Historically Thinking

In 510 BC, an obscure Greek city located literally on a backwater revolted against its tyrant. This was not extraordinary; such things happened regularly in the many Greek city-states. What followed however was extraordinary, and even world-changing. Athens became a democracy. Then just seventeen years after that, Athens and its tiny ally  of Plataea defeated a raid by the mighty Persian Empire. The great century of Athenian glory had begun.Yet the history of Athens did not end with either Spartan victory in the Peloponnesian War, or with the supremacy of Macedon, or even with conquest by Rome. While never quite attaining its heights under Pericles, Athens was often important; and even when it was relatively unimportant, it always remained interesting. The history of Athens, both during its decades of glory and its centuries of relative peace and quiet, is chronicled by Bruce Clark in his new book Athens: City of Wisdom. Clark is a writer for The Economist, where he covers European affairs and religion. He moves from Athenian origins, to Periclean Athens; from to the medieval city when the Parthenon was the castle of the Duke of Athens, to Ottoman conquest; to Greek independence, and Athens becoming the capital of a new Kingdom of Greece; and all the way into the 21st century. For Further Investigation Also by Bruce Clark, a history of events mentioned in our conversation (as well as in the conversation with Roderick Beaton): Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions That Formed Modern Greece and Turkey  For a very important part of Athenian history we deliberately ignored, see the conversation with classical historian Jennifer Roberts in Episode 121: The War Between the Greeks, or, The Forever War For another different perspective on Athens, see Episode 179: What's the Good of Ambition, or, Socrates and Alcibiades The Acropolis Museum Atlas Obscura is one of my favorite sites to browse, and here's The Atlas Obscura Guide To Athens: 55 Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in Athens Greece

For nearly 3,000 years, the question of what it means to be Greek has been one of perennial interest—and, incredibly enough, not only to the Greeks. How a collection of of small cities and kingdoms around the northeastern Mediterranean Sea laid down precepts for science, the arts, politics, law, and philosophy is one of the great historical stories. Their influence would eventually reach far beyond the shores of the Mediterranan, and for long after what is typically thought of as the zenith of their civilization—and not simply throught the continuation of ideas that Greeks originally put in motion. For throughout their history, the Greeks have not only excelled in exporting ideas, but exporting goods through trade, exporting faith through missionary endeavour, and exporting themseves, most recently in a 20th century diaspora that took them to five continents. Roderick Beaton surveys these Hellenic millennia in his magisterial The Greeks: A Global History. He is the Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language & Literature at King’s College London, a Fellow of the British Academy, and one of the foremost authorities on modern greek literature.   For Further Investigation Hiva Panahi: her blog (in Greek, of course), and a little about her

For thousands of years, laws have not only been used to impose order by the powerful on the powerless. In the very process of their codification they often became instruments of control by the powerless, the expression of their hope for a better world. The "common people", not only the rulers, used laws to define their communities, regulate trade, and build their civilization. What truly unites humanity, argues Fernanda Pirie, is an amazingly common belief  that laws can produce justice, combat oppression, and create order from chaos.  Law is very closely connected to the holy and the numinous. That should not be surprising. The Hammurabi stele (shown on the right) shows the eponymous King of Babylon receiving the legal code we name after him from Shamash, the god of the sun. Fernanda Pirie, Professor of the Anthropology of Law at the University of Oxford. A specialist in Tibetan anthropology, she is author most recently of The Rule of Laws: A 4,000 Quest to Order the World, which is the subject of our conversation today. For Further Investigation Fernanda Pirie, The Anthropology of Law. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2014. ____"What Ancient Laws Can Teach Us About Holding Autocrats to Account Today", Time, December 23, 2021 More legal history: the intermingling of law and love, as seen in Episode 208 Even more legal history: The importance of bourbon to American corporate and consumer law

For nearly a century after the First Crusade captured Jerusalem, that ancient city became the nucleus of a several kingdoms and principalities established by the crusaders.  At the political, social, and cultural heart of their subsequent history were a series of remarkable women who exercised power and influence in a way nearly unknown in western Europe at that time. Katherine Pangonis is the author of the Queens of Jerusalem: The Women Who Dared to Rule, a remarkable chronicle of lives lived in times of extreme danger and immense complexity.   For Further Investigation Another medieval woman who tried to rule, briefly mentioned in the podcast, was Mathilda (who married Fulk of Anjou's son, Geoffrey). Mathilda was the subject of Episode 122, a conversation with her biographer Catherine Hanley. The Melisende Psalter Sarah J. Biggs, "Twelfth-Century Girl Power" Catherine Pangonis, "Crusader Queens: the formidable female rulers of Jerusalem"

