Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong: Recent Episodes
Samuel Biagetti
History lectures by Samuel Biagetti, a historian (and antique dealer) with a Phd in early American history; my dissertation was on Freemasonry in the 1700s. I focus on the historical myths and distortions, from "the Middle Ages" to "Race," that people use to rationalize the world in which we live. More info at www.historiansplaining.com
Please see my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632, if you want to keep the lectures coming, and to hear the patron-only materials.
Scaife, eds., “Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives,” 1995Lecture:-Ronald Hutton, “Gods of Prehistoric Britain,” 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjC0lGr4h04Podcast Series:-“The Discovery Series: The Bog Bodies,” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-discovery-series-the-bog-bodies/id1852306442
Brothwell, eds., “Lindow Man: the Body in the Bog”;Melanie Giles, “Bog Bodies: Face to Face with the Past”; Peter Glob, “The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved”;Dick Kirby, “Missing, Presumed Murdered: The McKay Case and Other Convictions without a Corpse”MA Thesis:Solen Ruffy, “The Violent Deaths of Kings and Priests in Ireland and Britain: Case Study of the Iron Age Bog Mummies,” etc., 2023, https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-04560083v1/file/Memoire-2023-LCCC-RUFFY_Solen.pdfArticles:Van Beek, et al, “Bogs, bones and bodies: the deposition of human remains in northern European mires,” Antiquity, Jan. 2023;R.C. Connolly, “Lindow Man: Britain’s Prehistoric Bog Body,” Anthropology Today, Oct. 1985;Dalya Alberge, “Lindow Man ‘was a simple murder victim,” The Times, March 22, 2004;Ronald Hutton, “What Did Happen to Lindow Man?”, Worthing Archaeological Society Journal, spring 2004Lecture:Ronald Hutton, “Gods of Prehistoric Britain,” 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjC0lGr4h04Podcast Series:“The Discovery Series: The Bog Bodies,” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-discovery-series-the-bog-bodies/id1852306442
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only: We follow the tribulations of the Papacy through the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, as the Pope's loyal soldiers in the Jesuit order are expelled from Catholic states and empires, the Church comes under attack in the French Reovlution, and Napoleon takes the Pope prisoner. We then follow the Papacy's gradual recovery of prestige -- through the reactionary rigorism of Pius IX and the 1st Vatican Council; the creation of Catholic social teaching and the intervention of the Church in the class struggle between capital and labor under Leo XIII; and the dramatic reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. We consider the controversies and scandals of the modern church relating to fascism, the Nazi Holocaust, the Vatican Bank, and the suppression of Liberation Theology, and finally, examine the recent shakeup of the Vatican under Pope Francis, the momentous implications of the Synod on Synodality, and the clues presaging a new political assertiveness of the Church under the first American pope, Leo XIV.Please support this podcast to hear all patron-only lectures when they are posted: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632Image: Print showing Pope Pius IX presiding over the First Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica, 1869.
No other American colony projected such extensive power with so few people. We recount how the French explored the vast northern region they called “Canada” for decades in pursuit of furs and the Northwest Passage, but repeatedly failed to plant a lasting colony in the harsh and forbidding land—until they found in Samuel de Champlain a leader with the shrewdness and grit to overcome the severe cold, the vast distances, and the treacherous politics of the Saint Lawrence basin. We trace the growth of Quebec from little more than a warehouse in the frozen wilderness to a thriving town, controlling the most critical gateway into the continent and serving as the hub of a lucrative trading network, a vast constellation of mission towns and outposts (including the Christianizing experiment known as Montreal), and most importantly, a formidable indigenous alliance system that dominated the continent from the Atlantic to Lake Superior. Finally, we consider the disasters of the mid-1600s, including deadly epidemics and warfare with the Five Nations, that brought Canada’s most important allies to their knees and threatened to wipe the colony off the map.Please sign up as a patron to support the podcast! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632Previous lecture discussing the history of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (aka the Iroquois Confederacy or Five Nations): https://historiansplaining.com/individual-episodes/the-hiawatha-belt/Previous lecture, discussing the dynamics and importance of the fur trade: “History of the United States in 100 Objects, no. 24 – Beaver-Fur Stovepipe Hat” -- https://historiansplaining.com/individual-episodes/beaver-fur-stovepipe-hat/Previous lecture on the first French colony on the North American mainland, Acadia: https://historiansplaining.com/individual-episodes/acadia-first-foothold-in-the-north/Image: Engraving depicting the battle of Lake Champlain, July, 1609, published in Samuel de Champlain’s “Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain,” 1613, based on a drawing by Champlain himselfSuggested Further Reading: Riendeau, “A Brief History of Canada”; David Hackett Fischer, “Champlain’s Dream: The European Founding of North America”; Moogk, “La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada”; Linteau, “The History of Montreal”; Greg Koabel, “The Nations of Canada” podcast, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nations-of-canada/id1531471267
Italy in the Nineteenth Century”; Adrian Lyttleton, ed., “Liberal and Fascist Italy”Image: pro-intervention rally with Gabriele D’Annunzio, held at Quarto, Liguria, May 5, 1915
For patrons only for 1 year: We trace how the notion of the “industrial revolution” – originally a foreign, Continental idea rooted in German dialectical history – entered into British political discourse and then into sacred national mythology, enshrined by the tourism industry and by Thatcherite politics. Then we examine the evolving debate over whether the alleged revolution was a good or a bad thing—or whether such an event happened at all, considering its narrow limitations in time, space, and scope. Finally, we weigh carefully the arguments that have been advanced in defense of the traditional myth, including the explosive growth of British cities, the wide divergence between Europe and the rest of the world, and the appearance of so-called “proto-industrialization” in the organization of labor before the rise of machines.Please sign up as a patron to hear the entire lecture, and all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-of-month-26-159215235Alternatively, non-patrons can purchase the entire “Myths of the Month” playlist for one flat fee: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2031535?view=condensedImage: Museum of Sciene and Industry, Manchester, England, UKSuggested further reading:Books: Kenneth Pomeranz, “The Great Divergence”; D.C. Coleman, “Myth, History, and the Industrial Revolution”; Eric Hobsbawm, “Industry and Empire: An Economic History of Britain Since 1750”Articles: Fores, “The Myth of a British Industrial Revolution,” History, 1981; Cameron, “A New View of European Industrialization,” The Economic History Review, Feb. 1985; Quataert, “A New View of Industrialization,” International Labor and Working-Class History, Spring 1988; Razzell, “The Growth of Population in Eighteenth-Century England: A Critical Reappraisal,” Journal of Economic History, Dec. 1993; Davenport, “Mortality, migration and epidemiological change in English cities, 1600-1870,” International Journal of Paleopathology, June 2021
and all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-of-month-26-159215235Alternatively, non-patrons can purchase the entire “Myths of the Month” playlist for one flat fee: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2031535?view=condensedImage: Print of Albion Mills on fire, by Sheppard, London, 1791Suggested Further Reading: D.C. Coleman, “Myth, History, and the Industrial Revolution”; Anna Bezanson, “The Early Use of the Term Industrial Revolution,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 36, no. 2; Rondo Cameron, “A New View of European Industrialization”, The Economic History Review, vol. 38, no. 1; Eric Hobsbawm, “Industry and Empire: An Economic History of Britain Since 1750”
Tate, “Colonial Virginia: A History”Image: Portrait of Matoaka / Pocahontas / Rebecca Rolfe, by WL Sheppard, 1891, based on an unknown original allegedly from life, 1616
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only: A tall “stovepipe” hat, which was made in the 1600s out of felt from beaver fur and likely belonged to a powerful member of the English ParlA tall “stovepipe” hat, which was made in the 1600s out of felt from beaver fur and likely belonged to a powerful member of the English Parliament, illustrates the extraordinary value of finely made hats, which fueled centuries of colonization, exploration, diplomatic feuding, and warfare all across North America, as European empires and Native American nations competed fiercely for control of the lucrative fur trade.Costume history blog post on beaver hats, with comtemporary artworks, by Gail Kellogg Hope: https://artbeautyandwell-orderedchaos.blogspot.com/2011/04/beaver-hats.htmlDissertation by Elizabeth McFadden, on “Fur Dress, Art, and Class Identity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England and Holland,” at: https://escholarship.org/content/qt79w6n34n/qt79w6n34n.pdf?t=q6z2rgAlice Morse Earle’s “Two Centuries of Costume in America,” vol. 1, 1620-1820: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10115/pg10115.txtWeiss Gallery page with portrait of Sir Rowland Cotton (1581-1634) holding a felt hat: https://www.weissgallery.com/artworks/categories/2/9411-paul-van-somer-c.1577-1622-sir-rowland-cotton-1581-1634-of-alkington-painted-1618/
queen’s hand resting on North America on the globe, representing her purported claim to that landSuggested further reading: Armitage, “Ideological Origins of the British Empire”; Kupperman, “The Jamestown Project”
“From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People”; Arseneault, “History of the Acadians”Image: Depiction of Belle-Isle area just outside of Port Royal from French census of 1686Music: “Danse des Sauvages,” from “Les Indes Galantes” by Rameau, performed by Les Arts Florissants
Restoration, including the origins of the Whig party: https://www.patreon.com/posts/england-and-1650-42722389My lecture on the Glorious Revolution and the beginning of the Whig ascendancy: https://www.patreon.com/posts/james-ii-and-88-73953596
Gomez, “New Mexico: A History”; Gutierrez, “When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away”; Brooks, “Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands”; Rodriguez, “Review: Subaltern Historiography on the Rio Grande,” American Ethnologist vol. 21, No. 4 (Nov., 1994)My earlier lecture series on the history of Florida (first European colony north of the Rio Grande), “Fortresses on Sand: The History of Florida”: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/sets/fortresses-on-sand-the-historyPlease sign on as a patron at any level to hear the patron-only lectures, including my most recent on Central Africa: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632
Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal in the flood of Nov. 4, 1966Intro music: Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, overtureClosing music: Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, brindisi / drinking song
;Thornton, “The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706”
brass, ca. 1300sPlease sign on as a patron to hear patron-only lectures, including upcoming installment on Central AFrica: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632
Royal Blue as a window into the ideology of the Democratic Party and the liberal middle class in the early 21st Century, including its attraction to free trade, the Sun Belt, and particularly Texas, as symbols of the so-called “Emerging Democratic Majority” that would supposedly rule the rest of the century. We question the film’s basic opposition between idealism and realism and all of the implicit value judgments that it carries, and finally consider how the film excludes or avoids discussion of class and material issues, through a comparison with the 2014 British film “Pride.”View this video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPEb9Zxx9eEPlease become a patron of historiansplaining in order to hear patron-only lectures -- / u5530632 -- and the see this video in its entirety without ads! -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/1420325...
We follow how a remote landmass on the far western fringe of Europe became the home of a lasting Gaelic civilization and a major center of classical and Christian knowledge, before coming under attack by Viking raiders and Anglo-Norman invaders. We examine the English Crown’s shifting and increasingly desperate strategies to control Ireland, and the long battle over control of land and religion before Ireland was finally subjected to Protestant domination following the Glorious Revolution.Recommended further reading: Cronin, “A History of Ireland”; Foster, ed., “The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland”; Ranelagh, “A Short History of Ireland”; Roberson, “The Irish Ice Sheet,” https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glacial-geology/british-irish-ice-sheet/the-irish-ice-sheet/Music: “Danse du Grand Calumet de la Paix” / “Forets Paisibles,” from the opera-ballet “Les Indes Galantes,” by Jean-Philippe Rameau & Louis Fuzelier, 1735, performed by Les Arts Florissants, with vocalists Patricia Petibon & Nicolas Rivenq -- used with the kind authorization of Les Arts FlorissantsImage: Lavabo, Mellifont Abbey, IrelandPlease sign up as a patron at any level to hear patron-only lectures, including the series on the Epic of Gilgamesh! -- www.patreon.com/c/u5530632
Nations: What are they? Are they defined by language, by “culture,” by blood, or something else? How do you know if you are part of one? —and is everyone in the world a member of one nation or another?We follow how the rise of medieval kingdoms and universities and the print revolution made it possible for people in the West to imagine themselves as part of extended kinship groups united by a common language and ancestry, how these abstract “nations” differed from all earlier social groupings, how nations have developed a standard template for national history and mythology, and how since the French Revolution, “nationalism” has inspired the loyalties and fired the passions of millions.Finally, we consider how scholars and critics have torn the concept of the nation to shreds, and then have tried to account for the profound transformations in consciousness and time made it possible for people to conceive of themselves as belonging to nations in the first place.Apologies for the osprey squawking in the background of the lecture!Suggested further reading: B. Anderson, "Imagined Communities"; Ernest Renan, "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?"; Grosby, "Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction"; Potter, "The Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa"Music: “Danse du Grand Calumet de la Paix” / “Forets Paisibles,” from the opera-ballet “Les Indes Galantes,” by Jean-Philippe Rameau & Louis Fuzelier, 1735, performed by Les Arts Florissants, with vocalists Patricia Petibon & Nicolas Rivenq -- used with the kind authorization of Les Arts FlorissantsPlease sign up as a patron at any level to hear patron-only lectures, including the series on the Epic of Gilgamesh! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632
We follow how deportation policy has evolved, expanding massively in the aftermaths of World War One and World War Two, while shifting its main targets -- from political radicals and dissidents, to organized criminals, to "undesirable" racial and ethnic groups including Asians and Mexicans. We examine the changing laws and judicial rulings that have carved out an exception for deportation, allowing the government nearly unlimited and unchecked power, with no recourse to the protections of the Bill of Rights -- and finally, we consider how the Trump administration's recent failed attempts to deport supporters of the Palestinian cause might lead to a small crack in the wall sealing the deportation process off from the courts and the Constitution.Image: Cartoon of the Buford or "Red Ark" departing from New York, Evening Star, Dec. 22, 1919Suggested further reading: Kanstroom, "Deportation Nation"; Drinnon, "Rebel in Paradise: A Biiography of Emma Goldman"; Muzaffar Chishti and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, "Tapping Ancient Wartime and Security Laws," etc., Migration Policy Institute, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trump-registration-alien-enemies-insurrectionPlease sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including the most recent on the modern history of the Papacy! -- www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only: The most massive and momentous manuscript discovery of modern times, the Dead Sea Scrolls blew the lid off of the long-mysterious world of messianic and apocalyptic ferment before the destruction of the Second Temple—yet it took decades of conflict and struggle to bring them to public light. We trace why the scrolls became the object of a long international struggle, what they actually say, and what they reveal about the roots of the Bible, Christianity, and modern Judaism.Suggested further reading: Lim, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction”; Collins, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography”; Shanks, ed., “Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review”; Eisemman & Wise, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered”; Wise, Abegg, & Cook, eds., “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation.”Image: Portion of the Temple ScrollPlease sign up as a patron, at any level, in order to hear patron-only lectures, including the series on the Epic of Gilgamesh! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
We examine the roots of the American practice of "deportation" -- from colonial banishment of heretics, through the political upheaval over Alien & Sedition Acts, to the age of Chinese Exclusion -- which paved the way for the federal government to exercise virtually unlimited & absolute power over aliens, whom they placed outside the protection of the Constitution.Suggested further reading: Kanstroom, "Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History"Image: East Asian women & children in a holding cell, Angel Island immigration station, Calinfornia, ca. 1920Please sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including the most recent on the modern history of the Papacy! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
For Patrons only for 1 year: We follow the tribulations of the Papacy through the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, as the Pope's loyal soldiers in the Jesuit order are expelled from Catholic states and empires, the Church comes under attack in the French Reovlution, and Napoleon takes the Pope prisoner. We then follow the Papacy's gradual recovery of prestige -- through the reactionary rigorism of Pius IX and the 1st Vatican Council; the creation of Catholic social teaching and the intervention of the Church in the class struggle between capital and labor under Leo XIII; and the dramatic reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. We consider the controversies and scandals of the modern church relating to fascism, the Nazi Holocaust, the Vatican Bank, and the suppression of Liberation Theology, and finally, examine the recent shakeup of the Vatican under Pope Francis, the momentous implications of the Synod on Synodality, and the clues presaging a new political assertiveness of the Church under the first American pope, Leo XIV.Please sign on as a patron to hear the whole lecture: https://www.patreon.com/posts/133266130Image: American print showing Pope Pius IX presiding over the First Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica, 1869.Correction: Banker Roberto Calvi was found dead hanging from Blackfriars Bridge, London, not London Bridge.
