Audiobooks by Charles River Editors

Joan Crawford and Bette Davis: The Lives and Careers of the Actresses Who Became Hollywood’s Most Fa

The life of Joan Crawford is one of the most famous Hollywood rags-to-riches tales. While it is common to think of Hollywood as a land offering great opportunity to hard-working actresses, the Horatio Alger myth rarely applies in reality, but it applied almost perfectly to Joan Crawford. Crawford grew up in relative poverty, with both of her childhood father figures abandoning the family before she became a teenager, and she relied on undying ambition in order to progress through the ranks of the show business circuit and then the Hollywood studio system. This drive to succeed continued throughout her entire career, and Crawford’s public battles with both studios (MGM in particular) and other stars (first Norma Shearer and later Bette Davis) were borne out of an unmatched competitive streak. Joan Crawford’s life and career also shed light on the treatment of women in pop culture and in cinema during the early 20th century. Bette Davis presided over Hollywood at a time in which the film industry was at its most influential. Every actress from Katharine Hepburn to Ingrid Bergman and Ginger Rodgers, themselves now considered among Hollywood’s greatest icons, lived in the shadow of Bette Davis. Not only was Davis a box office sensation and commercial success - she became the highest paid actress in 1938 - but she garnered more critical acclaim than any other actress during the time period, as evidenced by the fact that she was the first actress to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards. Recently, her place in history was cemented when she was named as the second greatest actress of the 20th century by the American Film Institute behind only Katharine Hepburn (AFI 100 Years…100 Stars).

Charles River Editors (Author), Mary Rossman (Narrator)

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The Lavender Scare: The History of the Federal Government’s Persecution of the Gay Community in the

While the fight over gay marriage has been bitterly contested and debated for much of the 21st century, it’s still somewhat difficult to believe that just 50 years ago, homosexual activity was illegal in nearly every state in America. Homosexuals faced discrimination that surpassed that of even African-Americans or suspected Communists, and their lifestyles were so taboo that they were typically considered to be a security risk because it would be so easy for someone who wished to harm the country to blackmail them. In 1950, a Senate Subcommittee on Investigations reported, “In further considering the general suitability of perverts as Government employees, it is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons. In addition there is an abundance of evidence to sustain the conclusion that indulgence in acts of sex perversion weakens the moral fiber of an individual to a degree that he is not suitable for a position of responsibility. Most of the authorities agree and our investigation has shown that the presence of a sex pervert in a Government agency tends to have a corrosive influence upon his fellow employees. These perverts will frequently attempt to entice normal individuals to engage in perverted practices. This is particularly true in the case of young and impressionable people who might come under the influence of a pervert. Government officials have the responsibility of keeping this type of corrosive influence out of the agencies under their control. It is particularly important that the thousands of young men and women who are brought into Federal jobs not be subjected to that type of influence while in the service of the Government. One homosexual can pollute a Government office.” Indeed, in the decades that followed, the FBI kept lists of known homosexuals, and law enforcement agencies regularly raided known gay bars and other similar establishments.

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Niels Bohr and J. Robert Oppenheimer: The Lives and Careers of the Physicists Who Pioneered Atomic E

The Danes have incorporated a system that prizes a balance between work and play, the concept of “hygge,” solid investments made towards the treatment of mental illness, and a stellar welfare model. That has helped ensure that an endless stream of intellectuals, inventors, creative legends, and pioneers have hailed from Denmark over many centuries, from classical scholar Ada Adler to fabled 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe. One of the most famous, and important, is Niels Bohr, a world-famous physicist and one of the patriarchs of quantum theory. Given the vibrant, peaceful haven that is Denmark today, it’s somewhat ironic that Bohr played an instrumental role in the development of the atomic bomb. Even so, the truth and depth of the matter, much like the self-professed pacifist himself, is far more complex. The Manhattan Project would ultimately yield the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” bombs that released more than 100 Terajoules of energy at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as it turned out, the Axis were not far behind with their own nuclear weapons program. When the Nazis’ quest for a nuclear weapon began in earnest in 1939, no one really had a handle on how important nuclear weapons would prove to war and geopolitics. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, along with the Cold War-era tests and their accompanying mushroom clouds, would demonstrate the true power and terror of nuclear weapons, but in the late 1930s these bombs were only vaguely being thought through, particularly after the successful first experiment to split the atom by a German scientist. The nuclear age itself was in its infancy, barely 35 years old, but within a few short years the advent of nuclear war loomed over the world and the prospect of the enemy winning the nuclear race kept Allied leaders awake at night.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim Walsh (Narrator)

