Historically Thinking

Historically Thinking


Latest Episodes

Episode 389: Indian Religions
December 23, 2024

India has 2,000,000 million gods, and worships them all, wrote Mark Twain, following his 1896 speaking tour of British India. In religion other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

Episode 388: Agent Zo
December 16, 2024

In the first months of 1939, before the world changed, Elzbieta Zawacka had an MA degree in Mathematics, and was an enthusiastic instructor in Polands Womens Military Training organization, establ

Episode 387: The Study
December 09, 2024

In the sixteenth century wealthy men and women began to collect books. With these they began to furnish a new room in the house which they called the studiolo. In the little study one could read in

Episode 386: College Sports
December 04, 2024

Many college professors like to remind each other that no other nation on earth has the system of collegiate sports that has developed in the United States, one in which the mishaps of a mediocre foot

Episode 385: Golden Years
November 25, 2024

When did old age in America first begin? That is, when did we first begin to conceive ideas about a stage of life in which older people no longer participated in the labor force, but nevertheless had

Episode 384: Intent to Destroy
November 22, 2024

Many were shocked in February 2022 by the Russian attempt to seize Kyiv and decapitate the Ukranian regime, thereby ending the war begun in 2014. But this was simply the latest in a long series of Rus

Episode 383: Quaker Founder
November 18, 2024

As todays guest writes in the introduction of her new book Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson, For more than two hundred years, John Dickinson has suffered from an image problem t

Episode 382: Women and the Reformations
November 08, 2024

A forensic reconstruction of Saint Rose of Lima - From the early 16th century, and for over two hundred years after that, a series of convulsions within the Christian church of Western Europe led to i

Episode 381: Philosophy to the People
November 04, 2024

His lectures at the College de France were so popular that people arrived at the lecture hall at least an hour in advance. When he finally spoke, it was standing room only, with men literally climbing

Episode 380: Madrid
October 27, 2024

For nearly five centuries Madrid has been the capital of Spain, and the focus of frequent contempt by foreign visitors, as well as the scorn and hatred of Spaniards. Prime Minister Manuel Azaa Daz,