We follow the paths by which the bishops of Rome – leaders of what had been a small church on the fringe of the Christian world – established themselves as the foremost spiritual leaders of Western Christendom and with time, as supreme heads of the global Catholic Church. We follow the dramatic turns in the Papacy’s fortunes, as Popes alternate between pinnacles of power and prestige, commanding lands and armies, launching Crusades and outwitting emperors, and extreme lows of feebleness and humiliation, overruled by councils and overthrown by foreign kings. We consider how the Papacy made use of the Renaissance and struggled to respond to the Protestant Reformation—before examining the history of the modern Papacy and the more recent Popes for Part 2.Suggested further reading: Norwich, “Absolute Monarchs : A History of the Papacy”; La Due, “The Chair of Saint Peter : A History of the Papacy”Please sign up, at any level, to support the podcast and hear patron-only lectures! -- www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632 Image: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, offering submission to Pope Alexander III, as part of Treaty of Venice, 1177, as depcited in a fresco in Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, by Spinello Aretino, ca. 1407
Update for listeners, and happy Father's Day wishes; excerpt from latest patron-only lecture on Italy between unification and the entry into the First World War.Please sign up on Patreon to hear the latest lecture and all patron-only materials! -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/italy-nation-war-131082248Podcast website: www.historiansplaining.comImage: The Paderno D'Adda hydroelectric power plant, Lombardy, 1895-8Music: "Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu" / "Volare," by Domenico Modugno
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only: We review the diplomatic landscape of Europe on the eve of war in the summer of 1914—and then trace the dizzying cascade of events that followed after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. We get a handle on the ensuing crisis that ricocheted through embassies, banquet halls, and barracks all across Europe, and plunged all the great powers of the continent into a war that soon spread around the world.Suggested further reading: Christopher Clark, “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914”; Margaret MacMillan, “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914”; Barbara Tuchman, “The Guns of August.”Image: Photograph of nine kings (George V of Britain seated, center; Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany standing, in red), at Windsor, for funeral of Edward VII of Britain, May, 1910.Please sign up to hear all patron-only lectures, including recent series on the Dead Sea Scrolls & the Epic of Gilgamesh: https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
We follow the convulsions of Italian society -- foreign invasion, popular revolution, peasant revolt, liberal reform, Romantic pageantry, diplomatic dirty dealings, and patriotic war -- through which the residents of a fragmented, poor, and backwards section of Europe overthrew the puppet regimes of foreign rulers and challenged the internal power of the Church, to seize control of their own destiny and create a new nation-state that would take its place among the major powers of the world.Image: "The First Italian Flag Taken to Firenze," by F.S. Altamura, 1859.Suggested further reading: Lucy Riall, "Risorgimento"; John A. David, ed., "Italy in the Nineteenth Century."Musical passage: "Va, Pensiero" from Nabuco, Lyrics by Temistocle Solera, music by Giuseppe Verdi, performed by Novosibirsk Symphony OrchestraPlease sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including the recent series on the Dead Sea Scrolls and on the Epic of Gligamesh! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
We follow Korea's thousand-year struggle to maintain its integrity and independence, fending off cataclysmic invasions by the Mongols, the Manchus, and the samurai of Japan, and repeatedly transforming itself -- from a confederation of Buddhist warrior-nobles, to a strictly Confucian surveillance state, to a fledgling modern industrial nation -- before finally falling to Meiji Japan.Suggested reading: Han Woo-Keun, “The History of Korea”; Michael J. Seth, “A History of Korea” & “A Brief History of Korea”; Takashi Hatada, “A History of Korea”; Ki-Baek Lee, “A New History of Korea”Image: Seokguram Grotto, outside Gyeongju, late 700sPlease sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures! -- www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
I give an update on the progress of the podcast, and an important caution on how to sign up as a patron while avoiding Apple's new fees. I give an excerpt from my latest episode for patrons, "History of the United States in 100 Objects -- 24: Beaver-Fur Stovepipe Hat, ca. 1590-1670" --On this episode: A tall “stovepipe” hat, which was made in the 1600s out of felt from beaver fur and likely belonged to a powerful member of the English Parliament, illustrates the extraordinary value of finely made hats, which fueled centuries of colonization, exploration, diplomatic feuding, and warfare all across North America, as European empires and Native American nations competed fiercely for control of the lucrative fur trade.Please sign up here (on desktop or Android app -- not iPhone!) in order to hear the whole lecture: https://www.patreon.com/posts/history-of-in-24-126376005
We examine the origins of the Korean people and state – from prehistoric migrations and technological advances, through the formation of warrior confederations, the rise and fall of the Chinese colony, the tumult and intrigue of the “Three Kingdoms” era, and the arrival of Buddhism, and finally to the unification of most of Korea under the Silla kingdom.Suggested reading: Han Woo-Keun, “The History of Korea”; Michael J. Seth, “A History of Korea” & “A Brief History of Korea”; Takashi Hatada, “A History of Korea”; Ki-Baek Lee, “A New History of Korea”Map of approximate borders of Gojoseon, the first regional confederaton in Korea, ca. 200s BC, before takeover by Wiman: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/rkauac/the_first_kingdom_of_korea/#lightboxMap of Korea during the Three-Kingdoms period ca. 500 AD, at the height of Koguryeo power: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea_Map-es.svgImage: wall mural depicting the Azure Dragon, embodying spring & the east, in a Goguryeo tombPlease sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
We journey through the different eras and incarnations of Troy as archaeologists have reconstructed them from the excavations at Hissarlik. We then explore the surviving evidence -- including linguistic theories, newly discovered tablets from the ancient Hittite capital, and the long-lost and rediscovered "Priam's Treasure" that Schliemann unearthed-- to form a picture of who the Trojans were and what sort of city they created in the Bronze Age world.Image: Gold jewels & vessels from "Priam's Treasure" as displayed at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1990s.Music: "Les Cyclopes," by Rameau, performed by Paul Barton & published by FeurichFurther Reading: Tolstikov & Treister, “The Gold of Troy”; Allen, “Finding the Walls of Troy”; Traill, “Schliemann of Troy”; Moorehead, “Lost and Found: the 9,000 Treasures of Troy”; McCarty, “Troy: The Myth and Reality Behind the Epic Legend”; Gainsford, Kiwi Hellenist blog, “The Trojan War #3: Bronze Age Evidence,” https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-trojan-war-3-bronze-age-evidence.html; Fitton & Villing, British Museum blog, “The Search for the Lost City of Troy,” https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/search-lost-city-troyPlease sign up as a patron at any level, to hear patron-only lectures, including on the Dead Sea Scrolls -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only -- We trace the evolution of Japanese society, including the tensions between its peaceable, Buddhist-inspired aspect and its martial aspect; its extraordinary transformation in the Meiji period, from an antiquated hermit kingdom to a dynamic modern power; and its crucial alliance with its European mirror image, Great Britain – which set the stage for its role in the First World War.Dan Carrick & Japanese singers’ performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s 1885 adaptation of the Meiji anthem, “Miya Sama” -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOh5MIVP1bUA Japanese rendition of “Miya Sama” -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DpgzFtHuBgImage: the grand receiving room of Nijojo, KyotoSuggested further reading: Perez, “The History of Japan”; Mason & Caiger, “A History of Japan,” 2nd ed.Please sign up on Patreon at any level to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
It is one of the foundational achievements of archaeology, and one of the most momentous discoveries ever made in any field --We follow the long debate over whether and where the remains of the ancient legendary city of Troy could be found, and we see how the mystery was solved by the excavations overseen by the brilliant, ruthless, and indefatigable German businessman, explorer, and serial liar, Heinrich Schliemann.Pt. 2 will examine how modern scholars and excavators have used the finds from the site in Turkey -- including the long lost priceless "Treasure of Priam" -- to reconstruct the city and its place in the Bronze-Age world.Music: "Les Cyclopes" by Jean-Philippe Rameau, played on piano by Paul Barton, and published by Feurich Piano.Image: Sophia Schliemann posing in a gold diadem, necklace, and earrings from Troy 2, dubbed "The Jewels of Helen," 1873-4.Suggested further reading: Tolstikov & Treister, “The Gold of Troy”; Allen, “Finding the Walls of Troy”; Traill, “Schliemann of Troy”; Moorehead, “Lost and Found: the 9,000 Treasures of Troy”Please sign up as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including the previous "Doorways in Time" on the Dead Sea Scrolls -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
A sample from a lecture on Patreon for patrons only for one year:We trace the strugles of Venice, through conquest, revolution, and depression, to fashion a place for itself in the modern world, to channel or keep at bay the new floods -- of rising seas, of diseased canals, and of tourist hordes -- and most of all, to somehow square the circle of preservation and modernity.Sign up as a patron at any level to hear this lecture: https://www.patreon.com/posts/impossible-city-121039973Image: The Palazzo dei Camerlenghi & Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal in the flood of Nov. 4, 1966Intro music: Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, overtureClosing music: Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, brindisi / drinking song
We use a recent controversial murder case as a way to reconsider recent world events--such as war in Europe and the return of Trump--from the perspective of the epistemological crisis and the decline of trust in Truth, Facts, and Reality.CHAPTERS:0:00:20 – Intro & Disclaimers0:11:45 – The Great Witch Hunt: overview0:28:25 – The Great Witch Hunt: midwives & caregivers0:45:10 – The Lucy Letby Case: narrative1:15:55 – The Lucy Letby Case: analysis1:44:10 – The Lucy Letby Case: reactions & aftermath1:51:25 – Defensiveness & the epistemic house of cards2:08:00 – The partisanization of knowledge2:20:40 – The trials of the expert class2:38:40 – Lessons of World War I2:46:30 – The threat to democracy is the presidency2:55:50 – The “economy”2:59:10 – Conclusions: Notre Dame restoredImage: 18th-century farmhouse on eroding cliff's edge, Trimingham, Norfolk, England, April 2024.Audio version of my 2022 article, "In the American Tempest: Democracy, Conspiracy, and Machine" -- https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/article-in-the-american-tempest-democracy-conspiracy-machineJeffrey Friedman's 2023 article, "Post-Truth and the Epistemological Crisis" -- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08913811.2023.2221502Please sign up as a patron to hear patron-only lectures, such as on the Epic of Gilgamesh -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
We trace Venice's remarkable flowering between the 1300s and 1500s, in which it astonished Europe as a center of commercial and imperial power, learning, and art, as well as its repeated struggles -- with the bubonic plague, the Ottoman Turks, the rival Italian states, and the Catholic Church -- that forced Venice to give up its empire, and to transform into a pleasure-ground of music, theater, sex, and revelry -- arguably becoming the world's first tourist attraction -- before finally losing its long-treasured independence and becoming a pawn of modern powers.Image: Painting by Canaletto, 1730s, showing the Sensa festival fleet and the Bucintoro returning to San Marco after the marriage to the sea ceremony.Thank you to Sarai Cole for permitting use of an exceprt of her rendition of Vivaldi's "Filiae Maestae Jerusalem" / "Sileant Zephyri" -- https://soundcloud.com/sarai-cole-freericks/sileant-zephyri-from-filiae-maestae-jerusalem-vivaldiSuggested further reading: Ferrarro, "Venice: History of the Floating City"; Madden, "Venice: A New History"; Morris, "The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage"Please sign up as a patron to help keep the pod coming, and to hear patron-only lectures, including the recent series on the Epic of Gilgamesh -- https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
We trace the tortuous path by which a scattering of villages in a marshy lagoon, founded by refugees from violence and political breakdown, forged their own stable and cohesive independent republic which would last for a thousand years, and with it a splendrous city where East and West mingled, a sprawling trade network linking Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and finally a waterborne empire that was the forerunner of the modern European colonial states.Image: Detail of a woodcut illustration showing a view of Venice, by Reuwich & Schoffer, 1486.Suggested Further Reading: Morris, "The Venetian Empire: A Sea Voyage"; Madden, "Venice: A New History"; Ferrarro, "Venice: A History of the Floating City."Please sign on as a patron to hear patron-only tracks, such as the series on the Epic of Gilgamesh: https://www.patreon.com/c/user?u=5530632
A randomly-chosen sample from the deepest most thorough analysis that you can find anywhere of the profoundly ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, on patreon for patrons only for one year:We examine the Epic of Gilgamesh as a piece of literature, for its strange dream-like style and form, its points of similarity to Biblical and ancient Greek and European mythology, and finally, its deep levels of psychological and political allegory, ultimately revealing the love between Enkidu and Gilgamesh as a parable of the fraught relationship between civilization and the wild.Please sign up as a patron at any level to hear both of the patron-only lectures on Gilgamesh: https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-of-month-24-114591189Image: Gilgamesh grappling with Enkidu; illustration by Wael Tarabieh.Our previous lecture on the discovery of the Library of Ashurbanipal, where the Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered: Historiansplaining – Unlocked-the-great-archaeological-discoveries-pt-3-the-library-of-ashurbanipalThe SOAS's recordings of scholars reading Akkadian texts: https://www.soas.ac.uk/baplar/recordingsSuggested further reading: George, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; N.K. Sandars, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; Heidel, "The Epic of Gilgamesh and Old Testament Parallels"; Stephen Mitchell, "Gilgamesh"; Michael Schmidt, "Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem"; Rivkah Scharf Kluger, "The Archetypal Significance of Gilgamesh."
Two randomly selected excerpts from Myth of the Month 24, on the Epic of Gilgamesh:He is the earliest human being whose name and life story are known to history. We examine the origins and contents of the most ancient narrative ever found anywhere on Earth, and trace how it has been rediscovered, re-used, and re-translated in the modern world, becoming a living and evolving text in a time of anxiety over the fate of civilization.Please sign on as a patron at any level, to hear this lecture and many others: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114062724Image: Sumerian bas-relief sculpture of a man subduing a bull, possibly representing Gilgamesh slaying the Bull of Heaven, 2200s BC.Our previous lecture on the discovery of the Library of Ashurbanipal, where the Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/unlocked-the-great-archaeological-discoveries-pt-3-the-library-of-ashurbanipalSuggested further reading: George, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; N.K. Sandars, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; Heidel, "The Epic of Gilgamesh and Old Testament Parallels"; Stephen Mitchell, "Gilgamesh"; Michael Schmidt, "Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem."
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:We consider the turbulent history and politics of the country most often blamed for the outbreak of the First World War -- Germany. The youngest of all the combatant nations in World War I, The German Reich's deep class, regional, and religious divides drove Kaiser Wilhelm and his inner circle to seek national aggrandizement abroad as a source of unity at home--which inadvertently led them to unite their rivals against them and dragged them into a war not of their making.Suggested further reading: Christopher Clark, "Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia"; Mary Fulbrook, "A Concise History of Germany."Image: Hand-Colored Photograph of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tangier, Morocco, 1905Please sign up at any level to help keep this podcast coming and to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the complex and tumultuous history of the lands around the Caribbean basin, including the rise of the massive sugar-plantation colonies of Jamaica and Saint Domingue, which depended upon an enormous traffic in enslaved African workers, the emergence of distinctive creole languages and spiritual practices, the flourishing of piracy amidst inter-imperial wars, and the long struggle of resistance by slave rebels and defiant Maroons which eventually culminated in the catacylismic upheaval known today as the Haitian Revolution.Image: Women at a linen market, Dominica, by Agostino Brunias, ca. 1780.Our previous lecture on Creating the Caribbean: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/creating-the-caribbean-the-colonial-west-indies-pt-1-1496-1697Suggested further reading: Richard Dunn, "Sugar and Slaves"; Trevor Burnard, "Master, Tyranny, & Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves"; John Sensbach, "Rebecca's Revival"; Marcus Rediker, "The Slave Ship"; Rediker & Linebaugh, "The Many-Headed Hydra"; Christopher L. Brown, "Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism."Please support to keep this podcast coming and to hear patron-only lectures including on the Dead Sea Scrolls: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the tumultuous history--from the Portuguese Inquisition to the American Revolution to modern-day multi-million-dollar legal fights--surrounding a pair of rare colonial Jewish ceremonial artworks called "rimonim" or Torah finials. We consider the unique life and career of the Jewish silversmith who made them, and the symbolism that they encode, centering on life, hope, and regeneration.Please support this podcast! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632See my latest video on “Red, White & Royal Blue” on youtube: https://youtu.be/MoaQXcLhkx4 – or without ads on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/110423206Suggested further reading: Laura Leibman, “Messianism, Secrecy, and Mysticism: A New Interpretation of Early American Jewish Life”; Guido Schoenberger, “The Ritual Silver Made By Myer Myers,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Sept. 1953.
Sign up as a patron at any level to hear this full lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls, on patreon for patrons only: https://www.patreon.com/posts/doorways-in-time-109054869The most massive and momentous manuscript discovery of modern times, the Dead Sea Scrolls blew the lid off of the long-mysterious world of messianic and apocalyptic ferment before the destruction of the Second Temple—yet it took decades of conflict and struggle to bring them to public light. We trace why the scrolls became the object of a long international struggle, what they actually say, and what they reveal about the roots of the Bible, Christianity, and modern Judaism.Suggested further reading: Lim, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction”; Collins, “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography”; Shanks, ed., “Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review”; Eisenman & Wise, “The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered”; Wise, Abegg, & Cook, eds., “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation.”Image: The Great Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1 as displayed in the Shrine of the Book
To conclude our series on the origins of World War I, we trace how combat broke out on three different continents in the late summer and fall of 1914, and then examine the various real and imagined causes of the Great War, from the Anglo-German naval rivalry to French revanchism, and finally consider the deeper transformation in the idea of sovereignty in the West that gave a feud between an old empire and a new nation-state in the Balkans the power to ignite a global war.Image: Mehmet Pasha Sokollu Bridge, Višegrad, Bosnia, with section destroyed, 1915.Sign up as a patron at any level, in order to hear patron-only lectures on Germany, Japan, and the events of the July Crisis: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632Recently unlocked lecture on Bosnia & the Assassination: https://www.patreon.com/posts/origins-of-first-86366245
We consider the rich, often mysterious, and fraught history of Bosnia -- a longtime borderland of East and West, disputed between rival empires, religions, and civilizations -- and trace how the politics of this small, mountainous Slavic country set the stage for the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and in turn, the outbreak of a global war.Image: interior of the "Painted Mosque," Travnik, BosniaPlease sign on at any level to hear patron-only lectures, including on Germany, Japan, and the July Crisis --https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We review the diplomatic landscape of Europe on the eve of war in the summer of 1914—and then follow the dizzying cascade of events that followed after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. We trace on the ensuing crisis that ricocheted through embassies, banquet halls, and barracks all across Europe, and plunged all the great powers of the continent into a war that soon spread around the world.Suggested further reading: Christopher Clark, “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914”; Margaret MacMillan, “The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914”; Barbara Tuchman, “The Guns of August.”Image: Photograph of nine kings (George V of Britain seated, center; Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany standing, in red), at Windsor, for funeral of Edward VII of Britain, May, 1910.Sign up here to listen to the entire lecture, as well as lectures on Germany, Japan, and Bosnia & the Assassination: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105028218
Unlocked after one year on Patreon for patrons only:What is "culture"? And how did a metaphor from gardening invade social-science discourse in 19th-century Germany and America and then take the world by storm? Am I doing "podcast culture" right now?We consider the myriad, often contradictory, ways that "culture" is deployed in current rhetoric, usually to sneak in hidden value judgments; then we trace how an ancient Latin term for gardening came to refer to the "cultivation" of good charater, then to the shaping of society by high art and refined customs, and then ultimately, under the influence of German and American imperial politics, to a supposed unfied, organic whole encompassing the sum total of all learned behaviors in a given society.However you define it, I make the case that it is the defining myth of our time, and that we should get rid of it.Image: "Old New York" diorama, Museum of Natural History, New YorkSuggested reading: Michael A. Elliott, "The Culture Concept: Writing and Difference in the Age of Realism"
This is the audio track of my latest video:"Red, White & Royal Blue: A Historian's Analysis, pt. 1: "We Really Need to Get You a Book on English History" -- The Historical Context of RW&RB"We start our detailed analysis of the recent gay romcom, Red White & Royal Blue, by considering the expansive historical background that gives meaning to the fictitious love affair between a British prince and a son of the US President -- from the constant scrutiny of royals' bodies and love lives, to the political symbolism of royal marriages, to the reactions to homosexuality in the palace, to the awkward and paradoxical role of the American presidency and the so-called "first family," and finally to the shifting and fraught diplomatic relationship between Britain and America in the two World Wars. We conclude with a comparison between RW&RB and its post-war forerunner, "The Americanization of Emily."See an edited version of this video on youtube (with ads) here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAWtgmGyk-wSee this video in full without ads here --https://www.patreon.com/posts/103674430Watch the introductory video of this series ("I know I Owe You an Explanation") here -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/red-white-royal-98784602music: J.S. Bach, "Shafe Konnen Sicher Weiden," performed by Marco Cera. Marco Cera's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@marcocera993
We examine the prophetic warnings from scholars and bureaucrats that a great-power war in the twentieth century would lead to bloody stalemate, mass destruction, and a wave of revolutions; and we trace how war strategists and generals reacted to the prophets of doom, formulating new war plans, from Russia’s blundering steamroll, to Germany’s precarious and ill-fated Schlieffen plan, to Britain's devious and mercurial scheme of economic warfare.Suggested further reading: Barbara Tuchman, “The Guns of August”; Nicholas Lambert, “Planning Armageddon”Nicholas Lambert’s discussion of Britain’s hope of economic warfare, “The Short War Assumption” -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7jJ-POo90&pp=ygUQbmljaG9sYXMgbGFtYmVydA%3D%3DMargaret MacMillan’s lecture on war planning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RUFHkal6Jk&pp=ygUbbWFyZ2FyZXQgbWFjbWlsbGFuIHBsYW5uaW5nImage: Cartoon of the dispute over Alsace-Lorraine as a medieval romance, Puck Magazine, 1898Please sign up as a patron to support this podcast, and hear recent posts on Germany and Japan in the lead-up to World War I -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The scale and horror of the First World War were possible only after the Nineteenth Century's double revolution in the nature of war. Warfare -- including weaponry, strategy, and command -- had remained mostly unchanged for three centuries, from the early integration of firearms in the 1400s until the French Revolution; the campaigns of Napoleon unleashed a new era of mass mobilization and nationalistic fury, while a series of haphazard improvements massively multiplied the killing power and reach of firearms, tearing open a battlefield "killing zone" unlike anything that prior generations of soldiers could have imagined. We follow both the breakdown in the old distinctions between war and civil society and the breakneck advance in land and sea warfare that set the stage for the nightmare of World War I.Image: Japanese riflemen defending a breastwork embankment, Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5.Margaret MacMillan on war & 19th-century society: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJVe0KLONJUNicholas Murray on the emergence of trench warfare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cbq7iu8FrISuggested further reading: Nicholas Murray, "The Rocky Road to the Great War"; Margaret MacMillan, "The War That Ended Peace"; Hew Strachan, "A Clausewitz for Every Season," https://www.the-american-interest.com/2007/07/01/a-clausewitz-for-every-season/Please sign on at any level to support this podcast and to hear the recent lectures on Germany, Bosnia, and Japan -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In 2022, I was asked to contribute to a symposium at Yale Law School on the question, "How can the humanities inform tech policy and design to promote 'healthier' discourse and democracy online?" The ultimate result was this article, published in the 2023 symposium issue of the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities. A scanned pdf of the article can be found as an attachment here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100047377I also gave a short presentation at the symposium in 2022; since visual evidence is important to the argument of this article, I hope to expand upon the slides that I used in that presentation in order to produce a video with a full-length visual track to accompany the article.Film of Sumi Jo performing second half of Olympia's aria, "Les Oiseaux dans la Charmille," in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann," at Opera de Lille, 1997: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW2iiZ8MyGIThank you to the editors and staff of the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities and the Justice Collaboratory.
A sample from, "Origins of the First World, pt. 10 -- Japan"To hear the entire lecture, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/origins-of-first-99483180We trace the evolution of Japanese society -- including the tensions between its peaceable, Buddhist-inspired aspect and its martial aspect; its extraordinary transformation in the Meiji period, from an antiquated hermit kingdom to a dynamic modern power; and its crucial alliance with its European mirror image, Great Britain – which set the stage for its role in the First World War.Dan Carrick & Japanese singers’ performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s 1885 adaptation of the Meiji anthem, “Miya Sama” -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOh5MIVP1bUA Japanese rendition of “Miya Sama” -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DpgzFtHuBgImage: the grand receiving room of Nijojo, KyotoSuggested further reading: Perez, “The History of Japan”; Mason & Caiger, “A History of Japan,” 2nd ed.
