The AskHistorians Podcast

For the 200th episode, guest host Jennifer Borgioli Binis (EdHistory101) spoke with one of the country's pre-eminent scholars on American higher education and McCarthism. Dr. Schrecker shares her experiences as a researcher, historian, and woman in academia. 1 hour, 11 minutes.

Tyler Alderson talks with Joan De Jean about her new book Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became Founding Mothers of the Gulf Coast. We discussed the complicated lives and legacies of the women who were shipped from France across the Atlantic to the Louisiana colony. 52m.

Fraser Raeburn talks with Jason Steinhauer about how the internet has shaped the consumption and production of historical knowledge, as detailed in Jason's new book, History Disrupted: How Social Media and the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past. 40 minutes. A transcript of this episode will be forthcoming.

Morgan Lewin talks with Stegan Aguirre Quiroga about his new book, White Mythic Space: Racism, the First World War, and Battlefield 1, and about the construction of idealized representations of whiteness in the histories of Argentina and Chile. 1 hour.

In this special episode of the AskHistorians podcast, /u/hannahstohelit and /u/EnclavedMicrostate talk about one of the more unusual history-related conspiracy theories of recent years: Tartaria. Why are thousands of internet users convinced of the existence of a lost empire in Eurasia? Where does post-Soviet nationalism come into it? And why are they so obsessed with big buildings? All this and more will be revealed in this special. 60 mins. A transcript of this episode can be found here.

Tyler Alderson talks with GRAMMY-Award winning pipe organist and Juilliard professor Paul Jacobs about the history of the instrument and his upcoming recital series of the music of César Franck. 34 mins.

In this episode, Morgan Lewin (/u/aquatermain) speaks with Meg Hyland (/u/kelpie-cat) about her Women Of 1000 AD project, a digital public history project and teaching tool that showcases the histories of women from all over the globe who lived in and around the year 1000 CE through hand-made illustrations and thoroughly researched write-ups about their lives and cultures. 65 mins.

Jeremy Salkeld (EnclavedMicrostate) talks with Dr. Joseph W. Ho on the subject of his new book, 'Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China'. While missionary photographers in China have often been approached either as missionaries or as photographers, Dr. Ho's book approaches the subject in its entirety, discussing the role photography played in the missionary enterprise, and in the creation and continuance of Chinese Christian communities in the 20th century. 30 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks to fellow moderator u/Steelcan909 about the religion of the Norse, often called "Norse mythology." They discuss what we do and don't know about religious practice, the truth behind popular conceptions of the Norse gods, and why this religion has continued to feature heavily in pop culture.

In this episode, Morgan Lewin (u/Aquatermain) talks with Dan Howlett (u/dhowlett1692) about disability in early America. In this conversation, they cover how to define disability historically, how to find disability in the archives, and how disability shaped events like the Salem Witch Trials. 53 minutes.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with Trevor Culley about the Cyrus Cylinder, an inscription dictated by the first ruler of the Persian Empire. Aside from the text of the cylinder and its historical context, also discussed is the use of the cylinder in modern Iranian nation-building. 48 mins.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with /u/DGBD, better known as Tyler Alderson, about the history of the banjo. Discussed are the instrument's origins and development, on the cultural place of the banjo on both sides of the Atlantic, and of its relationship to issues of racism and identity. 70 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with Alex Fox Rudinski, who is looking into the intergenerational effects of the trauma veterans experienced in World War II. From the veterans themselves through to their children and even grandchildren, this trauma has had an impact on many families' lives. Rudinski also talks about the challenges of researching the effects of trauma in a time period when these effects were little understood or recognized.

In this Conference Special, Morgan (u/Aquatermain) speaks to Claire Aubin about her study of Holocaust perpetrators immigrating to the US, the emotional strain of studying a horrific period of history, and the work of the Emotionally Demanding Histories Group.

