Be Transported To The Battlefield With The Best Audiobooks On Military History
Discover the fascinating stories and powerful lessons from some of the greatest military conflicts in human history with our Military History audiobook category. From ancient battles to modern warfare, our selection offers gripping accounts of bravery, strategy, and sacrifice. Immerse yourself in the gripping tales of soldiers, generals, and leaders who shaped the course of history, and gain a deeper understanding of the complex factors that led to their triumphs and failures. Whether you're a history buff, a military enthusiast, or simply seeking to broaden your knowledge of the world, our Military History audiobooks are the perfect companion for your journey.
Military History Audiobooks Statistics
Total Audiobooks in this Category:
4,444 audiobooks
Total Authors in this Category:
5,127 authors
Average Audiobook Length:
11.48 hours
Average Audiobook Rating:
3.79/5
Author: E.B. Sledge
Narrator: George K. Wilson
Audio Length:
@1x speed 14.50 hours
@1.5x speed 9.67 hours
@2x speed 7.25 hours
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With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Audiobook
“Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir…He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific—the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary—into terms we mortals can grasp.”
— Tom Hanks
Author: Shelby Foote
Narrator: Grover Gardner
Audio Length:
@1x speed 43.00 hours
@1.5x speed 28.67 hours
@2x speed 21.50 hours
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The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville Audiobook
The Civil War: A Narrative, Vol. 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball’s Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.
The word “narrative” is the key to this extraordinary book’s incandescence and its truth. The story is told entirely from the point of view of the people involved in it. One learns not only what was happening on all fronts but also how the author discovered it during his years of exhaustive research.
This first volume in Shelby Foote’s comprehensive history is a must-listen for anyone interested in one of the bloodiest wars in America’s history.
“Foote's sweeping narrative, comprehensive, soaring, occasionally bogging down in minutiae (part of its overall charm for me- I find stuff like the murder of Big Bill Nelson and his murderer going free and continuing to serve as a general officer in the Union Army for years after his crime fascinating), this is the benchmark by which "epic" nonfiction ought to be measured. Currently at work on volume II!”
— Brian
Author: Sun Tzu
Narrator: Ray Porter
Audio Length:
@1x speed 9.25 hours
@1.5x speed 6.17 hours
@2x speed 4.63 hours
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The Art of War: The Essential Translation of the Classic Book of Life Audiobook
The Art of War is a text inspired by the ancient wisdom of Sun Tzu. Divided into thirty six treatises, there are commentary and footnotes corresponding to the treatises which are read by the narrators, as well. Many modern artists and business persons find this ancient wisdom to still be applicable to contemporary life. Indeed, though this was originally intended as a military manual of sorts, the anecdotes from Ancient China are still directly connected to our challenges today.
The simplistic language of these texts can be deceptive, but if taken as a metaphor, for example, to attack the enemy only when he is awake, or to appear weak when you are strong, these ancient words can help anyone looking to sublimate emotions and focus outside of an inflexible agenda, indecisiveness, and overwhelming problems.
What armies of belief do we command? Pursue, protect, and promote? These questions are implicitly addressed, while Sun Tsu's strategy encourages us to overcome our personal cognitive biases.
With Scott Brick and Shelley Frasier taking turns narrating, they breathe new life into an ancient text.
Sun Tzu was a military general, strategist and philosopher during the Zhou Dynasty and has had a significant influence on Chinese and Asian culture.
“This is by far one of the greatest books on strategy ever written. The author helps to break down the philosophy of warfare into multiple chapters. This book is still a required read for most military officers and is still read by many business men today. Aside from the military aspect of the book, its teachings can be used when dealing with issues in life. A rather short book but very knowledgeable at the same time.”
— Jeffrey
Author: Adam Makos
Narrator: Robertson Dean
Audio Length:
@1x speed 13.25 hours
@1.5x speed 8.83 hours
@2x speed 6.63 hours
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A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II Audiobook
A beautiful story of a brotherhood between enemies emerges from the horrors of World War II in this New York Times bestseller by the author of Devotion, now a major motion picture
Four days before Christmas in 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a twenty-one-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail—a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber with the squeeze of a trigger. What happened next would defy imagination and later be called the most incredible encounter between enemies in World War II.
This is the true story of the two pilots whose lives collided in the skies that day—the American, Second Lieutenant Charlie Brown, a former farm boy from West Virginia who came to captain a B-17—and the German, Second Lieutenant Franz Stigler, a former airline pilot from Bavaria who sought to avoid fighting in World War II.
