The Askhistorians Podcast

Jeremy Salkeld (EnclavedMicrostate) talks with Trevor Culley (Trevor_Culley) about an answer the latter wrote on the subreddit about depictions of Alexander the Great in Persia. Building from that answer's discussion, this episode takes us from the fragmentary bits and pieces of the Alexander legend in Babylonian inscriptions and Middle Persian papyrus fragments, up to the developed form found in Sasanian letters and medieval epic poetry. 20 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with Jason Dyer about the public computing movement and early computer games, including the seminal "Hunt the Wumpus." 64 mins.

Tyler Alderson talks with u/EnclavedMicrostate about an answer he wrote on the European influence (or lack thereof) on the Taiping Rebellion. Rather than looking at the Opium Wars as a root cause, he discusses other uprisings in China at the time, and examines the effect of ethnic, economic, and other tensions. 38 min.

In this episode, P.H. Jones and Johannes Breit discuss one of the largest publishing hoaxes of the 20th century: The Hitler Diaries. When German journalist Gerd Heidemann entered a world of Nazis, old and new, WWII memorabilia, and collectors of Hitler paintings in the 70s, he never expected to find the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler. Allegedly smuggled out of East Germany, this was the find of a lifetime. While Heidemann and his employer, Stern, already had dollar signs in their eyes, they didn’t expect to find themselves at the centre of one of the largest journalistic and publishing scandals of the last century that would ruin them, make the forger a star and humiliate Rupert Murdoch. Jones and Breit will take you through the whole story that involves everything from Hermann Göring’s Yacht to a forger of German lunch vouchers to David Irving and that ends with several millions Mark missing and several people in prison.

Tyler Alderson talks with with Cristina Groeger, whose new book The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston explores how education has been used to both alleviate and exacerbate inequality. Using 19th and 20th century Boston as a case study, she takes a critical look at how our concepts of education and the institutions that provide it have been shaped by those in and out of power, and gives us an idea of what we can do to work towards a more equitable society today.

Tyler Alderson talks will Bill Taylor, author of the new book Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico. Taylor pieces together the lives of two men who impersonated priests, and discusses how they fit with the ideal of the vagabundo in popular culture of the time. How and why did they operate on the margins of society, and what does it say about that society? 

In this episode, Seb Lewin (u/aquatermain) discusses Meg Hyland's (u/Kelpie_Cat) research into work songs sung by itinerant herring gutters from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Topics include the similarities between herring work songs and the Tango, the surprisingly not-safe-for-work lyrics and why one heritage boat captain refuses to led nuns aboard. In what is perhaps a first for an AskHistorians Podcast episode, we are also treated to a live rendition of one of these songs by Meg.

In this episode, Naama Cohen joins us to discuss the British mandate in Palestine from 1922 to 1932, when memoirist and children’s author Douglas Duff served as a policeman there. How did British servicemen view Palestine, their role in it, and the local populations? Find out this and more.

In this episode, /u/Kugelfang52 joins us to discuss the topic of censorship in Texas history textbooks before and after the Second World War. How were decisions made about what or what not to include? How did the rhetorical tools used to counter fascism get turned on anything deemed 'Communist'? Find out this and more on this week's episode.

In this episode, four members of the AskHistorians panel discuss Vikings, their popular culture portrayals and how the legend of the looting, pillaging bearded norsemen is far from an accurate portrayal of these historical figures.

Tyler Alderson talks with Richard Templeton, author of Across the Creek: Black Powder Explosions on the Brandywine. Templeton tells the story of the workers who made the powder that turned DuPont into one of the world's largest chemical companies, and the deadly accidents that cut many of their lives short. 56m. Warning: This episode contains frank discussion of the aftermath of a gunpowder mill explosion and its physical effects on victims.

Tyler Alderson is joined by four researchers who looks at the lives and experiences of women in medieval and early modern Scotland from a variety of angles. Guests are Marian Toledo Candelaria from the University of Waterloo, Lucy Hinnie from the University of Saskatchewan, Rebecca Mason from the Institute of Historical Research in London, and Chelsea Hartlen from the University of Guelph. 92 min.

