Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchCrime fiction history: everything you wanted to know
Episode 2356
From Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction has long been a popular genre. But what was the first crime novel? How has crime writing affect…
1 year ago
How Christianity came to dominate the Roman world
Episode 2355
What if the 'fall' of Rome wasn’t a collapse, but a rebrand? In this episode, Alice Roberts delves into the dramatic transformation of the Roman worl…
1 year ago
The spy next door: Moscow's century-long plot to infiltrate the west
Episode 2354
In 2010, the world was stunned when the United States exposed a covert Russian spy network operating on its soil. Seemingly all-American families liv…
1 year ago
Edward the Confessor: life of the week
Episode 2353
Edward the Confessor, England’s penultimate Anglo-Saxon king, has long been remembered as a saintly, pious monarch – but was he really the weak ruler…
1 year ago
Britain and the Caribbean: from slavery to Black Lives Matter
Episode 2352
Histories of British involvement in the Caribbean tend to focus mainly on the period of plantation slavery but, in her new book Empire Without End, I…
1 year, 1 month ago
Nationalism: everything you wanted to know
Episode 2351
Human beings tend to identify with being in a group, and, historically, few groupings have been more potent than the idea of the nation. But when did…
1 year, 1 month ago
Preview: The forgers who faked a fortune
In 1775, a respectable lady, a mild-mannered apothecary and his fast-living identical twin stood accused of pulling off a scam that had earnt them a …
1 year, 1 month ago
From dodos to 'lost' tribes: a history of extinction
Episode 2350
After causing the extinction of the dodo, humans soon realised that we had the power to destroy entire species – and we continue to reckon with that …
1 year, 1 month ago
Europe's last pagans
Episode 2349
Christianity came to dominate Europe in the Middle Ages. However, some parts of Europe remained pagan until very recently. So how did non-Christian p…
1 year, 1 month ago
VJ Day and the story of women's football: history behind the headlines
Episode 2348
In the latest episode of our monthly series charting the historical background of current news events, historians Hannah Skoda and Rana Mitter discus…
1 year, 1 month ago