
Lower than the Angels
A History of Sex and Christianity
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $29.70
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Diarmaid MacCulloch
About this listen
"A magisterial new history"—The New York Times
"An epic tale, and MacCulloch is an undaunted guide.”—New York Review of Books
A groundbreaking history of sexual emotion, sexual activity, gender relations, marriage and the family—and how Christianity has interacted with this panorama of human concerns
Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion.
This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a three-thousand-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender, and the family. The message of Lower than the Angels is simple, necessary and timely: to pay attention to the complexity and contradictions in the history of Christianity. The listener can decide from the story told here whether there is a single Christian theology of sex, or many contending voices in a symphony that is not at all complete. Oxford’s Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church introduces an epic of ordinary and extraordinary Christians trying to make sense of themselves and of humanity’s deepest desires, fears and hopes.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2025 Diarmaid MacCulloch (P)2025 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Ancient Christianities
- The First Five Hundred Years
- By: Paula Fredriksen
- Narrated by: Rachel Perry
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.
-
-
Among the best
- By Jacob Kilgore on 04-17-25
By: Paula Fredriksen
-
The Loves of My Life
- A Sex Memoir
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Joel Froomkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written with White’s signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.
-
-
Does not compare favorably to White's other books
- By Reader X on 04-03-25
By: Edmund White
-
Girl on Girl
- How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
- By: Sophie Gilbert
- Narrated by: Sophie Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happened to feminism in the twenty-first century? This question feels increasingly urgent after a period of cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. Sophie Gilbert identifies an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the energy of third-wave and “riot grrrl” feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization.
By: Sophie Gilbert
-
Miracles and Wonder
- The Historical Mystery of Jesus
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
-
-
I had high hopes for this title
- By Christine on 04-02-25
By: Elaine Pagels
-
The Other Olympians
- Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports
- By: Michael Waters
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1935, Zdeněk Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era.
-
-
There are no easy answers....
- By Georgia Reviewer on 04-26-25
By: Michael Waters
-
Lawless Republic
- By: Josiah Osgood
- Narrated by: David Holt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system's capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
-
-
Entertaining and educational
- By N. Mammen on 02-25-25
By: Josiah Osgood
-
Ancient Christianities
- The First Five Hundred Years
- By: Paula Fredriksen
- Narrated by: Rachel Perry
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople.
-
-
Among the best
- By Jacob Kilgore on 04-17-25
By: Paula Fredriksen
-
The Loves of My Life
- A Sex Memoir
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Joel Froomkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written with White’s signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.
-
-
Does not compare favorably to White's other books
- By Reader X on 04-03-25
By: Edmund White
-
Girl on Girl
- How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves
- By: Sophie Gilbert
- Narrated by: Sophie Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What happened to feminism in the twenty-first century? This question feels increasingly urgent after a period of cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement’s power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. Sophie Gilbert identifies an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the energy of third-wave and “riot grrrl” feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization.
By: Sophie Gilbert
-
Miracles and Wonder
- The Historical Mystery of Jesus
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
-
-
I had high hopes for this title
- By Christine on 04-02-25
By: Elaine Pagels
-
The Other Olympians
- Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports
- By: Michael Waters
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1935, Zdeněk Koubek, one of the most famous sprinters in European women’s sports, declared he was now living as a man. Around the same time, the celebrated British field athlete Mark Weston, also assigned female at birth, announced that he, too, was a man. Periodicals and radio programs across the world carried the news; both became global celebrities. A few decades later, they were all but forgotten. In The Other Olympians, Michael Waters uncovers, for the first time, the gripping true stories of Koubek, Weston, and other pioneering trans and intersex athletes from their era.
-
-
There are no easy answers....
- By Georgia Reviewer on 04-26-25
By: Michael Waters
-
Lawless Republic
- By: Josiah Osgood
- Narrated by: David Holt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In its final decades, the Roman Republic was engulfed by a crime wave. An epidemic of extortions, murders, and acts of insurrection tested the court system's capacity to maintain order. As case after case filled the docket, an ambitious young lawyer named Cicero seized every opportunity to litigate, forging a reputation as a master debater with a bright future in politics. In Lawless Republic, historian Josiah Osgood recounts the legendary orator's ascent and fall, and his pivotal role in the republic's lurch toward autocracy.
-
-
Entertaining and educational
- By N. Mammen on 02-25-25
By: Josiah Osgood
-
Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
-
-
Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
-
Beyond the Wall
- A History of East Germany
- By: Katja Hoyer
- Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics. Acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer sets aside the usual Cold War caricatures of the GDR to offer a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country.
-
-
Good summary of ordinary life in the DDR
- By Z' on 03-09-24
By: Katja Hoyer
-
Persians
- The Age of the Great Kings
- By: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Narrated by: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled. Drawing on Iranian inscriptions, cuneiform tablets, art, and archaeology, he shows how the Achaemenid Persian Empire was the world’s first superpower—one built, despite its imperial ambition, on cooperation and tolerance. This is the definitive history of the Achaemenid dynasty and its legacies in modern-day Iran.
-
-
Good History and Historiography
- By David A on 04-19-22
-
The Holocaust
- An Unfinished History
- By: Dan Stone
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone—Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London—reveals how the idea of “industrial murder” is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways.
-
-
One of the best NF books I've ever listened to
- By Aaron.Johnson on 02-23-24
By: Dan Stone
-
Cults Like Us
- Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America
- By: Jane Borden
- Narrated by: Jane Borden
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the Mayflower sidled up to Plymouth Rock, cult ideology has been ingrained in the DNA of the United States. In this eye-opening book, journalist Jane Borden argues that Puritan doomsday belief never went away; it went secular and became American culture. From our fascination with cowboys and superheroes to our allegiance to influencers and self-help, susceptibility to advertising, and undying devotion to the self-made man, Americans remain particularly vulnerable to a specific brand of cult-like thinking.
By: Jane Borden
-
Decade of Disunion
- How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849-1861
- By: Robert W. Merry
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mexican War brought vast new territories to the United States, which precipitated a growing crisis over slavery. The new territories seemed unsuitable for the type of agriculture that depended on slave labor, but they lay south of the line where slavery was permitted by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. The subject of expanding slavery to the new territories became a flash point between North and South.
-
-
Very good overview of the period
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-24-24
By: Robert W. Merry
-
Jane Austen's Bookshelf
- A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
- By: Rebecca Romney
- Narrated by: Rebecca Romney
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more. But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work.
-
-
Now I Have to Buy More Books
- By M. McCurdy on 03-19-25
By: Rebecca Romney
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
The Weimar Years
- Rise and Fall 1918–1933
- By: Frank McDonough
- Narrated by: Paul McGann
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known. The Weimar Years is a vivid narrative of a dramatic period in German history. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in both domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with developments in music, art, theatre and literature.
-
-
I learned a ton
- By Phyllis on 12-30-24
By: Frank McDonough
-
Vertigo
- The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany
- By: Harald Jähner
- Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launched an unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The Weimar Republic, named for the city where it was established, endured for only fifteen years before it was toppled by the insurgent Nazi Party in 1933. In Vertigo, prizewinning historian Harald Jähner tells the Republic’s full story, capturing a nation caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty and struggling toward a better future.
-
-
How. Did It Happen?
- By Bettyb on 10-19-24
By: Harald Jähner
-
American Civil Wars
- A Continental History, 1850-1873
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The American Civil War stands at the center of the story, its military history and the drama of emancipation the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrollment of Black soldiers in Union armies.
-
-
fascinating!
- By Brandon Marken on 07-12-24
By: Alan Taylor
-
Jesus of Nazareth
- The Infancy Narratives
- By: Pope Benedict XVI
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2007, Joseph Ratzinger published his first book as Pope Benedict XVI in order “to make known the figure and message of Jesus”. Now, the Pope focuses exclusively on the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life as a child. The root of these stories is the experience of hope found in the birth of Jesus and the affirmations of surrender and service embodied in his parents, Joseph and Mary.
-
-
An Insightful Book from a Great Theologian
- By Nancy on 12-24-12
Critic reviews
“[A] magisterial new history… well balanced by MacCulloch’s dry wit and flair for narrative sweep. Recapping the millenniums-long debate over the unholiness of wedlock, MacCulloch…whose talent for breadth is matched by his impressive command of the details…addresses a global Christianity increasingly rived by fierce disagreements over sex and gender.”—The New York Times
“Endlessly fascinating… [MacCulloch] has a command of historical detail that would be intimidating if his writing weren’t so genial and witty.”—Slate
“Across three thousand years we have the pleasure of MacCulloch’s erudite company as he explains how Christian thinkers have met the problem of desire…. It is an epic tale, and MacCulloch is an undaunted guide. Who else could explain so knowledgeably (and so affably), say, eleventh-century Gregorian reform as well as the contemporary gay subculture of “gin, lace and backbiting” in Anglo-Catholicism?”—New York Review of Books
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Silence
- A Christian History
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How should one speak to God? Are our prayers more likely to be heard if we offer them quietly at home or loudly in church? How can we really know if God is listening? From the earliest days, Christians have struggled with these questions. Their varied answers have defined the boundaries of Christian faith and established the language of our most intimate appeals for guidance or forgiveness. MacCulloch shows how Jesus chose to emphasize silence as an essential part of his message and how silence shaped the great medieval monastic communities of Europe.
-
-
Interesting, but not cohesive
- By Adam Shields on 10-23-13
-
The Reformation
- A History
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 36 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians - from the zealous Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.
-
-
Excellent
- By Eli Shem Tov on 05-15-17
-
Christianity
- The First Three Thousand Years
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 46 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once in a generation, a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read or heard - a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.
-
-
Bias
- By 8cdpmpppm on 10-04-10
-
The Fate of the Generals
- MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines
- By: Jonathan Horn
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the doomed stand American forces made in the Philippines at the start of World War II, two generals received their country’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor. One was the charismatic and controversial Douglas MacArthur, whose orders forced him to leave his soldiers on the islands to starvation and surrender but whose vow to return echoed around the globe. The other was the gritty Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who became a hero to the troops whose fate he insisted on sharing even when it meant becoming the highest-ranking American prisoner of the Japanese.
By: Jonathan Horn
-
The Celts
- A Modern History
- By: Ian Stewart
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on new research conducted across Europe and in the United States, The Celts reveals when and how we came to call much of Europe "Celtic," why this idea mattered in the past, and why it still matters today, as the tide of nationalism is once again on the rise.
By: Ian Stewart
-
Journeys of the Mind
- A Life in History
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 30 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the "neglected half-millennium" now known as late antiquity was crucial to the development of modern Europe and the Middle East. In Journeys of the Mind, Brown recounts his life and work, describing his efforts to recapture the spirit of an age.
By: Peter Brown
-
Silence
- A Christian History
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How should one speak to God? Are our prayers more likely to be heard if we offer them quietly at home or loudly in church? How can we really know if God is listening? From the earliest days, Christians have struggled with these questions. Their varied answers have defined the boundaries of Christian faith and established the language of our most intimate appeals for guidance or forgiveness. MacCulloch shows how Jesus chose to emphasize silence as an essential part of his message and how silence shaped the great medieval monastic communities of Europe.
-
-
Interesting, but not cohesive
- By Adam Shields on 10-23-13
-
The Reformation
- A History
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 36 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At a time when men and women were prepared to kill - and be killed - for their faith, the Protestant Reformation tore the Western world apart. Acclaimed as the definitive account of these epochal events, Diarmaid MacCulloch's award-winning history brilliantly recreates the religious battles of priests, monarchs, scholars, and politicians - from the zealous Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to the polemical John Calvin to the radical Igantius Loyola, from the tortured Thomas Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II.
-
-
Excellent
- By Eli Shem Tov on 05-15-17
-
Christianity
- The First Three Thousand Years
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 46 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once in a generation, a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read or heard - a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.
-
-
Bias
- By 8cdpmpppm on 10-04-10
-
The Fate of the Generals
- MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines
- By: Jonathan Horn
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For the doomed stand American forces made in the Philippines at the start of World War II, two generals received their country’s highest military award, the Medal of Honor. One was the charismatic and controversial Douglas MacArthur, whose orders forced him to leave his soldiers on the islands to starvation and surrender but whose vow to return echoed around the globe. The other was the gritty Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, who became a hero to the troops whose fate he insisted on sharing even when it meant becoming the highest-ranking American prisoner of the Japanese.
By: Jonathan Horn
-
The Celts
- A Modern History
- By: Ian Stewart
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on new research conducted across Europe and in the United States, The Celts reveals when and how we came to call much of Europe "Celtic," why this idea mattered in the past, and why it still matters today, as the tide of nationalism is once again on the rise.
By: Ian Stewart
-
Journeys of the Mind
- A Life in History
- By: Peter Brown
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 30 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the "neglected half-millennium" now known as late antiquity was crucial to the development of modern Europe and the Middle East. In Journeys of the Mind, Brown recounts his life and work, describing his efforts to recapture the spirit of an age.
By: Peter Brown
-
America, América
- A New History of the New World
- By: Greg Grandin
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 25 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both.
By: Greg Grandin
-
The Illegals
- Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.”
-
-
very intricate stories
- By AJ on 05-06-25
By: Shaun Walker
-
Miracles and Wonder
- The Historical Mystery of Jesus
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.
-
-
I had high hopes for this title
- By Christine on 04-02-25
By: Elaine Pagels
-
Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
-
-
Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
-
Into the Ice
- The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery
- By: Mark Synnott
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times bestselling author Mark Synnott has climbed with Alex Honnold. He’s scaled Mount Everest. He's pioneered big-wall first ascents, including the north-west face of the mile-high Great Trango Tower, and skied monster first descents. But in 2022, he realized there was a dream he’d yet to achieve: to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat—a feat only four hundred or so sailors have ever accomplished—and in doing so, try to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin and his ships, HMS Erebus and Terror.
-
-
Excellent listen!!!
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-25
By: Mark Synnott
-
The English Ecstasy
- How England Rose to Greatness 1558-1649 (Includes Bonus Section on Francis Bacon)
- By: Will Durant, Richard Smoley - foreword
- Narrated by: Rob Jones, David Markus
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The British Empire is unique in world history. How did this small island come to rule a full quarter of the globe? No other nation has matched this achievement.
By: Will Durant, and others
-
A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg
- From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill, Volume 2
- By: A. Wilson Greene
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 27 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg offers a gripping, comprehensive history of the decisive campaign in the eastern theater. In this second of three volumes, A. Wilson Greene narrates the critical months from August through October 1864, during which Ulysses S. Grant's army group launched three major offensives against Robert E. Lee's defenses around Petersburg and the Confederate capital in Richmond.
By: A. Wilson Greene
-
All Things Made New
- The Reformation and Its Legacy
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: Neil Scott-Barbour
- Length: 17 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The most profound characteristic of Western Europe in the Middle Ages was its cultural and religious unity, a unity secured by a common alignment with the Pope in Rome and a common language - Latin - for worship and scholarship. The Reformation shattered that unity, and the consequences are still with us today.
-
-
did not like at all
- By AW on 03-07-22
-
Medicine River
- A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
- By: Mary Annette Pember
- Narrated by: Erin Tripp
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.
-
-
great!
- By L. John on 05-01-25
-
The Girl in the Middle
- A Recovered History of the American West
- By: Martha A. Sandweiss
- Narrated by: Kate Handford
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government's treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern Plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. .
-
-
Fleshing Out a Photo
- By Michael Hennelly on 04-27-25
-
Ancestors
- Identity and DNA in the Levant
- By: Pierre Zalloua
- Narrated by: Sean Rohani
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent years, genetic testing has become easily available to consumers across the globe, making it relatively simple to find out where your ancestors came from. But what do these test results actually tell us about ourselves? In Ancestors, Pierre Zalloua, a leading authority on population genetics, argues that these test results have led to a dangerous oversimplification of what one’s genetic heritage means. Genetic ancestry has become conflated with anthropological categories such as “origin,” “ethnicity,” and even “race” in spite of the complexities that underlie these concepts.
By: Pierre Zalloua
-
The Power and the Glory
- Life in the English Country House Before the Great War
- By: Adrian Tinniswood
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For generations, the great palaces of Britain were home to living histories, noble families that had reigned for centuries. But by the end of the nineteenth century, members of elite society found themselves, for the first time, in the company of arrivistes. Their new neighbors—from chorus girls to millionaire greengrocers to guano impresarios—lacked lineage and were unencumbered by the weight of tradition. In The Power and the Glory, historian Adrian Tinniswood reconstructs life in the country house during its golden age before the Great War.