Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchFelipe Fernández-Armesto and Manuel Lucena Giraldo, "How the Spanish Empire Was Built: A 400 Year History" (Reaktion, 2024)
Episode 8
Sixteenth-century Spain was small, poor, disunited and sparsely populated. Yet the Spaniards and their allies built the largest empire the world had …
2 years, 3 months ago
Adam Kabat, "The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales: Monster Comics from Edo Japan" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Episode 149
Adam Kabat’s The River Imp and the Stinky Jewel and Other Tales: Monster Comics from Edo Japan (Columbia UP, 2023) is an in-depth introduction to the…
2 years, 3 months ago
Jeremy Black, "The Atlantic Slave Trade in World History" (Routledge, 2015)
Episode 1434
In The Atlantic Slave Trade in World History (Routledge, 2015), Jeremy Black presents a compact yet comprehensive survey of slavery and its impact on…
2 years, 3 months ago
Hume, the Epicureans, and the Origins of Liberalism
Episode 103
Enlightenment philosopher David Hume enjoyed a tremendous influence on intellectual history. What did Hume believe, why was it so controversial at th…
2 years, 3 months ago
Christopher Michael Blakley, "Empire of Brutality: Enslaved People and Animals in the British Atlantic World" (Louisiana State UP, 2023)
Episode 712
Historians of early America, slavery, early African American history, the history of science, and environmental history have interrogated the complex…
2 years, 4 months ago
Claudio Ferlan, "The Jesuits: A Thematic History" (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023)
Episode 33
In The Jesuits: A Thematic History (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023), Claudio Ferlan provides an exploration of the tradition of the Society of Jes…
2 years, 4 months ago
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, "Merits of the Plague" (Penguin, 2023)
Episode 257
Six hundred years ago, the author of this landmark work of history and religious thought—an esteemed judge, poet, and scholar in Cairo—survived the b…
2 years, 4 months ago
Marie de Vignerot, Richelieu's Forgotten Advisor and Heiress
Episode 102
Despite being one of the most influential women of 17th century France, Marie de Vignerot has been largely forgotten. The niece, heiress, and advisor…
2 years, 4 months ago
Paola Tartakoff, "Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2012)
Episode 494
In 1341 in Aragon, a Jewish convert to Christianity was sentenced to death, only to be pulled from the burning stake and into a formal religious inte…
2 years, 4 months ago
Katie Barclay, "Caritas: Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Episode 68
Caritas, a form of grace that turned our love for our neighbour into a spiritual practice, was expected of all early modern Christians, and correspon…
2 years, 4 months ago