Podcast Episodes

Why Did Rome Win?

Season 5 Episode 138

Why did Rome win? It's a simple question, but the answer is anything but. To figure it out, we have to look not only at what made Rome special but also at its adversaries. Only then can we understand…

Published on 5 months, 1 week ago

Guerrilla Warfare and Insurgency in the American Civil War: Interview with Professor Andrew Fialka

Season 5 Episode 137

We usually think of the American Civil War as a conflict fought between massive armies at famous battlefields like Gettysburg, but that's not really accurate: Much of the war was actually made up of …

Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago

Listen Now: Flesh and Code

Travis never thought he’d meet someone like Lily Rose. She was kind, passionate, beautiful. The woman of his dreams. There was just one small detail: she wasn’t human.

Lily Rose is an AI companion. A …

Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago

Encore: Jakob Fugger: The Richest Man Who Ever Lived?

Season 5 Episode 136

At the end of the fifteenth century, the center of European banking suddenly swung from its birthplace in Italy to south Germany. The key figure in that transition was Jakob Fugger of Augsburg, maybe…

Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago

Encore: The Rise and Fall of the Medici Bank

Season 5 Episode 135

The Medici name still carries echoes of power and labyrinthine politics. But the Medici got their start as bankers, and built a financial empire that spanned fifteenth-century Europe. Popes, kings, a…

Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago

The Roman Conquest of the Hellenistic World

Season 5 Episode 134

For most of its history, Rome barely bothered with the Greek east. Then, quite suddenly, Rome exploded onto the scene, laying low the two most powerful Hellenistic warrior-kings of the past century. …

Published on 5 months, 4 weeks ago

Who was Thomas More? Interview with Dr. Joanne Paul

Season 5 Episode 133

Thomas More is one of the most fascinating figures of the 16th century: saint, persecutor of Protestants, government official, martyr. But who was he, really? Dr. Joanne Paul has written a wonderful …

Published on 6 months ago

Listen Now: Liberty Lost

In Evangelical homes across the United States, sex outside of marriage is a sin against God. So, when Abbi becomes pregnant at 16, her devout parents hide her away at the Liberty Godparent Home, a li…

Published on 6 months, 1 week ago

Rome Enters the Hellenistic World

Season 5 Episode 132

For most of its history, the Roman Republic had little to do with the Greek East. That changed at the end of the third century BC. As the war against Hannibal reached its conclusion, momentous things…

Published on 6 months, 1 week ago

War and the Hellenistic World

Season 5 Episode 131

The Hellenistic world stretched from Sicily to India and encompassed tens of millions of people for centuries, as new kingdoms sprang up, new ways of life emerged, and the distant edges of that world…

Published on 6 months, 2 weeks ago