Audio track from my recent video -- "Red, White & Royal Blue: A Historian's Analysis -- Introduction: 'I Know I Owe You an Explanation'" --We consider the political, literary, and artistic dimensions of the recent movie, "Red, White and Royal Blue" -- a gay romance on the international theme -- beginning with an overview of its origins as an escapist novel in the Trump and pandemic period, its unusual status as a same-sex "romantic comedy," and its political symbolism as a response to the crisis of confidence in American institutions and of American standing in the world. We then examine two examples of subtext and multiple meanings encoded in the film, as a preview of future analysis.To skip the preliminaries and go straight to the analysis, go to 46:40To view this video on youtube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6hLiraFY0kTo view the video without ads on Patreon -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/98784602Ethan Clark's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ethanclarkreactsMarco Cera's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@marcocera993
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only: In the second half of the nineteenth century, many of the most brilliant and ambitious minds in both Europe and America were bent upon solving the problem of capturing sound waves from the air and playing them back. Most of their efforts, including the earliest "phonautograms" from more than a decade before Edison's invention of the phonograph, were either forgotten or lost to decay and degradation. In the past fifteen years, however, scientists and engineers, including the First Sounds collective, have located the surviving remnants of early sound recordings and devised ways to optically scan them and reproduce the sounds that they captured, revealing much of the auditory world of the nineteenth century and the pathways by which the now-ubiquitous technology of audio recording came into being.Special thanks to the First Sounds collective, for recovering long-lost audio recordings and sharing their files freely with the global public, at www.firstsounds.org. All audio files used in this lecture are courtesy of First Sounds, except for the Edison/Wangemann cylinder recording from 1889, which is courtesy of the National Park Service and the Cylinder Archive.Image: engraving print of a Scott phonautograph.Please support this podcast at any level in order to hear all patron-only lectures when released, including recent lectures on Germany and Bosnia in the lead-up to World War One: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider the efforts of the British state, in the Victorian era and in the early 20th century, to maintain its position as the premier naval and imperial power on Earth, and to contain the political and military challenges from the borderlands of the empire, the German challenge from Europe, and the series of internal threats to the British social system -- including the radicalized labour and women's suffrage movements and the bitter fight over Irish Home Rule, which brought the United Kingdom to the brink of civil war mere weeks before the assassination in Sarajevo.Image: Liberal Party propaganda poster promoting the People's Budget, ca. 1910.Suggested further reading: George Dangerfield, "The Strange Death of Liberal England."Please sign up as a patron to hear patron-only lectures on Germany and Bosnia! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In keeping with a Historiansplaining holiday tradition, we try to make sense of the various struggles and conflicts of this yearby uncovering their deeper historical contexts, including:--the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire;--the precedents for the bitter House Speakership struggle;--the gradual realignment in the international balance of power, instantiated in the expansion of BRICS;--the geopolitical stakes of the fight over Nagorno-Karabakh; and--the histories of labor militancy that lie behind the strikes in Hollywood and DetroitSee my appearance on the Katie Halper show to discuss the travails of Zionism and Palestine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL_EzoyY17ACorrections: I wrote my article for Yale Journal of Law and Humanities (“In the American Tempest”) in 2022, not 2021; The Screen Writers Guild, the precursor of the WGA, was founded in 1920, not the 1930s.Image: Palestinians harvesting wheat, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, 2020, by Rizek Abdeljawad / XinhuaPlease sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures and to help keep this podcast coming: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In the age of absolutism, France had towered over European life and politics -- the only nation that was a major land power on the Continent and a colonial metropole with an overseas empire at the same time. Yet by 1900, tossed about by repeated revolutions and coups and torn asunder by often petty internal culture wars, France was falling behind its rivals to become almost a second-rate power. Once the Radical Party rode the Dreyfus Affair into government, they had to rush to reposition France to try to take advantage of the tensions and instability in the Balkans, and prepare the nation to possibly face off once more against their archrival across the Rhine -- Germany.Image: illustration of the "degradation" ceremony of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, in Le Petit Journal, 1895.Christopher Clark's lecture on "France and the Origins of the Great War": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx_V4NAUuW8Suggested further reading: Romier, "A History of France," Norwich, "A History of France," Maurois, "A History of France."Please sign on as a patron to hear patron-only lectures, including the earlier lecture on Germany -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The UFO has been called a "technological angel" and the central mythic symbol of the modern age; we examine some of the extraordinary stories, from throughout history, of strange lights and objects seen flying through the sky, from medieval Italy to modern New Mexico, and consider carefully the problems that they present -- for historians, as well as for government, and for ordinary people who want to fit the strange and anomalous into our understanding of the world.Suggested further reading: Diana Walsh Pasulka, "American Cosmic"; Vallee & Aubeck, "Wonders in the Sky"; Ross Coulthart, "In Plain Sight"; Graeme Rendall, "The Foo Fighters," Debrief Magazine, Dec. 2021.Correction: The biologist to whom D.W. Pasulka refers as "James" in "American Cosmic" is Garry P. Nolan, not Craig P. Nolan.Please sign on as a patron at any level to hear patron-only lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on "Culture" -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Unlocked after one year for patrons only:A silver beaker engraved with figures of Satan, the Pope, and the "Young Pretender" (also known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie") shows how French, Dutch, German, and English colonists in colonial New York united around fear of Catholicism and the Jacobite menace.Special thanks to the Collections Team at Museum of the City of New York.Sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures when they are completed: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Although more often remembered only as a bloody battleground, Belgium -- along with its smaller neighbor, Luxembourg -- was critical to the strategic landscape of Europe, and played a pivotal role in spreading the war in 1914 beyond the European Continent, making it into a true World War. Both created as independent states in the nineteenth century, Belgium and Luxembourg were linchpins in the delicate balance of power, as well as crucibles of the new social divides in a secularizing and industrializing Europe.Image: Painting of the Citadel of St. Esprit, Luxembourg, by JMW Turner, 1839.Please sign on as a patron to hear all lectures, including Part 6, on Germany -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In an extended lecture for patrons -- We consider the turbulent history and politics of the country most often blamed for the outbreak of the First World War -- Germany. The youngest of all the combatant nations in World War I, The German Reich's deep class, regional, and religious divides drove Kaiser Wilhelm and his inner circle to seek national aggrandizement abroad as a source of unity at home--which inadvertently led them to unite their rivals against them and dragged them into a war not of their making.Suggested further reading: Clark, "Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia"; Mary Fulbrook, "A Concise History of Germany."Image: Hand-Colored Photograph of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Tangier, Morocco, 1905Please sign up in order to hear this entire lecture and support his podcast! -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/90207746
In the third installment of our Survey of Western Architecture, we will follow the rise of Renaissance geniuses like Alberti, Bramante, & Michelangelo, their efforts to recover Roman grandeur and dignity in the basilica, the church, and the urban palazzo, followed by the outbreak of baroque extravagance from the streets of Palermo to the halls of Versailles, and then the gradual return to classical balance and understatement in the English country house.Please sign on as a patron to support this podcast, and to hear the next lecture on the origins of the First World War, examining Germany: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632See the first part of the series here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwCuQLuajn8See this lecture on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19F9ur-SAR8
We examine the significance of a kilo pohaku, or "stone mirror" -- a small volcanic stone disk used for viewing reflections -- discovered deep inside the ancient Makauwahi Cave on the island of Kaua'i. This extremely rare specimen encapsulates the great mystery of Hawaiian archaeology, which relies on reconstruction from rare stone, bone, and shell objects, and also the threats facing the historical sites and artifacts of ancient Hawaii in a time of natural disaster and rapid development.
Special thanks to: Maui Historical Society, the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Makauwahi Cave Preserve, Kaua'i Community College, Kaua'i Historical Society (particularly Mona), Dr. David Burney, and Jason Ford.
Suggested further reading: David Burney, "Back to the Future in the Caves of Kaua'i."
Image: Kilo pohaku, cowry beads, & bone bead found at Makauwahi Cave; image courtesy of David Burney.
An image illustrating the immersion method of using a kilo pohaku can be seen on the website of Papahana Kuaola here: https://papahanakuaola.org/kukulu-kahua-2/kukulu-kahua-types-and-uses-of-pohaku/
Suggested historical preservation organizations for donations: --Makauwahi Cave Reserve: http://www.cavereserve.org/donate.php --Maui Historical Society: https://mauimuseum.org/donate --Lahaina Restoration Foundation: https://lahainarestoration.org/donate/ --Kaua'i Historical Society: https://kauaihistoricalsociety.org/donate/
Please sign on as a patron to hear the next lecture on the origins of the First World War: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the geography and history of Russia, from the origins of the Kievan Rus in the Early Middle Ages, to the tumultuous time of industrialization, emancipation, and radical subversion at the start of the Twentieth Century. We try reconstruct the circumstances and mindsets that led the Russian state to back up their allies in Serbia, in order to maintain their tenuous foothold in the Balkans and their pretenses of leading and protecting the Slavic world.
image: Luzhetsky Monastery, Mozhaysk, Russia
Suggested further reading: Braithwaite, "Russia: Myths and Realities"; Kort, "A Brief History of Russia"; Riasanovsky, "A History of Russia"
Please sign up as a patron to hear the previous installment on Bosnia! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Where do conspiracy theories come from? Why do people believe them? What do they mean? Did the CIA drug people with LSD against their will? Is Queen Elizabeth a reptilian? We consider the merits and pitfalls of conspiracy theories, trace the history and evolution of the conspiratorial tradition from rumors about lepers in the 1300s to Alex Jones and Q-Anon, and examine the biases and double standards built into the very concept of “conspiracy theories.” This is it: the most thorough, fair, and impartial examination of conspiracy theories that you will ever find anywhere.
Suggested Further Reading: Uscinski & Parent, "American Conspiracy Theories"; Kathryn Olmsted, "Real Enemies"; Jesse Walker, "United States of Paranoia"; Machiavelli, The Discourses, Book III; David Coady, "Conspiracy theory as heresy," in "Educational Philosophy and Psychology," 2021
Please join as a patron to help keep the podcast coming and to hear all patron-only lectures when they are posted! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
A stunningly complex piece of mathematical craftsmanship, the world's earliest known analogue computer, and the so-called "scientific wonder of the ancient world" -- the Antikythera mechanism was discovered by chance in 1900, by Greek sponge divers who stumbled upon the wreckage of an ancient ship that foundered on its way from Greece to Rome. An object of bafflement, controversy, and misrepresentation for more than a century, thought to be an astrolabe or a planetarium, the Antikythera mechamism has only recently been proved by x-ray analysis to be a calendrical computing machine intended, for the purposes of astrology, to forecast heavenly events, especially eclipses, into the indefinite future.
Suggested further reading: Alexander Jones, "A Portable Cosmos."
Image: reconstruction of the Antikythera's "back" panel, with Metonic and Saros dials, by Tony Freeth & the AMRP
My previous lecture on astrology: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/unlocked-myth-of-the-month-14-astrology
Please join as a patron to support this podcast, and to hear all the patron-only lectures! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Origins of the First World War, pt. 3 -- Austria-Hungary At the height of their power in the Baroque Age, the Habsburgs aspired to rule the entire world; by the end of the ninetheenth century, they strove merely to maintain control over the volatile lands of the upper Danube valley. We trace how the Habsburgs' domains evolved from a messy collection of local duchies into an absolutist empire, and finally into a complex military-industrian state, the home of artistic modernism, which was nonetheless threatened with destruction by a welter of nationalist movements and by the rising power of Serbia and Russia.
Image: Painting by Johann Nepomuk Geller of Emperor Franz-Josef walking in the gardens of the Schonbrunn in winter, 1908
Suggested further reading: Mason, "The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire"; Sked, "The Decline & Fall of the Habsburg Empire"; Kohn, "The Habsburg Empire"; Rady, "The Habsburgs: To Rule the World."
Please support this podcast to hear patron-only lectures, including an upcoming examination of the history of Bosnia -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We continue the epic history of Western architecture by tracing how medieval builders and their patrons revived the art of building in stone once more, and used it to craft monumental edifices into intimate, atmospheric spaces in the Romanesque age, before reaching for the heavens with soaring Gothic vaults and spires, and then returning once more to earth with the simple, balanced dignity of the Renaissance.
See the first part of the series here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwCuQLuajn8
Image of the unrealized plan of Beauvais Cathedral courtesy of Myles Zhang, https://www.myleszhang.org/2021/12/25/beauvais-cathedral/
Please support this podcast to help keep these lectures coming! – https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
See the video of this lecture here: https://youtube.com/live/qgzvVd6oNUM
The center of every sacred mystery, the Temple at Jerusalem is the most famous building on earth, even though it has not existed for almost 2000 years and no one knows precisely what it looked like. We join with Michael of “Xai, How Are You” to discuss Solomon’s Temple – both the real historical building as it can be reconstructed from ancient texts and archaeology, and the symbol that has been endlessly appropriated to represent humankind’s relationship to the cosmos, from Jewish mysticism, to Christian theology, to early Islam, to medieval magic, to Renaissance humanism, to the rituals of Freemasonry, to modern Jewish and evangelical fundamentalism.Suggested further reading: Hamblin & Seely, “Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History”Image: page of the "Perpignan Bible," France, 1299, depicting ritual objects in the Temple, including the MenorahMy previous lectures on Freemasonry:https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/the-freemasonry-its-origins-its-myths-and-its-ritualshttps://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/freemasonry-its-growth-and-spread-before-1789Please support this podcast! – https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Unlocked after one year for patrons only:One moonlit night in 1853, an Iraqi excavator named Hormuzd Rassam and his team snuck into the hills outside of Mosul and began to uncover the massive palace of the last ancient Assyrian emperor, Ashurbanipal. Inside the palace was the largest trove of surviving documents from the ancient world that has ever been found. The massive library of over 30,000 tablets illuminated what had been the most mysterious empire of the Iron Age, brought to light the ancient masterpiece of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and provided the first window into the lost Near Eastern mythology that influenced the Biblical book of Genesis. While the discovery provided the greatest triumph of British imperial antiquarianism, in recent times Saddam Hussein and other Arab nationalists have attempted to reclaim its legacy by building a modern Library of Ashurbanipal.Suggested further reading: Damrosch, "The Buried Book."Image: relief sculpture showing Ashurbanipal slaying a lion with a writing stylus tucked into his beltPlease become a patron to support this podcast, and to hear all patron-only lectures as soon as they are posted, including the latest, "Myth of the Month 22: Culture" -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider the history and explosive politics of the often-forgotten Eastern European nation that set the events of the First World War in motion: Serbia. We examine the country’s emergence and brief flowering as an Eastern Orthodox kingdom in the high Middle Ages, its fall to the Ottoman advance, its many years of quiet resistance in religion and song, its re-emergence amidst the Napoleonic wars and the Ottoman breakdown, and finally, its long-frustrated quest to fulfill its purported destiny of reunifying the Southern Slavs, which led a militant and conspiratorial secret society to murder their own country’s king and to smuggle teenage assassins across the border to kill their rivals’ crown prince.Image: Golubac Fortress, eastern Serbia, seen from across the Danube RiverIntro & Outro music: Bach, Sonata no. 4 in E Minor, played on clavichord by Balint Karosi
What is "culture"? And how did a metaphor from gardening invade social-science discourse in 19th-century Germany and America and then take the world by storm? Am I doing "podcast culture" right now?However you define it, I make the case that it is the defining myth of our time, and that we should get rid of it.Image: "Old New York" diorama, Museum of Natural History, New YorkSuggested reading: Michael A. Elliott, "The Culture Concept: Writing and Difference in the Age of Realism"Please sign up as a patron to hear the whole discussion! -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/82746773
For over a century, scholars, politicians, and pundits have debated the supposed causes of the First World War, from German naval provocations to the rising global tide of nationalism. All of these explanations tend to ignore the simple fact that the war began in eastern Europe, triggered by regional feuding and violence in what had previously been the Ottoman provinces.We begin our exploration of the roots of World War I by following the struggles of the declining Ottoman Empire to hold its ground and contain ethnic and religious strife as Western powers circle like vultures around the so-called "sick man of Europe."Image: 19th-century French postcard of the Sublime Porte.Suggested further reading: Alan Palmer, "Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire."Please become a patron to support the podcast and hear patron-only lectures, including upcoming Myth of the Month: Culture.
We follow the dramatic evolution of Indian civilization after the fall of the Gupta empire, tracing from the specctacular rise of trade, art, and new religious movements in the southern kingdoms, through the tumult and fragmentation of the northern statelets and the cataclysmic invasions of raiders from Central Asia, and finally to the creation of Islamic states in the subcontinent just in time for the arrival of the first European ships in Indian ports.My previous two lectures on India:https://www.patreon.com/posts/india-pt-1-in-56820942https://www.patreon.com/posts/india-pt-2-of-57460725Image: Brihadisvara Temple, Tanjore, Tamil Nadu, 1003-1010 AD.Please become a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including the next Myth of the Month! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In our first video lecture, we analyzee the methods that builders, from Egypt to Rome to medieval Europe, have used to create grand structures and to enclose beautiful spaces, whether by reaching outward across the landscape or upwards toward the sky, in order to enthrall the senses and to inspire emotions from terror to tranquility.The video lecture on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9DGcPa_hdQPlease sign on as a patron in order to help keep these lectures coming and in order to hear the patron-only lectures! ---- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider the complex history and symbolism of an elaborately decorated sidearm weapon, originally made in Bristol, England, possibly intended as a dueling pistol, which came across the ocean to America with General Edward Braddock, witnessed the catastrophic events in the Ohio valley that sparked the Seven Years’ War, and which then became a prized possession of George Washington, symbolizing his relationship with the ill-starred general as well as America’s fraught relationship with Britain.Special thanks to the Bristol Archives and to Eric Gabbitas, a direct descendant of the gunsmith William Gabbitas.Image Courtesy of the Division of Political and Military History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian record on the pistol: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_746133Please become a patron to hear all patron-only lectures! --https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
They rained terror and destruction on Christian lands across Europe as far as Spain and Constantinople, before turning their attention away from raiding towards permanent settlement and the founding of new societies, from Ukraine to Normandy to Greenland. There has never been an explosion of exploration and aggression quite like the Viking expansion of the early Middle Ages -- we discuss the motives behind the expansion, which are rooted in the religious mismatch between Scandinavia and mainland Europe, the technologies that made it possible, the prizes and targets at which they aimed, the victories and setbacks that they encountered, the imprints that they left behind, and the winds of change that ultimately brought an end to the Viking adventure.Music: "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from the Peer Gynt suite, by Grieg, performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, published by MusopenImage: The "Lindisfarne Stone," a gravestone from Lindisfarne Monastery, Holy Island, 9th CenturyPlease sign on as a patron so that you can vote on our first video project: https://www.patreon.com/posts/first-video-78384769
I update listeners on the podcast's new partnership with a producer, and provide a short clip of the latest patron-only lecture on the rediscovery of the lost early history of sound recording, ranging from French space lasers to a long-lost recording of a German leader singing an American folk song and the "Marseillaise."Special thanks to the First Sounds collective, for recovering long-lost audio recordings and sharing their files freely with the global public, at www.firstsounds.org. All audio files used in this lecture are courtesy of First Sounds, except for the Edison/Wangemann cylinder recording from 1889, which is courtesy of the National Park Service and the Cylinder Archive.Please sign up to hear the full lecture! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
--Made of brass, most likely in France, ca. 1720-1750--1 inch long, with depictions of St. Ignatius Loyola & Saint Mary with Latin inscriptions--Found in ruins of Fort Michilimackinac; in collection of Mackinac State Historic Parks, MichiganA small brass religious medallion found in the house of a French fur trader inside a fortress on the remote Straits of Mackinac shows the immense power of small numbers of merchants and missionaries to control sprawling networks of diplomacy and trade, stretching from Europe all the way into the deep interior of North America, and to sway the course of wars and imperial power struggles.Special thanks to Mackinac State Historic Parks and Dr. Lynn Evans for their help in producing this lecture.