In this episode, Morgan Lewin talks with /u/Starwarsnerd222 about the ways that the origins of the First World War are discussed in textbooks aimed at students of international secondary school curricula. What do they do well? What do they not? How far do they adhere to contemporary historiography, and how far do they hold onto older tropes? And where do we go from here? Find out all this and more in this episode. 58 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with Brynn Derwen, whose research into the history of footwraps includes wearing them most days! Derwen talks about why and how footwraps were used in many cultures around the world, particularly in militaries, and offers some pointers for how to try them yourself!

Tyler Alderson talks to Laura Castro-Royo about her research on Jinn, the source of Hollywood's "genie" trope. She also talks about presenting history in non-traditional spaces, including streaming on Twitch as Las Plumas De Simurgh.

In this episode, /u/Gankom talks with Dr. Lauren Lefty, Dr. Andrew Feffer, and /u/Kugelfang52 about the assault on the anti-racism programs of New York City teachers between 1930 and 1960. Notably, these efforts, often led by communist teachers, were opposed not only by conservative educators, but by liberal groups as well. The ultimate destruction of these efforts wrecked community building projects, removed or coerced into silence some of the system's most outspoken anti-racist educators. 77 minutes. Discussion on this episode can be found here.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with /u/starwarsnerd222 about great power politics of the late nineteenth century, focussing on British foreign policy from the end of the Crimean War in 1856 to the eve of the First World War in 1914. How did British officials and diplomats react to changing world circumstances, if they did at all? What sorts of crises did they respond to, or not depending on the situation? Find out all this and more on this fortnight's episode. 67 mins.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with /u/Lubyak about the Second Sino-Japanese War, discussing its background, its wider context, and the question of why Imperial Japan was unsuccessful in achieving its aims. 32 mins.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with /u/Iphikrates about the beginnings of academic military history in 19th century Prussia. Why, in a state so strongly associated with its military traditions, was the academic study of military history so heavily opposed both from the academy and from the army? How did the field emerge despite this opposition? Who were the big names? What sorts of controversies were fought over? Find out all this and more on this fortnight's AskHistorians Podcast. 60 mins.

In this episode, /u/Kugelfang52 talks with /u/Toldinstone about various topics of interest from his upcoming book on Greek and Roman society, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants. Included are the following questions: "Did they believe in monsters, ghosts, and/or aliens?" "Why are so many of their statues naked?" "Why didn't the Greeks or Romans wear pants?" "What were the greatest delicacies?" "What happened to the city of Rome after the empire collapsed?" 43 mins.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with /u/Hergrim about women in medieval warfare, and at how their actual roles diverged from those prescribed by the authorities of the day and many today imagine them. Discussed are how women fought in combat, performed critical supporting roles for armies, and indeed led them in war; also considered are how warfare affected civilian women and how women were involved in the reading and writing of military theory. 34 mins.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with /u/IlluminatiRex about veterans of the First World War who, either before or after the war, lived in one town in Connecticut, and about how the local histories of small towns fit into the history of the wider world. 18 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with Dr. Jacob Baum, Dr. Sydnor Roy, and John T Conrad about their project translating Adam Contzen's Ten Books of Politics. The Ten Books has never been translated out of its seventeenth-century neo-Latin, and the project is one that will be open to the public who wish to provide commentary, advice, or simply practice with untranslated Latin, as they continue to build a corpus of translation. 64 mins.

Morgan Lewin and Tyler Alderson discuss the popular urban legend that classical music composer Ludwig van Beethoven was actually Black. While the answer is a definitive "no," the reasons for this myth's enduring popularity say a lot about race, class, and the prestige attached to classical music. 39 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with the authors of the book We Are The Land: A History of Native California about the struggles and triumphs of indigenous people, and what lies ahead. Also discussed is the process of writing a wide-ranging history, and how to approach commonly-told narratives from a different perspective, upending stereotypes and generalizations. 49 min.

