Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong
208 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 47 ratingsHistory lectures by Samuel Biagetti, a historian (and antique dealer) with a Phd in early American history; my dissertation was on Freemasonry in the 1700s. I focus on the historical myths and distortions, from "the Middle Ages" to "Race," that people use to rationalize the world in which we live. More info at www.historiansplaining.com
Please see my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632, if you want to keep the lectures coming, and to hear the patron-only materials.
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Episodes
Myth of The Month 7: Game of Thrones
March 24, 2019 17:01 - 1 hour - 81.4 MBWe examine George R. R. Martin’s new mythology for the middle class: the TV series Game of Thrones and the series of books upon which it is based. Martin and his collaborators draw on the 15th-century Wars of the Roses and later dynastic struggles in Britain to present an amoral world, lacking in honor, bereft of cosmic justice, and eerily reminiscent of the contemporary West. We examine historical precedents for the "Red Wedding," and the symbolic resonance of characters such as the Starks ...
History of Universities, Part 2: A Crumbling Tower?
March 08, 2019 04:52 - 52 minutes - 84.4 MBIn the second part of our exploration of the history of universities, we discuss the apotheosis of the university in the American republic, the rise of the German-style research university, and the arrival of women in the elite universities. We end by considering the current crisis of universities, as humanities departments disappear, sexual-assault scandals tarnish prestigious schools, and the public turns an increasingly jaundiced and cynical eye toward the academic “ivory tower.” Please ...
History of Universities, Part 1: Flower of the Middle Ages
February 26, 2019 02:59 - 1 hour - 67.7 MBUniversities are unique -- a quintessential product of the High Middle Ages that has miraculously survived and even flourished in the modern world. In the first part of the history of universities, we examine the origins of the first universities in the power struggles of Popes and emperors; the ways that medieval students learned, lived, and annoyed their elders; and the ways that universities adapted to and withstood serious challenges from Renaissance humanism and the republic of letters. ...
Book Review: "Why Liberalism Failed" -- Part 2
January 13, 2019 19:51 - 1 hour - 63.8 MBI discuss the various strengths and weaknesses of Patrick Deneen’s critique of liberalism, and put forward my own slightly different argument that liberalism is like a cargo cult – taking ordinary human creations and elevating them to products of divine intervention. George Carlin helps out along the way, and we close with a consideration of the recent “market capitalism” controversy stirred up by Tucker Carlson. Please support Historiansplaining, in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and...
Book Review: "Why Liberalism Failed" -- Part 1
January 13, 2019 01:24 - 1 hour - 67 MBIn the first half of my discussion of Patrick Deneen's "Why Liberalism Failed," I examine the structure of Deneen's argument, tracing his effort to connect present-day crises in education, science, culture, and morality to the fundamental flaws in "liberalism," which he calls the "operating system" of modern Western society, and which he claims has left us isolated, lonely, and afraid, with our social system possibly on the brink of collapse into a totalitarian nightmare. Cheers! Please sup...
Special Comment: The "Sokal Squared" Hoax and the Academic Cult
November 29, 2018 20:11 - 1 hour - 68.8 MBI have a conversation with a friend in the scientific field about the recently exposed "Sokal Squared" academic hoax, by which three junior professors concocted a series of intentionally absurd, nonsensical articles and had several of them accepted into respectable academic journals. What are the implications of their success? Is "theory" or "postmodernism" to blame? The lax standards of humanities journals? The drive to "publish or perish" in academia? Does the problem extend to social ...
History of the United States in 100 Objects -- 5: Set of Chevron-Patterned Glass Beads, ca. 1500
November 12, 2018 23:26 - 46 minutes - 47.4 MB-Set of nine chevron-patterned glass beads -Made in Venice, ca. 1500 -Found in Telfair, County, Georgia A fistful of Venetian glass beads may be the crucial clue to tracing the route of the first European explorer to raid and rampage through the interior of North America -- Hernando de Soto. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to all segments of "A History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- www.patreon....