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Dragons: The History of Dragon Legends and Folk Tales around the World

For millennia, people considered dragons to be real, and the vivid lore of dragons has touched societies from Central America to Europe, and from Egypt to China. The popularity of dragons can easily be assessed by the number of motion pictures that include them as an integral part of their narrative, from the friendly dragons of children’s cartoons to the monsters being bred underground to unleash their horrors on humanity. Indeed, some of humanity’s deepest cultural myths have included dragons, from the Greek and Georgian tale of Jason and the Argonauts to the stories from ancient China that influence modern New Year’s festivities. The English word “dragon” comes from the Greek word “drakon,” which means “snake,” and while people today may have a hard time imagining a dragon as a simple snake, some scientists think that the international nature of the myth is based on the presence of snakes on nearly every continent. Oxford professor of medieval European literature Carolyne Larrington explained, “The anthropologist David E. Jones has suggested that the dragon myth takes its origins from an innate fear of snakes, genetically encoded in humans from the time of our earliest differentiation from other primates. It is true, of course, that it makes evolutionary sense to avoid dangerous animals of every kind, but it is less clear why people should invent stories about imaginary oversized serpents in particular. Nevertheless, there is a clear benefit to tales that warn children against straying into perilous marshy areas where the serpent might seize them, or against scrambling up treacherous mountain sides in search of monsters and treasure hoards.”

Charles River Editors (Author), Colin Fluxman (Narrator)

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Sundaland and Doggerland: The History and Mysteries of the Sunken Landmasses in Asia and Europe

By the time the Pleistocene Epoch ended around 12,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had become one of the most significant species on the planet. It was also near the end of that period of time that modern humans began to gradually populate what would become Europe, Asia, and the Americas, eventually becoming the inheritors of the Paleolithic era and the only human species to make it into the Neolithic era. The cold Pleistocene temperatures lowered water levels across the planet, exposing land that was not there before or after the period. At the same time, significant regions of the planet were very different during the Pleistocene, including Southeast Asia, particularly the modern islands of Bali, Borneo, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula, roughly equivalent to parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. This region, which modern scholars refer to as Sunda or Sundaland, was unique because all of it was connected by land, meaning today’s islands were once part of a contiguous subcontinent, and in terms of the people, flora, and fauna, it was very different than it is today. Among the most significant water displacement phenomena in the Western world was Doggerland on the northern European continent. The notable inundation occurred in both a steady and eruptive fashion covering a vast stretch of former tundra, a land bridge between today’s British Isles and the European continent. The event brought about the modern English Channel and an expanded North Sea, and unlike the early supercontinents, the inundation of Doggerland took place after the appearance of people. Incrementally submerged since roughly 18,000 years ago as the climate warmed, the patch of sea between Britain and Europe is the subject of much recent scientific scrutiny. 

Charles River Editors (Author), Victoria Woodson (Narrator)

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J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles: The History of 20th Century America’s Most Controversial FBI and C

No single figure in 20th century American history inspires such opposing opinions as J. Edgar Hoover, the iconic first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In his time, he was arguably the most powerful non-elected figure in the U.S. government. Serving under 8 presidents (and outliving 2 of them), he remains the longest-serving head of a major government office. In essence, Hoover died as he began - a civil servant, having been appointed by the Attorney General and serving at the pleasure of the president.  By the 1960s and 1970s Hoover the hero had become Hoover the villain.  Various exposes and investigations revealed a darker side to the legend, one that included serious violations of the civil liberties of individuals. Hoover’s G-Men, it was discovered, engaged in illegal break-ins and wiretaps of suspected subversives; they wrote fake letters that undermined the reputations of public individuals; they paid informants for information and push the groups they belonged to into committing illegal acts. It was alleged that Hoover led a personal vendetta against Martin Luther King, Jr., and the entire civil rights movement. Hoover, it was said, had stayed in office so long by gathering secret files of damaging information about politicians (including presidents). To this day, Allen Dulles’ eight-year tenure in that office is the longest, and as one of the country’s leading experts in international law, intelligence, and spycraft, he became renowned for his unwavering anti-communist ideology and readiness to take decisive measures to counter what he perceived as a menace to American safety. As such, it would be Dulles who sanctioned many of the CIA’s most notorious operations, including the ousting of Iran's democratically elected government in 1953, spying and experimentation on American citizens, and the disastrous Bay of Pigs.