In this episode, /u/EnclavedMicrostate talks with Seb Lewin ( /u/aquatermain ) about the circumstances surrounding the May Revolution of 1810 against Spain, and how the road to independence started for the United Provinces of Río de la Plata and the subsequent Republic of Argentina.

In this episode, Jess Munoz talks to u/Aquatermain about his new album of Catalan art songs. Munoz discusses the history of the Catalan language and its suppression, and how you learn to sing in a language that you don't speak. More information about Visca L'Amor can be found on Jess' website at www.jessmunoz.com

In this episode, Morgan Lewin (/u/aquatermain) talks to Avan (/u/Starwarsnerd222) about the geopolitical causes of the First World War. 29 mins.

In this episode, Dr Darren Layne (u/Funkyplaid) talks to u/Aquatermain about the 275th anniversary of the battle of Culloden and the end of the Jacobite uprising. Topics include Darren's work on the digital history of Jacobitism, the myth and reality of the Jacobite uprising, and why the battle of Culloden remains so compelling for so many people.

In this episode, u/Lubyak and u/Kugelfang52 discuss Lubyak's recent answer on the Japanese-German alliance

Tyler Alderson talks to Robert C Ritchie, author of The Lure of the Beach, about the rise of the beach resort. Class, health, and (of course!) sex all play a part in the story of our fascination with the sandy shoreline. 57 mins.

Jeremy Salkeld (EnclavedMicrostate) talks with Trevor Culley (Trevor_Culley) about an answer the latter wrote on the subreddit about depictions of Alexander the Great in Persia. Building from that answer's discussion, this episode takes us from the fragmentary bits and pieces of the Alexander legend in Babylonian inscriptions and Middle Persian papyrus fragments, up to the developed form found in Sasanian letters and medieval epic poetry. 20 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with Jason Dyer about the public computing movement and early computer games, including the seminal "Hunt the Wumpus." 64 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with u/EnclavedMicrostate about an answer he wrote on the European influence (or lack thereof) on the Taiping Rebellion. Rather than looking at the Opium Wars as a root cause, he discusses other uprisings in China at the time, and examines the effect of ethnic, economic, and other tensions. 38 min.

In this episode, P.H. Jones and Johannes Breit discuss one of the largest publishing hoaxes of the 20th century: The Hitler Diaries. When German journalist Gerd Heidemann entered a world of Nazis, old and new, WWII memorabilia, and collectors of Hitler paintings in the 70s, he never expected to find the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler. Allegedly smuggled out of East Germany, this was the find of a lifetime. While Heidemann and his employer, Stern, already had dollar signs in their eyes, they didn't expect to find themselves at the centre of one of the largest journalistic and publishing scandals of the last century that would ruin them, make the forger a star and humiliate Rupert Murdoch. Jones and Breit will take you through the whole story that involves everything from Hermann Göring's Yacht to a forger of German lunch vouchers to David Irving and that ends with several millions Mark missing and several people in prison.

Tyler Alderson talks with with Cristina Groeger, whose new book The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston explores how education has been used to both alleviate and exacerbate inequality. Using 19th and 20th century Boston as a case study, she takes a critical look at how our concepts of education and the institutions that provide it have been shaped by those in and out of power, and gives us an idea of what we can do to work towards a more equitable society today.

Tyler Alderson talks will Bill Taylor, author of the new book Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico. Taylor pieces together the lives of two men who impersonated priests, and discusses how they fit with the ideal of the vagabundo in popular culture of the time. How and why did they operate on the margins of society, and what does it say about that society?

In this episode, Seb Lewin (u/aquatermain) discusses Meg Hyland's (u/Kelpie_Cat) research into work songs sung by itinerant herring gutters from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Topics include the similarities between herring work songs and the Tango, the surprisingly not-safe-for-work lyrics and why one heritage boat captain refuses to led nuns aboard. In what is perhaps a first for an AskHistorians Podcast episode, we are also treated to a live rendition of one of these songs by Meg.

