10 Best Cultural Heritage, History Books
Cultural Heritage, History is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Cultural Heritage, History audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 10 Cultural Heritage, History audiobooks below.
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The Fire Next Time
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrator: Jesse Martin
- Length: 2 hours 25 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2008
- Language: English
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4.54(77256 ratings)
4.54(77256 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDNATIONAL BESTSELLER – The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement in the 1960s–and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. – “The finest essay I’ve everNATIONAL BESTSELLER – The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movement in the 1960s–and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. – “The finest essay I’ve ever read.” –Ta-Nehisi CoatesAt once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle … all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.
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Smoketown
- By: Mark Whitaker
- Narrator: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 13 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.25(368 ratings)
4.25(368 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0022.95 USDThe other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place–Pittsburgh, PA–from the 1920s through the 1950s. Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for AugustThe other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place–Pittsburgh, PA–from the 1920s through the 1950s.
Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson–and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne.
Mark Whitaker’s Smoketown is a captivating portrait of this unsung community and a vital addition to the story of black America. It depicts how ambitious Southern migrants were drawn to a steel-making city on a strategic river junction; how they were shaped by its schools and a spirit of commerce with roots in the Gilded Age; and how their world was eventually destroyed by industrial decline and urban renewal. Whitaker takes listeners on a rousing, revelatory journey–and offers a timely reminder that Black History is not all bleak.
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The Life of William Apess, Pequot
- By: Philip F. Gura
- Narrator: Traber Burns
- Length: 7 hours 13 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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4.23(12 ratings)
4.23(12 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess’ fascinating and consequentialThe Pequot Indian intellectual, author, and itinerant preacher William Apess was one the most important voices of the nineteenth century. Here, Philip F. Gura offers the first book-length chronicle of Apess’ fascinating and consequential life.
After an impoverished childhood marked by abuse, Apess soldiered with American troops during the War of 1812, converted to Methodism, and rose to fame as a lecturer who lifted a powerful voice of protest against the plight of Native Americans in New England and beyond. His 1829 autobiography, A Son of the Forest, stands as the first published by a Native American writer.
Placing Apess’ activism on behalf of Native American people in the context of the era’s rising tide of abolitionism, Gura argues that this founding figure of Native intellectual history deserves greater recognition in the pantheon of antebellum reformers.
Following Apess from his early life through the development of his political radicalism to his tragic early death and enduring legacy, this much-needed biography showcases the accomplishments of an extraordinary Native American.
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Black Elk
- By: Joe Jackson
- Narrator: Traber Burns
- Length: 22 hours 29 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.2(467 ratings)
4.2(467 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.95 USDHere is the epic life story of the Native American holy man who has inspired millions around the world. Black Elk, the Native American holy man, is known to millions of readers around the world from his 1932 testimonial, Black Elk Speaks. Adapted byHere is the epic life story of the Native American holy man who has inspired millions around the world.
Black Elk, the Native American holy man, is known to millions of readers around the world from his 1932 testimonial, Black Elk Speaks. Adapted by the poet John Neihardt from a series of interviews, it is one of the most widely read and admired works of American Indian literature. Cryptic and deeply personal, it has been read as a spiritual guide, a philosophical manifesto, and a text to be deconstructed–while the historical Black Elk has faded from view.
In this sweeping book, Joe Jackson provides the definitive biographical account of a figure whose dramatic life converged with some of the most momentous events in the history of the American West.
Born in an era of rising violence, Black Elk killed his first man at Little Big Horn, witnessed the death of his second cousin Crazy Horse, and traveled to Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Upon his return, he was swept up in the traditionalist Ghost Dance movement and shaken by the massacre at Wounded Knee. But Black Elk was not a warrior and instead chose the path of a healer and holy man, motivated by a powerful prophetic vision that haunted and inspired him, even after he converted to Catholicism in his later years.
In Black Elk, Jackson has crafted a true American epic, restoring to Black Elk the richness of his times and gorgeously portraying a life of heroism and tragedy, adaptation and endurance, in an era of permanent crisis on the Great Plains.
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Kaffir Boy
- By: Mark Mathabane
- Narrator: Mark Mathabane
- Length: 18 hours 33 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2012
- Language: English
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4.17(14779 ratings)
4.17(14779 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0033.95 USDThe classic story of life in apartheid South Africa Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites ofThe classic story of life in apartheid South Africa
Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.
This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable degradation, for Mark Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered “Kaffir” from the rat-infested alleys of Alexandra was supposed to do—he escaped to tell about it.
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An American Martyr in Persia
- By: Reza Aslan
- Length: 10 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: October 11, 2022
- Language: English
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4.15(161 ratings)
4.15(161 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDIn this erudite and piercing biography, best-selling author Reza Aslan proves that one person’s actions can have revolutionary consequences that reverberate the world over. Little known in America but venerated as a martyr in Iran, HowardIn this erudite and piercing biography, best-selling author Reza Aslan proves that one person’s actions can have revolutionary consequences that reverberate the world over.