Charles River Editors (Author), Mary Rossman (Narrator)

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Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptors: The History of the Cretaceous Period’s Most Famous Carnivores

The massively popular 1990 novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and its subsequent movie adaptations led to a huge resurgence in interest in dinosaurs and the prehistoric world. That interest continues to the present day, even though most of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park weren’t actually from the Jurassic period. Triceratops, Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus Rex and the huge sauropods such as Brachiosaurus that feature in the book and movies all actually belong to the Late Cretaceous period, more than 40 million years after the end of the Jurassic. Regardless, certain kinds of dinosaurs remain instantly recognizable, and among them, the “king” is undoubtedly the Tyrannosaurus. The first discovery of a Tyrannosaurus was made in 1902 and the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever found at the time quickly gripped the popular imagination. Even its name was dramatic - Tyrannosaurus Rex means “King of the Tyrant Lizards.” The T-Rex as it quickly became known didn’t appear until the last age of the Late Cretaceous period, the Maastrichtian, but when it did, it was the biggest and most terrifying of all the theropod predators.  Thanks to the movie, there has been some unwitting confusion over the identity of the Velociraptor, and this confusion was due in large part to the fact the name sounds far more scary than the creature to which the name originally belonged. Moreover, the creature to which the label was applied in the novel and movie was actually a distant cousin named Deinonychus, but as the story goes, the author, Michael Crichton, thought “Velociraptor” sounded “more dramatic.” The actual Velociraptor lived not in the badlands of North America, but in the badlands of central-eastern Asia, and it was not nearly as intimidating as Deinonychus. In fact, the main species of genus Velociraptor - Velociraptor mongoliensis - was no bigger than a turkey.

Charles River Editors (Author), Mary Rossman (Narrator)

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The World’s Most Famous Megaliths: The History of Göbekli Tepe, Stonehenge, and the Megalithic Templ

Despite the fact some Neolithic communities grew to considerable sizes, they’re typically not considered when people think of the first ancient civilizations or the first major cities, so when German archaeologists discovered the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey in the 1990s, it created an academic firestorm that is still raging. Far from being just another settlement, Göbekli Tepe has been described as the world’s first temple and perhaps one of the locations where human civilization began. Subsequent archaeological work at Göbekli Tepe has revealed that the site was a spiritual center for the local population during a time when humans were undergoing a transition as hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic Period to a more sedentary lifestyle in the Neolithic Period, more than 10,000 years ago. Naturally, when European archaeologists began unearthing the megaliths of Malta in the 19th century, they did not know what to think, which led to a plethora of theories, many of them quite fantastic. At least 23 of these temples were uncovered, but because the people who built them lacked the knowledge of writing, speculation over who built them and why remained well into the 20th century (Rountree 2003, 26). Some people theorized that the Malta megaliths were built by a race of giants, while others believed that it was the center of a “Mother Earth” cult that later spread through Neolithic Europe.  On the Salisbury Plain, only a few hours from the hustle and bustle of Central London, remains one of the greatest surviving relics of humanity's ancient past: the mighty stone circle of Stonehenge. Stonehenge is one of the most well-known ancient sites in the world, and an image of it raises numerous associations and emotional responses. Its impressiveness comes not only from its size and remarkable level of preservation, but more so because of incredible precision during an era of simple technology.

Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)

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Serpent Legends: The History and Legacy of the Folk Tales about Sea Serpents

The first specimen of megamouth shark (megachasma pelagios) was discovered on November 15, 1976, when it was found entangled in the drag anchor of a U.S. Navy ship. The new creature wasn't described scientifically until 1983…The megamouth remains the only species in its genus, and the only genus in its order.” That discovery was a reminder that the oceans of the world have always had an air of mystery. About 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, and until the 20th century no one had plumbed its depths. Even today the bigger seas and oceans remain a largely unexplored frontier, with new species being discovered every year. Thus it comes as no surprise that countless legends have arisen of strange creatures lurking in the depths.  Of course, the most famous serpent of them all supposedly dwells in Scotland. While cryptids like Bigfoot and the Yeti have become popular in recent decades, none of them can touch the notoriety of the Loch Ness Monster, a large, unknown creature allegedly living in a loch in the Highlands of Scotland. Was it a relic dinosaur or perhaps an entirely new species? New photographs and new eyewitness sightings fueled a growing debate and transformed the Loch Ness Monster, also known as Nessie, into an instantly recognizable staple of pop culture, to the extent that hundreds of thousands of visitors came to Loch Ness every year in hopes of catching a glimpse of the loch’s famous inhabitant.  The Loch Ness Monster remains an international brand and the best-known cryptid in the world, but after almost 100 years of fame and media attention, what do people really know about this cryptid, and is there any proof that there really is something large and unknown living in a remote Scottish loch? 

Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)

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The Archaeopteryx: The History and Mystery Surrounding the Flying Dinosaur Genus

The massively popular 1990 novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and its subsequent movie adaptations led to a huge resurgence in interest in dinosaurs and the prehistoric world. That interest continues to the present day, even though most of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park weren’t actually from the Jurassic period. Triceratops, Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus Rex and the huge sauropods such as Brachiosaurus that feature in the book and movies all actually belong to the Late Cretaceous period, more than 40 million years after the end of the Jurassic. Regardless, certain kinds of dinosaurs remain instantly recognizable. The movie also popularized pterodactyls, and the concept of flying dinosaurs fascinates people. There is no doubt that Archaeopteryx, which lived over 150 million years ago, was one of the earliest birds or avialans (bird-like creatures), and when the first fossil of it was discovered, it was hailed as a potential missing link between dinosaurs and birds. The name Archaeopteryx comes from Greek, the word for “ancient” and the term for “wing” or “feather.” The creature is occasionally referenced by the German, “Urvogel,” which literally means “primeval bird.” From the known species of Archaeopteryx, the creature grew no longer than half a meter (20 inches), including its long, bony tail. Despite its bird-like appearance, scientists point out that the genus has far more in common with the dinosaurs of its day than with the thousands of bird species of our modern age. Over time, however, others would argue it was actually the missing link between birds and other reptiles. Meanwhile, the debate over whether it was the first avialan came and went, as it was discovered to not be the first.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim D. Johnston (Narrator)

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Medieval Exorcisms: The History and Legacy of the Beliefs in Demonic Possession during the Middle Ag

In the 21st century, most people associate the idea of the possession of a person or place by a malevolent supernatural entity with the medieval world and particularly with the Catholic Church, but the truth is considerably stranger. Virtually every human culture that has ever existed has talked about both possession and exorcism, a rite or ritual used to free a person or place from possession. The terms used to describe the process of possession and entities thought to be responsible have changed throughout history, but the central theory does not. In certain circumstances, it is said that a person, place, or object may become inhabited by an entity that comes from somewhere else. The outcome is generally negative and sometimes even fatal. The only effective remedy is exorcism, the banishment of the entity involved to the place from which it came. Some branches of modern psychology suggests that possession is simply a form of mental illness and that all these cases can be explained in psychological terms. But, as you will see, there appears to be a remarkable consistency in reports of possessions and even witness reports of possessed people demonstrating remarkable powers and abilities. It is difficult to explain those things purely in terms of psychology.

Charles River Editors (Author), Jim D. Johnston (Narrator)

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The American Investigations of UFOs: The History, Mysteries, and Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the

Modern Ufology focuses on mysterious lights on Ceres or tales of alien abduction, but this wasn’t always the case, and looking at how the beliefs in the UFO phenomenon have changed or stayed the same can shed light on how culture and belief changes over time. One does not have to believe humans are actually being visited by aliens from another planet to recognize the importance of UFOs in human society. Any widespread belief that endures for centuries is worthy of study, and as always, cases exist that can’t be explained away simple superstition. The first large-scale, official investigation came during the UFO flap of 1947. On December 30, 1947, Major General L. C. Cragie, director of research and development for the United States Air Force, authorized the study of the flying saucer problem. His statement carried the line “by command of the chief of staff.” The program was called Project Sign, and it would be the first of three known U.S. government studies of the UFO phenomenon. While these American investigations of UFOs from the 1940s and 1950s were documented, nothing exemplifies the debate between those who believe that extraterrestrials visit the Earth and skeptics like the top secret papers that emerged in the 1980s and seemed to prove the existence of a shadowy secret organization known as MJ-12 or Majestic 12. To believers, these papers proved beyond a doubt not only that UFOs were real and of extraterrestrial origin, but also that the federal government had been aware of their existence since the 1940s and had even managed to recover one or more crashed alien spacecrafts. To skeptics, this notion simply proved how gullible UFO believers were. There was no middle ground - people either believed in the MJ-12 papers completely or laughed at them.

Charles River Editors (Author), Michelle Humphries (Narrator)

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