Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchMark Stoyle, "A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549" (Yale UP, 2022)
Episode 138
The Western Rising of 1549 was the most catastrophic event to occur in Devon and Cornwall between the Black Death and the Civil War. Beginning as an …
2 years ago
Ronald Drabkin, "Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor" (William Morrow, 2024)
Episode 210
Frederick Rutland—”Rutland of Jutland”—was a war hero, renowned World War I aviator…and a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Rutl…
2 years ago
Friederike Baer, "Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Episode 165
Between 1776 and 1783, Britain hired an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the Americans. Collectively known as Hessians, t…
2 years ago
Simon Kuznets and the Invention of the Economy
Episode 69
Economics sometimes feels like a physics–so sturdy, so objective, and so immutable. Yet, behind every clean number or eye-popping graph, there is usu…
2 years ago
Beatrice de Graaf, "Fighting Terror after Napoleon: How Europe Became Secure after 1815" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
Episode 988
After twenty-six years of unprecedented revolutionary upheavals and endless fighting, the victorious powers craved stability after Napoleon's defeat …
2 years ago
John Freed, “Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth” (Yale UP, 2016)
Episode 64
For all of his importance as a medieval ruler, there are surprisingly few biographies in English of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1122-…
2 years ago
Eran Ortal, "Battle Before the War: The Inside Story of the IDF's Transformation" (Dado Center, 2023)
Episode 62
A critical challenge for militaries is preparing for future, not past, wars. History shows that success often depends on accurately interpreting and …
2 years ago
E. L. Gaston, "Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Episode 108
Over the last two decades, the United States has supported a range of militias, rebels, and other armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Criti…
2 years ago
Thomas Weber, “Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi” (Basic Books, 2017)
Episode 30
Few would dispute that Hitler’s ideas led to war and genocide. Less clear however, is how and when those ideas developed. In his latest book, Becomin…
2 years ago
Rachel O'Sullivan, "Nazi Germany, Annexed Poland and Colonial Rule: Resettlement, Germanization and Population Policies in Comparative Perspective" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Episode 214
Nazi Germany, Annexed Poland and Colonial Rule: Resettlement, Germanization and Population Policies in Comparative Perspective (Bloomsbury, 2023) exa…
2 years ago