15 Minute History
By 15 Minute History
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Description
15 Minute History is a podcast series is devoted to short, accessible discussions of important topics in World History and US History. The discussions will be conducted by the award winning faculty and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Episode 154: The Nature of Empire: Power, Ecology and Knowledge | How the environment has been perceived, valued and manipulated by humans since prehistoric times. But in the last millennium, empires brought something new into the mix — the organization of local knowledge and practices into bureaucratic and military | 4/1/2025 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 153: Horses and Humans throughout History | Horses and humans have gone hand in hand for centuries. Our guest today is CUBoulder professor William Taylor, whose new book “Hoof Beats” takes us across thousands ofyears and miles to explore how horses helped create the human world we live in to | 2/11/2025 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 152: Rethinking the Slave Trade | Beginning in the 15th century, European history took a dark turn with the rapidexpansion of the slave trade. We’re joined today by Emory professor David Eltis, the co-editor of www.slavevoyages.org that draws on thousands of records — ship logs,regi | 2/11/2025 | Free | View in iTunes |
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4 |
Episode 151: Henri Christophe: First and Last King of Haiti | Between 1807 and 1820, Haiti was led by it’s first and last king, Henri Christophe. A contemporary of Robespierre and Napoleon, Washington and Hamilton, his life was as colorful, controversial and as tragic as any from his age. He presided over a Hait | 2/5/2025 | Free | View in iTunes |
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5 |
Episode 150: America First: The Debate Then and Now | In the late 1930s, War in Europe seemed inevitable. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, a fierce debate was underway — if war comes to Europe, should America get involved or stay out? On one side of the debate was President Franklin Roosevelt — who favo | 12/9/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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6 |
Episode 149: A crisis of confidence – America in 1876 | Two years from now, America will enter its 250th year as a nation. For some, it will be a day to celebrate without question. But, for others it may be something of an anti-climax, or at least a chance to reflect upon the continuing gap between the prom | 12/4/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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7 |
Episode 148: US China relations in the 1970s | During the 1970s, relations between the US and China were transformed. Previously the two nations were cold war enemies. But Kazushi Minami argues that the ’70s saw Americans reimagine China as a country of opportunities, while Chinese reinterprete | 7/22/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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8 |
Episode 147: The Court Packing Crisis | In 1937, American politics was gripped by President Roosevelt’s court packing plan. Frustrated with what he perceived to be an aging, obstructionist Supreme Court, Roosevelt pressed congress to expand the court from 9 to 15 members. Stepping into t | 6/28/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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9 |
Episode 146: Black Labor in Boston | The historian Henry Adams once wrote that, “the American boy of 1854 stood nearer the year 1 than to the year 1900.” Changes during that period were indeed profound in Adam’s home town of Boston. And yet, for the majority of the city’s black men | 5/23/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 145: Student Protests | Over the course of the academic year, student protests have roiled college campuses like at no other time in recent memory. Going further back though, historians see plenty of parallels — as well as some key differences — with student protest moveme | 5/9/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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11 |
Episode 144: Partisanship in the Revolutionary era | Political partisanship is not only a hallmark of US democracy today. There is also a long history of dysfunction and division as old as America. H.W. Brands’s new book, Founding Partisans is a revelatory history of the Revolutionary era’s sto | 4/25/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 143: Glen Canyon and Water Infrastructure | Climate change and population growth is creating a new appreciation — and anxiety — around water infrastructure, both in the western United States and around the world. We’re joined today by Professor Erika Bsumek, whose new book, The Foundatio | 4/25/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 142: World War I and the Hapsburg Empire | The Hapsburg Empire was founded in 1282 (or 1526, depending on who you ask) and lasted until 1918. Despite its increasingly antiquated and illiberal tendencies, it survived the reformation, the thirty years war, the enlightenment, the age of Revolution, | 4/25/2024 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 141: Reconstruction From Past to Present | In the wake of the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era emerged as a time of radical change in the 19th century United States. Dr. Peniel Joseph brings this conversation into the 20th and 21st centuries as we discuss his most recent book, The Third Reconst | 12/18/2023 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 140: Ridley Scott’s Napoleon | Ridley Scott’s new film, Napoleon, is a monumental historical epic that has endured mixed reviews since its release last month, due to historical inaccuracies and narrative jumps. But do such criticisms miss the point? Today 15 Minute History is jo | 12/7/2023 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 139: New Theory of American History | “How can a nation founded on the homelands of dispossessed Indigenous peoples be the world’s most exemplary democracy?” asks Professor Ned Blackhawk (Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone), author of The Rediscovery of America: Native Peopl | 12/1/2023 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 137: Jean Paul Sartre In The Arab World | In 1967, the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre traveled to Egypt and Israel on a quest to understand the region and its conflicts. The trip would challenge and change him — and lead to accusations of betrayal. Today, 