History Unplugged Podcast

For those who haven't studied the Middle East, the historical lives of women there can be thought to be a black hole: no information available about those who were thrown under a burkha and locked up at home or in a harem. Never mind that few women wore the clothing of modern-day Saudi Arabia in the past; women had vibrant lives there regardless of social restriction. Even in the harem, ostensibly most restrictive place in the pre-modern Middle East, women ironically could exert more power than anywhere else. In fact, if you wanted to rule an empire through your weak-minded husband or son, there was no better place to be. To discuss these issue I am joined by Marie Grace Brown, professor of history at the University of Kansas. She is a cultural historian of the Modern Middle East with a special interest in questions of gender and empire. Marie does a great job of making academic concepts about Westernization vs. modernization accessible to a non-scholarly audience. But we don't get too scholarly. At one point I ask her how she would take over the Middle East as a woman in the pre-modern world. Her award-winning book, Khartoum at Night: Fashion and Body Politics in Imperial Sudan (Stanford University Press, 2017), traces gestures, intimacies, and adornment to give a history of northern Sudanese women’s lives under imperial rule.

Welcome to an anthology episode where I answer a bunch of your questions about history and group them all together in one show (like a Simpsons-style Treehouse of Horror). In this episode I'm answering these four questions:Were there any serial killers in the Roman Empire or did they only appear in the modern world?Were children and teenagers more properly educated in the late 18th and 19th centuries than today?Why was the Islamic World more scientifically advanced than Europe in the Middle Ages?Who is the greatest orator that ever lived?

Chris Webster is a cultural resource management archeologist. That means when the National Registry of Historic Places is thinking about adding a mining town, Spanish mission, or Native American burial site to its list, it calls in Chris. He has worked in all phases of contract archaeology, from literature searches and Class 1 surveys to full scale excavations and lab work. He also has to figure out what's worth preserving and what isn't. The choice usually isn't easy.

The deadliest army on earth can't top the weather for its destructive potential. History's mightiest empires have fallen for no more of a reason than climate change leading to failed harvests and a starving population. But you wouldn't know that from most stories of the past. History was long about diplomatic treaties, battle tactics, or the biographies of great leaders. In the last 40 years researchers have increasingly compensated by looking at climate as a major factor in the course of human civilization. They have analyzed the history of weather patterns, climate change, ocean currents, and even geology to explain why some societies thrive and others die. In this episode we look at four civilizations that were destroyed or permanently crippled by changes in the weather. They includeThe Neo-Assyrian Empire, which was destroyed by a joint Babylonian and Median attack in 612 BC, but initially crippled by a severe drought that was so bad a priest commented that “no harvest was reaped” one year The Greenland Vikings, a one-thriving trade empire that stretched from Denmark to Newfoundland and delivered walrus tusk to medieval royalty but dissapeared suddenly in the 1400sMedieval Iran—the economic powerhouse of early Islam that grew enough cotton to change the fashion tastes of the Middle East...until a cold snap killed whole crops, leaving it weakened until the Mongols finished the job in the 1200sEurasia of the 1500s, which due to the Little Ice Age saw massive revolts, from the 30 Years War between Protestants and Catholics to the Jelali Revolts of the Ottoman Empire to civil unrest in India and China 

George Washington—widely considered a man of honor, bravery and leadership. He is known as America’s first President, a great general, and a humble gentleman, but how did he become this man of stature? My guest today is Austin Washington, a great nephew of George. He wrote a book called The Education of George Washington that answers this question with a new discovery about his past and the surprising book that shaped him. In this episode we discuss the book that truly made George Washington who he was and little-known info about Washington’s past that explains his true model for conduct, honor, and leadership.

The Middle Ages were a terrible time to get sick. There was no sanitation inside cities and hardly any in rural areas. The common way to relieve pain amongst sick people was to inflict more pain upon them, and then hope to the stars for a bit of luck. Monks with little to no experience, aside from castrating animals and having access to a few medical books, performed surgery on human beings. The medicine was basic, and the terrible illness that plagued those times was complex. Yet people came up with surprising ways to cope with illness in this time. In this episode I discuss...Theriac: History’s amazing wonder drug. From the 1st century A.D. to the late 19th century, one medical compound reigned supreme over all other remedies: theriac. First concocted by a Greek king worried about poisons, theriac went from being a general antidote to snake bites to an all around panacea, used to treat everything from asthma to warts, including the Black Plague.How Europe dealt with the plague: It spread from Genoa through Europe, reaching France and England by 1348. Both countries were embroiled in a devastating war that had already spanned many decades, leading many to believe that the sins of men were punishing humanity. By 1350 Germany and Scandinavia, too, had suffered deadly losses. Equally massive were the deaths in the Middle East, as 40% of the population across Egypt through the Levant, Syria, Palestine and Yemen would be lost.Where people think that illnesses came from. Most people today believethat medievals assumed all illnesses came from devilish or demonic sources, or, a variant, from some hidden sin in the sick person. It's more complicated than that. Instead, they first saw all illnesses as coming ultimately from God but also perceived and affirmed many levels of causality, and they were comfortable shifting back and forth between these levels depending on the audience and occasion of their writings.How the foundations of modern medicine were built in the Middle Ages, especially in the Islamic World. Islamic scholars and doctors translated medical texts from all over the known world, including the Greeks and Romans, Persians and Indians. They not only gathered this knowledge and translated it into Arabic (and later into Latin), they added their own medical observations and methods. Islamic doctors developed new techniques in medicine, dissection, surgery and pharmacology. They founded the first hospitals, introduced physician training and wrote encyclopaedias of medical knowledge.

