with the government and crippling investigations by sharing details of surveillance, phone taps, and impending arrests. The Lucchese boss called the two detectives his crystal ball: Whatever detectives knew, the mafia soon learned.
By: Michael Cannell
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The Waiting Game
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens
- By: Nicola Clark
- Narrated by: Nicola Clark, Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Every Tudor Queen had ladies-in-waiting. They were her confidantes and her chaperones. Only the Queen's ladies had the right to enter her most private chambers, spending hours helping her to get dressed and undressed, caring for her clothes and jewels, listening to her secrets. But they also held a unique power. A quiet word behind the scenes, an appropriately timed gift, a well-negotiated marriage alliance were all forms of political agency wielded expertly by women.
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One of the best!
- By Patt LaPierre on 01-13-25
By: Nicola Clark
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Habsburgs on the Rio Grande
- The Rise and Fall of the Second Mexican Empire
- By: Raymond Jonas
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Based on research in five languages and in archives across the globe, Habsburgs on the Rio Grande fundamentally revises narratives of global history. Far more than a footnote, the Second Mexican Empire was at the center of world-historic great-power struggles—a point of inflection in a contest for supremacy that set the terms of twentieth-century rivalry.
By: Raymond Jonas
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New Prize for These Eyes
- The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement
- By: Juan Williams
- Narrated by: Juan Williams
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
More than a century of civil rights activism reached a mountaintop with the arrival of a Black man in the Oval Office. But hopes for a unified, post-racial America were deflated when Barack Obama’s presidency met with furious opposition. A white right-wing backlash was brewing, and a volcanic new movement—a second civil rights movement—began to erupt. In New Prize for These Eyes, award-winning author Juan Williams shines a light on this historic, new movement. Who are its heroes? Where is it headed? What fires, furies, and frustrations distinguish it from its predecessor?
By: Juan Williams
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I Am Nobody's Slave
- How Uncovering My Family's History Set Me Free
- By: Lee Hawkins
- Narrated by: Lee Hawkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer exhaustively examines his family’s legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience, in this riveting memoir. I Am Nobody’s Slave tells the story of one Black family's pursuit of the American Dream through the impacts of systemic racism and racial violence. This book examines how trauma from enslavement and Jim Crow shaped their outlook on thriving in America, influenced each generation, and how they succeeded despite these challenges.
By: Lee Hawkins
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Dark Brilliance
- The Age of Reason: From Descartes to Peter the Great
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the 1600s—between the end of the Renaissance and the start of the Enlightenment—Europe lived through an era known as The Age of Reason. By exploring all the key events and bringing to life some of the most influential characters of the era—including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Louis XIV, and Charles I—acclaimed historian Paul Strathern tells the vivid story of this paradoxical age, while also exploring the painful cost of creating the progress and modernity upon which the Western world was built.
By: Paul Strathern
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Blood and the Badge
- The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation
- By: Michael Cannell
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No episode in NYPD history surpasses the depravities of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two decorated detectives who covertly acted as mafia informants and paid assassins in the Scorsese world of 1980s Brooklyn. For more than ten years, Eppolito and Caracappa moonlighted as the mob's early warning alert system, leaking names of mobsters secretly cooperating with the government and crippling investigations by sharing details of surveillance, phone taps, and impending arrests. The Lucchese boss called the two detectives his crystal ball: Whatever detectives knew, the mafia soon learned.
By: Michael Cannell
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The Waiting Game
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens
- By: Nicola Clark
- Narrated by: Nicola Clark, Karen Cass
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every Tudor Queen had ladies-in-waiting. They were her confidantes and her chaperones. Only the Queen's ladies had the right to enter her most private chambers, spending hours helping her to get dressed and undressed, caring for her clothes and jewels, listening to her secrets. But they also held a unique power. A quiet word behind the scenes, an appropriately timed gift, a well-negotiated marriage alliance were all forms of political agency wielded expertly by women.
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One of the best!
- By Patt LaPierre on 01-13-25
By: Nicola Clark
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American Oasis
- Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest
- By: Kyle Paoletta
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
An expansive and revelatory historical exploration of the multicultural, water-seeking, land-destroying settlers of the most arid corner of North America, arguing that in order to know where the United States is going in the era of mass migration and climate crisis we must understand where the Southwest has already been.
By: Kyle Paoletta
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Embers of the Hands
- Hidden Histories of the Viking Age
- By: Eleanor Barraclough
- Narrated by: Eleanor Barraclough
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In imagining a Viking, a certain image springs to mind: a barbaric warrior, leaping ashore from a longboat, and ready to terrorize the hapless local population of a northern European town. Yet while such characters define our imagination of the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. Instead, in the time-stopping soils, water, and ice of the North, Eleanor Barraclough excavates a preserved lost world, one that reimagines a misunderstood society.