15 Minute History is joined by Y | 11/17/2023 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 138: Sex, Race, and Labor in French Colonialism | Traditionally, we think about European power being built with ships and swords. However, new scholarship uncovers a more nuanced and complex picture. Today, 15 Minute history is joined by Mélanie Lamotte, a historian of the French Empire whose work dem | 11/17/2023 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Afro-Indigenous Histories of the US | Afro-Indigenous histories are central to the history of the United States, tribal sovereignty, and civil rights. Today, Dr. Kyle Mays (Saginaw Chippewa) author of An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States and Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Mode | 2/9/2022 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Connected Histories of Cuba and the United States | While the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War are important aspects of the United States and Cuba’s shared history, they are not the only elements the two share. According to today’s guest and author of Cuba: An American History, Professor | 1/26/2022 | Free | View in iTunes |
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21 |
Austin's Black History | To kick off the new season of 15 Minute History, we sit down with Dr. Javier Wallace, founder and guide of Black Austin Tours. While those familiar with Austin know the George Washington Carver Museum as well as historically Black East Austin, Dr. Walla | 11/18/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The 1844 Philadelphia Riots | In 1844, Philadelphia, a hub for Irish immigration to the United States, witnessed a series of violent Nativist riots that targeted Irish Americans and Roman Catholic churches. In our season finale, Zachary Schrag discusses the events leading up to the | 5/26/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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23 |
History of the Second Ku Klux Klan | Historians argue that several versions of the group known as the Ku Klux Klan or KKK have existed since its inception after the Civil War. But, what makes the Klan of the 1920s different from the others? Linda Gordon, the winner of two Bancroft Prizes a | 4/28/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Climate and Environmental History in Context | How do historians teach Environmental History in an age where climate catastrophe fills the headlines? Megan Raby and Erika Bsumek, both History Professors and Environmental Historians discuss what drew them to the field, how they talk about environment | 4/21/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Black Reconstruction in Indian Territory | Nineteenth-Century Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) was home to a wide array of groups including Native American Nations, enslaved Indian Freed-people, African Americans, White settlers, and others. In a conversation on Black Reconstruction in Ind | 4/14/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Slavery in the West | In the antebellum years, freedom and unfreedom often overlapped, even in states that were presumed free states. According to a new book by Kevin Waite, this was in part because the reach of the Slave South extended beyond the traditional South into newl | 4/7/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Racial Geography Tour at U.T. Austin | For almost two decades, Edmund (Ted) Gordon has been leading tours of UT Austin that show how racism, patriarchy, and politics are baked into the landscape and architecture of the campus. According to the now digitized tour’s website, “What | 3/31/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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History of the U.S.-Mexico Border Region | In recent years, conversations about the US-Mexico border have centered around the border wall. However, according to today’s guest, C.J. Alvarez, the wall is one of many construction projects that have occurred in the border region in the last 30 yea | 3/24/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Postwar Lesbian History | Stereotypes of the 1950s family generally include a hardworking husband, a diligent housewife, their children, and a white picket fence. However, research by Lauren Gutterman and others suggests a much more flexible family system that could sometimes in | 3/10/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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30 |
Environmental Justice and Indigenous History | In the Spring of 2016, protests concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline dominated national headlines. For many people, it was the first time theyd thought about the relationship between Indigenous peoples and environmental justice. However, what occurred | 3/3/2021 | Free | View in iTunes |
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31 |
The "Spanish" Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920 | In the age of COVID19 and coronavirus, lots of people are talking about the Spanish flu. What was the Spanish flu, and what can it teach us about the current crisis? | 3/25/2020 | Free | View in iTunes |
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32 |
Scientific, Geographic & Historiographic Inventions of Colombia | Todays guest, Lina del Castillo, recently published a book titled Crafting Republic for the World: Scientific, Geographic, and Historiographic Inventions of Colombia, which offers a new understanding of how Gran Colombia--which split from Spain at the b | 10/2/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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33 |
The History of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy in the U.S. | Sexual orientation conversion therapy, the attempt to change ones sexual orientation through psychological or therapeutic practice, has now been banned in 17 American states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, three Canadian provinces, one sta | 9/18/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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34 |
The Case for Women's History | Todays guests are the editors of the Oxford Handbook of American Womens and Gender History. Ellen Hartigan OConnor and Lisa Matterson, both professors of history at the University of California, Davis, join us to discuss the field of womens studies, whi | 9/4/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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35 |