Update to Listeners, Thanks to Patrons, and Happy Birthday to Mom
November 06, 2018 20:50 - 9 minutes - 9.87 MBI update my patrons on future plans for the podcast despite a pause of more than two months, and encourage listeners to comment on what they want to hear about in coming months. Please rate and review on any platform you use, and give support if you can! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Age of Absolutism 1: Central Europe and the Rise of the Habsburgs
September 09, 2018 16:19 - 1 hour - 78.4 MBWe follow how a relatively obscure family of Swiss counts took advantage of the chaos of the late Middle Ages to become the most powerful dynasty in the history of central Europe, towering over European affairs, ruling "an empire on which the sun never sets," and even setting their sights on the dream of global dominion. We then consider the obstacles that the French, the Ottoman Turks, and the Protestants threw in their way, leading to the disastrous Thirty Years' War and their gradual fall...
Myth of the Month 5: Capitalism
August 22, 2018 13:54 - 1 hour - 90.3 MBThere is no such thing as capitalism. With debates over the relative meanings and merits of socialism and capitalism currently flaring up in the United States, we examine why “capitalism” is an undefinable and meaningless concept, and how it came nevertheless to hold a mythic and almost magical power over the minds of academics and ordinary citizens alike. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested furt...
Scientific Revolution, Part 1 -- Alchemy and Apocalypse, 1500-1660
August 10, 2018 14:22 - 1 hour - 88.9 MBWe unearth the tangled roots of the earliest forms of modern science, beginning with the radical alchemical theories of the rabble-rousing healer called Paracelsus, and running through the heated debates over Galileo's astronomy, which broke down the distinction between the earth and the heavens. Due to these shocks, the old teleological, or purpose-driven, scheme of the world broke down, giving way to a free-for-all of speculation and apocalyptic excitement. We question the historical m...
The History of Scotland, the Romance of Scotland, and "Outlander"
July 24, 2018 20:16 - 1 hour - 79.7 MBWhat is behind the popularity of Outlander? Why have crazed fans of the show from around the world begun to overrun Scottish castles? – and why did the UK Prime Minister secretly meet with TV executives to stop its premier in 2014? We examine the show’s success in light of Scottish history and politics, and in the context of the ongoing romance of Scotland, by which modern people project their longings for tradition, attachment, and honor onto a small, craggy country in the north of Britain...
History of the United States in 100 Objects -- 3: Scarlet Macaw Feather Sash, ca. 1150 AD
June 23, 2018 00:28 - 22 minutes - 22 MB-Sash made of Yucca rope, leather, squirrel pelt, and scarlet macaw feathers -Found in Lavender Canyon, Utah -Dated to Ancestral Pueblo Civilization, ca. 1150 AD Made with more than 2000 tiny macaw feathers, this sash is unique in the archeological record, probably the most complex and the most personal artifact ever found from the ancestral Pueblo civilization. Also informally called "Anasazi" and known for its cliff palaces, this civilization flourished for several centuries before collap...
Age of Ice and Fire: The General Crisis Of The Seventeenth Century
June 07, 2018 02:28 - 1 hour - 84.1 MBWe trace the waves of crop failure, famine, pestilence, and war that swept over Europe in the 1600s as the climate sank into a “Little Ice Age” and armies literally marched across frozen seas. In the midst of unimaginable crisis, alchemists, astrologers, and apocalypticists scoured the Bible for prophecies to explain the disasters around them as part of the approaching End Times. Many of the defining institutions of the modern world we know today – such as overseas colonization, investor-ow...
The Catholic Reformation
May 30, 2018 01:53 - 1 hour - 64.2 MBWe examine the long movement for reform stretching from the Middle Ages through the 1600s, in which Catholic leaders strove to centralize and standardize church teachings. Mystics like Teresa of Avila and artists like Bernini inspired a physically and emotionally compelling form of worship centering on the sufferings of Christ and the Virgin Mary, while the elite special forces of the new piety were the Jesuits, whose schools and missions spread the new Catholicism within Europe and around t...
Myth of the Month 3: Race
May 21, 2018 13:24 - 1 hour - 110 MBWe examine the origins of racism, or the notion that the human species can be subdivided into distinct and observable biological categories. The notion of human "races" began as a strategy for dividing and controlling workers in European colonies, particularly 17th-century Virginia. We consider the basic logical incoherence of belief in race as an inherent property, and compare it against the new information that we are gaining from genetics, which shows a fairly closely interrelated human ...