We have all seen images of axe-wielding Vikings raining destruction upon the shores of medieval Europe -- but who were these berserking Norsemen and where did they come from? What society produced them? How did the Scandinavians of the Viking age understand the world and their place in it? We examine the Norsemen's complex and mysterious cosmos described in the poems and prophesies of the Eddas, and compare it to the realities of survival, trade, kingship, politics, warfare, art, gender, and the family in Scandinavia from the eight to eleventh centuries, as reconstructed from surviving documents and the latest archaeology.Image: top section of the Hunninge picture stone, island of Gotland, Sweden, 8th century.Music: "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from Peer Gynt suite, composed by Edvard Grieg, performed by Czech National Symphony Orchestra, published by Musopen.Suggested further readings: Neil Price, "Children of Ash and Elm"; Else Roesdahl, "The Vikings"Please sign up as a patron to hear all patron-only materials, including "Myth of the Month 20: Conspiracy Theories" -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider some of the major events of this year in light of their historical roots, from the abortion ruling to the Ukraine war; in particular, we consider the Twitter controversy in light of the history of media monopolies beginning with the telegraph, and the crisis over railroad labor in light of the railways strike of 1922, exactly one century ago.First video segment of my appearance on the Katie Halper Show:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh8ZKcL8SHE&t=3s&ab_channel=KatieHalperRelevant articles: On the history of abortion as invoked in the Dobbs debate:https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/arts/roe-v-wade-abortion-history.htmlOn the roots and history of the anti-abortion movement: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12340403/https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2016/november/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/On Western Union and its choke-hold on the telegraph system: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/how-the-robber-barons-hijacked-the-victorian-internet/Book sources on railway labor history: Rebecca Edwards, "New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age"; Joseph McCartin, "Labor's Great War" and "Labor in America"Please support historiansplaining to hear all patron-only materials -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
“Cowboys and Indians.” For most Americans, the words evoke a sinister game, representing a timeless enmity between the forces of civilization and savagery. In actual historical fact, cowboys and Indians were symbiotic trading partners, and many cowboys were Indians themselves; but the image of the cowboy as a conqueror and as the bearer of civilization into the “Wild West” has become central to the American national myth. We trace how the romantic self-image of the 19th-century buckaroos as modern-day knights gradually evolved into the iconography of gunslingers battling on the untamed frontier, from early dime novels to grand “horse operas” to Hollywood Westerns and science fiction, and finally to the new fable of the gay cowboy.Image: Frederic Remington, "Shotgun Hospitality," 1908Suggested reading: Russell Martin, "Cowboy: The Enduring Myth of the Wild West"; Richard Slotkin, "The Fatal Environment" & "Gunfighter Nation."Please sign up to support and hear patron-only lectures, including Myth o the Month 20: Conspiracy Theories -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
I update listeners about my recent work, including for the upcoming symposium issue of Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, about my hope of beginning a collaboration with a producer to work on videos and on lectures about music, and about the crisis created by banks and credit cards declining patrons' pledges to the podcast.Please go to Patreon to see whether your pledges have been processed, or to sign up as a patron if you have not already: https://www.patreon.com/posts/history-of-in-20-74790682The recently launched podcast website: www.historiansplaining.com
I speak with historian Tobias Harper about about the evolving and growing role of the British crown as the head of the voluntary sector in a neoliberal, atomizing, and celebrity-driven society. We examine both the "magic of the royal touch" and the hard-nosed bureaucratic calculations that it can serve to obscure, as captured in Toby's book, "From Servants of the Empire to Everyday Heroes: The British Honours System in the Twentieth Century."
Toby's recent article on the current challenges to the monarchy: https://theconversation.com/charles-iii-faces-challenges-at-home-abroad-and-even-in-defining-what-it-means-to-be-king-190339
Image: Bono holding up the medal recognizing his honorary knighthood, 2007
Please sign on to support this podcast and hear the patron-only materials: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
What is the signifcance of Robin Hood as an outlaw -- a person declared legally dead -- who lives in the greenwood, where life is constantly renewed? Why does Shakespeare heavily allude to Robin in his Henry IV plays? And most significantly, was there a real Robin Hood, or is he a pure creation of myth and folklore? We consider the possibilities and scrutinize the evidence.
Suggested further reading: Maurice Keen, "The Outlaws of Medieval Legend"; J. C. Holt, "Robin Hood"; A. J. Pollard, "Imagining Robin Hood."
Please support in order to hear all the patron-only materials: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
James II was Britain's shortest-reigning monarch of the entire early modern age -- yet his brief rule caused a dramatic rupture, which in turn opened the door to the transformation of the kingdom into the constitutional, commercial, imperial state that we know as modern Britain. Was it because of his Catholic faith? His resolute -- or pig-headed -- personality? His determination to rule absolutely, like his ally Louis XIV? Or, as some have argued, was James too far ahead of his time in his belief in freedom of conscience?
We consider the complex life and personality of the ill-fated king, as well as the class conflicts and ideological shifts that let to the so-called "Glorious Revolution" and the beginnings of the modern state.
Please sign up as a patron to hear patron-only lectures, including the previous installment of "Doorways in Time" on The Library of Ashurbanipal: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the so-called "zero point of history," the "first temple," the "world's oldest building," the massive and deeply ancient complex of stone-age megalithic monuments on a hilltop in Turkey, which since being uncovered in the 1990s, has dramatically overturned received ideas about the beginnings of civilization.
Please sign up as a patron to hear patron-only lectures, including the previous installment of "Doorways in Time" on The Library of Ashurbanipal: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In the final lecture on Florida, we examine how the tropical state, thanks to innovations like DDT, orange-juice concentrate, and air conditioning, was able to boom at an unimaginable pace, rocketing into the top five biggest states in the union, with massive scientific and artistic communities, a diverse immigrant mosaic, and after the Civil Rights movement, exceptionally volatile and unpredictable politics. We consider the importance of the last great expression of Florida utopianism -- namely, Disney World -- and the shift into a perceived playground of anarchy and American dreams gone mad, as personified in the notorious "Florida Man."
Rolling Stone article outline ways to help Florida, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico following Hurricane Ian: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/hurricane-ian-victims-help-donate-florida-puerto-rico-cuba-dominican-republic-1234601215/
Suggested further reading: Gannon, "Florida: A Short History"; Nolan, "Fifty Feet in Paradise: The Booming of Florida."
Please sign up as a patron at any level in order to hear patron-only materials, including the latest "Myth of the Month" on Conspiracy Theories -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Sam interviews historian Margarita Fajardo, a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College, about her new book, “The World That Latin America Created,” which traces how a movement of scholars and statesmen centering around CEPAL, a UN economic commission based in Santiago, Chile, formulated a new world-view and far-reaching agenda to foster unity and development in Latin America; the so-called “Capalinos” rose to dominance and set the policy agenda in Brazil and other countries in the 1950s and ‘60s and then set the stage for dependency theory, which took the world by storm in the 1970s. We also discuss how the travails of the Cepalinos might shed light on the transformations currently happening in Chile, Colombia, and other Latin American nations and the horizons that they might open up.
Margarita’s book opening will be at: Location: Recirculation (a branch of Wordup Community Bookshop), 876 Riverside Drive, New York, NY Time: Saturday Sept. 24th, starting at 11am.
Please support this podcast to hear patron-only materials, including the recent lecture on Conspiracy Theories: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider how the crisis of legitimacy and breakdown of order following the downfall of the Zhou dynasty spurred on a flowering of philosophy, as various scholars and sages sought new principles to guide life and achieve harmony, giving rise to the enduring teachings of Taoism and Confucianism, as well as other long-forgotten sects ranging from draconian legalists to humanitarian pacifists.
Image: Song-era painting of a landscape with three men laughing, symbolizing Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
Please support this podcast to hear patron-only materials, including the recent lecture on Conspiracy Theories: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Where do conspiracy theories come from? Why do some people believe in them and not others? Aren't some of them true? And what kind of purpose or agenda is served by setting apart "conspiracy thories" as a distinct realm of thought? We weigh and examine all the different perspectives, and consider why conspiracy theories are an unavoidable and fundamental aspect of modern democracy. This is a short excerpt -- please become a patron at any level to hear the whole discussion and all the patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-of-month-20-70438551
Unlocked after one year for patrons only: The secretive Gnostic stream of Christianity, which taught a radically different metaphysics and spiritual cosmology from "orthodox" doctrine in the first four hundred years of the church, was largely lost to history, until 1945, when a camel-herder in a remote part of Egypt stumbled upon an old ceremic jar with 13 massive books containing 52 ancient Gnostic texts. We consider what the so-called "Nag Hammadi LIbrary," which may have been hidden in the desert to protect it from destruction, reveals about the origins and importance of the Gnostics' secret teachings.
Image: A Nag Hammadi codex open to the beginning of the Apocryphon of John.
Suggested further reading: Jean Doresse, "The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Texts"; Elaine Pagels, "The Gnostic Gospels."
Please sign up as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We follow the southward-racing juggernaut of modern Florida, from statehood in 1845 to the 1930s – the insatiable quest of visionaries and megalomaniacs, from Jewish utopians, to slave-driving planters, to evangelical missionaries, to black politicians, to hotel magnates, to messianic cult leaders, to women’s suffragists, to Cuban revolutionaries, to bohemian poets, to impose a sense of order upon the chaotic and unruly wilderness of tropical Florida. Though ignored in our national mythology and dismissed as a southern backwater, the state was the site of the first confrontation of the Civil War, and of the longest-lasing and most aggressive Reconstruction regime, which created the first universal public school system in the South and fostered the first booming tourist economy in America, spearheaded by none other than Harriet Beecher Stowe. We conclude our journey through Florida with an examination of Florida literature, ending with an analysis of Wallace Stevens’ ode to Florida, “The Idea of Order at Key West.”
Suggested Further Reading: Foster & Foster, “Beechers, Stowes, and Yankee Strangers: The Transformation of Florida”; J. T. Kirby, “Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South.”
Please sign up as a patron to hear the next Myth of the Month – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We follow the long struggle to build power, wealth, and lasting harmony on the rich but harsh and unforgiving landscape of China – from early farming villages, to the quasi-legendary early emperors, through dynasties obsessed with ritual and divination, the age of fragmentation and warring states, and finally, the dramatic quest for unification by the ruthless emperor that gave China its name. We learn the causes and contexts for the creation of the first Great Wall, the invention of wet rice farming and hydraulic engineering, the composition of ancient classics like the I Ching and the Art of War, and the appearance of the powerful philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism.
Hear my previous lecture on the discovery of the Terracotta Army that guards the tomb of the first Qin emperor: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59523522
Suggested further reading: Li Feng, “Early China”; Yap & Cotterell, “The Early Civilization of China”
Image: Bronze ceremonial vessel from Zhou dynasty
Please sign up as a patron to hear the next Myth of the Month -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
--Three pendant amulets, in form of a forearm with closed fist --made of silver; ---about ½ inch to 2/3 inches long --found in midden at site of Spanish outpost, Los Adaes, in present-day Louisiana --dated to 18th century
These three silver amulets in the form of a fist, found among the remains of the Spanish colonial fortress of Los Adaes in modern-day Louisiana, were intended to protect women and infants against the evil eye during childbirth. They reflect the fear, conflict, and struggle over control of sex and reproduction, as well as good and evil magic, at a remote colonial outpost.
Please support to hear all patron-only lectures, including the previous installment of "100 Objects" -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/61475405
Link to Twitter Space discussion for listeners and supporters, on July 2nd: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKdEwVRWgGW?s=20
Unlocked after a year for patrons only:
An elaborately carved oak chest of unknown origin, but marked with the initials of a young unmarried lady, exemplifies the first regional artistic style ever to arise in the American colonies -- the "Hadley Chests" of the Connecticut River valley.
Suggested reading: Clair Franklin Luther, "The Hadley Chest."
The Winterthur Museum catalog entry on the chest, with more photos:
http://museumcollection.winterthur.org/single-record.php?resultsperpage=20&view=catalog&srchtype=advanced&hasImage=&ObjObjectName=&CreOrigin=&Earliest=&Latest=&CreCreatorLocal_tab=&materialsearch=&ObjObjectID=&ObjCategory=&DesMaterial_tab=&DesTechnique_tab=&AccCreditLineLocal=&CreMarkSignature=&recid=1958.0696&srchfld=&srchtxt=hadley+chest&id=452a&rownum=1&version=100&src=results-imagelink-only
From 1763 to the 1840s, Florida was repeatedly tossed and traded among the British, Spanish, and American empires, as all sorts of adventurers -- from Greek and Turkish indentured workers, to Scottish speculators, to Seminole warriors, to West African widows, to British Army deserters, to Mexican pirates, to "Cracker" cattle-herders -- attempted to establish themselves and exploit the subtropical landscape. Under American rule, two societies take shape in the Florida Territory -- one of cotton plantations and the other of backcountry homesteads -- and come to loggerheads over questions of development and ultimately, the idea of statehood.
Join as a patron to hear the latest lecture on the Library of Ashurbanipal in Iraq, the largest archaeological discovery of ancient texts ever made -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/67307781
We take stock of the growth of "Historiansplaining," which has brought together listeners and guests, ranging from scholars and critics to regular working people, from America to Asia and Australia. We consider the different lectures that have proved most popular and attracted the attention of journalists, and we preview possibilities for the future, such as videos and series on music in history, which may be realized with enough patron support. Finally, we hear the names of all current active patrons, and an excerpt from the latest patron-only lecture, examining the largest discovery ever made of texts and documents from the ancient world, the Library of Ashurbanipal, in Mosul, Iraq.
Please sign up on Patreon to hear patron-only lectures, including "The LIbrary of Ashurbanipal" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider the struggles of European colonists and missionaries, indigenous tribes, and African laborers to protect their territories and secure their freedom through two tumultuous centuries of Spanish rule in Florida. From the first arrival of yellow fever, to the construction of an indestructible limestone fortress, to the creation of the first black-led town in America, the Spanish era laid the foundations of a distinctive Floridian society which miraculously persisted and was never conquered by its powerful enemies to the north.
Article in Cincinnati Magazine in which I am quoted about the Scottish & Irish Travellers: https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/just-call-us-kin-cinnati-the-travelers-that-visit-spring-grove-cemetery/
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
How did the Holy Grail transform from the object of a purifying spiritual quest to a Faustian symbol of the corruptions of power? We consider the evolution of the Grail myth from the later medieval romances through Le Morte D'Arthur, the works of Tennyson, Wagner, and T.S. Eliot, and the portrayals of the Grail by Monty Python, Dan Brown, and Jay-z, and finally we consider the modern quests to uncover the hidden truth of the Grail -- whether as a pagan fertility symbol, a Christian spiritual allegory, or a code identifying the secret bloodline of Jesus Christ.
My first lecture on the Holy Grail: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/myth-of-the-month-19-holy-grail-pt-1
Image: Mural of Galahad's attainment of the Grail, Edward Austin Abbey, Boston Public Library, early 1890s.
Suggested further reading: Richard Barber, "The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief"; Arthur Edward Waite, "The Holy Grail."
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Why did an enigmatic relic discussed in a series of medieval romances of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table leap out of the Arthurian myths and rise to become the most famous object in the history of literature? What does the vessel represent spiritually, morally, and sexually? And what the heck is a "grail" anyway? We begin by examining the medieval legends and what they say about the origin, nature, and miraculous powers of the sought-after holy relic.
My previous lectures on the Arthur cycle:
https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/myth-of-the-month-12-the-arthur-cycle-part-1-making-king-arthur
https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/myth-of-the-month-12-king-arthur-pt-2-the-rise-and-fall-of-camelot
Suggested further reading: Richard Barber, "The Holy Grail"; Arthur Edward Waite, "the Holy Grail"
Image: Mural depicting Galahad achieving the Grail, by Edward Austin Abbey, Boston Public Library, 1890s
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Unlocked for the public after 1 year on Patreon for patrons only:
The "Founding Fathers" -- the most rarefied club in American history -- stand in for everything we love or hate about this country, from its civic and religious freedom to its white supremacism. As if carved in stone (which they oftentimes are), they loom over every political debate, even though most of us know next to nothing about them, or even who counts as one of the group. Coined by that immortal wordsmith, President Warren Harding, the phrase "Founding Fathers" serves as an empty vessel for civic emotion, conveniently covering over the actual history of struggle, conflict, and contention that shaped the American republic.
Suggested Further Reading: Woody Holton, "Forced Founders" and "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the US Consitution"; Gordon Wood, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution"; Gerald Horne, "The Counter-Revolution of 1776"; Charles Beard, "An Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution"; Joseph Ellis, "Founding Brothers"
Please support this podcast to help keep it coming and hear patron-only lectures as soon as they are posted! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
After 1500, Florida becomes a battleground in a new struggle for control of North America; we discuss the repeated doomed attempts by French and Spanish adventurers, from Ponce de Leon to the Huguenot colonists at Fort Caroline, to establish a foothold in Florida, until Spain finally succeeds in creating a lasting European stronghold at Saint Augustine.
Hear part 1 here -- https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/fortresses-on-sand-the-history-of-florida-pt-1
Please support this podcast to help keep it coming and hear patron-only lectures! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
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I join with Geoff Shullenberger of "Outsider Theory" to discuss the sweeping and challenging new book, "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by David Graeber and David Wengrow. We consider the book's marshalling of new archaeological evidence to debunk mechanistic and deterministic assumptions about the rise of civilization, its deep rejection of Marxism, and its insistence on the human ability to imagine and create an infinite range of social and political futures. We examine the weaknesses and limitations of the book, including its over-emphasis on personal freedom, its gross inaccuracy with regard to the eighteenth century, and its blindspot regarding the profound powers of myth, ritual, and the natural environment, all of which deeply guide and shape societies in ways that Graeber & Wengrow ignore or casually discount.
Please support this podcast to help keep it coming and hear patron-only lectures! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Other books & authors mentioned:
Marshall Sahlins, "The Original Affluent Society" Yuval Noah Harari, "Sapiens" James C. Scott, "Against the Grain" Claude Levi-Strauss, "The Savage Mind" Victor Turner, "The Ritual Process" Karl Wittfogel, "Oriental Despotism" John Rawls, "A Theory of Justice" Francoise de Graffigny, "Letters of a Peruvian Woman" Niccolo Machiavelli, "Discourses on Livy" Jared Diamond, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" JN Heard, "The Assimilation of Captives on the American Frontier in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," LSU thesis David Graeber, "On Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit," "Debt: The First 5000 Years" Karl Polanyi, "The Great Transformation" Mark Fisher, "Capitalist Realism" Orlando Patterson, "Slavery and Social Death" Bruno Latour, "We Have Never Been Modern" Roberto Calasso, "The Ruin of Kasch" Ivan Illich Rene Girard Richard Wolff Thomas Sowell Divya Cherian
We discuss the complex and multilayered history of Florida, beginning with the prehistoric peoples that survived in and mastered the tropical landscape, built monumental mound complexes, and formed powerful kingdoms that would eventually confront the first European invaders.
Hear part 2 here -- https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/fortresses-on-sand-the-history-of-florida-pt-2
Image: Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas, Gulf of Mexico
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I give an update on my historical activities this winter and plans for the podcast, as well as a brief teaser from the latest installment of the History of the United States in 100 Objects. My lecture on the History of the British and Irish Travellers: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/history-of-the-british-and-irish-travellers My latest patron-only lecture in the History of the United States in 100 Objects: https://www.patreon.com/posts/61475405 Image courtesy of the Mackinac State Historic Parks, Michigan
Before Columbus had even set foot in America, medieval Europe and the Islamic Middle East already had a long history in trading and exploiting slaves. An important branch of the slave trade involved buying captives from the shores of the Black Sea and trafficking them through the Mediterranean to the commercial cities of Italy or to Egypt, where many of them became slave soldiers or even rulers (called "Mamluks"). We discuss the history of the trade, who these thousands of slaves were and what became of them with Hannah Barker of Arizona State University, author of "That Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260-1500."
Image: Pillar capital with sculpted faces of foreign peoples, including Turk and Tatar, Doge's Palace, Venice.
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New website! -- www.historiansplaining.com
We consider the strange ambiguous developments of this year, including the political paralysis in the US, the furors over mask and vaccine mandates, and most importantly, the labor reshuffle or "great resignation," in light of crises past, including the bubonic plague and World War I and World War II, which have tended to bring class conflict and upheavals of the labor regime in their wakes. We examine the classic Frank Capra Christmas movie "It's A Wonderful Life," made 75 years ago in the aftermath of World War II, as an illustration of the post-war settlement that has shaped the conditions of work and home life since that time, and finally thank the 116 patrons that currently support this podcast.
Please support this podcast to hear all patron-only materials, such as "History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
UNLOCKED after 1 year for patrons only:
--Wainscot great chair with turned and carved ornaments
--Made of Oak, by unknown maker in New York or Connecticut, 1660-75
--Owned by John Winthrop, Jr.; held by Connecticut Historical Society
How do the enigmatic designs on an oak chair belonging to the governor, doctor, and alchemist, John Winthrop, Jr., reflect the teeming underground world of mystical and esoteric thought in colonial southeastern New England?