Slave-Owning Women in the Antebellum U.S. | Historians have long assumed that white women in the U.S. south benefited only indirectly from the ownership of enslaved people. Historians have neglected these women because their behavior didn’t conform to the picture we have of the patriarchal cult | 3/29/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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36 |
Beatlemania and the 55th Anniversary of the First Beatles Tour to the US | The Beatles arrived for their first concert in the United States on February 11, 1964 to rabid fanfare. Legions of screaming women greeted John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr on every stop of the U.S. tour, leading to observers | 3/11/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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37 |
The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science | Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentie | 2/22/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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38 |
Albert Einstein - Separating Man from Myth | The subject of endless speculation, fascination, and laudatory writings, German physicist Albert Einstein captured the imaginations of millions after his discoveries transformed the field of physics. Hailed as a god, saint, a miracle, and even a canoniz | 2/8/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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39 |
Jewish Life in 20th Century Iran | Iran is home to the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. At its peak in the 20th century, the population of Jews was over 100,000; today about 25,000 Jews still live in Iran. Iranian Jews rejected the siren call of the Zionist | 1/25/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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40 |
Violent Policing of the Texas Border | Between 1910 and 1920, an era of state-sanctioned racial violence descended upon the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas Rangers, local ranchers, and U.S. soldiers terrorized ethnic Mexican communities, under the guise of community policing. They enjoyed a cultur | 1/11/2019 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Slavery in Indian Territory | Many American Indian cultures, like the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, practiced a form of non-hereditary slavery for centuries before contact with Europeans. But after Europeans arrived on Native shores, and they forcibly brought African people into la | 12/17/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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42 |
1968: The Year the Dream Died | The year 1968 was a momentous and turbulent year throughout the world: from the Prague Spring and the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F Kennedy, to the Tet offensive an | 12/7/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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43 |
Harvey Milk, Forty Years Later | On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk and George Moscone were murdered in San Francisco’s City Hall. Milk was one of the first openly gay politicians in California, and his short political career was not only emblematic of the wider gay liberation move | 11/26/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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44 |
The Legacy of World War I in Germany and Russia | In this second roundtable on the legacy of The Great War, we are joined by David Crew and Charters Wynn from UTs History Department to discuss the wars impact on Germany and Russia. | 11/9/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Legacy of World War I in the Balkans and Middle East | On October 30, 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed a treaty of capitulation to the Allied Powers aboard the HMS Agamemnon, a British battleship docked in Mudros harbor on the Aegean island of Lemnos. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were the first of the Ce | 11/5/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Tango and Samba | The first notes of the samba and the tango instantly capture ones attention, transporting the listener to Bahia and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the River Plate in Argentina. Seen as national symbols for their respective countries, the samba and the tan | 9/25/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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A History of the U.S. Marine Corps | The US Marine Corps may now proudly boast to be the home of the few and the proud, but this wasn’t always the case. In the early part of the 20th century, it was the poorest funded and least respected branch of the military, and at the end of World Wa | 9/10/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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48 |
The Yazid Inscription | A new archaeological find seems to provide the first contemporary evidence of a major figure in the early history of Islam–and even more fascinating, it appears to have been written by a loyal Christian Arab subject. | 6/12/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Blood Libel | In Kiev, in 1911, a Jewish factory manager named Mendel Beilis was indicted for murdering a young boy. Many believed that Beilis had carried out the murder as part of a ritual known as the “blood libel,” in which Jews used the blood of gentile child | 5/16/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Slavery and Abolition | Host: Brooks Winfree, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest: Manisha Sinha, Draper Chair in American History, University of Connecticut It’s well known in American history that slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment to the constitution, howeve | 4/25/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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51 |
Foreign Fighters in the Spanish Civil War | During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which pitted a left-leaning Republic, suported by the Soviet Union, against right-leaning nationalists, supported by the Nazi, more than 35,000 people from more than 50 countries went to Spain to fight against f | 4/4/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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52 |
French Child Ambassadors in the East | Guest Julia Gossard shares her research into the fascinating world of child ambassadors who were expected to live in two worlds and create lasting relationships between France and a global network of allies. | 2/21/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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53 |