From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, two-hundred-fifty Marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The Marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Today I'm talking with Maj. Scott Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, He discussing retaking the city street-by-street in the dead of night, what it was like to fight 4-5 skirmishes a day for months on end, and the challenges of asymmetrical warfare where the frontline is everyone and no enemy wears a uniform. We discuss how the military shifted tactics from Cold War-style combat to effective street fighting, why he thinks women belong in combat units, his relationship with Iraqi translators, and the battle to overcome post-traumatic stress in the years following service.  

Welcome to part two in our series on Mesopotamia. The last installment covered the lives of the elites; now let's go several steps down the social ladder. We are going to be covering everyday life in Sumeria, Akkadia, Assyria, and any other civilization that rooted itself between the Tigris and Euphrates. In particular we will explore the lives of merchants and traders, farmers, women, temple priests, and prostitutes.

Bloody battles, lionhearted leaders, valiant victories, and lamentable losses—the history of the Civil War has been told time and again. Yet, one monumental component of the Civil War has gone untold… until now. Delving deep into rare Civil War memoirs and letters, today's guest, an “alco-historian,” is Mark Will-Weber, author of the book Muskets & Applejack: Spirits, Soldiers, and the Civil War. He discusses stories of the “whiskey war” to life by showing alcohol’s potency on and off the battlefield. From who drank what to how major turning points of the war happened “under the influence,” Mark sheds a unique, unconventional light on one of America’s most historic moments—and the imbibing that took place by both the Confederacy and the Union.

Netflix vs. HBO. Nike vs. Adidas. Business is war. Sometimes the prize is your wallet, or your attention. Sometimes, it’s just the fun of beating the other guy. The outcome of these battles shapes what we buy and how we live. Business Wars gives you the unauthorized, real story of what drives these companies and their leaders, inventors, investors and executives to new heights -- or to ruin. Hosted by David Brown, former anchor of Marketplace

Welcome to the first episode in a two-part series on Mesopotamian civilization. In this episode we are going to be covering four topics: 1) The origins of Mesopotamian civilization with Sumeria, its evolution into the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian Empires, and why education and literacy was so important (knowledge was passed down on information-dense cuneiform tablets, even though gigabyte of information on cuneiform tablets weighted nearly as much as a 747. 2) How the Epic of Gilgamesh created the genre of epic literature (or is at least the oldest such work that survives). 3) The reign of Sargon of Akkad: The King Arthur of Mesopotamia, who less known for what he actually did as much as the idea of who he was -- a symbol of justice and righteousness that people looked to in dark times. 4) Waging war the Mesopotamian way: How warfare evolved from simple infantry combat in Sumerian times to the massive siege towers and psychological warfare of the Assyrian Empire.

In the age of adventure, when dirigibles coasted through the air and vast swaths of the Earth remained untouched and unseen by man, one pack of relentless explorers competed in the race of a lifetime: to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole. What inspired their dangerous fascination? For some, it was the romantic theory about a “lost world,” a hidden continent in the Arctic Ocean. Others were seduced by new aviation technology, which they strove to push to its ultimate limit. The story of their quest is breathtaking and inspiring; the heroes are still a matter of debate. In this episode I talk with Sheldon Bart, author of “Race to the Top of the World: Richard Byrd and the First Flight to the North Pole.” about Richard Byrd, a Navy officer and early aviation pioneer; and Roald Amundsen, Byrd’s and a hardened veteran of polar expeditions. Each man was determined to be the first aviator to fly over the North Pole, despite brutal weather conditions, financial disasters, world wars, and their own personal demons.

The Mongolian Empire has a well-deserved reputation for its brutality (it did, after all, kill 40 million in the 12th century, enough people to alter planetary climate conditions). But it's positive legacies are nearly as profound, if less well known. In this episode I talk about the lasting influence of Genghis and his descendants on world civilization. The Mongolians patronize the arts on a scale not seen since the height of Rome; the Pax Mongolica consolidated the Silk Road and kicked off a boom in trade where ideas, technologies and goods flowed freely from Europe to Asia (spices, tea, and silk headed west while gold, medical manuscripts, and porcelain headed east; and the Mongolian approach to religious tolerance was so flexible that Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians were invited to debate their ideas before the royal court in Karakorum.

One of the oldest traditions in America is trying (and failing) to set up a utopian community. French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed if man could return to a state of nature – free from social conditioning that put him in conflict with his neighbor – then a new, perfect social order could emerge. This sounds like hopefully wishful thinking today, but in the context of the 1800s, a utopian community really wasn't all that far fetched. The French Revolution failed, but the equally radical American Revolution succeeded. If a country could rule itself without a king and queen, some thought, why couldn't it rule itself without any ruler at all? Many utopian thinkers asked themselves that if one Greek form of government, democracy, could be dusted off after thousands of years on the shelf, then why not try other discarded ideas? Perhaps the time had come for Plato's vision of a utopia. From the 1830s to 1850s, charismatic leaders formed groups of 50 to 100 Europeans who followed a basic ideology or religious denomination and set up communist communities across America. Widely believed by the larger public to be sinks of drug-ridden sexual immorality, the communes both intrigued and repelled the American people. The intentional communities of the 1960s era were far more diverse than the stereotype of the hippie commune would suggest. A great many of them were religious in basis, stressing spiritual seeking and disciplined lifestyles; others were founded on secular visions of a better society. In fact, hundreds of them became so stable that they survive today.

Mongols were fierce on horseback, but so were the many other steppe nomads who tried and failed to conquer the walled cities of China, Persia, and Rome.  Yet the Mongols succeeded where their predecessors failed by incorporating siege engineers into their army, taking full advantage of their light supply chain, and using shock attacks in ways no other military leader had before.