The Century of Splintering: The Reformation in its Swiss and Radical Phases, 1519-1619
May 07, 2018 13:46 - 1 hour - 97.3 MBWe explore the new, contending forms of Protestant Christianity that sprang up in the wake of Luther, including the strict, austere Swiss Reform embodied in John Calvin’s Geneva, and the radical anabaptism that burst onto the scene in the failed millennial kingdom at Munster. We consider how the new Reformed movement hammered out a shared orthodoxy emphasizing original sin and predestination, which we now (somewhat inaccurately) call “Calvinism,” and we trace the roots of some of the more ex...
History of the United States in 100 Objects -- 1: Panther Effigy Pipe, 200-500 AD
April 30, 2018 15:58 - 51 minutes - 51.8 MBPANTHER EFFIGY PIPE -Found in Posey County, Indiana -Carved from Steatite -dated to the MIddle Woodland Period, 200-500 AD. In the first of the series on American objects and artifacts, we examine a tobacco pipe in the form of a wildcat -- specifically a puma, whose name comes from the Quechua word for "powerful." It was most likely used in rituals by shamans or priests of the Hopewell civilization, which built enormous, mysterious ceremonial complexes resembling Stonehenge -- only lacking...
Witchcraft and the Great Witch-Hunt, 1484-1700
April 19, 2018 14:29 - 1 hour - 81.6 MBWe trace the roots of the idea of witchcraft in the "cunning folk" of the Middle Ages. We consider how the church and state began to fuel fear of witchcraft and persecute witches in the tens of thousands during the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. We consider theories of why witch-hunting arose so dramatically in this age, including economic strain and political agendas. Finally, we examine evidence for an enduring shamanic belief system centering on ecstatic night journeys that ...
The Life of the Commoners -- Adaptation and Rebellion, 1400-1600
April 10, 2018 13:14 - 1 hour - 67.9 MBWe examine how Europe's peasant majority worked, played, and survived in the late Middle Ages and the early modern era, including the elaborate customs governing land tenure, marriage, and inheritance. We consider how, during the recovery following the Black Death, steadily growing population and rising prices put the squeeze on commoners as well as the nobility, forcing peasants to seek out more marginal lands and toil for more meager rewards, while encouraging landlords to raise rents and ...
Renaissance Humanism
March 22, 2018 13:20 - 1 hour - 80.7 MBWe trace how a small group of scholars, obsessed with classical antiquity, mastered the more ancient form of Latin, thus unlocking the worlds of Roman and Greek politics. Seeing themselves as the peers and equals of the ancient statesmen, the "humanists" called for a new form of learning aimed towards action and ambition. Machiavelli sketched out the path to princely power, Erasmus excavated the original meanings of the Bible, and Michelangelo captured the subtle powers of the human body. ...
Myth of the Month 1: "The Enlightenment"
March 13, 2018 20:57 - 1 hour - 79.6 MBThere was no Enlightenment. Steven Pinker’s new book, “Enlightenment Now,” is a classic re-statement of the myth of the Enlightenment which holds that in the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans threw off the tired dogmas of the Middle Ages and embraced a new philosophy of Reason, Progress, Science, and Humanism. In fact, the 1700s were a period of confusion, with no clear unifying ideas or trends: occultism, mysticism, and absolute monarchy flourished alongside experiments in democracy and chemistry...
Update and a Challenge to My Listeners
March 04, 2018 23:03 - 11 minutes - 12 MBI briefly discuss the growing audience for Historiansplaining, and sketch plans for future shorter lectures on historical myths, some of which will be patron-only. Finally, I pose a hypothetical question for my listeners that may be harder to answer than it seems. Please become a patron and make it possible for these lectures to keep coming! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
The Myths We Make: Using the past as an ideological tool
March 01, 2018 15:25 - 1 hour - 111 MBAll of history is, to one degree or another, mythology -- the weaving of a coherent, usable narrative out of the chaos of people's lives. We consider how societies all over the world, since before the beginning of civilization, have developed myths to explain the world that they experience. We also trace some of the major schools of academic history, which have tried to fashion overarching storylines to give meaning to human struggles -- from Biblical providential history to Marxism to post...