On January 30, 1933, German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany. Occurring simultaneously with Franklin Roosevelt's "One Hundred Days", Hitler's first one hundred days were even more dramatic and consequential–the most sudden change, Peter Fritzsche writes, in all of German history. "A very partisan and divided society, fragmented between left and right, between Social Democrats, Communists and National Socialists (Nazis), between Catholics and Protestants, seemingly transformed itself – by terror from above and “conversion” from below – into a seemingly unified society recognized widely as a 'people’s community'." In his book Hitler's First Hundred Days: When Germans Embraced the Third Reich, Fritzsche examines this transformation in its tumultuous, kaleidoscopic, and terrifying details. He describes elections and arrests, bonfires and executions, the patriotic rallies and anti-Jewish boycotts, getting at the transformation that Germany experienced between January 30th and May 10th. "Compared with day one, Jan. 30, 1933, Germany was not recognizable on day 100, at least to outsiders. To sympathizers, German history had healed itself in 100 days." Peter Fritzsche is the W.E. and Sara E. Trowbridge Professor of History at the University of Illinois in Champagne-Urbana. The author of numerous fascinating studies of German history, Hitler's First Hundred Days is his lates.

Guest Jonathan Gottschall discusses the power of storytelling, its role in society, and how it can both unite and divide communities. The podcast delves into the concept of the 'story paradox', exploring how narratives shape beliefs, behaviors, and historical perspectives. It examines Plato's views on storytelling, the universal elements of narratives, and the dynamic nature of historical interpretations. The discussion emphasizes the importance of story hygiene and self-skepticism for societal advancement.

This is the first in a new series of podcasts. Long time listeners will remember that when my book Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life was published, I did a number of podcasts with experts delving into aspects of Daniel Morgan’s life—from the place where he lived, to how he was flogged, to the rifles that he carried. But I thought that this was unsatisfactory for a podcast called “Historically Thinking”. It’s the conversations that historians have before they write a book that show how a research project comes together, and how historical thinking gets done. So, in something of a leap of faith, I’m going to have conversations with other historians on topics that apply to a project that I’m now working on…more about that, perhaps, at the end of our conversation. In effect I'm doing podcasts on spec, which fills me with superstitious dread.  My guest today Mark Anderson, author of Down the Warpath to the Cedars: Indians’ First Battles in the Revolution. It's a fascinating study of native politics, diplomacy, and war on the Canadian border during the first year of the American Revolution, a politics which would have confused a Renaissance Italian diplomat. Mark has previously written The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America’s War of Liberation in Canada, 1774-1776. In a previous life, before establishing himself as one of the few American authorities on revolutionary-era Canada, he was an officer in the United States Air Force.

In a eulogy to Abraham Lincoln delivered on June 1, 1865, Frederick Douglass posed the question “what was Lincoln to the colored people or they to him?” His answer was that Lincoln was “emphatically the black man’s President, the first to show any respect for the rights of a black man, or to acknowledge that he had any rights the white man ought to respect.” With me to discuss his new book The Black Man’s President: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Equality is Michael Burlingame. The Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, Burlingame is perhaps the foremost living authority on the sixteenth president.

In February, 1853, Augustus De Morgan, Professor of Mathematics at University College London, drew the last of a series of diagrams illustrating logical syllogisms. A the center of this one was a face, writes Joan L. Richards, of “a calmly alert being… For [De Morgan] this image of the human and the divine meeting in logical space was…an expression of his aspiration to find…a map of reason that encompassed both the human and divine mind.” De Morgan was one of a series of fascinating people whose family experience, and intellectual and spiritual lives, are chronicled by Richards in her book Generations of Reason: A Family Search for Meaning in Post-Newtonian England. She describes an all-encompassing pursuit of reason that takes readers into all of the chief events in English cultural and political history, as well as into some rather more obscure corners. Joan L. Richards is emeritus professor of history at Brown University, where she served as director of the Program of Sciences, Society, and Technology.   For Further Investigation William Frend, Evening Amusements, or, the beauty of heavens displayed... A quick bio of Augustus De Morgan The wit and wisdom of Augustus De Morgan

So what does research mean to you? Does it mean looking for someone somewhere on the internet who agrees with you? Then you should really listen to this podcast. This is another of our continuing series on the “moves” of historical thinking, or what I like to think of as “what historical thinking can do for you.” For if history is a way of seeing the past, then it is also a way of knowing. And that means that history can teach habits of seeing and knowing that are useful for everyone, not just professionals. Defining research in the form of a question, it means "where can I find more evidence?" It uses relevant, significant sources, found on one's own in other books, on scholarly websites, and in other places. With us to talk about research, and how he does it, is Alexander Mikaberidze, Professor of European History at the Louisiana State University at Shreveport, where he is also Ruth Herring Noel Endowed Chair for the Curatorship of the James Smith Noel Collection, one of the largest private collections of antiquarian books, prints, and maps in the United States. Acclaimed as one of the “great Napoleonic scholars of today”, this is his third appearance on the podcast. He was last on to discuss his book The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History.   For Further Investigation Zotero: this program could change your life The IRISCan Book 5 Wifi–not Mikaberidze approved, but useful Episode 155: The Second World War, or, the Napoleonic Wars Episode 14: Alex Mikaberidze on the World History of the Napoleonic Wars