In this episode, Jenn Binis (u/edhistory101) and Ryan Abt (u/Kugelfang52) discuss gender, inequality and rhetoric in US Education history. Topics include the unexpected consequences of integrating schools, gendered expectations of teachers, and the Committee of Ten.

Tyler Alderson talks with author Adrian Goldsworthy, whose new book Philip and Alexander explores the lives of the two men who turned ancient Macedonia from a fringe Greek state into a powerful empire. While much of the focus has been on Alexander, Goldsworthy discusses the vital role that Philip played in setting his son up for the successes that earned him the name "Alexander the Great." 67m.

Tyler Alderson talks with Dr. Bea Lewkowicz and Daisy Abboudi from Sephardi Voices UK, records the oral histories of the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East, North Africa and Iran who settled in the UK. While narratives of history often paint with a wide brush, individual oral histories create a stunning portrait of everyday life amid the upheavals of the 20th century. The episode also includes clips from various interviews in the Sephardi Voices UK archives. 91 minutes.

This panel seeks to disrupt historically dominant narratives about the imperial systems of religion, settler colonialism, slavery, and the documentation of the populace. Spanning across time and regions, from colonial era Britain to the nineteenth-century United States, our panelists give voice to historical actors who disrupted systems of oppression while simultaneously utilizing digital quantitative data analysis to complicate the traditional archive itself. How can we repurpose quantitative data to re-humanize historically marginalized groups? How do we combat systemic erasure that quantitative data can produce? What do we make of historical resistance where there are scant sources available? Historical Experts: Laura Brannan - "Mobility in Slavery and Freedom: Mapping Paths of Escape, Enslavement, and Freedom in the U.S., 1830-1850" Georgia Farrell - "Running From Cultural Genocide: Carlisle Indian Boarding School Runaways and Hidden Resistance, 1890-1900" Caitlin Gale - "Mapping Itinerancy: George Fox's

In this episode, Juan Sebastián Lewin interviews Gaby Berman, who's focusing her Master thesis research on the presence of Sassanian male hufu clothing in the Tang Dynasty in China and its usage by elite women of the period, in her paper called "Tang Elite Women and Hufu Clothing: Persian Garments and the Artistic Rendering of Power". We explore topics relating to textiles, social class and female gender roles in the Tang Dynasty, and the intercultural exchanges between the Tang Dynasty and the Sasanian Dynasty.

The panelists aimed to explore different historiographical perspectives relating to: the current political climate in Brazil and the challenges the Bolsonaro administration poses for historians and scholars of the humanities; outlining essential considerations when designing universally accessible academic resources and archives; introducing an open-source, peer-reviewed collection of digital resources pertaining to the history of the LBGTQIA+ community; and producing an oral history collection that showcases student and faculty experiences in learning and teaching during the COVID19 pandemic. Historical Experts: Kirsteen MacKenzie - "The Importance of Universal Access Principles in Digital History" Brian Watson - "Building an LGBTQIA+ archive" (More info at https://histsex.org/) Mário Rezende - "Writing History in a country that chases historians" Summer Cherland - "More and More Every Day: An Oral History Collection of Teaching and Learning in the COVID19 Era" (More info at https://southphoenixoralhistory.c

Tyler Alderson interviews Dr. Sally Foster about an overlooked group of objects: replicas. Far from being just a copy of an original object, replicas can have their own lives and value. Dr. Foster discusses her research and new book on the St. John's Cross replica on the Scottish island of Iona, as well as a set of principles and guidance she has helped prepare for working with replicas. 61 minutes.

Tyler Alderson interviews Seb Lewin about a region of the world often overlooked when it comes to classical music: Latin America. The interview covers the lives and music of several important composers, discussing how their music is a reflection of musical and societal trends in their countries. 77 minutes