Suggested reading: Neil Kamil, "Fortress of the Soul"; John Brooke, "The Refiner's Fire"; William Woodward, "Prospero's America"; Robert F. Trent, review of “Fortress of the Soul,” in American Furniture, 2005.
CORRECTION: This is the fourteenth, not fifteenth, installment in the series.
Please support this podcast to hear all installments of History of the United States in 100 Objects -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
America marked this year the 100th anniversary of the race massacre that destroyed the Greenwood district of Tulsa, the so-called "Black Wall Street," but left out of the commemorations were the contexts that led to the outbreak of civil violence: the town's Indian origins in the Trail of Tears; the massive cattle and oil booms that gave rise to a powerful and organized class of business magnates; the city's chaotic and crime-ridden expansion, which fueled vigilantism, including lynchings of both white and black victims; and the patriotic frenzy of the First World War and the Red Scare, with its hysterical fear of Bolshevism and revolution. Finally, we consider the recovery of Tulsa from the shocks of the 1921 massacre, the Klan's reign of terror, and the Depression, after which it has evolved into a comparatively liberal cultural capital amidst the conservative Plains Midwest. Tulsa is an extreme example in miniature of America's tumultuous and confused rise to industrial power.
Suggested further reading: Courtney Ann Vaugh-Roberson and Glen Vaughn-Roberson, "City in the Osage Hills."
Please support this podcast to hear all patron-only materials, such as "History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Unlocked after a year for patrons only: Why do we divide history into epochs separated by "revolutions"? Astrology. How did Magellan chart his course around the globe? Astrology. How did Ronald Reagan schedule his acts of state? Astrology. We trace how the highest of the occult arts evolved from interpreting omens in ancient Babylonia, to containing medieval epidemics, to providing fodder for middle-brow magazines. Whether you are a believer or not, astrology is the secret rhythm of our lives.
Become a patron in order to hear all patron-only lectures, including Myth of the Month 14: The Founding Fathers -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Benson Bobrick, "The Fated Sky"; Nicholas Campion, "The Great Year," Julie Beck, "The New Age of Astrology," The Atlantic magazine; Elijah Wolfson, "Your Zodiac Sign, Your Health," The Atlantic magazine; Sonia Saraiya, "Seeing Stars," Vanity Fair magazine.
Image: Horoscope (birth chart) cast for Iskandar Sultan, grandson of Tamerlane, born 1384.
In 1974, group of Chinese farmers drilling a well in a parched field in a far northwestern corner of China found pieces of terracotta sculpture, which would point the way to East Asia's greatest ever archaeological discovery -- a tremendous trove of sculpted warriors, each one unique, amassed in a great army marching eastward from the necropolis of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor. Just spared destruction in the Cultural Revolution, the army is most likely only the tip of the iceberg of the wonders still waiting to be excavated deep within the emperor's burial mound.
Become a patron in order to hear all patron-only lectures, including the previous "Doorways in Time" about the Nag Hammadi Library & the Gnostic Gospels -- -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
At a time of intensifying hope and anxiety over the direction of the Supreme Court, we take stock of how the lawmaking process and the judiciary have changed over the past fifty years with the mobilization and funneling of large amounts of money into the political realm; we focus especially on the little-known but pivotal "Powell Memo" of 1971, in which a lawyer for the Tobacco Institute decried the rising tide of attacks on the "free enterprise system" and proposed a coordinated counter-offensive by the business class that sounds uncannily close to our present reality. The Powell Memo forms a critical moment for understanding the intense politicization of judicial appointments, the ubiquity of political advertising on the airwaves and in print, and ironically, the recent rise of a new "anti-capitalist" radicalism.
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Nag Hammadi Library and the Gnostic Gospels -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In the first installment on the Robin Hood mythos, we consider how the legend of Robin Hood has evolved from a series of brutal tales of a medieval outlaw bandit in the fifteenth century to that of the swashbuckling champion of the poor of modern pop culture, and how he picked up sidekicks like Friar Tuck and Maid Marion along the way; we consider the literary significance of the early stories as an expression of the frustrations and aspirations of the yeoman class.
Suggested further reading: Maurice Keen, "The Outlaws of Medieval Legend"; J. C. Holt, "Robin Hood"; A. J. Pollard, "Imagining Robin Hood."
Please support this podcast to hear the further discussion of the mythological and religious themes of Robin Hood myth, and the examination of whether there was a historical Robin Hood -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Woodcut illustration of the yeoman from a late fifteenth-century edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, shortly after reused to depict Robin Hood.
What do Hindus believe? What rituals, traditions, and ethical principles does one follow as a Hindu? What does Hinduism say about the soul and spiritual enlightenment? We trace the development in ancient and classical India of the multi-layered and comprehensive philosophy of life that we today call Hinduism, from the ancient rites of the Vedas, through the dramatic epics of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, to the rise of the ecstatic musical and mystical worship of bhakti.
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Nag Hammadi Library and the Gnostic Gospels -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: sculpture of Krishna defeating a horse demon, Gupta period.
We discuss the complex geography of the Indian Subcontinent, and how early societies in India, beginning with the mysterious Indus Valley Civilization, developed cities, technology, art, and literature, giving rise eventually to the flourishing Maurya and Gupta empires and the inventions of the Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu religions.
Image: Asoka pillar with lion amidst the remains of Vaisali, Bihar, India.
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Founding Fathers! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
--Made of leather, sinew thread, and wampum (quahog shell) beads, ca. 1400s
--In possession of the Onondaga Nation, central New York
This most ancient and precious ceremonial wampum belt, created by the Ondondaga tribe to record the proclamation of the Great Law of Peace at the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy (or more properly, the Haudenosaunee), was the subject of more than a century of legal wrangling, confusion, and controversy, even appearing at one point at the Chicago World's Fair, before finally returning to its home in upstate New York.
Image: photo of the Hiawatha Belt, ca. 2015, by Stephanie Mach.
See my recent article "Into the Fairy Castle" here: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/into-the-fairy-castle-the-persistence-of-victorian-liberalism/
Please support historiansplaining podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:
America's oldest bowling ball, found in the backlot of a colonial house in Boston, and what it reveals about the Puritans' futile struggles against vice -- drunkenness, fornication, gambling, and even witchcraft.
Please support this podcast and hear the entire lecture on the Nag Hammadi discovery -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Michael of "Xai How Are You" and I discuss the history of the Chasidic / Hasidic movement, a Jewish lay mystical and pietistic movement, which applies the insights of Kabbalah to everyday life and prayer, and which originated among Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe in the 1700s, flourished in the 1800s, survived the pogroms and world wars, and in recent years has been reborn as both a pillar of Orthodox Judaism and a bridge to the Reform and secular worlds.
Please support historiansplaining podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: "Hasidism: A New History," by Biale, Assaf, Brown, Gellman, Heilman, Rosman, Sagiv, and Wodzinski.
Michael of "Xai How Are You" and I discuss the different ways that Jews have distinguished themselves into groups and sub-groups, from the Biblical tribes to the Sephardic and Ashkenazi ethnic groups to the modern Reform, Orthodox, and Conservative movements. We lay the groundwork for an upcoming discussion of the origins and character of Chasidic Judaism.
Please support historiansplaining podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider the narrative structure, symbols, and meanings of the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the context of the Middle Ages and the Arthurian cycle, and how the movie has been adjusted to speak to modern sensibilities. I argue that the Green Knight myth has relevance today as a parable about shame.
"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."
Previous lectures on the Arthur Cycle:
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Creating King Arthur: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/myth-of-the-month-12-the-arthur-cycle-part-1-making-king-arthur
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The Rise and Fall of Camelot: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/myth-of-the-month-12-king-arthur-pt-2-the-rise-and-fall-of-camelot
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The Historical King Arthur: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/unlocked-myth-of-the-month-12-finale-the-historical-king-arthur
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
How did the early colonists in Virginia know that they could profitably grow a species of tobacco from South America? They learned about it from the series of mostly short-lived English, French, and Dutch colonies and outposts in tropical South America, between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, in the area called "Guiana." We discuss with historian Melissa Morris how these early colonies, despite being almost totally forgotten by historians, left a lasting imprint on the Americas, and reveal the haphazard and unpredictable nature of early global empires. Please support this podcast and hear the entire lecture on the Nag Hammadi discovery -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
I mark the milestone of surpassing 100 patrons with a thank-you and a clip of my patron-only lecture, "Doorways in Time: The Great Archaeological Finds -- 2: The Nag Hammadi Library," which deals with the discovery a massive trove of Egyptian documents blowing the lid off of the secretive Gnostic movement of mystical Christianity in the early church. Please support this podcast and hear the entire lecture on the Nag Hammadi discovery -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Released to the public after one year for patrons only: Archaeology, geography, linguistics, textual analysis -- all of these fields of knowledge must be brought to bear on a centuries-old question: Was there a "real" King Arthur? Answer: It's complicated. We discuss the likelihood that some "historical" personage underlies the layers of legend.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Higham, "King Arthur: The Making of the Legend."
1066 -- the year of the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest -- is the most famous date in English history. Few understand, though, that far more happened in this cataclysmic and pivotal year than just the Norman defeat of an English army on a field in East Sussex. The culmination of centuries of shifting struggle over control of England, the events of 1066 show how even epochal changes in a society can hinge on minor accidents of timing, weather, health, and personal whim.
Image: Modern re-enactors representing Harold Godwinson's army at Hastings.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Were the Dutch proto-capitalists? Were they Americans before America? What was the Dutch East India Company, and how did it work? I talk to Deborah Hamer -- historian, research associate at the Omohundro Institute, and associate editor of the New York history blog Gotham -- to discuss her work on marriage and gender in the early Dutch colony in Batavia (as they called the conquered city of Jakarta), how it illuminates the Netherlands' obsessive efforts to create a stratified, orderly, and moral Protestant society in Southeast Asia, and what it reveals about the wider European colonial mindset in both Asia and America.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Who the heck are the "Anglo-Saxons," and why are Americans getting all lathered up about "Anglo-Saxon institutions"? Find out where the Anglo-Saxon myth came from and how over the past three hundred years it's been used to justify Parliamentary supremacy, the Rhodes Scholarship, the American entry into World War I, immigration restrictions, and college admission quotas. You never knew you were suffering under the Norman yoke, but now you do.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous Myth of the Month on the "Founding Fathers" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Statue of King Alfred, Winchester
Previous lectures about the original Anglo-Saxons:
-on Dark Age Britain: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/crossing-the-water-britain-in-the-dark-age
-on Anglo-Saxon England and the Vikings: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/anglo-saxon-england-and-the-vikings-757-1066
-on the Sutton Hoo treasure: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/doorways-in-time-the-great-archaeological-finds-1-the-sutton-hoo-treasure
Suggested further reading:
-Dino Buenviaje, "The Yanks are Coming Over There," https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5cc4h9md;
-Paul Kramer, "Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-Saxons," http://archive.oah.org/special-issues/teaching/2002_03/article.html
Travellers, Tinkers, Gypsies, Kale, Scottish Travellers, Gypsy Travellers, Romani Gypsies, Romanichal, Pavee, Showmen, Van People, Boat People, Bargers –
All of these multivarious peoples, with different ancestries, religions, and traditions, their different languages, dialects, and “cants,” share in common a longstanding itinerant lifestyle and the distinct identity that stems from it. Roving all around the British Isles and sometimes settling down, the various tribes of Travellers have provided metal goods, horses, music, and entertainment to British and Irish markets for centuries, but have become the flashpoint of political fury and even of violence in the twenty-first century.
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Founding Fathers! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading:
Katherine Quarmby, "No Place to Call Home";
Becky Taylor, "Britain's Gypsy Travellers: A People on the Outside," https://www.historytoday.com/archive/britains-gypsy-travellers-people-outside
"Genomic insights into the population structure and history of the Irish Travellers," https://www.nature.com/articles/srep42187
"Apocrypha to Canon: Inventing Irish Traveller History," https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/apocrypha-to-canon-inventing-irish-traveller-history-2/
We follow how the Roma or Gypsies rose to a period of toleration and even renown as the quintessential musical masters of the Romantic era, only to fall under renewed persecution and suppression in the twentieth century, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust -- called the "Devouring" in Romani. We consider the lives of remarkable Roma of the modern age, such as the boxer Johann Trollmann and jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, the birth of a pan-Roma identity movement in the 1970s, the anti-Roma backlash of the 2010s, and finally the possibility that the Roma may be drawn into the geopolitical maneuverings of modern India.
Image: "El Jaleo," by John Singer Sargent, 1879-80
Suggested further reading: Angus Fraser, "The Gypsies"; Isabel Fonseca, "Bury Me Standing."
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Founding Fathers! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Who are the Roma -- also colloquially called "Gypsies"? Where did they come from, and how did they end up all over Europe? How have they endured through persecution, expulsions, and political upheaval, without a state or country of their own? We trace the path of this remarkable and resilient people from their mysterious origins in India to their arrival in Constantinople and medieval Europe and through the wave of persecution and ethnic cleansing in the 1600s.
Image: Gypsies telling fortunes, in Cosmographie Universelle, Munster, 1552.
Suggested further reading: Angus Fraser, "The Gypsies"; Isabel Fonseca, "Bury Me Standing."
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Founding Fathers! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Why was the excavation depicted in "The Dig" the most important archaeological discovery ever made in Britain, or arguably in all of Europe? How did some artifacts found in a mound near an English widow's garden in Suffolk on the eve of World War II revolutionize our understanding of the Dark Age? Why would they come to serve as symbols of the ancient roots of the English nation, and how did Sutton Hoo vindicate the new science of archaeology? The story that Netflix did not tell you.
Image: the Sutton Hoo purse lid.
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Founding Fathers! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
How did Freemasonry expand in the 1700s from a small, secretive fraternity in Lowland Scotland to a massive global network, with lodges from the Caribbean to Russia to India? Who became Freemasons in the 1700s, and what sort of opposition and persecution did they face? What was their relationship to radical groups like the Illuminati? We examine to the growth, expansion, and divides in Freemasonry in the eighteenth century, all of which laid the groundwork for the Craft to influence the course of the age of revolutions.
Please support this podcast and hear the recent lecture on the Founding Fathers! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Previous lecture on the core myths and rituals of Freemasonry: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/the-freemasonry-its-origins-its-myths-and-its-rituals
Image: Depiction of procession of the Grand Lodge of England, London, 1742
Suggested Further Reading: David Stevenson, "Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century"; Margaret Jacob, "Living the Enlightenment"; Jessica Harland-Jacobs, "Builders of Empire"; Ric Berman, "The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry"; Steven Bullock, "Revolutionary Brotherhood"; Jasper Ridley, "The Freemasons"; Andre Kervella, "L'Effet Morin: Prestige d'un Homme, Genese d'un Systeme."
Since the Covid-19 pandemic has killed over half a million Americans, is it historically sound to say that the disaster is "bigger" than World War II? What do such comparisons mean, and are they illuminating? Such questions are truly a new dilemma, since from ancient and biblical times through the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, people have usually understood war and pestilence as going hand in hand. Here, I present a recording of my recent interview with a journalist about putting pandemic and war into historical perspective, followed by an excerpt from my recent patron-only lecture on "Myth of the Month 16: The Founding Fathers."
Image: "Death on a Pale Horse," by Gustave Dore, 1865. Music: Fandango, by Soler or Scarlatti, early 1700s, arranged for Midi file by El Gran Mago Paco Quito.
Please become a supporter to hear all Myths of the Month: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The messy exit of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle from the royal family marks the third great crisis of the British monarchy in the past hundred years – following the abdication of Edward VIII to marry an American divorcee in 1936 and the breakup of Charles and Diana’s marriage in the 1990s. Michael and I discuss the ramifications for the monarchy, Britain, the empire, and the world, situating the disaster in the context of the crown’s central role in the long-running struggle to redefine Britain as it loses its imperial status. Since the reign of Victoria, the monarchy has lost its political “hard” power but has correspondingly gained in the “soft” power of social influence and celebrity, rising to become the primary symbol representing the British nation to itself, and forcing the monarch to navigate the tension between Britain’s place at the head of the multi-racial Commonwealth and its connection to Europe. The appearance and quick departure of a bi-racial American woman in the royal family serves as a test of the monarchy’s supposed embrace of a color-blind future.
Link to beginning Vernon Bogdanor’s lecture series at Gresham College on the monarchy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZUQd22OdVk
Please support in order to hear the upcoming Myth of the Month on the “Founding Fathers” – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The Voynich Manuscript -- often called the "world's most mysterious book" -- consists of 116 leaves of parchment covered in outlandish botanical and astrological drawings and thousands of lines of undeciphered text in an unknown language. A century after images of the codex were first published, still not one line has been decoded. What could it say? And more importantly from the historical perspective, who created it and why? This is the most balanced and impartial consideration of the evidence that you will find. Hear the first part of our investigation of the Voynich manuscript here: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/the-voynich-manuscript-the-worlds-most-mysterious-book-a-historians-view-pt-1
In this second part, we examine the mysterious text, and evidence as to its provenance and chain of ownership. Please become a patron to hear all the Myths of the Month – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
A small cloth sack, containing nails, beads, glass, and a cowrie shell, found under the floorboards of the garret of the oldest house in Newport, Rhode Island, points toward the continuation and adaptation of African practices in New England and throughout the complex "African Atlantic." We discuss with Michael J. Simpson, Phd student at Brown University, who is researching slavery and the slave trade in Rhode Island.
Thank you to the Newport Historical Society for their help on this installment.
Image: Components of the spirit bundle in a museum display -- 2005.12, Collection of the Newport Historical Society.
Suggested further reading: Jason R. Young, "Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery"; Judith Carney, "Black Rice"; Wyatt MacGaffey, "The Personhood of Ritual Objects," Etnofoor, 1990; Woodruff, Sawyer, and Perry, "How Archaeology Exposes the Nature of African Captivity and Freedom in Eighteenth-Century Connecticut," in Connecticut History.
Please become a patron to hear all of the History of the United States in 100 Objects – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
I discuss, with Michael of "Xai, how are you?", the life and times of Sabbatai Zvi, the purported messiah of the 1660s, and the massive messianic awakening that he sparked and that swept across the entire Jewish diaspora in 1666, drawing in men and women, wealthy and poor, clergy and laity, Sephardic and Ashkenazi, and even Jews and gentiles. We consider the development of messianic theology and kabbalah that paved the way for the Sabbatian movement, as well as the lasting imprint that it left on Judaism in the modern era.
Please become a patron to hear all the Myths of the Month – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The Voynich Manuscript -- often called the "world's most mysterious book" -- consists of 116 leaves of parchment covered in outlandish botanical and astrological drawings and thousands of lines of undeciphered text in an unknown language. A century after images of the codex were first published, still not one line has been decoded. What could it say? And more importantly from the historical perspective, who created it and why? This is the most balanced and impartial consideration of the evidence that you will find. In this first part, we consider the physical features and visual content of the book. In the second part, we examine the mysterious text, and evidence as to its provenance and chain of ownership: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/the-voynich-manuscript-the-worlds-most-mysterious-book-a-historians-view-pt-2
Please become a patron to hear all the Myths of the Month – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Carlo Ginzburg, "The Night Battles" and "Ecstasies: Deciperhing the Witches' Sabbath"; Tucker and Janick, "Identification of Phytomorphs in theVoynich Codex," hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/pdfs/hr44…1-phytomorphs.pdf
What did Shakespeare mean when he wrote that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”? Why do we call independent countries “states” endowed with “sovereignty”? Why do historians and philosophers speak of “state formation” and clashes between “church and state”? How did these concepts come about, and what do they mean in international law and political theory? The answer runs from absolutist royal courts through the French Revolution and the Weimar republic of Germany; after centuries of struggle and democratization, the concept of “the state” has formed to fill the vacuum left behind by the Crown.
Please become a patron to hear all the Myths of the Month – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Christiansborg, the parliamentary palace of Denmark.
Recent NPR segment in which I am quoted – https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960631333/covid-19-deaths-draw-comparisons-to-other-tragic-death-tolls
Introductory episode of “God Save America,” on religion in the US – https://soundcloud.com/godsaveamerica/0-introduction
Unlocked for the public after one year for patrons only:
--Made of willow wicker on a wood frame
--Made ca. 1620, most likely in the Netherlands
--Allegedly brought on the Mayflower; held by the Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Mass.
This rocking cradle was reportedly stowed on the Mayflower in anticipation of the birth of Peregrine White, the first English child born in New England, who came into the world as the ship was temporarily anchored in Provincetown Harbor. Passed down for centuries in the wealthy, powerful, and embattled White and Winslow families, the cradle reflects both the Pilgrims' unprecedented ambition to create a self-perpatuating European society in exile, and their strict child-rearing practices that sought to shape the infant into a miniature adult.