Spanish and Portuguese Expansion and the Conquest of the Americas
February 15, 2018 15:55 - 1 hour - 106 MBWe trace how Portugal and Spain, two previously marginal European kingdoms, rapidly and unexpectedly exploded onto the world scene, building a chain of fortified colonies stretching from North Africa to China, and conquering the larger and richer empires of Mexico and Peru. The early Iberian colonizers sought to continue the tradition of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and saw their foreign conquests as steps towards retaking Jerusalem; the benefited not only from superior weaponry and nav...
Making The Modern State: Spain, Portugal, and the Inquisition
February 06, 2018 00:51 - 1 hour - 89.5 MBWe explore European monarchs’ early quest to consolidate royal power and establish their subjects’ direct loyalty to the crown. In particular, we trace the early triumphs and slow declines of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, driven by the pioneering ambitions of Isabella of Castile, Philip II of Spain, John II of Portugal, and the formidable Marques de Pombal. We also examine the workings of the Spanish Inquisition, which served as a crucial cornerstone of the modern bureaucratic state,...
The Print and Gunpowder Revolutions, 1300-1700
January 23, 2018 23:46 - 1 hour - 90.2 MBThe early modern era – from the 1400s through the 1700s – is the monarchical age par excellence, with royal courts presiding over consolidated realms and monstrous armies capable of crushing smaller neighbors and internal rivals. The map of Europe transformed, and the reasons were, firstly, technological: the printing press broke through previous barriers to the creation of texts, allowing for the rapid spread of new ideas and propaganda, while new infantry tactics and gunpowder allowed roy...
Book Review: "The Strange Death of Europe" -- Part 2
January 09, 2018 18:51 - 1 hour - 64 MBIn the second part of our discussion of Douglas Murray’s “The Strange Death of Europe,” we examine the history of social cohesion and identity in Europe. We point out Murray’s failure to mention Brexit as a sign of the inherent weakness in European identity, and consider the complicated and challenging roots of modern-day terrorism in Europe. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Photo of British Muslim women in front of Lon...
Book Review: "The Strange Death of Europe" -- Part 1
January 07, 2018 22:41 - 1 hour - 95.6 MBThe first part of an examination and discussion of Douglas Murray's controversial book, "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam" (Bloomsbury, 2017), and its dire warning that a wave of migrants with beliefs and customs inimical to the West are on the verge of changing Europe forever. We weigh his careful debunking of elite mythology about immigration against his own falsehoods and manipulations of the facts. Finally, we consider his harrowing portrayal of a continent adri...
Islam 2: From the "Golden Age" to the Fundamentalist Reaction
December 05, 2017 23:46 - 1 hour - 103 MBWe trace the tortured path of Islam over the past 1,000 years, from the “Golden Age” of art, philosophy, and interreligious tolerance under the Abbasid empire to the rise of oppositional movements like sufi mysticism and finally, the Mongols’ sudden rain of destruction. We follow the return to power of new Muslim empires, the deepening of the Shiah-Sunni split, and finally, the emergence of an intolerant modern fundamentalism in reaction to the insidious and seductive influence of “the great...
Islam 1: Muhammad, the first Caliphate, and the core teachings
November 20, 2017 21:20 - 1 hour - 115 MBWe trace the shocking and rapid rise of Islam in the 600s, as a confederation of desert towns and tribes unite around Muhammad and his prophesies from the Abrahamic god, then swiftly launch a stunning campaign of conquests against the major empires of the age. We consider the roots of the basic teachings and practices of the new religion, including the Qur'an, the hadiths, the Five Pillars, jihad, shariah, the divide between Sunni and Shiah, and Islamic laws regarding the status of women and...
Land of Vital Blood: Pre-Columbian America
November 01, 2017 13:47 - 1 hour - 89.2 MBThe Americas before Columbus were not an idyll frozen in time. They were a world of struggle and ambition, with a history just as complex and tumultuous as Europe's. We trace how hunting-gathering peoples invented agriculture and built cities and empires that rose and fell across the centuries, all depending on human power, without the benefit of pack animals. We consider the shared norms and practices that seem to unite the diverse and far-flung peoples of the Americas, such as intensive ...
In Search of the Dawn: Human Prehistory
October 24, 2017 14:33 - 1 hour - 100 MBMost of the human story is so-called "pre-history," which in fact is inseparable from history and still going on today. We trace the origins of the human species around 300,000 years ago in Africa, including our early adaptation into long-distance hunters. We examine our long and awkward co-existence with other human-like species such as Neanderthals and Ebu Gogo, as well as our slow development of critical technologies like sewing and pottery that allowed us to out-compete them. We trace t...