A Higher Call follows both Charlie and Franz’s harrowing missions. Charlie would face takeoffs in English fog over the flaming wreckage of his buddies’ planes, flak bursts so close they would light his cockpit, and packs of enemy fighters that would circle his plane like sharks.
Franz would face sandstorms in the desert, a crash alone at sea, and the spectacle of one thousand bombers, each with eleven guns, waiting for his attack.
Ultimately, Charlie and Franz would stare across the frozen skies at one another. What happened between them, the American Eighth Air Force would later classify as top secret. It was an act that Franz could never mention without facing a firing squad.
It was the encounter that would haunt both Charlie and Franz for forty years until, as old men, they would search for one another, a last mission that could change their lives forever.
“Highly descriptive. I imagined I was in the cockpits of these planes, with the smell of fuel, sweat, fear and so many other sensations. Thankfully I’ve never experienced war, there’s nothing romantic about it. Thankfully they made it across the water, thankfully Franz wasn’t court martialled, and thankfully Charlie took that trip to try and discover the man who had mercy on them. May they all Rest In Peace.”
— FrankR
Author: Robert Leckie
Narrator: John Allen Nelson
Audio Length:
@1x speed 10.50 hours
@1.5x speed 7.00 hours
@2x speed 5.25 hours
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Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific Audiobook
From the live-for-today rowdiness of marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what war is really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Woven throughout are Leckie's hard-won, eloquent, and thoroughly unsentimental meditations on the meaning of war and why we fight. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow will leave no one untouched. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.
Now producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, the men behind Band of Brothers, have adapted material from Helmet for My Pillow for HBO's epic miniseries The Pacific, which will thrill and edify a whole new generation.
“Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie’s theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who—somehow—survived.”
— Tom Hanks
Author: Erik Larson
Narrator: Erik Larson, John Lee
Audio Length:
@1x speed 17.75 hours
@1.5x speed 11.83 hours
@2x speed 8.88 hours
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The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz Audiobook
“"[In] a time of sadness, fear, grief, and uncertainty…I find myself comforted by reading about other supremely challenging times in human history, and about resilience, and hope. For this, there is no better book right now than The Splendid and the Vile.”
— New York Post
Author: Gregory A. Freeman
Narrator: Patrick Lawlor
Audio Length:
@1x speed 10.75 hours
@1.5x speed 7.17 hours
@2x speed 5.38 hours
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The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II Audiobook
During a bombing campaign, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian villagers risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers, and for months the airmen lived in hiding, waiting for rescue.
In 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip—without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers. And the rescue planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back—without getting shot down themselves.
Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time. The Forgotten 500 is the breathtaking, behind-the-scenes look at the greatest escape of World War II.
“Amazing WW II era story! Frustrating that the Allies turned their backs on General Mihailovich in Yugoslavia in favor of the Communist Tito. Inspite of that, Mihailovich safeguarded over 500 airmen downed over Yugoslavia and helped the OSS get them out. This would make a great movie.”
— Ann
Author: Marcus Luttrell
Narrator: Kevin T. Collins
Audio Length:
@1x speed 14.25 hours
@1.5x speed 9.50 hours
@2x speed 7.13 hours
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Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 Audiobook
This is the story of the lone survivor of Operation Redwing, petty officer Marcus Luttrell, and the remarkable two hour battle that led to the greatest loss of life in the history of the Navy SEALS. Vastly outnumbered, Luttrell's three fellow SEALS were killed fighting bravely beside him. Badly hurt and presumed dead, but driven by thirst, Luttrell crawled for seven miles before finding shelter. He was discovered by sympathetic shepherds who provided him with food and medical attention, while risking their own lives to protect him from Taliban search parties.
Luttrell takes us from rigorous SEAL training, where soldiers discovered the demands of America's most elite fighting forces, to an ambush in the desolate mountains of Afghanistan which no combat training could have ever prepared them for. He recounts the story of his teammates' courage and honor, for which two of his fellow SEALS were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. In this vivid, true story of sacrifice and bravery, patriotism and heroism, Luttrell shares a powerful account of modern warfare.
“Wow. I did not think I would like this book as much as I did. It's a very powerful re-telling of a series of incredibly difficult events, both physical and emotional. Marcus Luttrell is an amazing American hero, as are his fallen comrades. I highly recommend this book.”
— Liz
Author: Timothy Snyder
Narrator: Geoffrey Howard, Ralph Cosham
Audio Length:
@1x speed 19.25 hours
@1.5x speed 12.83 hours
@2x speed 9.63 hours
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Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin Audiobook
From the author of the international bestseller On Tyranny, the definitive history of Hitler’s and Stalin’s politics of mass killing, explaining why Ukraine has been at the center of Western history for the last century.
Americans call the Second World War "The Good War."But before it even began, America's wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens--and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war's end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness.
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.
Bloodlands won twelve awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought. It has been translated into more than thirty languages, was named to twelve book-of-the-year lists, and was a bestseller in six countries.
“A great and terrible book about the greatest horror of the 20th Century - Nazi and Soviet mass murder in Eastern Europe. Chapter after chapter, it immerses the reader in the worst things in the world, without ever really becoming numbing or unbearable. The last chapter is a fearless moral conclusion, condemning the appropriation of victimhood, of lies and damn lies, and how those are not harmless (albiet odious) political devices, but have actually led to more killing. Highly recommended.”
— Douglas
Author: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
Narrator: Robert Petkoff
Audio Length:
@1x speed 9.25 hours
@1.5x speed 6.17 hours
@2x speed 4.63 hours
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Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan Audiobook
The powerful and riveting new book in the multimillion-selling Killing series by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard
Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant return and is plotting a full-scale invasion of Japan.
Across the globe in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists are preparing to test the deadliest weapon known to mankind. In Washington, DC, FDR dies in office and Harry Truman ascends to the presidency, only to face the most important political decision in history: whether to use that weapon. And in Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito, who is considered a deity by his subjects, refuses to surrender, despite a massive and mounting death toll. Told in the same page-turning style of Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and Killing Reagan, this epic saga details the final moments of World War II like never before.
“I didn't know what to expect from this audiobook. It is the first of Bill O'Reilly's "Killing" series that I've listened to. I have to say I was hooked the entire time! Great narration, great story, highly recommended listen!”
— dzyner
Author: Laura Hillenbrand
Narrator: Edward Herrmann
Audio Length:
@1x speed 14.00 hours
@1.5x speed 9.33 hours
@2x speed 7.00 hours
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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption Audiobook
Then, a man appeared among the debris. It was the plane's bombardier, a young lieutenant, struggling to pull himself aboard a life raft. One of the most remarkable journeys of World War II was about to begin.
The bombardier was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he had been a crafty and unapologetic hooligan, burglarizing houses, and leaving home to ride the rails. When he harnessed his energy into running, he discovered a dormant talent that took him all the way to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. With the arrival of World War II, he became a pilot and began the journey that would lead him to his ill-fated flight and set him adrift at sea on a tiny life raft.
In the open ocean, Lt. Zamperini faced starvation, thirst, enemy aircraft and jumping sharks. Pushed to the limit of his considerable endurance, he met desperation with resourcefulness, brutality with defiance, hardship with brave determination. His very survival depended on his eroding resolve.
In Time's top book of 2010 and #1 New York Times bestseller, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand employs the same eye jeweler's eye for detail and vivid, rich narrative voice that she displayed in her acclaimed 2001 bestseller, Seabiscuit. Unbroken tells the extraordinary tale of a man's odyssey into extremity, and stands testament to the power of human resilience.
“This book is why they made a 5-star rating: something that changes the way you see and move through the world, something you will remember forever, something you are so appreciative you were able to be a part of. Wow. Freaking AMAZING story, brilliant writing, simply incredible...”
— Laurie
Narrator: Dave Grossman, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman
Audio Length:
@1x speed 10.50 hours
@1.5x speed 7.00 hours
@2x speed 5.25 hours
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On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Audiobook
The revised and updated edition of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's modern classic about the psychology of combat, hailed by the Washington Post as "an illuminating account of how soldiers learn to kill and how they live with the experiences of having killed."
In World War II, only 15 to 20 percent of combat infantry were willing to fire their rifles. In Korea, about 50 percent. In Vietnam, the figure rose to more than 90 percent.
The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways sophisticated ways of overcoming that instinctive aversion. The psychological cost for soldiers, as evidenced by the increase in post-traumatic stress, is devastating. This landmark study brilliantly illuminates the techniques the military uses to help soldiers kill and raises vital questions about the implications of escalating violence in our society.
"Powerfully argued...Full of arresting observations and insights." —New York Times
“A very interesting book for those trained for combat, self defense, police work. It investigates the psychological effect on the person who is training to kill whether for combat or self defense, It also covers the affects of violence in video games on those who play them. Very good read.”
— Marilyn