The Servant Girl Annihilator | Lauren Henley describes the events of 1884-85, but also discusses how these murders tell us something about the uneasy racial history of the postbellum south, and also asks what drives our fascination with serial killers and unsolved mysteries. | 1/17/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Bolshevik Revolution at 100 | Todays guest, Sheila Fitzpatrick, discusses some of the myriad interpretations that have been given to the 1917 revolutions, judgments about its success and importance, and offers insight into Russias own subdued attitude toward the centenary. | 1/4/2018 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Extravaganza Spectacular! | In which we take the occasion to ask the important questions like: how in the world did we get to 100 episodes? | 11/29/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Forty Acres During World War I | As we near the 99th anniversary of Armistice Day, Ben Wright from UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, takes a look at World War One on our very own home front: the storied Forty Acres of the University of Texas at Austin. | 11/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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57 |
Brazil's Teatro Negro and Afro-Brazilian Identity | Guest Gustavo Cerqueira explores the cultural sterotypes that centuries of slavery left in post-emancipation Brazil, and the ways that teatro negro sought to re-position Afro-Brazilian people--literally--on the national stage. | 10/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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58 |
The Zionist Movement in Czechoslovakia | Guest Tatjana Lichtenstein has studied the Zionist movement in Czechoslovakia and gives us a glimpse into the interwar period when Czech Jewish leaders saw the possibility of being accepted into European society. | 9/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Louis XIV's Absolutism and the "Affair of the Poisons" | Julia Gossard walks us through the connections between Louis XIVs absolutist rule and a fantastic series of events thats become known as The Affair of the Poisons. | 9/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The "Impossible Presidency" | Returning guest Jeremi Suri (UT-Austin) takes a long historical look at what has made presidents successful in the role of chief executive, and asks whether the office has evolved to take on too much responsibility to govern effectively. | 9/1/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Populism | Our guest for this episode, Dr. Steven Hahn of New York University helps us turn this political buzzword into a historical phenomenon from a time period in American history that has a number of parallels with our own. | 3/8/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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62 |
Women and the Tamil Epics | Guest Andrea Gutierrez introduces us to epic South Asian poems from the beginning of the first millennium that past the Bechdel test, when womens narrative critiqued, cajoled, narrated, and provided guidance for the devout. | 2/15/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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63 |
Disability History in the United States | First year history graduate student John Carranza, specializing in disability history, sheds some light on historical representations of disability, and how modern understanding of disability is informed by the past. | 1/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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64 |
The History of the Family | Steven Mintz has long been interested in the transformations of family life through the ages and, in this episode, talks about how nearly everything we think we know about family life would be unrecognizable even a century ago. | 12/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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65 |
Stokely Carmichael: A Life | Preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph, discusses Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century. | 11/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Seven Skeletons | How does a fossil become a celebrity? Lydia Pyne shares vivid examples of how human ancestors have been remembered, received, and immortalized. | 11/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Search for Family Lost in Slavery | Our guest today, Heather Williams, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Help Me Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery. | 10/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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68 |
Nigeria's Civil War and the Origin of American Humanitarian Interventions | Brian McNeil specializes in history of United States foreign relations, and is currently revising his book manuscript titled, Frontiers of Need: the Nigerian Civil War and the Origins of American Humanitarian Intervention, the subject of this episode. | 9/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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69 |
Rethinking the Agricultural Revolution | A few years ago, scholars suggested that the Agricultural Revolution in mankinds deep past might have been nothing short of a disaster. Not so fast, says Rachel Laudan, this weeks guest, while raising some new questions of her own. | 9/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Brexit | Philippa Levine from UTs Department of History and Program in British Studies walks us through the contemporary British politics and rocky history of Britain and the EU that contributed to this historic decision. | 8/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Behind the Tower: New Histories of the UT Tower Shooting | On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman climbed the iconic Main Building tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus with a small arsenal of weapons and opened fire. | 8/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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72 |
Simone de Beauvoir and ‘The Second Sex’ | Simone de Beauvoirs seminal work, The Second Sex, is a dense two volume work that can be intimidating at first glance, combining philosophy and psychology, and her own observations. | 5/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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73 |