Goodbye to Catalonia?
October 10, 2017 23:28 - 1 hour - 109 MBWhat is going on in Catalonia? We trace the long history of the small region in Spain’s northeastern corner, considering how medieval rebellions, dynastic struggles, and radical anarchist unions all helped to lay the groundwork for the separatist movement that today is flirting with unilaterally breaking away from Spain. We also account for the refusal of neighboring countries or the EU to say anything about the Spanish crisis, since Catalan independence threatens the survival not only of S...
Milestone: 5,000 Plays -- Thanks to My Patrons
October 05, 2017 22:41 - 13 minutes - 13 MBI trace the locations of my growing base of listeners, from Brazil to Berlin to Michigan to the Philippines, and send a tremendous thank-you to my patrons who have made it possible for this podcast to continue thus far. I preview likely topics for forthcoming lectures and ask for suggestions, questions, and outright condemnations. Please contribute whatever you can to make it possible for more people to hear historiansplaining -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632
Martin Luther: Shout at the Devil
October 02, 2017 23:24 - 1 hour - 109 MBExactly five centuries ago this month, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, thus sparking the Protestant Reformation. He was concerned not with freedom of thought nor with abuse of power by the Pope, as moderns might like to think, but with exposing the false doctrine that a person’s good actions can earn them a place in Heaven. Wracked by guilt and fear of going to hell, Luther had found relief only in the idea of a free, unmerited salvation. We consider Luth...
The Jews of Europe, from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution
September 25, 2017 00:16 - 1 hour - 108 MBWe trace the winding paths by which Jews, after the diaspora, sought out social and economic niches in which they were able to survive within European Christian society. We uncover the origins of the two main Jewish groups in Europe -- the Sephardic and Ashkenazi -- and consider how they adapted to changing conditions, including the increasing assimilation of German Jews in the 1700s, which led on the one hand to the beginnings of Jewish reform and on the other to the appearance of Hasidism, ...
Columbus -- The Tragedy and the Enigma
September 19, 2017 00:01 - 1 hour - 75.1 MBWe examine the enigmatic and elusive figure of Columbus, from his likely Jewish background, to his bizarre and hairbrained scheme of sailing to Asia, his brutal and chaotic invasion of the West Indies, his struggle to defend his honors and titles, and finally his apocalyptic vision of his own role in the End Times. We consider how Columbus, a fairly obscure and rejected figure after his death, came to be held up as a symbol of both the best and the worst of the American psyche. Please suppor...
Jim Crow's America, 1880-1960
September 09, 2017 11:45 - 1 hour - 79.9 MBWe examine the three pillars of Jim Crow civilization -- segregation, disfranchisement, and terroristic violence -- and their roots in the corrupt bargain of 1877 that ended Reconstruction and the climate of racial pseudoscience that pervaded the late 1800s. We consider the different ways that Jim Crow was enforced in different parts of the country -- in the South, with state action and paramilitary repression, and in the North, through exclusion from the labor movement. Finally, we conside...
The Confederacy -- Its Roots and Its Legacies
August 22, 2017 00:39 - 1 hour - 104 MBWe explore the history behind the statues being destroyed across America in a wave of iconoclasm -- when and why they were erected, and what they represented. We consider the roots of the Confederacy, which lie in the rapid change in the American view of slavery -- from an embarrassing but necessary evil in the 1780s to a positive good in the 1850s -- that caused a sectional rift between North and South. We examine Confederates' own words to understand why so many Southerners fought for the...
The Historical Jesus
August 17, 2017 19:02 - 1 hour - 107 MBWe join in the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus -- the struggle to unearth and understand who Jesus really was, what he said and did, and how he inspired a movement. We trace the basic bare-bones facts that can be deduced from early Christian writings and brief references in other texts, including Jesus' baptism and crucifixion. We throw out the flimsy theories of hacks like Reza Aslan and Bill O'Reilly, as well as the junk theory that no Jesus existed at all, and instead examine the ...