In this episode, Naama Cohen joins us to discuss the British mandate in Palestine from 1922 to 1932, when memoirist and children's author Douglas Duff served as a policeman there. How did British servicemen view Palestine, their role in it, and the local populations? Find out this and more.

In this episode, /u/Kugelfang52 joins us to discuss the topic of censorship in Texas history textbooks before and after the Second World War. How were decisions made about what or what not to include? How did the rhetorical tools used to counter fascism get turned on anything deemed 'Communist'? Find out this and more on this week's episode.

In this episode, four members of the AskHistorians panel discuss Vikings, their popular culture portrayals and how the legend of the looting, pillaging bearded norsemen is far from an accurate portrayal of these historical figures.

Tyler Alderson talks with Richard Templeton, author of Across the Creek: Black Powder Explosions on the Brandywine. Templeton tells the story of the workers who made the powder that turned DuPont into one of the world's largest chemical companies, and the deadly accidents that cut many of their lives short. 56m. Warning: This episode contains frank discussion of the aftermath of a gunpowder mill explosion and its physical effects on victims.

Tyler Alderson is joined by four researchers who looks at the lives and experiences of women in medieval and early modern Scotland from a variety of angles. Guests are Marian Toledo Candelaria from the University of Waterloo, Lucy Hinnie from the University of Saskatchewan, Rebecca Mason from the Institute of Historical Research in London, and Chelsea Hartlen from the University of Guelph. 92 min.

In this episode, Jenn Binis (u/edhistory101) and Ryan Abt (u/Kugelfang52) discuss gender, inequality and rhetoric in US Education history. Topics include the unexpected consequences of integrating schools, gendered expectations of teachers, and the Committee of Ten.

Tyler Alderson talks with author Adrian Goldsworthy, whose new book Philip and Alexander explores the lives of the two men who turned ancient Macedonia from a fringe Greek state into a powerful empire. While much of the focus has been on Alexander, Goldsworthy discusses the vital role that Philip played in setting his son up for the successes that earned him the name "Alexander the Great." 67m.

Tyler Alderson talks with Dr. Bea Lewkowicz and Daisy Abboudi from Sephardi Voices UK, records the oral histories of the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East, North Africa and Iran who settled in the UK. While narratives of history often paint with a wide brush, individual oral histories create a stunning portrait of everyday life amid the upheavals of the 20th century. The episode also includes clips from various interviews in the Sephardi Voices UK archives. 91 minutes.

This panel seeks to disrupt historically dominant narratives about the imperial systems of religion, settler colonialism, slavery, and the documentation of the populace. Spanning across time and regions, from colonial era Britain to the nineteenth-century United States, our panelists give voice to historical actors who disrupted systems of oppression while simultaneously utilizing digital quantitative data analysis to complicate the traditional archive itself. How can we repurpose quantitative data to re-humanize historically marginalized groups? How do we combat systemic erasure that quantitative data can produce? What do we make of historical resistance where there are scant sources available? Historical Experts: Laura Brannan - "Mobility in Slavery and Freedom: Mapping Paths of Escape, Enslavement, and Freedom in the U.S., 1830-1850" Georgia Farrell - "Running From Cultural Genocide: Carlisle Indian Boarding School Runaways and Hidden Resistance, 1890-1900" Caitlin Gale - "Mapping Itinerancy: George Fox's Journal" Janine Hubai - "Revelation and Erasure: IPUMS USA Datasets and New Mexico's Population 1850-1920" ​ This panel was moderated by Dan Howlett (/u/dhowlett1692)

In this episode, Juan Sebastián Lewin interviews Gaby Berman, who's focusing her Master thesis research on the presence of Sassanian male hufu clothing in the Tang Dynasty in China and its usage by elite women of the period, in her paper called "Tang Elite Women and Hufu Clothing: Persian Garments and the Artistic Rendering of Power". We explore topics relating to textiles, social class and female gender roles in the Tang Dynasty, and the intercultural exchanges between the Tang Dynasty and the Sasanian Dynasty.