What Writing Can Tell Us About the Arabs before Islam | Guest Ahmad al-Jallad shares his research that’s shedding new light on the writings of a complex civilization that lived in the Arabian peninsula for centuries before Islam arose. | 4/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Trans-Pacific Silver Trade and Early-Modern Globalization | Guest Ashley Dean just completed her doctorate in history at Emory University examining the impacts of this pre-modern trans-Pacific linkage whose far-reaching impact touched nearly every part of the globe. | 4/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Colonial Medicine and STDs in 1920s Uganda | Guest Ben Weiss discusses the earliest encounters between indigenous Africans and European medical practitioners. | 3/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 79: Fishmeal—The Superfood That Never Was | Guest Kristin Wintersteen has worked on the history of industry subject to the temperaments of on-again off-again current cycles in the Pacific, and how the boom and bust of one of the first superfoods has led to new discussions about global nutrition. | 3/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 78: The U.S. and Decolonization after World War II | Guest R. Joseph Parrott takes a look at the indecisive position the United States took on decolonization after helping liberate Europe from the threat of enslavement to fascism. | 2/10/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 77: The Paris Commune | This episode takes a new look at how the Paris Communes radical government managed to find support from rich and poor, conservative and liberal, to try to regain dignity in the face of France’s brutal defeat. | 1/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 76: The Trans-Pacific Slave Trade | Guest Kristie Flannery found Diegos story in the Spanish colonial archives, and narrates his tale in the broader context of the powerful political and economic forces at work in Spains global empire. | 1/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 75: The Birmingham Qur’ān | Guest Christopher Rose has been following the headlines and puts the discovery of the Birmingham Qurān within the larger field of Islamic and Qurānic Studies, and explains how the text might raise as many questions as it answers. | 11/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 74: The Changsha Rice Riots of 1910 | James Joshua Hudson describes surprising finds he made conducting fieldwork in Hunan that offer a glimpse into the deeply layered social tensions on the eve of the downfall of the Qing dynasty. | 10/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 73: The Borderlands War, 1915-20 | In the early part of the 20th century, Texas became more integrated into the United States with the arrival of the railroad. With easier connections to the country, its population began to shift away from reflecting its origins as a breakaway part of Me | 10/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 72: Roundtable – Antiquities in Danger | Our first roundtable features three experts whove taken the destruction of sites where theyve worked and lived seriously, and are working to raise awareness of the importance of antiquities in danger around the world. | 9/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 71: The Rise and Fall of the Latvian National Communists | Guest Mike Loader gives an enthusiastic look at high drama at the peak of the cold war, which gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Soviet Union from a different perspective. | 9/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 70: Slavery and Abolition in Iran | Our first episode of Season 4 explores the little known history of slavery in Iran, how it came to be abolished in the 19th century, and how Iranian society has slowly forgotten its involvement with the human trade. | 8/26/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 69: The Amateur Photography Movement in the Soviet Union | Guest Jessica Werneke has just completed her doctorate that looks at this oft-overlooked aspect of Soviet society, and discusses the turbulent world of amateur photography in the Soviet Union. | 5/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 68: The Russian Empire on the Eve of World War 1 | Dominic Lieven of the London School of Economics has spent his career examining problems of political stability in Europe in the 19th century, and helps us understand the world on the eve of its first global war. | 5/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 67: How Jews Translate the Bible and Why | Imagine the pressures of translating a sacred text whose language is well known and imbued with religious significance and symbolism. Leonard Greenspoon from Creighton University has done just that with translators of the Jewish Bible over the centuries | 4/29/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 65: Darwinism and the Scopes “Monkey Trial” | Adam Shapiro from Birkbeck University describes how evolution was first received in the United States, and the debates that led up to its most famous test–the Scopes “Monkey Trial” held in Dayton, Tennessee, in the 1920s. | 3/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 64: Monumental Sculpture of Preclassic Mesoamerica | Professor Julia Guernsey from UTs Department of Art and Art History combines the methodology of history, art history, and archaeology to offer a new look into this mysterious period at the beginning of recorded history in the Americas. | 2/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 63: Ezra and the Compilation of the Pentateuch | Guest Richard Bautch from St Edwards University in Austin discusses current thinking about the formation of the Pentateuch during the time of Ezra. | 2/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Sunni and Shi'a in Medieval Syria | Art Historian Stephennie Mulder has spent the past decade working in Syria and shares a new look at history of Sunni and Shia in Syria during the medieval period; and how both histories are threatened by ISIS and the Syrian Civil War. | 1/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Fatimids | Shainool Jiwa illuminates an often overlooked chapter in the history of Islamic sectarianism, one in which religious differences were used to unify diverse populations under the rule of a minority government, rather than to divide and alienate them. | 1/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Texas and the American Revolution | Ben Wright of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History has been working with the Bexar archives to document how Spain’s–and Texas’s–efforts to divert sources of food and funding to American colonial troops. | 12/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company | Guest Henry Wiencek explores the deep contradictions and equally varied representations of John D. Rockefeller, the self-made millionaire whose name became synonymous with industry and free enterprise. | 12/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Islam’s First Civil War | In picking up where Episode 57 left off, guest Shahrzad Ahmadi describes the tragic turn of events that sent shockwaves through the nascent Islamic community, and that continue to reverberate today. | 11/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Succession to Muhammad | Nearly every world history textbook on the market explains the origins of sectarianism in the Islamic world as a dispute over the succession to Muhammad. It seems simple—but was it? | 10/29/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 | Guest Michelle Daneri helps us understand contemporary thinking about the ways that Spanish and Native Americans exchanged ideas, knowledge, and adapted to each others presence in the Southwest. | 10/15/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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99 |
