Blackwell Podcasts
|
|
|
Welcome to the Blackwell podcast page for History, the home of our complete History podcast backlist.
|
|
 Robert Holland - Blue-Water Empire
In this podcast, George Miller talks to historian Robert Holland about his action-packed new history of the British involvement in the Mediterranean world since 1800.
That involvement originated in the accidents of war with revolutionary France, but went on to be deeply entrenched, even instinctive; in time it extended from Gibraltar and Malta to Egypt, Palestine and Cyprus. In the interview, Robert Holland explains how this came about.
Download Podcast | Buy Blue-Water Empire
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 James Palmer - The Death of Mao
In this first podcast of 2012, George Miller talks to James Palmer about his new account of a momentous year in Chinese history - 1976. Not only did the year witness the death of Chairman Mao, who had ruled the country for over three decades, it also was the year of the Tangshan earthquake, one of the most devastating natural disasters in human history.
In the interview, James explains why, after the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, 1976 marked a turning point in Chinese history and set the country on the path from basket case to global superpower. He also speculates on the inadvertent part played by the earthquake on setting China on a new course.
Download Podcast | Buy The Death of Mao
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Matthew Sweet - The West End Front
The West End Front takes us behind the scenes at London's grandest hotels during the Second World War to reveal a world within a world, populated by an amazing cast of characters � aristocrats, foreigners in exile, conmen, abortionists, spies, politicians, communists, journalists, top military men and secret service agents � not forgetting a thriving gay subculture in the bar beneath the Ritz. In this interview, writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet tells our host George Miller about how he uncovered some of their amazing wartime stories.
Download Podcast | Buy The West End Front
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Helen Rappaport - Magnificent Obsession
In this podcast we are joined by Oxford-based historian Helen Rappaport, who tells us why the death of Prince Albert 150 years ago this month was such an important event in British history. Her new book, Magnificent Obsession, praised by A.N. Wilson as "brilliant", sheds new light not only on the circumstances of Albert's death but also on its traumatic aftermath for Victoria and her nation.
Download Podcast | Buy Magnificent Obsession
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Frederick Taylor - Exorcising Hitler
Frederick Taylor looks at the challenges the Allies faced when they occupied Germany at the end of the second world war. Exorcising Hitler describes the often difficult questions of what sort of Germany the world wanted to emerge from the ruins. It also vividly evokes the problems of surviving day to day for ordinary Germans.
Download Frederick Taylor Podcast | Buy Exorcising Hitler
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Philipp Blom - A Wicked Company
Philipp Blom's book A Wicked Company recreates that world's intellectual ferment and presents a strong case for re-examining the ideas of the radical enlightenment.
Download Philipp Blom Podcast | Buy A Wicked Company
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Lizzie Collingham - The Taste of War
Lizzie Collingham, whose new book, The Taste of War, examines the vitally important part food played in the Second World War. She talks in particular about the Nazis' terrible' Hunger Plan', intended to starve some 30 million people in Russia and Eastern Europe to death.
Download Lizzie Collingham | The Taste of War
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Ian Morris - Why the West Rules... For Now
Standford classics professor, Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules... For Now is fascinated by the question of why the West has been the dominant region of the globe for most of the past two millennia, not as an exercise in Western triumphalism, but in order to explain the grand patterns of history - and also to understand when this era of Western dominance will come to an end. As he explains in our interview, he believes that in order to come up with an explanation for this phenomenon, you have to go all the way back to the end of the last Ice Age...
DOWNLOAD WHY THE WEST RULES... FOR NOW PODCAST | Why the West Rules... For Now
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Helen Castor - She-Wolves
Helen Castor's, new book She-Wolves, illustrates the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Being described as an 'exhilarating read' by Hilary Mantel, this title has already been well received by the public. In this interview Helen tells us why it was so challenging for women to wield power in the middle ages.
DOWNLOAD SHE-WOLVES PODCAST | She-Wolves
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Roger Moorhouse - Berlin at War
Historian Roger Moorhouse's new book, Berlin at War, follows the fate of ordinary Berliners in the German capital throughout the second world war. In the words of one review, he brings to vivid life "what passed for normal life in the abnormal capital of Hitler's empire": the challenge of surviving air raids, hunger and - for the city's Jewish inhabitants - the egregious brutalities of the Nazi regime.
DOWNLOAD BERLIN AT WAR PODCAST | Berlin at War
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Francis Spufford - Red Plenty
Francis Spufford is a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His previous books include I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination and a memoir, The Child that Books Built. His new book, Red Plenty, skilfully blends fact and fiction to explore the heady years in the early 'sixties when the USSR entertained ambitions of becoming a Soviet paradise on earth.
DOWNLOAD RED PLENTY PODCAST | Buy Red Plenty
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Catharine Arnold - City of Sin
Catharine Arnold is an author, journalist and popular historian who joins our show for the second time. With her 'London Trilogy', Catharine has explored the darker sides of the capital from Roman times through to present day. Starting with London's dead in Necropolis, via its insane in Bedlam, Catharine finishes her trilogy with City of Sin, a book that focuses squarely on the history of London's shocking sexual underground.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Madeleine Bunting - The Plot
Madeleine Bunting is a journalist who writes for The Guardian. The Plot is her book about discovery, people, the passing of time and most importantly, a place. That place is a one acre plot of land on the North York moors. Madeleine's father, an artist and visionary, had strong connections with this plot, erecting the chapel that stands there. Seeking to understand her father's passion for the area after his death, Madeleine soon discovers that this simple acre of land has many secrets to tell...
