Piotr H. Kosicki— The year was 1947. The Cold War was just beginning. Much of Europe still lay in ruins following the devastation of the Second World War, and displaced persons were struggling to find their place in a world riven by the Holocaust, atomic warfare, and collapsing colonial empires.
Stephen Houston— A grievous feature of our age is the use of young men in combat. A recent film was made about this ongoing tragedy: Beasts of No Nation, based on the book of the same title by Uzodinma Iweala, and winner of numerous awards including the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the
Bill Niven— In April 1954, together with his lawyer, the film director Veit Harlan made his way to a gravel pit near Zurich. There, he demonstratively set fire to the only available negative of the anti-Semitic Nazi film he had directed for Joseph Goebbels: Jud Süβ, first shown in 1940.
David Armitage— War is hell, the U.S. Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman is supposed to have said, but surely the only thing worse is civil war. On that fact, there has been general agreement across the centuries. Internal wars are felt to be more destructive than ones against external
Itamar Rabinovich— On July 26, 1994, Prime Minister Rabin and King Hussein spoke to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, and on July 30 they signed an agreement in Washington ending the state of war between Jordan and Israel. It was an interim step leading the way to a
Jack Ogden— Mention of diamonds stirs up a variety of emotions and images, from Marilyn Monroe singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” to conflict stones, and, of course, the perennial questions as to how big and how much. Approaching diamonds through the eyes of a historian, and traveling back
Susan Dunn— In 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt SUGGESTED a two-year experiment: he proposed moving the date of Thanksgiving up one week from the customary last Thursday in November. The point was to help businesses and the economy by extending the lucrative shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Most states agreed
Class in America, often ignored, has shaped the country from the very beginning. We take a look at the changing role of class and how it has led us to where we are today. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Soundcloud
Brian Fagan— There really is something to Indiana Jones, except that it’s all wrong. It’s rumored that Jones was an amalgam of several early twentieth century archaeologists, but Lucas Films is firmly mum on the subject. The history of archaeology over the past century-and-a-half is indeed replete with bold exploits
Are Indiana Jones and Lara Croft real archaeologists? Brian Fagan takes us through the history of archaeology from the early treasure hunting days to the rigorously scientific present. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Soundcloud