Making of a Historian

It's the tail end of the week, so I'm thinking of board games and beer.

In this episode, I try to sum up changes in work and class over the 18th and 19th century. Everything changes. But these changes are different everywhere. Don't just think of women slaving away in factories, think of women slaving away at home over sewing machines. And don't just think of the rise of the working class, think of a confusion about who belongs where, about how society is ordered, about what exactly it is that makes a community.

In this episode I talk about how workers used to get Monday off, and now get Saturday off. Also my accent goes wonky here. I seem to inconsistently pronounce the word 'leisure.' Don't worry. It annoys me too. Books: Hugh Cunningham, Time Work and Leisure Hans-Joachim Voth, Time and Work in England, 1750-1830

In this special burnt-out birthday episode, I talk about women and work in the 18th and 19th centuries. Reading List: Joyce Burnette, Gender, Work and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain Anna Clark, the Struggle for the Breeches (SUPER GREAT BOOK) Deborah Valenze, First Industrial Woman

In this episode, we talk about why middle class people in the 18th century had bad dreams about the grim reaper disguised as a debt collector. Reading List: Davidoff and Hall's Family Fortunes (probably the single most interesting book I've read all year) Peter Earle The Making of the English Middle Class Margaret Hunt, The Middling Sort

In this episode, we talk about the invisible, unequal, and unjust world of cotton.

Today we talk about how the three piece suit got made, how women's fashion was helped by bike-riding socialists, and whey in fashion everyone steals from everyone else.

In this episode I compare the rise of restaurants in the 18th and 19th centuries with the rise of domestic home cooked meals in the same period.

In this episode, we talk about the consumer revolution of the 18th century, a weird time when commemorative plates were like MAGA hats.

In this episode, I try to make a big narrative about how the Industrial Revolution happened.

In this episode, I run through three stances on what the Industrial Revolution actually was.

In this episode, I try to sum up two weeks' of reading about capitalism, finance, markets, and machines into one minute. And I fail. The episode is twenty minutes. College try, though!

We tackle one of life's only certainties: taxes, and how changes in warfare led to two very different tax systems in Britain. Book: Martin Daunton: Trusting Leviathan

In this episode, I argue for a periodization of European history based on particular era's drug of choice. First spices, then coffee, then gin and opium. Books: Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise Zheng Yangwen, The Social Life of Opium In China

In this episode, we look at another explanation for the spread of empire and capitalism. Technology Books today are David Headrick, The Tools of Empire David Headrick, the Tentacles of Progress Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts