Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchCharlie English, "The CIA Book Club: The Best-Kept Secret of the Cold War" (Random House, 2025)
Episode 114
For nearly five decades after the Second World War, the Iron Curtain divided Europe, forming the longest and most heavily guarded border on earth. No…
1 year, 5 months ago
Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Episode 268
A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate.
F…
1 year, 5 months ago
Miles Pattenden, "Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700" (Oxford UP, 2017)
Episode 104
Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released i…
1 year, 5 months ago
Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian, "The Great Transformation: China's Road from Revolution to Reform" (Yale UP, 2024)
Episode 236
In 1968, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, asserting his control of China 15 years later, Deng Xiaoping launched the reform and opening up…
1 year, 6 months ago
Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, "Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts" (Eerdmans, 2025)
Episode 191
The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other e…
1 year, 6 months ago
Martin Thomas, "The End of Empires and a World Remade: A Global History of Decolonization" (Princeton UP, 2024)
Episode 126
Empires, until recently, were everywhere. They shaped borders, stirred conflicts, and set the terms of international politics. With the collapse of e…
1 year, 6 months ago
Nat Dyer, "Ricardo’s Dream: How Economists Forgot the Real World and Led Us Astray" (Bristol UP, 2024)
Episode 1483
From the workings of financial markets to our response to the ecological crisis, economic theory shapes the world. But where do these ideas come from…
1 year, 6 months ago
Laura Spinney, "Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Episode 124
Star. Stjarna. Setareh. Thousands of miles apart, humans look up at the night sky and use the same word to describe what they see. Listen to these En…
1 year, 6 months ago
Lorna Gibb, "Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Episode 119
An enthralling tour of the world’s rarest and most endangered languages Languages and cultures are becoming increasingly homogenous, with the resulti…
1 year, 6 months ago
William Kiser, "The Business of Killing Indians: Scalp Warfare and the Violent Conquest of North America" (Yale UP, 2025)
Episode 184
In Cormac McCarthy's 1985 Western, Blood Meridian, the story follows infamous scalp hunter John Joel Glanton through the Mexican borderlands in the m…
1 year, 6 months ago