Who Wrote the Bible? -- New Testament
August 09, 2017 23:50 - 1 hour - 81.9 MBWe consider the long ideological struggles in the early church that led to the gradual collection of a canon of Christian writings that we now call the New Testament. We trace when, where, and why the various gospels and letters in the New Testament were written (hint: Matthew was not the first, not even close) and how they present different theological views. All in all, though, the New Testament writings were created to respond to the dilemma that as the years dragged on and Jesus' discip...
Who Wrote the Bible? -- Hebrew Scriptures
July 30, 2017 03:44 - 1 hour - 81.7 MBWe dissect the origins of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Old Testament by Christians), excavating the deepest layers of the collection of holy books, including the very ancient songs and prayers that were likely passed on orally for centuries before being written down, the scholarly theories of the lost documents that were stitched together to form Genesis and Exodus, and the differing points of view of the various prophets, scribes, and propagandists whose books made their way into the He...
Judaism -- What Is It and Where Did It Come From?
July 18, 2017 00:06 - 1 hour - 94.5 MBWe consider how best to understand the origins of the laws and customs of the Jewish people, or what we call "Judaism." We begin by dispelling the notion that Judaism (or any other belief system apart from Christianity) can properly be called a "religion" -- a category that derives originally from Christian practice and does not make sense anywhere else. We further examine the roots of the idea of "Judaism" as a concept for the Jewish way of life, concluding with a careful analysis of the m...
Middle Ages 11: The Pulsating Body -- The Medieval World View
July 06, 2017 18:00 - 1 hour - 92.3 MBWe cap off the series of lectures on the Middle Ages by piecing together how the people of the high and late Middle Ages understood their place in the cosmos. From the lowliest peasants to popes and emperors, medievals believed they formed the limbs of a living, breathing social body, and that body or tree was part of a Great Chain of Being connecting rocks and dirt to stars and planets and ultimately to God. Through these metaphors we can understand why medievals disapproved of commerce an...
Middle Ages 10: Sex and Sexuality in the Middle Ages
June 21, 2017 06:54 - 1 hour - 88.4 MBWe examine the ways that medieval people described, displayed, and generally failed to control their sexual appetites. While theologians sermonized on the dangers of carnal lust, parishioners surreptitiously met in churches and stables, kept themselves amused with dildoes, or luxuriated in brothels all over Europe. We also trace how medievals categorized one another's sexual "orientations" using the complex concept of sodomy, and briefly consider the intense scholarly debate over the nature...
Milestone: 1,000 Plays -- Who and Where Are My Listeners?
June 16, 2017 05:04 - 6 minutes - 7.35 MBI send a thank-you message to my listeners and patrons marking the podcast's 1,000th play, and discuss where in the world -- from South Dakota to Malaysia -- you are located, according to Soundcloud's statistics.
History As It Happens 2: Understanding the Results of the UK Election
June 12, 2017 02:21 - 1 hour - 64.1 MBWe dissect the results of the dramatic June 8th election in Great Britain – party by party and region by region – in order to understand why the country ended up with a hung parliament and a fragile, tenuous government. The Conservative prime minister hangs on by the skin of her teeth, her party buffeted by record-smashing youth turnout and an increasing consolidation of the opposition under the Labour banner. Scotland’s independence movement faces a setback; peace in Northern Ireland faces...
History As It Happens 1: The Upcoming UK Election
June 05, 2017 06:34 - 1 hour - 86 MBWe explore the history and context behind the momentous election taking place this week in Great Britain, including the rise of the British working class and the Labour Party, the ongoing war for the party’s soul, and the shocking rise to leadership of an obscure and irascible gadfly, Jeremy Corbyn. The survival of socialism in the English-speaking world, the future of nuclear weapons, and the fate of Scotland as a country may all hinge on which Britons show up to the polls on Thursday.
Middle Ages 9: Knowledge and Ignorance in the Middle Ages (and Today)
June 01, 2017 02:28 - 1 hour - 92.3 MBWe examine how medieval scholars battled over the meanings of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and of the Christian religion, while illiterate artisans made breakthroughs in architecture, engineering, metallurgy, and alchemy. The vast body of medieval scholarship came under attack during the Renaissance as so many "metaphysical obscurities," while today we stand on the precipice of a true Dark Age of ignorance. Become a patron to hear the next installment -- Middle Ages 10: Sex and Sexuali...