Little known in America but venerated as a martyr in Iran, Howard Baskerville was a twenty-two-year-old Christian missionary from South Dakota who traveled to Persia (modern-day Iran) in 1907 for a two-year stint teaching English and preaching the gospel. He arrived
in the midst of a democratic revolution–the first of its kind in the Middle East–led by a group of brilliant young firebrands committed to transforming their country into a fully self-determining, constitutional monarchy, one with free elections and an independent parliament.The Persian students Baskerville educated in English in turn educated him about their struggle for democracy, ultimately inspiring him to leave his teaching post and join them in their fight against a tyrannical shah and his British and Russian
backers. “The only difference between me and these people is the place of my birth,” Baskerville declared, “and that is not a big difference.”In 1909, Baskerville was killed in battle alongside his students, but his martyrdom spurred on the revolutionaries who succeeded in removing the shah from power, signing a new constitution, and rebuilding parliament in Tehran. To this day,
Baskerville’s tomb in the city of Tabriz remains a place of pilgrimage. Every year, thousands of Iranians visit his grave to honor the American who gave his life forIran.In this rip-roaring tale of his life and death, Aslan gives us a powerful parable about the universal ideals of democracy–and to what degree Americans are willing to support those ideals in a foreign land. Woven throughout is an essential
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history of the nation we now know as Iran–frequently demonized and misunderstood in the West. Indeed, Baskerville’s life and death represent a “road not taken” in Iran. Baskerville’s story, like his life, is at the center of a whirlwind in
which Americans must ask themselves: How seriously do we take our ideals of constitutional democracy and whose freedom do we support? -
A Small Place
- By: Jamaica Kincaid
- Narrator: Robin Miles
- Length: 1 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2016
- Language: English
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4.03(11590 ratings)
4.03(11590 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.009.95 USDFrom the award-winning author of Annie John comes a brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua. “If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. BirdFrom the award-winning author of Annie John comes a brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua.
“If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the prime minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a prime minister would want an airport named after him–why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument. You are a tourist and you have not yet seen …”
So begins Jamaica Kincaid’s expansive essay, which shows us what we have not yet seen of the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up.
Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright by turns, in a Swiftian mode, A Small Place cannot help but amplify our vision of one small place and all that it signifies.
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Children of the Land
- By: Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
- Narrator: Timothy Andres Pabon
- Length: 10 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 28, 2020
- Language: English
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4.01(1838 ratings)
4.01(1838 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDAn Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated Book of 2020 This unforgettable memoir from a prize-winning poet about growing up undocumented in the United States recounts the sorrows and joys of a family torn apart by draconian policies and chroniclesAn Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated Book of 2020
This unforgettable memoir from a prize-winning poet about growing up undocumented in the United States recounts the sorrows and joys of a family torn apart by draconian policies and chronicles one young man’s attempt to build a future in a nation that denies his existence.
“You were not a ghost even though an entire country was scared of you. No one in this story was a ghost. This was not a story.”
When Marcelo Hernandez Castillo was five years old and his family was preparing to cross the border between Mexico and the United States, he suffered temporary, stress-induced blindness. Castillo regained his vision, but quickly understood that he had to move into a threshold of invisibility before settling in California with his parents and siblings. Thus began a new life of hiding in plain sight and of paying extraordinarily careful attention at all times for fear of being truly seen. Before Castillo was one of the most celebrated poets of a generation, he was a boy who perfected his English in the hopes that he might never seem extraordinary.
With beauty, grace, and honesty, Castillo recounts his and his family’s encounters with a system that treats them as criminals for seeking safe, ordinary lives. He writes of the Sunday afternoon when he opened the door to an ICE officer who had one hand on his holster, of the hours he spent making a fake social security card so that he could work to support his family, of his father’s deportation and the decade that he spent waiting to return to his wife and children only to be denied reentry, and of his mother’s heartbreaking decision to leave her children and grandchildren so that she could be reunited with her estranged husband and retire from a life of hard labor.
Children of the Land distills the trauma of displacement, illuminates the human lives behind the headlines and serves as a stunning meditation on what it means to be a man and a citizen.
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Fighting for America
- By: Christopher Paul Moore
- Narrator: Christopher Paul Moore
- Length: 10 hours 30 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: August 27, 2009
- Language: English
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4(6 ratings)
4(6 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDChristopher Paul Moore is a curator and research historian for the New York Public Library’s world-renowned Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. This noble work of history is a tribute to the inspiring accomplishments of blackChristopher Paul Moore is a curator and research historian for the New York Public Library’s world-renowned Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. This noble work of history is a tribute to the inspiring accomplishments of black servicemen and servicewomen whose selflessness helped America achieve victory in World War II.
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Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
- By: Danzy Senna
- Narrator: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 6 hours 1 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2009
- Language: English
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3.75(436 ratings)
3.75(436 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0013.95 USDWhen Danzy Senna’s parents got married in 1968, they seemed poised to defy history. A white woman with a blue-blood Bostonian lineage and a black man raised by a struggling single mother, these two beautiful young American writers were boldlyWhen Danzy Senna’s parents got married in 1968, they seemed poised to defy history. A white woman with a blue-blood Bostonian lineage and a black man raised by a struggling single mother, these two beautiful young American writers were boldly challenging long-held racial biases. When their marriage violently disintegrated eight years later, it was all the more heartrending given the hopeful symbolism of their union.
Decades later, Senna looks back at her parents’ divorce and their wildly opposing backgrounds and discovers two remarkable American histories. Digging deeper, she reconstructs a long-buried family mystery that illuminates her own childhood, her enigmatic father, the power and failure of her parents’ union, and finally, the forces of history.
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- Previous 29 Best Cultural Heritage, Fiction Books
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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