Please become a patron to hear all lectures on the History of the United States in 100 Objects! ---- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
How did a chain of sparsely populated islands, stalked by earthquakes, hurricanes, and deadly tropical diseases, become the most powerful and prosperous colonies on earth? We trace how bands of adventurers, including pirates and Crusader knights, took advantage of Spain's fragile hold on the Caribbean islands, superior seafaring skills, and the growing slave trade, to build unlikely new societies, while the Irish and African laborers that they forced into service adapted or struck out for freedom.
Image: 17th-century drawing of Tortuga, while it was ruled by the "Brethren of the Coast."
please become a patron! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Inaugural episode of "God Save America," on religion in the United States: https://soundcloud.com/godsaveamerica/0-introduction
Unlocked for the public, after one year for patrons only, the final lecture of the series on Shakespeare:
Could it be that "Shakespeare" wasn't Shakespeare? -- That someone else, perhaps a highly-educated aristocrat, actually wrote the works attributed to the actor from Stratford? Am I a crackpot for even entertaining such a ridiculous idea? We consider the evidence.
I know this is an absurdly long one, but forgive me, it was so much fun to research and record.
please become a patron! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading: S. Shoenbaum, "Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life"; Diana Price, "Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biopgraphy"; James Shapiro, "Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?"
What to make of this wonderful year? I venture into a little punditry, and give a clip from my patron-only lecture on the enigmatic alchemical physician's chair that belonged to John Winthrop Junior, the "magus of Connecticut."
please become a patron! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
How did the early church hammer out a shared set of practices and teachings out of the welter of confusion and bitter contestation among Montanists, Docetists, Donatists, Paulines, Gnostics, and Ebionites? Why did it take 300 years just for the church to settle on the "creed" that most of us now understand as the core of the faith?
please become a patron! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
image: earliest known manuscript of the Didache
suggested reading: E. Glenn Hinson, "The Early Church"
for context: --on composition of the New Testament texts: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/who-wrote-the-bible-new-testament --on the historical Jesus: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/the-historical-jesus
How did a small movement of Jewish fanatics, devastated by the ignominious demise of their leader, rise to become the official state religion of the Roman empire, Armenia, Georgia, and Ethiopia? We trace the dramatic rise of the new faith through three centuries of preaching, prophesy, and persecution.
image: fresco of a woman at the 3rd-century house-church of Dura-Europos
please become a patron! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
suggested reading: E. Glenn Hinson, "The Early Church"
for context: --on composition of the New Testament texts: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/who-wrote-the-bible-new-testament --on the historical Jesus: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/the-historical-jesus
Teaser sample of "Myth of the Month 14: Astrology."
Become a Patron at any level to hear the complete Myths of the Month: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44717945
Description: Why do we divide history into epochs separated by "revolutions"? Astrology. How did Magellan chart his course around the globe? Astrology. How did Ronald Reagan schedule his acts of state? Astrology. We trace how the highest of the occult arts evolved from interpreting omens in ancient Babylonia, to containing medieval epidemics, to providing fodder for middle-brow magazines. Whether you are a believer or not, astrology is the secret rhythm of our lives.
Suggested further reading: Benson Bobrick, "The Fated Sky"; Nicholas Campion, "The Great Year," Julie Beck, "The New Age of Astrology," The Atlantic magazine; Elijah Wolfson, "Your Zodiac Sign, Your Health," The Atlantic magazine; Sonia Saraiya, "Seeing Stars," Vanity Fair magazine.
Image: Horoscope (birth chart) cast for Iskandar Sultan, grandson of Tamerlane, born 1384.
When we speak of "absolutism," most of us think immediately of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and his splendrous court at Versailles. But those glittering images cover over a centuries-long struggle by the Bourbon dynasty to consolidate power by forging quiet strategic alliances with the lower and middle classes against the nobility, building up a precarious potemkin village that would soon collapse under financial strain, throwing all of Europe into confusion.
Please become a patron to hear the upcoming Myth of the Month: Astrology -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Louis XIV as Jupiter, vanquisher of the Fronde, Charles Poerson, 1650s.
How did a series of brutally conquered states and forced labor camps evolve over 200 years into a flourishing empire of trade, art, and culture? How did this new civilization manage land, money, and the status distinctions of ancestry and color? Why did Spanish America, one of the biggest imperial domains ever seen on earth, fail to benefit the mother country? And how did a cloistered nun in Mexico City come to be known as the first intellectual leading light of the Americas?
Please become a patron to hear the upcoming Myth of the Month: Astrology -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Depiction of John the Evangelist in feather art, Mexico, 1500s, held by National Museum of Art, Mexico City
Suggested further reading: D.A. Brading, "The First America"; John Elliott, "Empires of the Atlantic World"
--Made of cast iron, probably in the Netherlands, ca. 1650 --found at the Schuyler Flatts, Colonie, New York --held by the New York State Museum
A mysterious fragment of an iron fireback found near the hearth of an old manor house in what was New Netherlands shows how we have misunderstood the Dutch -- a people who strove for stability, domesticity, and traditional social hierarchy to link their far-flung colonies with the homeland.
Image courtesy of the state of New York.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the previous "History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
What happened to England in the power vacuum left in the wake of the execution of Charles I? Why were the Puritans, so pious in morals and strict in governance, unable to create a lasting Commonwealth? And why did the return of the monarchy unleash a wave of lewd hedonism that is shocking even more than three centuries later? The explosion of empire, the slave trade, religious toleration, the modern metropolis of London, the enshrinement of theater as the English national art form, the two-party system, and the consitutional balance of power still in place in both Britain and the United States -- all of these have their roots in the tumultuous years from 1650 to 1685; if there is any period of English history that you must know in order to understand the present, it is this one.
My Patreon – please support to hear the next Myth of the Month! – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Feudalism – it’s what they did in the Middle Ages! Nobles controlled the land and extracted labor from the serfs, and everyone from peasants to great lords was arranged in a big hierarchical pyramid leading up to the king. Or were they? We examine the ambiguities inherent in the idea of “feudalism,” and the reasons why it simply cannot hold up to examination against the historical record. Finally, we consider why the myth of feudalism developed and has persisted as a way of justifying the inequalities of our own era.
Suggested further reading: Carl Stephenson, “Mediaeval Feudalism”; Susan Reynolds, “Fiefs and Vassals”; Elizabeth Brown, “Tyranny of a Construct.”
Music: “A Gut Yor,” written by David Meyerowitz and performed by Joseph Feldman, 1915, courtesy of Yiddish Penny Songs, http://www.yiddishpennysongs.com/2017/09/a-gut-yor-git-yuhr-zu-alle-leite-gut.html
My recent conversation on the queer Talmud podcast, “Xai, How Are You?” – https://soundcloud.com/xaihowareyou/32-why-god
My Patreon – please support to hear the next Myth of the Month! – www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
How did the Restoration of the English monarchy and the dawn of empire set the stage for the peculiar set of practices and assumptions that we now call "science," and how did they begin to unlock powerful secrets of the earth, the heavens, fire, and steam? And why did John Locke kind of secretly hate Isaac Newton?
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the recent examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump," by Joseph Wright, 1768
How did a set of seven fractious kingdoms unite into a new kingdom, known as "England," while under almost constant attack by Viking berserkers from across the North Sea?
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the recent examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: The Ormside bowl, an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon silver bowl found in the grave of a Viking warrior, photographed by JMiall
Music: A 1914 Edison Records wax-cylinder recording of "Rule, Britannia," provided by the University of California Santa Barbara Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
Why do we have uniformed officers called "police" who do things (like patrolling streets and investigating missing persons) that we call "policing"? We trace the evolution of law enforcement over the past two hundred years in response to urban growth, immigration, and labor unrest, and the struggles over who controls the police and their activities.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the recent examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Further Reading: Roger Lane, "Urban Police and Crime in Nineteenth-Century America," Crime and Justice, Vol. 2 (1980), pp. 1-43, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1147411?seq=1
Image: Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge inspects state militiamen during the Boston police strike of 1919
Why did the US government support and supply substantial aid to a left-wing revolutionary government in Bolivia in the 1950s, at the same time that it was undermining or overthrowing similar regimes in other nations? What does this striking but forgotten incident reveal about American ambitions in Latin America? And what light does it shed on the strife engulfing Bolivia today, after yet another elected leader has been forced out of power? We discuss and find context with Oliver Rhoads Murphey, whose dissertation seeks to solve the puzzle of American involvement in the heart of Andean South America.
Read "A Bond that will Permanently Endure: The Eisenhower administration, the Bolivian revolution and Latin American leftist nationalism" -- https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D87D30RB
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the recent examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
I give updates on my ridiculous pursuits, and thanks to my 75+ patrons, as well as a juicy teaser for my patron-only lecture on the "real" or "historical" King Arthur. The Twitter poll on what I should address next: https://twitter.com/Historiansplain/status/1290134698690088962 My political campaign website: www.samforcentralmass.com My patreon -- sign up to hear all my patron-only material: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Unlocked for the public after 1 year:
-Ceramic chalice, decorated in Jemez black-on-white style, with crosses -made in pueblo of Giusewa, between 1598 and the 1630s -found in the ruins of the Spanish mission at Giusewa, 1937
A simple pottery chalice, probably made by a local indigenous woman, reveals the early stages of interaction between Spanish missionaries and the ancient Pueblo civilization -- an intermingling that would lead to conflict, and eventually, a massive revolt that some have called "the first American Revolution."
Image courtesy of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Laboratory of Anthropology
Suggested further reading: Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World, edited by Robert W. Preucel, especially Matthew Liebman, "Signs of Power and Resistance: The (Re)Creation of Christian Imagery and Identities in the Pueblo Revolt Era”; Ramon Gutierrez, "When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away"
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the upcoming examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
When Jackie Kennedy told reporters that she and the late President used to listen to the soundtrack of the musical "Camelot," the word immediately caught on as the name for the Kennedy White House -- portrayed as a brief, golden period of wise rule, ended by tragedy; more than a thousand years' worth of romantic associations could be evoked with three short syllables. In this second segment, we consider how the chivalric legend of Camelot and the Round Table was conceived and elaborated, from French courtly romances, through the first English Arthurian epic (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), to the popular novels, plays, and movies of modern times.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the upcoming examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Find the new Lyceum platform and app -- www.lyceum.fm/
Suggested further reading: Nicholas J. Higham, "King Arthur: The Making of the Legend"
Why does the earliest known picture of King Arthur show him riding on a goat and charging towards a deadly cat-monster? How has the tale of King Arthur and his knights evolved since it first emerged from Celtic folklore? We consider the shaping of the Arthur story from the songs of mysterious Welsh and Breton bards to the high medieval romances of French courtier-poets.
Proceed to part 2 here: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/myth-of-the-month-12-king-arthur-pt-2-the-rise-and-fall-of-camelot
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the upcoming examination of the "historical" King Arthur -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Find the new Lyceum platform and app -- www.lyceum.fm/
Suggested further reading: Nicholas J. Higham, "King Arthur: The Making of the Legend"
After one year on Patreon for patrons only, Myth of the Month #8 becomes open to the public:
The notion that there is a coherent society that can be called "the West" or "Western Civilization" -- running from Greco-Roman antiquity to modern North America -- originated during the upheaval of World War I, thanks to an eccentric German history teacher named Oswald Spengler. We consider whether any common thread or trait can be said to unite "the West," and why different nations like Egypt or Poland get tossed in or out of the basket of "the West" at different times. Finally, we consider why the idea of "the West" is often linked to conspiracy theories involving Jews, Marxists, post-modernists, or Jewish-Marxist-banker-Freemason-postmodernists. (Yes, I make an oblique reference here to Jordan Peterson.)
The recent debate involving Douglas Murray, "What Is Killing Western Civilization?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJZqKKFn3Hk
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the upcoming examination of the King Arthur cycle -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
cover image: Capitoline temples of Sbeitla, Tunisia, photograph by Bernard Gagnon
Romans, Brythons, Picts, Angles, Gaels, Saxons, and Jutes -- how did this kaleidoscopic welter of contending tribes crystallize into the medieval Christian kingdoms we know as England and Scotland? We consider the most tumultuous and mysterious period in British history, following the Roman withdrawal, as locals and Germanic migrants sought to assert power and maintain stability. Despite the great uncertainty, Britons mastered new knowledge, developed a poetic tradition, and passed on an enduring obsession with the sacred power of water.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures, including the upcoming examination of the King Arthur cycle -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Find the new Lyceum platform and app -- www.lyceum.fm/
Cover image: 6th-century Anglo-Saxon inlaid gold disk brooch, found in gravesite in Kent. Image courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art.
--Made of Hickory wood, shells, and copper on the Atlantic coast of North America, ca. 1640s --Held in the collection of Skokloster Castle, Sweden
This elaborately carved and ornamented wooden weapon was most likely ceremonial, created by a Lenape Indian artist to represent the authority of a chieftain or warrior. But how did this priceless Native American artifact end up in the collection of a castle in Sweden? This object and its journey tell a largely forgotten story of Sweden's moment of imperial glory and ambition in the mid-1600s, which left a mysterious imprint in North America.
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming regularly and hear all of the History of the United States in 100 Objects -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: James Nordin, "The Center of the World," Journal of Materical Culture, 2013 -- http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1032.4165&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Image courtesy of Skokloster Castle.
What is the legacy of the greatest pandemic to hit the globe in the past two centuries, carrying away 3% of the entire human race? What has been its after-life through the past century? What health and psychological impacts did it leave behind? What are the enduring questions and mysteries that science and history must unravel? And how has our art, literature, and popular culture remembered -- or more often, forgotten -- this great disaster?
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Find the new Lyceum platform and app -- www.lyceum.fm/
Suggested further reading: Laura Spinney, "Pale Rider"; Alfred Crosby, "America's Forgotten Pandemic."
image: angel monument, Hendersonville, N.C., which formerly belonged to the Wolfe family of Asheville, N.C., and inspired the title of the novel, "Look Homeward, Angel"
In this first installment on the great Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-20, we consider the staggering scope and deep reach of the viral disease that swept the world three times, infecting one third of humankind and killing more people than the World War that nonetheless overshadowed it in the public mind. The second installment will consider the lingering impacts of the pandemic, its enduring mysteries, and the possible reasons it has been forgotten.
Please support this podcast and hear all lectures -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Find the new Lyceum platform and app -- https://www.lyceum.fm/
Suggested further reading: Laura Spinney, "Pale Rider"; Alfred Crosby, "America's Forgotten Pandemic."
image: Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait with Spanish Flu, 1919
The 1619 Project -- an essay collection published in last August's New York Times magazine -- has ignited intense debate about American history, raging outside the walls of academia. Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the first African captives landing in Virginia, the various authors the case for the central importance of slavery and African-Americans to the meaning of America. We examine how the project reinforces the traditional myths of American exceptionalism and continual progress, while casting African-Americans in the starring role of Whig history, as the embattled tribe leading the quest towards liberty.
Please support this podcast and hear all of the Myths of the Month -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Aftermath of the Tulsa race riot, 1921
Suggested further reading: Edmund Morgan, "Slavery and Freedom: the American Paradox"; Michael Guasco, "Slaves and Englishmen"; Albert Raboteau, "Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South"
CORRECTION: Edmund Morgan taught for 31 years at Yale, not Harvard.
CLARIFICATION: As Michael J. Simpson points out, Crispus Attucks was of both Native American and African heritage, not just one or the other.
What can I say? I'm alive and well, how are you? Image: bronze statue of the Archangel Michael, atop the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, commemorating the end of a plague.
What is with the spate of 1980s themes on current "prestige" television? Is it Gen. X. nostalgia for their youthful days in suburban malls? Or something more? Television critic Sonia Saraiya discusses how our unresolved identity crises seem to have led us into a fascination with the last years of the Cold War, and with the secret mistakes and machinations that took place on both sides of the old Iron Curtain.
please support this podcast! -- https://www.patreon.com/creator-home
The pledges for this installment will be split evenly between the two collaborators.
Television series discussed: "The Americans," "Stranger Things," "When They See Us," "Chernobyl," "Leaving Neverland"
Correction: The famous quote that nuclear power is "a hell of a way to boil water" comes from journalist Karl Grossman's 1980 book, "Cover Up."
What did people do when the Roman empire fell apart around them? Recent scholarship, based on new archeological discoveries and techniques, argues that in the "dark" centuries between 450 and 750 AD, the people of western Europe, from conquering kings to ordinary peasants, improvised new political alliances, maintained law and order, improved the productivity of their land, and invented new crafts and art forms, building a resilient and inventive society on the foundations (often literally) of the old.
Please support this podcast -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Peter Wells, "Barbarians to Angels"
Cover image: Visigothic bronze belt buckle with garnet and glass inlays, belonging to a woman in Spain, mid-6th century AD; image provided by Cleveland Museum of Art.
Unlocked for all listeners after one year for patrons only:
-about 10 ft. long
-made in France, ca. 1540s
-lost in shipwreck, ca. 1562-5
-located on bottom of the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral
We examine the mysteries surrounding a French bronze cannon recently discovered on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean near Florida, amidst the wreckage of an unidentified sixteenth-century fleet. The cannon and other artifacts are rare, priceless remnants of French Protestants’ ill-fated attempts to colonize North America before the Spanish, and their discovery sparked a heated international legal dispute. The mysterious shipwreck gives us a window into a rare moment when Europe’s vicious religious wars spilled over into the Americas.
Image courtesy of Bobby Pritchett., Pres., Global Marine Exploration Inc.
Introductory music: Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D, played by Wanda Landowska on harpsichord.
Anticipating the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Plymouth colony, Michael J. Simpson and I discuss the deep background of the creation of "New England" -- the long history of contact, exchange, violence, disease, and acculturation among indigenous and European peoples, both before and after 1620, that created a complex creolized world before any Puritans were even on the scene.
Michael's instagram: @hiddenhistoryri
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming and make them regular and dependable! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
(Payment for this installment will be split between the two collaborators)
Could it be that "Shakespeare" wasn't Shakespeare? -- that someone else, perhaps a highly-educated aristocrat, actually wrote the works attributed to the actor from Stratford? Am I a crackpot for even entertaining such a ridiculous idea? We consider the evidence. This is the last installment in my series about William Shakespeare. Become a patron to hear the whole discussion: https://www.patreon.com/posts/32922586
Unlocked after one year for patrons only, a discussion of our fixation with organizing political views into an axis "left" against "right":
As new political parties -- left-populists, neo-fascists, and secessionists -- rapidly rise and fall across Europe and other Western countries, and spontaneous protests blur partisan boundaries in the streets of Paris, the old left-to-right scale of political ideology is just not working. What value does this one-dimensional model of politics have, and where did it come from? In fact, it has to do with where you sit at a formal dinner party.
Become a patron to hear my upcoming discussion of the Shakespeare authorship controversy (the notion that somebody else wrote the works of Shakespeare) www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Yuval Levin, "The Great Debate"; Jonathan Haidt, "The Righteous Mind"
How could Shakespeare have possibly allowed his sonnets -- personal, sexual, and often scandalous -- to be published? I advance my own theory to account for the printing of the most shocking book of poetry in the history of literature, and discuss the possibilities as to the identities of the alluring Young Man and Dark Lady. Finally, we consider the light that the Sonnets shed upon Shakespeare's plays, particularly his obsession with gender ambiguity and androgyny.
Become a patron to hear my upcoming discussion of the Shakespeare authorship controversy (the notion that somebody else wrote the works of Shakespeare) www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
CORRECTION: In thanking my patrons at the end of this episode, I mistakenly referred to "Christopher Grant" instead of "Christopher Grady." Apologies and thanks.
Poems analyzed in this lecture: 17, 20, 135, 136, 138, 144
Full text of Shakespeare's sonnets, searchable: www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/Archive/allsonn.htm
Suggested further reading: Katherine Duncan-Jones, ed., "Shakespeare's Sonnets"; Joseph Pequigney, "Such Is My Love"; Lynn Magnusson, "A Modern Perspective" in Folger Shakespeare Library's edition of Shakespeare's Poems; Don Paterson, "Shakespeare's Sonnets," (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/16/shakespeare-sonnets-don-paterson); Saul Frampton, "In Search of Shakespeare's Dark Lady" (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/10/search-shakespeares-dark-lady-florio); Macd. P. Jackson, "The Authorship of 'A Lover's Complaint,'" The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Sep. 2008
What do Shakespeare's sonnets actually say? What can they tell us about the life or character of the man who penned them? Not only romantic and philosophical, the sonnets are erotic, desperate, and often angry, laced with shocking sexual imagery and emotional confession; as a group, they break all conventions of Elizabethan poetry, and trace the ghostly outline of two passionate affairs -- one a brief, tawdry fling with a mature voluptuous woman, and one a long, fraught relationship with an androgynous young man.