Witch Hunting in Early Modern Europe | Guest Brian Levack explains that medieval accusations of witchcraft are not supernatural at all, but based in the human need to explain the ordinary cycles of birth, death, sickness, wellness, and the constant struggle between rich and poor. | 10/1/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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100 |
Urban Slavery in the Antebellum United States | Daina Ramey Berry, from UTs Department of History, and Leslie Harris, from Emory University, have spent the past year collaborating on a new study aimed at re-discovering this forgotten aspect of slave experience in the United States. | 9/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Cats and Dogs in History | Guest Francesca Consagra helps us make connections across centuries and genres and underscores our complex relationships to cats and dogs, revealing the many ways in which they say as much about us as we do about them. | 9/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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102 |
The Precolumbian Civilizations of Mesoamerica | Ann Twinam from UTs Department of History discusses three of the major Mesoamerican civilizations: the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec (Mexica), and their once-forgotten contributions to human civilization. | 4/30/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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103 |
Islam's Enigmatic Origins | Fred M. Donner has spent much of his career studying the earliest history of Islam. He offers his hypothesis on what the early Islamic community may have looked like, and describes an exciting new find that may shed new light on an old puzzle. | 4/23/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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104 |
White Women of the Harlem Renaissance | Guest Carla Kaplan, author of Miss Anne in Harlem: White Women of the Harlem Renaissance, joins us to talk about the ways white women crossed both racial and gender lines during this period of black affirmation and political and cultural assertion. | 4/16/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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105 |
The Harlem Renaissance | Guest Frank Guridy joins us to discuss the multifaceted, multilayered movement that inspired a new generation of African-Americans—and other Americans—and demonstrated the importance of Black culture and its contributions to the West. | 4/9/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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106 |
Indian Ocean Trade and European Dominance | In the late 15th century, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and conquered the Indian Ocean, bringing the rich trade under the direct control of the crowned heads of Europe and their appointed Indian Ocean Trading Companies. Or did he? Did Euro | 4/2/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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107 |
Indian Ocean Trade from its Origins to the Eve of Imperialism | In the first of a two part episode guest Susan Douglass describes the murky beginnings of trade and travel in the Indian Ocean basin, and the cultural exchanges and influences that the trade had in the days before the Europeans arrived. | 3/26/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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108 |
Ukraine and Russia | Guest Charles E. King from Georgetown University discusses the state of Ukranian-Russian relations, and historical developments in Ukraine itself to help us understand the situation in Ukraine today. | 3/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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109 |
An Iranian Intellectual Visits Israel | Guest Samuel Thrope offers a fascinating look at a time when Iranian socialists looked at Israel as a possible model for what Iran could become—and how that vision soured after the 1967 Six Day War. | 3/5/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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110 |
Climate Change and World History | Guest Sam White from Ohio State University makes the convincing argument that environmental and climactic factors are as influential in human history as economic, social, political, and cultural factors. | 2/26/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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111 |
Segregating Pop Music | Guest Karl Hagstrom Miller helps us understand how popular music came to be segregated as artists negotiated the restrictions known as the Jim Crow laws in the late 19th and 20th centuries. | 2/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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112 |
The Senses of Slavery | Guest Daina Ramey Berry she discusses teaching the senses of slavery, a teaching tool that taps into the senses in order to connect to one of the most important eras in US history and bring it to the present. | 2/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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113 |
The Myth of Race in America | Guest Jacqueline Jones, one of the foremost experts on the history of racial history in the United States, helps us understand race and race relations by exposing some of its astonishing paradoxes from the earliest day to Obamas America. | 2/5/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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114 |