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A gorgeously written history
- By RLF on 01-15-25
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Ghosts of a Holy War
- The 1929 Massacre in Palestine That Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict
- By: Yardena Schwartz
- Narrated by: Sharon Freedman
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Noted journalist Yardena Schwartz draws on her extensive research and wide-ranging interviews with both sides to tell a timely, eye-opening story. She expertly weaves the war between Israel and Hamas into a historical framework, demonstrating how the conflict today cannot be understood without the context of ground zero of this century-old war, which began long before the occupation, the settlements, or the state of Israel ever existed.
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Great overview of the legacy of the Hebron Massacre and its ongoing relevance and impact.
- By klari goldman on 01-20-25
By: Yardena Schwartz
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Save Our Souls
- The True Story of a Castaway Family, Treachery, and Murder
- By: Matthew Pearl
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On December 10, 1887, a shark fishing boat disappeared. On board the doomed vessel were the Walkers—the ship’s captain Frederick, his wife Elizabeth, their three teenage sons, and their dog—along with the ship’s crew. The family had spotted a promising fishing location when a terrible storm arose, splitting their vessel in two and leaving those onboard adrift on the perilous sea. When the castaways awoke the next morning, they discovered they had been washed ashore—on an island inhabited by a large but ragged and emaciated man who introduced himself as Hans.
By: Matthew Pearl
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Ocean
- A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus
- By: John Haywood
- Narrated by: Ben Eagle
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A dazzling and ambitious history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic seas, Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World.
By: John Haywood
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An African History of Africa
- From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence
- By: Zeinab Badawi
- Narrated by: Zeinab Badawi
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For too long, Africa’s history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight. In this fascinating book, Badawi guides us through Africa’s spectacular history—from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilizations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence.
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Passionate Storytelling
- By Zule on 01-16-25
By: Zeinab Badawi
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On Xi Jinping
- How Xi's Marxist Nationalism Is Shaping China and the World
- By: Kevin Rudd
- Narrated by: Kevin Rudd
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In On Xi Jinping, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd provides an authoritative account of the ideological worldview driving Chinese behaviour both domestically and on the world stage—that of President Xi Jinping, who now holds near-total control over the Chinese Communist Party and is now, in effect, president-for-life. Rudd argues that Xi’s worldview differs significantly from those of the leaders who preceded him, and that this ideological shift is reflected in the real world of Chinese policy and behaviour.
By: Kevin Rudd
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Realm of Ice and Sky
- Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue
- By: Buddy Levy
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.
By: Buddy Levy
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Oathbreakers
- The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe
- By: Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
By the early ninth century, the Carolingian empire was at the height of its power. The Franks, led by Charlemagne, had built the largest European domain since Rome in its heyday. Though they jockeyed for power, prestige, and profit, the Frankish elites enjoyed political and cultural consensus. But just two generations later, their world was in shambles. Civil war, once an unthinkable threat, had erupted after Louis the Pious’s sons tried to overthrow him—and then placed their knives at the other’s neck. Families who had once charged into battle together now drew each other’s blood.
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Fascinating history
- By Adrian Milik on 01-19-25
By: Matthew Gabriele, and others
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Land Between the Rivers
- A 5,000-Year History of Iraq
- By: Bartle Bull
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 22 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bull chronicles the story of Iraq from the exploits of Gilgamesh to the fall of the Iraqi monarchy that ushered in its modern era. The land between the rivers has been the melting pot and battleground of countless outsiders. Here, Judaism was born and the Sunni-Shia schism took its bloody shape.
By: Bartle Bull
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Wiseguys and the White House
- Gangsters, Presidents, and the Deals They Made
- By: Eric Dezenhall
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Gangsters and presidents have long captured the American imagination, but how much does the underworld actually affect presidential power? How deep are their “connections”? As Eric Dezenhall reveals in this eye-opening history, in some instances, one couldn’t have functioned without the other. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Richard Nixon to Joseph R. Biden, the mob has done presidential dirty work, including attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, harass America’s enemies, and put our chief executives in office.
By: Eric Dezenhall
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Emperor of the Seas
- Kublai Khan and the Making of China
- By: Jack Weatherford
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea? Based on ten years of research and a lifetime of immersion in Mongol culture and tradition, Emperor of the Seas brings this little-known story vibrantly to life.
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Awesome
- By Rubin on 12-30-24
By: Jack Weatherford