This will be followed by a discussion of the publication of the sonnets, the possible identities of the "Dark Lady" and "Fair Youth," and their relation to the plays; and then by a discussion for patrons only of the "authorship controversy."
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming and make them regular and dependable! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Poems analyzed in this lecture: 1, 18, 20, 27, 33, 50, 52, 80, 86, 116, 127, 128, 129, 144
Full text of Shakespeare's sonnets, searchable: http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/Archive/allsonn.htm
Suggested further reading: Katherine Duncan-Jones, ed., "Shakespeare's Sonnets"; Joseph Pequigney, "Such Is My Love"; Lynn Magnusson, "A Modern Perspective" in Folger Shakespeare Library's edition of Shakespeare's Poems.
Who was William Shakespeare? He is far more elusive, and his life more obscure, than his fans and biographers will admit. We consider the massive, bloated mythology that has built up around the great Bard over the centuries, and then examine the remarkably scant surviving documentary records from the writer's own lifetime, which tend to paint a both bizarre and unflattering picture.
The first of three installments examining the reality of Shakespeare.
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming and make them regular and dependable! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: S. Schoenbaum, "William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life"; James Shapiro, "Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?"; Diana Price, "Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography."
--Made of salt-glazed stoneware, in Frechen, Germany, ca. 1605 --Found at James Fort, Jamestown, Virginia --Held in Collection of Historic Jamestowne
In some ways, this Bartmann (or "Bearded Man") stoneware beer jug with an effigy of a jovial fat man and coats of arms is typical of the wares that poured our of Germany in the 1600s, several of which were found in the long-lost ruins of James Fort, the first English fortress at Jamestown. On the other hand, a peculiar feature of its decorative crest suggests possible hidden meanings, hinting at secret Catholic sympathies threatening England's first serious effort to colonize the New World.
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming and make them regular and dependable! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Beverly Straube, "European Ceramics in the New World: The Jamestown Example," http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/6/Ceramics-in-America-2001/European-Ceramics-in-the-New-World:-The-Jamestown-Example
Struggles between chief executives and legislatures are dominating the news on both sides of the Atlantic, as Americans debate impeachment and the UK is engulfed by a Brexistential crisis. Most of the terms and precedents for these struggles go back to the 1600s and King Charles I's efforts to govern without the support of Parliament, which led to political backlash, civil war, and social upheaval from the halls of Westminster to the smallest peasant farmsteads.
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming and make them regular and dependable! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Hill, "The Elizabethan Puritan Movement"; Tyacke, "The Anti-Calvinists"; Walzer, "The Revolution of the Saints"; Mendle, ed., "The Putney Debates"
Why does our government work the way it does? Is it supposed to represents citizens, or states? We consider the origins of the U. S. Constitution, particularly the creation of the controversial bodies (Senate and Electoral College) that represent the public in skewed and disproportionate ways. We dispel the false notion that these bodies were created in order to protect small states, tracing instead the Framers' quest to tamp down the "excess of democracy" of the 1780s, wrest control over monetary policy away from the poor majority, and strike a careful balance between slave and non-slave states.
Please support this podcast in order to keep the lectures coming and make them regular and dependable! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Woody Holton, "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution"; Charles Beard, "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States"; Michael Klarman, "The Framers' Coup"; Max Edling, "A Revolution in Favor of Government," Robert Brown, "Charles Beard and the Constitution"; Irwin Polishook, "Rhode Island and the Union,"; Hillman Metcalf Bishop, "Why Rhode Island Opposed the Federal Constitution"; Gordon Wood, "Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" and "Creation of the American Republic"
After one year, my lecture on the only authentic pre-Columbian European artifact ever found in the United States becomes public. Please support this podcast on Patreon to hear the patron-only lectures when they are posted (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632).
--Created in Norway, 1069-1080 AD, during reign of King Olaf Kyrre --Made of silver alloy --Found at Goddard Site, Naskeag Point, Maine, dated 1100s-1200s AD
The only authentic Norse artifact ever found in the United States, this small silver coin dated to the 11th century may be an elaborate hoax, or a crucial clue to trade and contact between Europe and America in the centuries between the fall of Vinland and the arrival of Columbus.
We trace how the conquests of the infamous Tamerlane, the “great game” of imperial rivalry, and the revolutions of modern Russia shaped the map of central Asia that we see today. We consider how contemporary central Asians try to navigate the dangerous shoals of environmental disaster and rampant corruption, often while tethered to older Islamic, Turko-Mongolic, and nomadic traditions -- particularly in the looming shadow of a resurgent China.
Please support this podcast to hear my patron-only lectures on historical myths like “Western Civilization” -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Peter Golden, "Central Asia in World History"; Gavin Hambly, "Central Asia"; Rene Grousset, "The Empire of the Steppes"; Colin Thubron, “Shadow of the Silk Road”; Sahadeo and Zanca, “Everyday Life in Central Asia”
correction: The word "Tajik" originally meant "non-Turk" or "Persian," not "Muslim"
We consider the vast sweep of Central Asian history, from the first nomads to tame the horse and gain mastery of the steppes, to the splendrous cities of the first Silk Road, to the rise of Ghenghis Khan. Few Westerners learn the dizzyingly complex and tumultuous history of Central Asia, even though it forms the linchpin connecting all the major civilizations of the Old World, from Europe to Persia to China. Finally, we consider the unsettling paradox of the Mongol empire, which fostered a vibrant cosmopolitanism at the same time that it brutally repressed subject peoples.
Please support this podcast! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Peter Golden, "Central Asia in World History"; Gavin Hambly, "Central Asia"; Rene Grousset, "The Empire of the Steppes"
Freemasonry: What is it? Where does it come from? What is one taught as a Freemason? What do they do in their closed-door rituals -- and why? Freemasonry in the 1700s is my own field of research, and as a thank-you for reaching 50 patrons, I give a deep illumination of this unusual Society's roots in the gatherings of stonemasons in the late Middle Ages, its mythical connections to Solomon's Temple and the Crusades, and its elaborate system of symbols and initiatory rituals, which cast the Masons as a quasi-priestly caste with a shamanic connection to the world of the dead.
Please support this podcast and hear the next lecture! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading: David Stevenson, "Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century"; Margaret Jacob, "Living the Enlightenment"; Jessica Harland-Jacobs, "Builders of Empire"; Ric Berman, "The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry"; Steven Bullock, "Revolutionary Brotherhood"; Jasper Ridley, "The Freemasons"
I give an update on my suspicious activities over the past month, and give a little preview of my latest patron-only lecture, on the myth of "The West" or "Western Civilization."
Become a supporter at Patreon to hear all of "Myth of the Month 8: The West" -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/28201110
The Jacobin article that I co-wrote with Adele -- https://jacobinmag.com/2019/06/bernie-sanders-primary-political-revolution-voter-disenfranchisement
The latest installment of Mass of Contradictions, on why there is no democracy in Massachusetts -- https://soundcloud.com/massofcontradictions/episode-3-the-massachusetts-constitution-of-contradictions
After one year for patrons only, the fourth Myth of the Month becomes free for the public:
Do societies become more "secular" as they become modern? Do science, technology, or democracy weaken religious belief? We consider theories of secularization ranging from Max Weber's story of "disenchantment" to Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age." Current survey data show a dramatic rise in the number of "nones" -- those who do not adhere to any particular religious group, even though most of them still pray, read scriptures, or express belief in God.
Please support this podcast and hear the next upcoming Myth of the Month! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading: Charles Taylor, "A Secular Age"; Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation"; Pew Research Center, "In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?"
Image of abandoned church courtesy of Emma (https://www.flickr.com/people/27505473@N02) via Flickr.
We follow the five Tudor monarchs’ struggle to consolidate power in royal hands and forestall a collapse back into the civil wars that ravaged England in the 1400s. Beyond the soap operas of Henry VIII’s marriages or Elizabeth’s love affairs, we consider the real workings of power, money, and propaganda as England rises from a European backwater to a commercial powerhouse and leader of the Protestant world, especially as seen from the viewpoint of the Dudleys, the longest-surviving family of royal consiglieri operating behind the Tudor throne.
Please support historiansplaining in order to make it possible to conduct interviews of historians, authors, and archeologists! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
-Seal stamp, made of Bronze, with image of St. Catherine of Alexandria -made in Spain, ca. 1680s, possibly earlier -used by Santa Catalina de Guale mission, in Georgia and Florida -found on Amelia Island, Florida
The only surviving Spanish mission seal ever found in the United States, this small bronze stamp was once the critical link to Spain's northernmost mission in America. Small enough to sit in the palm of the hand, the Dorion mission seal encapsulates a history of religious zealotry, conversion, and inter-imperial struggle in what is now the American southeast.
Image courtesy of the HistoryMiami Museum.
Please support this podcast, to hear the entire series on the history of the United States in 100 Objects -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
If interested in current political topics, check out the new collaborative podcast, "Mass of Contradictions" -- https://soundcloud.com/massofcontradictions (not for kids)
-Found in Monroe County, Illinois -Made of bauxite or "flint clay" -Dated to early 12th cent. AD
One year after being shared with patrons only, this second installment of History of the United States in 100 Objects becomes public. We consider the statuette of a woman tearing into the back of a serpent (known to archaeologists as the Birger Figurine), which was found broken in pieces and buried in a pit outside of a small village site in Illinois. The figurine, despite its small size and condition, is the most exquisite piece of art surviving from the Mississippian civilization, a massive and powerful urban society that dominated the interior of North America for more than three hundred years before falling into decline and obscurity. The statuette most likely represents a goddess of death and rebirth that presided over the Mississippians' prosperous golden age.
Suggested further reading: Timothy Pauketat, "Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians"; Reilly and Garber, "Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms"; Guy Prentice, "An Analysis of the Symbolism Expressed by the Birger Figurine."
Please support this podcast to hear all patron-only content! --https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Two secret informants and I continue our conversation stemming from Game of Thrones, wherein we consider the relationship of monarchy and magic to the malaise of modern life. Why did British rulers claim the power to heal the sick by the touch of a hand, and why did a group of Scottish students in the 1950s break into Westminster Abbey to steal a 300-pound slab of sandstone called the “Stone of Destiny”? More broadly, why are modern people still obsessed with stories of kings and queens, and why do we tune in by the millions to see a royal wedding? The furor over Game of Thrones is just the latest demonstration that monarchy serves as a symbolic anchor in a chaotic world, and the desire for such an anchor is just as strong today as it was in the depth of the Dark Age.
Please support this podcast! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Paul Monod, "Jacobitism and the English People"; Marc Bloch, "The Royal Touch"; Ernst Kantorowicz, "The King's Two Bodies"; Victor Turner, "The Ritual Process"; Hobsbawm and Ranger, "The Invention of Tradition"
Coverimage: royal banner hanging in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland.
We put the disastrous fire at Notre Dame de Paris into historical perspective -- by considering the history of Gothic cathedrals, their cosmic religious meanings, and their remarkably powerful and mysterious construction. How did medieval builders create these massive, complex structures without steel, steam power, electricity, or even written plans? We also follow the tumultuous experiences of Notre Dame itself, the social and symbolic center of Paris--from religious riots and Revolutionary iconoclasm to malign neglect and controversial restorations. Finally, we consider the resilience of Gothic buildings through fire, lightning, earthquake, war, and revolution, and ask what other important monuments or community buildings we should support in our own communities.
Please support this podcast, so that you can hear all of my patron-only materials, including a new special discussion of Game of Thrones and the magic of monarchy: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Intro music: Domenico Scarlatti, "Fandango," played by Genoveva Galvez; used by permission of Ensayo Records. Image: Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, immediately after the 2010 earthquake.
Suggested further reading: John Fitchen, "The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals"; Otto von Simson, "The Gothic Cathedral"; Knoop and Jones, "The Mediaeval Mason"
I take stock of the growth and reach of the podcast, Historiansplaining, who is listening, who is contributing, and how I seem to be especially appealing to Canadians. I preview possible upcoming topics, including Central Asia and the U.S. Constitution.
Please support this podcast, so that you can hear all of my patron-only materials, including a new special discussion of Game of Thrones and the magic of monarchy: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Intro music: Domenico Scarlatti, "Fandango," played by Genoveva Galvez; used by permission of Ensayo Records.
--In time for Passover, this lecture on the myth of the Exodus from Egypt, which I recorded solely for patrons one year ago, becomes public for all.--
We examine the origins and the political and theological meanings of the myth of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. We consider the possible real historical events that might underly the exodus story, including the argument put forward in Richard Elliot Friedman's new book, The Exodus. Finally, we trace some of the many ways that peoples around the world, from the early Christians to Rastafaris, have adopted the exodus myth and cast themselves as the new Israelites.
Please support this podcast, so that you can hear all of my patron-only lectures as soon as they come out! --www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine George R. R. Martin’s new mythology for the middle class: the TV series Game of Thrones and the series of books upon which it is based. Martin and his collaborators draw on the 15th-century Wars of the Roses and later dynastic struggles in Britain to present an amoral world, lacking in honor, bereft of cosmic justice, and eerily reminiscent of the contemporary West. We examine historical precedents for the "Red Wedding," and the symbolic resonance of characters such as the Starks and Littlefinger. Finally we consider the possible historical meaning of the show's final-season premier date of April 14th.
Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and to get patron-only lectures such as my latest on political left and right: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image: Early Flemish depiction of the Battle of Barnet, from the Ghent Manuscript. Intro music: Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D minor, played on harpsichord by Wanda Landowska.
In the second part of our exploration of the history of universities, we discuss the apotheosis of the university in the American republic, the rise of the German-style research university, and the arrival of women in the elite universities. We end by considering the current crisis of universities, as humanities departments disappear, sexual-assault scandals tarnish prestigious schools, and the public turns an increasingly jaundiced and cynical eye toward the academic “ivory tower.”
Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and to get patron-only lectures such as my latest on political left and right: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Walter Ruegg, ed., “A History of the University in Europe,” 4 vols.; William Clark, “Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University”; Peter Novick, “That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical Profession”; Henry Adams, “The Education of Henry Adams”; Chad Wellmon, “A Wild Muddle: Have American Elite Colleges Lost Their Moral Purpose Altogether?”
Image: “Alma Mater,” Columbia University, New York City, photographed by Beyond My Ken.
Intro music: Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D minor, played on harpsichord by Wanda Landowska.
Universities are unique -- a quintessential product of the High Middle Ages that has miraculously survived and even flourished in the modern world. In the first part of the history of universities, we examine the origins of the first universities in the power struggles of Popes and emperors; the ways that medieval students learned, lived, and annoyed their elders; and the ways that universities adapted to and withstood serious challenges from Renaissance humanism and the republic of letters. Next will be the rise of universities in America, the modern research university, and the current crisis of academia.
Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and to get patron-only lectures such as my latest on political left and right: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Walter Ruegg, ed., “A History of the University in Europe,” 4 vols.; William Clark, “Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University”; Olaf Pedersen, "The FIrst Universities."
Image: "Master and Scholars," illustration from "L'Image du Monde," copybook by Gautier de Metz, 1464, in collection of British Library.
Intro music: Domenico Scarlatti, Sonata in D minor, played on harpsichord by Wanda Landowska.
I discuss the various strengths and weaknesses of Patrick Deneen’s critique of liberalism, and put forward my own slightly different argument that liberalism is like a cargo cult – taking ordinary human creations and elevating them to products of divine intervention. George Carlin helps out along the way, and we close with a consideration of the recent “market capitalism” controversy stirred up by Tucker Carlson.
Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and to get patron-only lectures such as my latest on political left and right: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In the first half of my discussion of Patrick Deneen's "Why Liberalism Failed," I examine the structure of Deneen's argument, tracing his effort to connect present-day crises in education, science, culture, and morality to the fundamental flaws in "liberalism," which he calls the "operating system" of modern Western society, and which he claims has left us isolated, lonely, and afraid, with our social system possibly on the brink of collapse into a totalitarian nightmare. Cheers!
Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and to get more free lectures in the bargain: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
I have a conversation with a friend in the scientific field about the recently exposed "Sokal Squared" academic hoax, by which three junior professors concocted a series of intentionally absurd, nonsensical articles and had several of them accepted into respectable academic journals. What are the implications of their success? Is "theory" or "postmodernism" to blame? The lax standards of humanities journals? The drive to "publish or perish" in academia? Does the problem extend to social science or "hard science" fields? And what should be done about it? We try to sort through the confusing picture, and I recommend possible responses, such as the inclusion of non-academics in the peer-review process.
The Hoaxsters' report on their "experiment" -- https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/
Recommended Further Reading: William Clark, "Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University"
Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and to get more free lectures, too: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
-Set of nine chevron-patterned glass beads -Made in Venice, ca. 1500 -Found in Telfair, County, Georgia
A fistful of Venetian glass beads may be the crucial clue to tracing the route of the first European explorer to raid and rampage through the interior of North America -- Hernando de Soto.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to all segments of "A History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Image courtesy of Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, flheritage.com.
I update my patrons on future plans for the podcast despite a pause of more than two months, and encourage listeners to comment on what they want to hear about in coming months. Please rate and review on any platform you use, and give support if you can! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We follow how a relatively obscure family of Swiss counts took advantage of the chaos of the late Middle Ages to become the most powerful dynasty in the history of central Europe, towering over European affairs, ruling "an empire on which the sun never sets," and even setting their sights on the dream of global dominion. We then consider the obstacles that the French, the Ottoman Turks, and the Protestants threw in their way, leading to the disastrous Thirty Years' War and their gradual fall from power.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Paula Sutter Fichtner, "Meaning Well: The Curious Life of a Habsburg Idealist."
There is no such thing as capitalism. With debates over the relative meanings and merits of socialism and capitalism currently flaring up in the United States, we examine why “capitalism” is an undefinable and meaningless concept, and how it came nevertheless to hold a mythic and almost magical power over the minds of academics and ordinary citizens alike. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Marx and Engels, "The Communist Manifesto"; Ellen Meiksins Wood, "Agrarian Origins of Capitalism"; Howard Brick, "Transcending Capitalism."
We unearth the tangled roots of the earliest forms of modern science, beginning with the radical alchemical theories of the rabble-rousing healer called Paracelsus, and running through the heated debates over Galileo's astronomy, which broke down the distinction between the earth and the heavens. Due to these shocks, the old teleological, or purpose-driven, scheme of the world broke down, giving way to a free-for-all of speculation and apocalyptic excitement. We question the historical meaning of the concept of "science," and consider how modern-day pop scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson portray the past selectively in order to build the myth of reason and science as beacons of light amidst superstition. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Walter Pagel, "Paracelsus"; Charles Webster, "The Great Instauration"; Francis Bacon, "The New Atlantis"; Pamela Smith, "The Body of the Artisan"; Deborah Harkness, "The Jewel House"; Frances Yates, "Giordano Bruno" and "The Rosicrucian Enlightenment"; Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"; Steven Shapin, "The Scientific Revolution"
What is behind the popularity of Outlander? Why have crazed fans of the show from around the world begun to overrun Scottish castles? – and why did the UK Prime Minister secretly meet with TV executives to stop its premier in 2014? We examine the show’s success in light of Scottish history and politics, and in the context of the ongoing romance of Scotland, by which modern people project their longings for tradition, attachment, and honor onto a small, craggy country in the north of Britain.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
-Sash made of Yucca rope, leather, squirrel pelt, and scarlet macaw feathers -Found in Lavender Canyon, Utah -Dated to Ancestral Pueblo Civilization, ca. 1150 AD
Made with more than 2000 tiny macaw feathers, this sash is unique in the archeological record, probably the most complex and the most personal artifact ever found from the ancestral Pueblo civilization. Also informally called "Anasazi" and known for its cliff palaces, this civilization flourished for several centuries before collapsing in the 1100s, around the time when this complex and mysterious object was left behind in a cave.