Developing the Amazon | Guest Seth Garfield shows how a little-known chapter of World War II history illuminates the ways outsiders’ understandings of the nature of the Amazon have evolved over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century. | 1/29/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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115 |
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 | Guest Robert Olwell describes the Royal Proclamation of 1763, its effects on the history of colonial North America, and ponders whether it is really the smoking gun that caused the American Revolution as some have claimed. | 1/22/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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116 |
The International Energy Crisis of 1973 | Guest Chris Dietrich explains the origins of the oil crisis and the ways it shifted international relations in its wake. | 1/15/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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117 |
The Ottoman Balkans | Guest Mary Neuburger walks us through current historical thinking about the five hundred year legacy of Ottoman rule in southeastern Europe, and gives us an alternate explanation for the turbulence of the 19th and 20th centuries. | 1/8/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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118 |
Apartheid | Guest Joseph Parrott helps us understand the system of separateness that dominated the lives of South Africans of all races for so long, and introduces us to the key organizations and players that fought against it and finally dismantled it. | 12/18/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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119 |
The Egyptian Revolution | Guest Sahar F. Aziz helps us understand the political earthquakes in Egypts bumpy transition from authoritarian rule to what comes next, and sheds light on what it might take for the country to arrive at the democracy its people demanded in the streets. | 12/11/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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120 |
The Social Legacy of Andrew Jackson | Guest Michelle Daneri from UTs Department of History helps us sort through the political forces that brought Andrew Jackson to office, and the long lasting impact of his presidency. | 12/4/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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121 |
The American Revolution in Global Context, Part 2 | In this second of a two-part episode, guest James M. Vaughn walks us through the long and often painful process that took our founding fathers to the decision to split off from the worlds most powerful empire and go their own way. | 11/27/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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The American Revolution in Global Context, Part I | Guest James M. Vaughn helps us understand the little known international context of a well-known national moment, pondering questions of politics, economics, and ideas that transcend national boundaries. | 11/20/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Who are the Turks? | Carter Vaughn Findley has spent a career working on the Turkic peoples and helps us trace their long migration from the Gobi to the Bosphorus, adapting, absorbing, and transforming themselves and the societies they interact with along the way. | 11/13/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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124 |
Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an | Guest Denise A. Spellberg sheds light on a little known facet of American history: our earliest imaginings of the Islamic world, and comes to some surprising conclusions about the extent of religious freedoms envisioned by one of the key founding father | 11/6/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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125 |
The Slavic Vampire | Guest Thomas Garza takes us on the trail of vampires from their eleventh century origins to the days of Stoker, Harris, and Meyer, and helps us learn a thing or two about how society copes with its deepest fears along the way. | 10/30/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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126 |
"Demonic Possession" in Early Modern Europe | In this supernatural-themed episode (just in time for Halloween!), guest Brian Levack talks about his research into the deeper social causes and meanings of alleged “demonic possessions” in early modern Europe. | 10/23/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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127 |
History of the Ottoman Empire, Part 2 | Guest Barbara Petzen returns to walk us through the cobbled lanes of Istanbul, past bath houses and coffee houses, to help us look at the Ottoman Empire as a nuanced, complex, and changing entity that defies the traditional story of decline and fall. | 9/18/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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128 |
History of the Ottoman Empire, Part I | Guest Barbara Petzen helps to shed some light on the origins and rise of the empire that rivaled Europe for centuries. | 9/11/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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129 |
Mexican Migration to the U.S. | An overview of the history of Mexican Migration to the U.S. since 1848. | 9/4/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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130 |
European Imperialism in the Middle East (part 2) | In the second half of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies discusses the lingering effects of 20th century European imperialism in the region and the transition to independence. | 5/29/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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131 |
European Imperialism in the Middle East (part 1) | In this first of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies walks us through the beginnings of European imperialism in the Middle East. | 5/22/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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132 |
Causes of the U.S. Civil War (Part 2) | In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? | 5/8/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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133 |
Causes of the U.S. Civil War (part 1) | In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? | 5/1/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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134 |
