The AskHistorians Podcast
The AskHistorians Mod Team
The AskHistorians Podcast showcases the knowledge and enthusiasm of the AskHistorians community, a forum of nearly 1.4 million history academics, professionals, amateurs, and curious onlookers. The aim is to be a resource accessible to a wide range of listeners for historical topics which so often go overlooked. Together, we have a broad array of people capable of speaking in-depth on topics that get half a page on Wikipedia, a paragraph in a high-school textbook, and not even a minute on the History channel. The podcast aims to give a voice (literally!) to those areas of history, while not neglecting the more commonly covered topics. Part of the drive behind the podcast is to be a counterpoint to other forms of popular media on history which only seem to cover the same couple of topics in the same couple of ways over and over again.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Dec 3, 2016 • 59min
AskHistorians Podcast 076 - The End of World War One in the Middle East, Part 1
CptBuck gives us the first of two episodes looking at WW1 in the Middle East, discussing the political intrigue and wrangling between the Ottomans, British, French, and Russians, among others. This episode focuses primarily on the Turkish area of the Ottoman Empire, and the various plans hatched both before and after Armistice to divvy up the Ottoman state. Along the way we talk about the Sykes-Picot, the Young Turks, the Greco-Turkish War, and Lawrence of Arabia. (59min) Join the Discussion!
Nov 18, 2016 • 1h 9min
AskHistorians Podcast 075 - Indian Policy and Indian Sovereignty
Snapshot52 discusses Federal Indian Policy in the United States, with a particular focus on the Termination Era of the mid-20th Century. The evolution of how the Federal government approached sometimes disparate goals of exclusion and assimilation, as well as Tribal sovereignty, over the decades are covered from pre-Dawes Act to the current day. (69min) Join the discussion!
Nov 4, 2016 • 50min
AskHistorians Podcast 074 - Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East
KoineLingua discusses the practices and purposes of sacrifice in the Ancient Near East. The conversation covers the various forms of animal sacrifice, as well as the understanding of the divine being sacrificed to, before turning to the question of human sacrifice in the region and Biblically. (50min) Join the discussion!
Oct 21, 2016 • 1h 10min
AskHistorians Podcast 073 - Politics and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Part 2
The conversation on the Kansas-Nebraska Act continues with the political wrangling in Washington. The discussion moves from the passage of the Act on towards Bloody Kansas and the opposing sides (and constitutions) vying to be recognized at the legitimate government of the newly formed Kansas. We conclude with a brief historiographical commentary on the importance of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. (70min) Join the discussion!
Oct 7, 2016 • 1h 18min
AskHistorians Podcast 072 - Politics and the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Freedmanspatrol discusses the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which gave us "Bloody Kansas" and paved the way to the Civil War. The focus is on the political (and geographic) landscape as well as the Washington DC wrangling over the deal. Along the way we also discuss the transcontinental railroad, the Second Party System of the Whigs and Democrats, and the ambitions of Stephen Douglas and men of the F Street Mess. (77min) Read more from our guest at the blog Freedmen's Patrol: Exploring the Civil War Era. Join the discussion!
Sep 25, 2016 • 59min
AskHistorians Podcast 071 - Indigenous Writers in Early Colonial Mexico
DryLaw discusses the society of early Colonial Mexico (aka New Spain), particularly the interrelations between American and European peoples. The focus is primarily on the historical writings produced by Nahua and Mestizo writers producing histories of thier own societies and lineages, as well as those works by Spanish friars focusing on indigenous culture and history. Major literary works by Tezozomoc, Ixtlilxochitl, are Chimalpahin covered and put into context, as are works by Sahagun and Duran. (59min) Join the discussion!
Sep 9, 2016 • 59min
AskHistorians Podcast 070 - Italian Fascism and Football
SunshineBag discusses the intersection of sport and nationalism, as we cover both the rise of Mussolini's Fascists and the growth of the sport of calcio in Italy. The ways the Fascists attempted to use football as a medium for building a national spirit and demonstrate Italian strength on the world stage is discussed, as is the backdrop of Italian national disunity and regionalism. (59min) Join the discussion!
Aug 26, 2016 • 1h 8min
AskHistorians Podcast 069 - Milan in the Era of Communal Italy
Alvise Falier discusses medieval communes, a term for a complicated and heterogeneous system of local rule in the 11th through 13th centuries. The focus is on the city of Milan, and northern Italy in particular, under the dominion of the Holy Roman Empire, but with a distinct political and cultural difference from that entity. In this conversation we trace the development of the communal system in Milan from the end of Charlemagne up through the end of the system with the establishment of the Duchy of Milan by the Visconti dynasty. Issues of Italian disunity, with local identification taking precedence over a singular national identity are discussed. (68min)
Aug 12, 2016 • 1h 15min
AskHistorians Podcast 068 - Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Restricted Data
Historian of nuclear weapons and secrecy, Dr. Alex Wellerstein, discusses the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Specifically, the conversation focuses on the high level, and highly classified, debates over how best to employ these new weapons. From there, the episode segues into the inherent difficulties of doing historical research on classified materials and how that has shaped the historiography of the bombings. (75min) Dr. Wellerstein is the author of Restricted Data: the Nuclear Secrecy Blog, where his NUKEMAP can also be found (among many other items of note). He and his work have also appeared NPR, FOX News, and The Daily Show, as well as in The New Yorker, where his article, "Nagasaki: The Last Bomb," can be found.
Jul 29, 2016 • 1h 25min
AskHistorians Podcast 067 - 20th Century Popular Music and the Rise of Guitar Groups
Tim Byron (aka /u/hillsonghoods) drops in to discuss the popular music of the mid and later 20th Century, tracing the development of guitar driven rock and roll from its diverse origins on through to its musical dominance. Included in the conversation is the changing physical and technological environment of the mid-20th Century, as well as the significance of the Baby Boom. (85min)
