Historically Thinking

Historically Thinking


Latest Episodes

Episode 238: Generations of Reason
January 13, 2022

In February, 1853, Augustus De Morgan, Professor of Mathematics at University College London, drew the last of a series of diagrams illustrating logical syllogisms. A the center of this one was a face

Episode 241: Doing the Research
January 10, 2022

So what does research mean to you? Does it mean looking for someone somewhere on the internet who agrees with you? - Then you should really listen to this podcast. - This is another of our continuing

Episode 240: Empire and Jihad
January 03, 2022

In 1914, at the start of the Great War, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire called for a Great Jihad against France, Russia, and Great Britain. It was a logical conclusion to over fity years of conflic

Episode 239: The Chicken and the Egg, or, What Keeps (Some) Historians Awake at Night
December 27, 2021

This is one of the last in our year-long series about the skills of historical thinking, and today our focus is on one of simplest, but perhaps also the most contentious. It is Change and Causality. D

Episode 237: A Brave and Cunning Prince, or, Following the Evidence Where It Leads
December 13, 2021

At about 8 in the morning on March 22, 1622, warriors of the chiefdoms making up the Powhatan confederacy attacked the settlements of the colony of Virginia. By nightfall, the devastating attacks had

Episode 236: Let Me Put That Into Context
December 07, 2021

Great podcast title, right? Those words still trigger a sort of survival reflex in me, based upon experience with an eminent professor. When he said those very words, you could bet that he would be ta

Bonus Episode: The Higher Ed Scene, with Mark Salisbury
December 01, 2021

Sometimes, Higher Ed can feel like a battle. But not because of COVID, or CRT, or POTUS, or FL GOV...it's because someone in the administration asked the faculty if they might be so kind as to fill in

Episode 235: The Great Little Madison
November 18, 2021

If there’s one thing Americans know about James Madison, it might be that he was the shortest American President, ever–just 5’4”, or that he was married to Dolley Madison, who was not only a first lad

Episode 234: The Fall of Robespierre
November 15, 2021

“We seek an order of things in which all the base and cruel passions are enchained, all the beneficent and generous passions are awakened by the laws; where ambition becomes the desire to merit glory

Episode 233: Generation Myth
November 08, 2021

Each year millions and millions of whatever currency you’d care to have are spent explaining generations to one another. Inherent in that expensive explantation is the idea that people born at about t