Reconstruction | After the chaos of the American Civil War, Congress and lawmakers had to figure out how to put the Union back together again–no easy feat, considering that issues of political debate were settled on the battlefield, but not in the courtroom nor in the | 4/24/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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135 |
Inside the Indian Independence Movement | Aarti Bhalodia discusses the push for South Asian independence from British colonial rule which resulted in the mass migration of 100 million people, one of the most pivotal, and traumatic, events of the 20th century. | 4/17/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 18: Eugenics | Philippa Levine explains the wide-reaching effects of the eugenics movement, which at its best inspired the eradication of harmful diseases, but at its worst led to compulsory sterilization, and the horrific experiments of the Nazi death camps. | 4/10/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 17: The Buddha and His Time | Who was the historical Buddha? When and where did he live? And what were the social currents and forces in his own time that shaped his worldview and led him to renounce the world in an effort to save humanity from itself? | 4/3/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 16: The First Illegal Aliens? | Madeline Y Hsu discusses the tumultuous experience of Chinese immigration to the U.S., the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and sheds light on the lingering immigration issues first discussed in the 19th century. | 3/13/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 15: The “Era Between The Empires” of Ancient India | Guest Patrick Olivelle from UT’s Department of Asian Studies describes the Maurya and Gupta Empires and the flourishing period of South Asian history “between the empires.” | 3/6/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 14: Early Drafts of the Declaration of Independence | Guest Robert Olwell takes a deeper look to get insight into Jefferson, the workings of the Congress, and the psyche of the American colonists on the eve of revolution—plus, we’ll put that whole treasure map thing to rest once and for all. | 2/27/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 13: Simón Bolívar | Guest Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra from UT’s Department of History discusses the intricacies of Simón Bolívar, an enigma who is still revered and reviled two centuries after his death. | 2/20/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 12: America’s Entry in to World War I | World War I ended the long-standing American policy of neutrality in foreign wars. What forces conspired to bring the United States into World War I, and what was the reaction at home and abroad? | 2/13/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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143 |
Episode 11: The Haitian Revolution | Guest Natalie Arsenault from UT’s Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies discusses the Haitian Revolution and its significance within the narrative of the political revolutions of the 18th century. | 2/6/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 10: The Spanish Inquisition | Guest Miriam Bodian from UT’s Department of History separates truth from legend and reveals the intricacies of the Spanish Inquisition’s processes and inner workings. | 1/30/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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145 |
Episode 9: The End of Colonialism in South Asia | Guest Snehal Shingavi from UT’s Department of English examines the nature of British colonialism in South Asia and its lasting legacy sixty years after decolonization. | 1/23/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 8: America and the Beginnings of the Cold War | Historian Jeremi Suri discusses the beginnings of the Cold War, its origins in the “unfinished business” of World War II, and the ways that it changed the United States in just five short years between 1945 and 1950. | 1/15/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 7: Russia’s October 1917 Revolution | In the second episode discussing the tumultuous year 1917 in Russia, we examine the reasons for the failure of the February Revolution (discussed in Episode 1). | 1/3/2013 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 6: Effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade on the Americas | Guest Natalie Arsenault from the University of Chicago explores the oft-ignored impact of the slave trade on other parts of the Americas. | 12/3/2012 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 5: Mapping Perspectives of the Mexican-American War | Guest Chloe Ireton looks at the intriguing history of maps as propaganda and the role of two publishing houses not only in rewriting the history of the Mexican-American war, but in influencing the outcome of the war even as it was still ongoing. | 11/26/2012 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 4: Perspectives of the Founding Fathers | In this episode, we’ll examine some of the lesser known Founding Fathers, and examine the ranges of opinions they held about issues from slavery to states’ rights and their opinions on the form of the new American Republic. | 10/25/2012 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Episode 3: The Scramble for Africa | This episode provides an overview of the Scramble for Africa and how the 1885 Berlin Conference changed European colonialism on the continent. | 10/24/2012 | Free | View in iTunes |
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152 |
Episode 2: Islamic Extremism in the Modern World | In this episode, we tackle “that pesky standard” in the Texas World History course that requires students to understand the development of “radical Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent use of terrorism by some of its adherents.” | 10/18/2012 | Free | View in iTunes |
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153 |
Episode 1: The February Revolution of 1917 | Guest Joan Neuberger from UT’s Department of History discusses the long-simmering causes of the revolution and discontent in Russia, and what finally lit the spark that caused the uprising that toppled the three hundred-year old Romanov dynasty. | 10/18/2012 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 153 Items |
Customer Reviews
Excellent Show
Hook ‘em!
Quick and highly consumable
The perfect ticket for any history buff who is more focused on listening to the short-form story / show. This podcast has been both enlightening and entertaining!!!
Christian Extremism on the rise
Excellent podcast.