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Paul Kriwaczek - Babylon
Paul Kriwaczek is a writer, director and producer. In Babylon, Paul tells the story of ancient Mesopotamia, the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system that gave birth to the first civilisations. From the earliest settlements around 5400 BC, to the eclipse of Babylon by the Persians in the sixth century BC, Babylon charts the rise and fall of dynastic power, the numerous material, social and cultural innovations and most specifically, the glory of Babylon - 'gateway to the gods'.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Lucy Worsley - Courtiers
Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and a leading young historian. With that, Lucy is more than qualified to take readers on a historical tour of Kensington Palace, as she does in her new title Courtiers. The book tells the story of the Georgian court from the perspective of the numerous royal servants for whom the palace was home, while throwing new light on the dramatic life of George II and Queen Caroline.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Joe Moran - On Roads
Joe Moran joins us to discuss his new paperback, On Roads: A Hidden History. The book presents a history of Britain's roads, showing how a relatively simple road system turned into a maze-like pattern of roundabouts, flyovers, and spaghetti junctions. Revealing numerous quirky nuggets of history along the way on subjects ranging from speed limits and driving on the left, to the to the unwritten laws of traffic jams, Moran uses a unique blend of travel writing, anthropology, history and social observation to explore how Britain's roads have their roots in unexpected places...
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 David Aaronovitch - Voodoo Histories
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
David Aaronovitch is an author, journalist and broadcaster. His latest book, Voodoo Histories, focuses squarely on the modern obsession with the conspiracy theory, revealing why so many are willing to subscribe to them, and the dangers that this brings. From Kennedy's assassination and the moon landings, to Princess Diana's death and the 9/11 Truth Movement, Aaronovitch debunks with arguments born from meticulous research and logical reasoning.
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Ian Davidson - Voltaire
With his 2004 publication Voltaire in Exile, Ian Davidson looked specifically at the last 25 years of the French playwright, poet and philosopher's life following his exile at the hands of King Louis XV. Now, with Voltaire: A Life, Davidson presents an account of Voltaire's whole life, utilising the vast cache of written correspondence still in existence to paint a vivid portrait of the extraordinary man.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Christopher Kelly - Attila the Hun
Christopher Kelly is a classicist and historian. In this special Blackwell podcast, Kelly discusses his book Attila the Hun with our host George Miller, revealing that the story of Atilla and the huns is more complicated and interesting that the conventional stereotype of ruthless marauding barbarians.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Paul Cartledge - Ancient Greece
Paul Cartledge is Professor of Greek History at Cambridge, and a Fellow of Clare College. In his latest book Ancient GreeceCartledge uses the history of eleven major Greek cities to illuminate the most important and informative themes in Ancient Greek history, from the first documented use of the Greek language and the glories of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, to the foundation of the Byzantine empire.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Felipe Fernández-Armesto - 1492
In 1492 - The Year Our World Began, historian and author Felipe Fernández-Armesto traces the birth of the modern age back to a single year, 1492; analysing the events that would unfold and change the world forever. The distribution of global power and wealth; the divergance of major religions and civilisations, and even events that would change the ecological system of the planet, Fernández-Armesto shows how 1492 was one of the most pivitol years in human history.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Timothy Ryback - Hitler's Private Library
Timothy Ryback is a historian of the Holocaust. His new book Hitler's Private Library investigates Hitler's collection of books, estimated to be 16,000 volumes at the time of his death in 1945. Ryback explores this remarkable collection, as well as several other caches which he subsequently discovered in Europe and elsewhere.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Thomas Asbridge - The Crusades
Thomas Asbridge's new book The Crusades is a major new account of the wars for the Holy Land, unique in its vivid representation of events from both Christian and Muslim perspectives. The book draws upon painstaking original research to reveal how these wars reshaped the medieval world and why they continue to echo in human memory to this day.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Robert Ferguson - The Hammer and the Cross
In his new book The Hammer and the Cross, Robert Ferguson provides a fresh approach to the Viking Age utilising his long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia with the latest archaeological discoveries and the evidence to make the most convincing modern portrait of the Viking Age to date.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 David Kynaston - Family Britain, 1951-1957
Praised as "the most entertaining historian alive" by The Spectator magazine, David Kynaston is an English historian who has written numerous books on British history. In his latest offering, Family Britain, 1951-1957, Kynaston presents a collection of diaries and memoirs to paint a picture of yesteryear's Britain which is as fascinating as it is moving.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Ian Mortimer - 1415
In his groundbreaking new book 1415, Ian Mortimer looks at Henry V's 'year of glory', a period of religious persecution, personal suffering and the Battle of Agincourt, and asks whether the King deserves to be remembered as the greatest man who ever ruled England.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Jenny Uglow - A Gambling Man
Jenny Uglow, author, historian and critic discusses her latest book A Gambling Man. The book presents a study of Charles II, exploring his elusive nature through the tumultuous first decade of the restoration, a period which saw the plague, the Fire of London and the Dutch war.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Dan Cruickshank - The Secret History of Georgian London
Dan Cruickshank discusses his new book The Secret History of Georgian London. The book looks at the darker side of the Georgian capital, where prostitution was rife, houses of ill repute were widespread, and many tens of thousands of people were dependent in some way on the wages of sin.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
 Mark Hudson - Titian
Mark Hudson, journalist and prize-winning author, discusses his new book, Titian: The Last Days. The book is an exploratory journey through the life and work of the 16th-century Venetian painter, detailing the artist's struggles with his work, clients and family while celebrating his largely unfinished, final paintings.
DOWNLOAD SEGMENT | Buy the book | View related titles
(To download a file for transferral to an audio device such as an MP3 player, right-click the download link and select 'Save Target As')
Audio recordings produced by George Miller of podularity.com
|
|
|
View more History podcasts >>>
|
|
|