Special thanks to the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum for their help and support in making this lecture.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to all segments of "A History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We trace the waves of crop failure, famine, pestilence, and war that swept over Europe in the 1600s as the climate sank into a “Little Ice Age” and armies literally marched across frozen seas. In the midst of unimaginable crisis, alchemists, astrologers, and apocalypticists scoured the Bible for prophecies to explain the disasters around them as part of the approaching End Times. Many of the defining institutions of the modern world we know today – such as overseas colonization, investor-owned corporations, public education, religious toleration, and scientific academies – have their origins as attempts to cope with the crisis of the seventeenth century and prepare the way for the Second Coming.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to patron-only lectures, including "Myth of the Month: The Exodus" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading: Webster, "The Great Instauration"; Yates, "The Rosicrucian Enlightenment"; Hobsbawm, "The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century"
We examine the long movement for reform stretching from the Middle Ages through the 1600s, in which Catholic leaders strove to centralize and standardize church teachings. Mystics like Teresa of Avila and artists like Bernini inspired a physically and emotionally compelling form of worship centering on the sufferings of Christ and the Virgin Mary, while the elite special forces of the new piety were the Jesuits, whose schools and missions spread the new Catholicism within Europe and around the world, as far away as China. The Catholic Reformation, much more than just a negative response to the Protestant Reformation, served to further many of the same ideas and aspirations as its Protestant counterpart.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to patron-only lectures, including "Myth of the Month: The Exodus" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading: Bireley, "The Refashioning of Catholicism"
We examine the origins of racism, or the notion that the human species can be subdivided into distinct and observable biological categories. The notion of human "races" began as a strategy for dividing and controlling workers in European colonies, particularly 17th-century Virginia. We consider the basic logical incoherence of belief in race as an inherent property, and compare it against the new information that we are gaining from genetics, which shows a fairly closely interrelated human species, with all people living today sharing the same set of ancestors as of about 3,400 years ago. Finally we consider the recent flare-up of controversy over the difference in average IQ between "racial" groups in the US, which neuroscientist Sam Harris helped to spark on his podcast earlier this year.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to patron-only lectures, including "Myth of the Month: The Exodus" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested Further Reading: Barbara Fields, "Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America"; Edmund Morgan, "American Slavery, American Freedom"; Marilyn Lake, "Drawing the Global Color Line"; Nicholas Wade, "A Troublesome Inheritance."
We explore the new, contending forms of Protestant Christianity that sprang up in the wake of Luther, including the strict, austere Swiss Reform embodied in John Calvin’s Geneva, and the radical anabaptism that burst onto the scene in the failed millennial kingdom at Munster. We consider how the new Reformed movement hammered out a shared orthodoxy emphasizing original sin and predestination, which we now (somewhat inaccurately) call “Calvinism,” and we trace the roots of some of the more extreme ascetic pacifist sects that have persisted down to our own time.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Euan Cameron, "The European Reformation"; Diarmaid MacCulloch, "The Reformation: A History"
PANTHER EFFIGY PIPE -Found in Posey County, Indiana -Carved from Steatite -dated to the MIddle Woodland Period, 200-500 AD.
In the first of the series on American objects and artifacts, we examine a tobacco pipe in the form of a wildcat -- specifically a puma, whose name comes from the Quechua word for "powerful." It was most likely used in rituals by shamans or priests of the Hopewell civilization, which built enormous, mysterious ceremonial complexes resembling Stonehenge -- only lacking a source of stone, did so out of wood and earth. The effigy pipe reflects the artistic range and sophistication of the Hopewell as well as their fascination with the mythic power of animals.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We trace the roots of the idea of witchcraft in the "cunning folk" of the Middle Ages. We consider how the church and state began to fuel fear of witchcraft and persecute witches in the tens of thousands during the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. We consider theories of why witch-hunting arose so dramatically in this age, including economic strain and political agendas. Finally, we examine evidence for an enduring shamanic belief system centering on ecstatic night journeys that may have provided the inspiration for the mythical witches' sabbath.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Margaret Murray, "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe"; Norman Cohn, "Europe's Inner Demons"; Carlo Ginzburg, "Ecstasies"; Mary Beth Nortion, "In the Devil's Snare"; John Demos, "Entertaining Satan."
We examine how Europe's peasant majority worked, played, and survived in the late Middle Ages and the early modern era, including the elaborate customs governing land tenure, marriage, and inheritance. We consider how, during the recovery following the Black Death, steadily growing population and rising prices put the squeeze on commoners as well as the nobility, forcing peasants to seek out more marginal lands and toil for more meager rewards, while encouraging landlords to raise rents and evict tenants. At the same time, growing armies and governments laid a heavy burden of taxes and conscription on the third estate. Finally, we examine the wave of peasant rebellions that roiled Europe in the late 1400s and early 1500s, as commoners fought back against impoverishment, rising rents, taxes, and the enclosure and sale of common lands.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Return of Martin Guerre"; Carlo Ginzburg, "The Cheese and the Worms"; Yves-Marie Berce, "Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe"; Peter Linebaugh, "The Rainbow Sign"; Richard Wunderli, "Peasant Fires."
We trace how a small group of scholars, obsessed with classical antiquity, mastered the more ancient form of Latin, thus unlocking the worlds of Roman and Greek politics. Seeing themselves as the peers and equals of the ancient statesmen, the "humanists" called for a new form of learning aimed towards action and ambition. Machiavelli sketched out the path to princely power, Erasmus excavated the original meanings of the Bible, and Michelangelo captured the subtle powers of the human body. The humanists invented the idea of a "modern" era distinct from the "Dark Ages," and furthered the transformation of Europeans' grasp of reality -- from a realm defined by social relationships to one defined by the senses.
Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Jacob Burckhardt, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy"; JGA Pocock, "The Machiavellian Moment"; Pamela Smith, "The Body of the Artisan"
There was no Enlightenment. Steven Pinker’s new book, “Enlightenment Now,” is a classic re-statement of the myth of the Enlightenment which holds that in the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans threw off the tired dogmas of the Middle Ages and embraced a new philosophy of Reason, Progress, Science, and Humanism. In fact, the 1700s were a period of confusion, with no clear unifying ideas or trends: occultism, mysticism, and absolute monarchy flourished alongside experiments in democracy and chemistry. “The Enlightenment” forms one of the central pillars of Whig history, serving to re-affirm the notion that our present-day beliefs and values are rational and coherent.
I plan for the next "Myth of the Month" to be posted on Patreon for patrons only, as a free reward to them. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Suggested further reading: Peter Gay, “The Enlightenment: An Interpretation”; Charley Coleman, “The Virtues of Abandon”; Margaret Jacob, “The Radical Enlightenment”; Paul Monod, “Solomon’s Secret Arts”
Small correction: Immanuel Kant was professor at the University of Konigsberg, not the University of Jena.
I briefly discuss the growing audience for Historiansplaining, and sketch plans for future shorter lectures on historical myths, some of which will be patron-only. Finally, I pose a hypothetical question for my listeners that may be harder to answer than it seems. Please become a patron and make it possible for these lectures to keep coming! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
All of history is, to one degree or another, mythology -- the weaving of a coherent, usable narrative out of the chaos of people's lives. We consider how societies all over the world, since before the beginning of civilization, have developed myths to explain the world that they experience. We also trace some of the major schools of academic history, which have tried to fashion overarching storylines to give meaning to human struggles -- from Biblical providential history to Marxism to postmodernism. We begin by examining the most central myth of the origins of American society: the "first Thanksgiving." Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Giambattista Vico, "The New Science"; Marc Bloch, "The Historian's Craft"; Hayden White, "Metahistory"
We trace how Portugal and Spain, two previously marginal European kingdoms, rapidly and unexpectedly exploded onto the world scene, building a chain of fortified colonies stretching from North Africa to China, and conquering the larger and richer empires of Mexico and Peru. The early Iberian colonizers sought to continue the tradition of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and saw their foreign conquests as steps towards retaking Jerusalem; the benefited not only from superior weaponry and navigation, but from cataclysmic disease epidemics that brought the Pre-Columbian empires to their knees. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Russell: "Prince Henry 'The Navigator': A Life"; Restall, "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest"; Brading, "The First America."
We explore European monarchs’ early quest to consolidate royal power and establish their subjects’ direct loyalty to the crown. In particular, we trace the early triumphs and slow declines of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, driven by the pioneering ambitions of Isabella of Castile, Philip II of Spain, John II of Portugal, and the formidable Marques de Pombal. We also examine the workings of the Spanish Inquisition, which served as a crucial cornerstone of the modern bureaucratic state, with its systems of mass surveillance, ideological propaganda, and obsession with extracting confessions from the accused. Suggested further reading: Henry Kamen, "Golden Age Spain" and "The Spanish Inquisition." Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The early modern era – from the 1400s through the 1700s – is the monarchical age par excellence, with royal courts presiding over consolidated realms and monstrous armies capable of crushing smaller neighbors and internal rivals. The map of Europe transformed, and the reasons were, firstly, technological: the printing press broke through previous barriers to the creation of texts, allowing for the rapid spread of new ideas and propaganda, while new infantry tactics and gunpowder allowed royal governments to batter down the power of mounted knights and castles. Society became ever more centered on royal power and patronage, leaving behind a vestigial nobility to seek out a new role in the world or give way to nostalgia, as dramatized in the first great psychological novel, Don Quixote. We conclude by considering Cervantes’ novel as a touchstone of the shift from the medieval world, where reality is defined by social relationships, to the modern, where reality is defined by the senses. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
In the second part of our discussion of Douglas Murray’s “The Strange Death of Europe,” we examine the history of social cohesion and identity in Europe. We point out Murray’s failure to mention Brexit as a sign of the inherent weakness in European identity, and consider the complicated and challenging roots of modern-day terrorism in Europe. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Photo of British Muslim women in front of London Underground station courtesy of www.CGPGrey.com.
The first part of an examination and discussion of Douglas Murray's controversial book, "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam" (Bloomsbury, 2017), and its dire warning that a wave of migrants with beliefs and customs inimical to the West are on the verge of changing Europe forever. We weigh his careful debunking of elite mythology about immigration against his own falsehoods and manipulations of the facts. Finally, we consider his harrowing portrayal of a continent adrift without a sense of purpose, history, or belonging, and the truly difficult questions that it raises. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We trace the tortured path of Islam over the past 1,000 years, from the “Golden Age” of art, philosophy, and interreligious tolerance under the Abbasid empire to the rise of oppositional movements like sufi mysticism and finally, the Mongols’ sudden rain of destruction. We follow the return to power of new Muslim empires, the deepening of the Shiah-Sunni split, and finally, the emergence of an intolerant modern fundamentalism in reaction to the insidious and seductive influence of “the great Satan.” Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested reading: Karen Armstrong, "Islam: A Short History"; Bernard Lewis, "The Roots of Muslim Rage"
We trace the shocking and rapid rise of Islam in the 600s, as a confederation of desert towns and tribes unite around Muhammad and his prophesies from the Abrahamic god, then swiftly launch a stunning campaign of conquests against the major empires of the age. We consider the roots of the basic teachings and practices of the new religion, including the Qur'an, the hadiths, the Five Pillars, jihad, shariah, the divide between Sunni and Shiah, and Islamic laws regarding the status of women and of Jews and Christians or "people of the Book." Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Karen Armstrong, "Islam: A Short History"; Michael Cook, "Past Masters: Muhammad."
The Americas before Columbus were not an idyll frozen in time. They were a world of struggle and ambition, with a history just as complex and tumultuous as Europe's. We trace how hunting-gathering peoples invented agriculture and built cities and empires that rose and fell across the centuries, all depending on human power, without the benefit of pack animals. We consider the shared norms and practices that seem to unite the diverse and far-flung peoples of the Americas, such as intensive multi-crop agriculture, fascination with astronomy and the calendar, and a highly formalized diplomatic language governing war and peace. Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Most of the human story is so-called "pre-history," which in fact is inseparable from history and still going on today. We trace the origins of the human species around 300,000 years ago in Africa, including our early adaptation into long-distance hunters. We examine our long and awkward co-existence with other human-like species such as Neanderthals and Ebu Gogo, as well as our slow development of critical technologies like sewing and pottery that allowed us to out-compete them. We trace the dangerous and improbable journey across sea channels and deserts that a small band of our distant ancestors had to make in order to populate the entire world beyond Africa. Finally, we consider the mysterious roots of the technology that eventually allowed for the rise of urban civilization -- agriculture. Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
What is going on in Catalonia? We trace the long history of the small region in Spain’s northeastern corner, considering how medieval rebellions, dynastic struggles, and radical anarchist unions all helped to lay the groundwork for the separatist movement that today is flirting with unilaterally breaking away from Spain. We also account for the refusal of neighboring countries or the EU to say anything about the Spanish crisis, since Catalan independence threatens the survival not only of Spain, but of almost every large nation-state in Europe and the liberal internationalist order that they have built. Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
I trace the locations of my growing base of listeners, from Brazil to Berlin to Michigan to the Philippines, and send a tremendous thank-you to my patrons who have made it possible for this podcast to continue thus far. I preview likely topics for forthcoming lectures and ask for suggestions, questions, and outright condemnations. Please contribute whatever you can to make it possible for more people to hear historiansplaining -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Exactly five centuries ago this month, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, thus sparking the Protestant Reformation. He was concerned not with freedom of thought nor with abuse of power by the Pope, as moderns might like to think, but with exposing the false doctrine that a person’s good actions can earn them a place in Heaven. Wracked by guilt and fear of going to hell, Luther had found relief only in the idea of a free, unmerited salvation. We consider Luther’s tactics in his war to reform the church, from his obsession with excrement to his attacks on Jews, all of which stemmed from his fundamental belief that he was engaged in a war for the soul of the Church against Satan and the Anti-Christ. [Contains adult language] Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We trace the winding paths by which Jews, after the diaspora, sought out social and economic niches in which they were able to survive within European Christian society. We uncover the origins of the two main Jewish groups in Europe -- the Sephardic and Ashkenazi -- and consider how they adapted to changing conditions, including the increasing assimilation of German Jews in the 1700s, which led on the one hand to the beginnings of Jewish reform and on the other to the appearance of Hasidism, a mystical renewal movement. Most importantly, we consider the deep and long-denied influence of the messianic fervor that swept over Europe in the 1660s surrounding the mercurial and mischievous Greek rabbi, Sabbatai Zvi. Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the enigmatic and elusive figure of Columbus, from his likely Jewish background, to his bizarre and hairbrained scheme of sailing to Asia, his brutal and chaotic invasion of the West Indies, his struggle to defend his honors and titles, and finally his apocalyptic vision of his own role in the End Times. We consider how Columbus, a fairly obscure and rejected figure after his death, came to be held up as a symbol of both the best and the worst of the American psyche. Please support these lectures to keep them coming! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the three pillars of Jim Crow civilization -- segregation, disfranchisement, and terroristic violence -- and their roots in the corrupt bargain of 1877 that ended Reconstruction and the climate of racial pseudoscience that pervaded the late 1800s. We consider the different ways that Jim Crow was enforced in different parts of the country -- in the South, with state action and paramilitary repression, and in the North, through exclusion from the labor movement. Finally, we consider how World War II and the integration of unions helped to bring about the collapse of Jim Crow society. Please support these lectures! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We explore the history behind the statues being destroyed across America in a wave of iconoclasm -- when and why they were erected, and what they represented. We consider the roots of the Confederacy, which lie in the rapid change in the American view of slavery -- from an embarrassing but necessary evil in the 1780s to a positive good in the 1850s -- that caused a sectional rift between North and South. We examine Confederates' own words to understand why so many Southerners fought for the Confederacy -- and why just as many of them refused. Please support these lectures -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 More importantly, support the fight against slavery in America and in our world today -- http://www.freetheslaves.net/ https://www.antislavery.org/
We join in the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus -- the struggle to unearth and understand who Jesus really was, what he said and did, and how he inspired a movement. We trace the basic bare-bones facts that can be deduced from early Christian writings and brief references in other texts, including Jesus' baptism and crucifixion. We throw out the flimsy theories of hacks like Reza Aslan and Bill O'Reilly, as well as the junk theory that no Jesus existed at all, and instead examine the new archeological evidence that helps to account for some of the strangest passages in the Gospels. Please support these lectures! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider the long ideological struggles in the early church that led to the gradual collection of a canon of Christian writings that we now call the New Testament. We trace when, where, and why the various gospels and letters in the New Testament were written (hint: Matthew was not the first, not even close) and how they present different theological views. All in all, though, the New Testament writings were created to respond to the dilemma that as the years dragged on and Jesus' disciples died off, the Second Coming that early Christians anticipated simply wasn't happening. Please support these lectures! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We dissect the origins of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Old Testament by Christians), excavating the deepest layers of the collection of holy books, including the very ancient songs and prayers that were likely passed on orally for centuries before being written down, the scholarly theories of the lost documents that were stitched together to form Genesis and Exodus, and the differing points of view of the various prophets, scribes, and propagandists whose books made their way into the Hebrew canon. Through this excavation, we discover a Bible comprising many voices, many facets, and many hidden meanings. Please help make it possible for this podcast to continue! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We consider how best to understand the origins of the laws and customs of the Jewish people, or what we call "Judaism." We begin by dispelling the notion that Judaism (or any other belief system apart from Christianity) can properly be called a "religion" -- a category that derives originally from Christian practice and does not make sense anywhere else. We further examine the roots of the idea of "Judaism" as a concept for the Jewish way of life, concluding with a careful analysis of the meaning of the ancient Greek word "ioudaismos," which originates in the Book of Maccabees. Finally, we trace the best possible explanation for the origins of the Jewish people in the Bronze-Age Near East, using archaeological evidence including an ancient Egyptian monument and the vandalized ruins of Canaanite temples. Ultimately, we should be able to understand Judaism and its God as the creations of a particular Middle Eastern people not entirely unlike their ancient neighbors. Special thanks to Daniel Boyarin for his help and inspiration. Please help support these lectures so I can keep recording while paying the rent: www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We cap off the series of lectures on the Middle Ages by piecing together how the people of the high and late Middle Ages understood their place in the cosmos. From the lowliest peasants to popes and emperors, medievals believed they formed the limbs of a living, breathing social body, and that body or tree was part of a Great Chain of Being connecting rocks and dirt to stars and planets and ultimately to God. Through these metaphors we can understand why medievals disapproved of commerce and abhorred high finance. We end with a commentary on the great, crowning statement of the late medieval mind, the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Please support these lectures, at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
We examine the ways that medieval people described, displayed, and generally failed to control their sexual appetites. While theologians sermonized on the dangers of carnal lust, parishioners surreptitiously met in churches and stables, kept themselves amused with dildoes, or luxuriated in brothels all over Europe. We also trace how medievals categorized one another's sexual "orientations" using the complex concept of sodomy, and briefly consider the intense scholarly debate over the nature of same-sex bonding ceremonies in the Middle Ages.
We examine how medieval scholars battled over the meanings of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and of the Christian religion, while illiterate artisans made breakthroughs in architecture, engineering, metallurgy, and alchemy. The vast body of medieval scholarship came under attack during the Renaissance as so many "metaphysical obscurities," while today we stand on the precipice of a true Dark Age of ignorance.
We examine the true history of the first brotherhood of warrior-monks, who rose to extraordinary power in the High Middle Ages, functioned as a shadow empire reaching from Jerusalem to the far corners of Europe, and then fell to their ruin amidst lurid accusations of religious and sexual crimes. Apart from the endless myths and conspiracy theories, the Templars left a lasting mark on Western society through their militarization of Christianity.
We examine the long train of crusading expeditions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the triumphs of Richard the Lionheart to the trainwreck of the sack of Constantinople. We consider the many ways that modern myths have distorted the Crusades for political purposes and erased the Crusaders' central motivation: control of Jerusalem.
We follow the bloody deeds and improbable victories of the first crusading army, as it slogs its way through Syria toward the ultimate prize.
We examine the forces that led the Pope to put forward the far-fetched scheme of mobilizing Christian knights to reclaim Jerusalem in 1095, and briefly consider what lesson the launching of the first Crusade holds for our own world almost 1,000 years later.
We discuss how the civilization of the High Middle Ages broke down under the onslaught of the Black Death, peasant uprisings, and the gunpowder revolution.
We examine the flourishing of the Middle Ages between 1000 and 1300, which gave us chivalry, Gothic cathedrals, epics of King Arthur, and nearly all of the romantic images that we still associate with the medieval era, even as the noose of social conformity and repression began to tighten around Europe.
In the first of three lectures on the three periods of the Middle Ages, we examine the fall of the western Roman empire, the rise of Christianity, and the creation of new hybrid society in Europe. The new medieval order saw a brief flourishing in the spectacular reign of Charlemagne, only to fall back into chaos at the hands of the Vikings.
The beginning of a series of lectures on the Middle Ages. We start by throwing out the junk, such as the notions that medievals smelled bad and liked to hunt witches, and then look into the mystical and apocalyptic roots of the idea that history should be divided into three ages.