Historically Thinking

Historically Thinking


Latest Episodes

Episode 393: Lawless Republic
January 27, 2025

Marcus Tullius Cicero lived from 106 BC to his murder in 43 BC. He was a writer, a philosopher, a traveller, a consul of the Roman Republic, and perhaps one of the last people to take the Roman Republ

Episode 392: Papa von Ranke
January 13, 2025

He was and has been criticized as a mere burrower into archives; as a dry man without any ideas; as a painter of miniatures rather than of broad portraits; as a conservative by liberals, and insuffi

391: Roman Roads
January 07, 2025

Listeners to this podcast are certainly aware of the saying that all roads lead to Rome; and, given this audience, you might even be aware that this probably derived from the observation mlle viae

Episode 390: Atlantic Ocean
December 30, 2024

He was a bold man who first ate an oyster, observed Jonathan Swift; and in fact the first human interaction with the Atlantic Ocean was probably eating shellfish, traces of which can be found along

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