15 Minute History

Episode 148: US China relations in the 1970s Jul 22, 2024

During the 1970s, relations between the US and China were transformed. Previously the two nations were cold war enemies. But Kazushi Minami argues that the ’70s saw Americans reimagine China as a country of opportunities, while Chinese reinterpreted the US as an agent of modernization, capable of enriching their country. Crucial to this process was […]

Episode 147: The Court Packing Crisis Jun 28, 2024

In 1937, American politics was gripped by President Roosevelt’s court packing plan. Frustrated with what he perceived to be an aging, obstructionist Supreme Court, Roosevelt pressed congress to expand the court from 9 to 15 members. Stepping into the ensuing maelstrom was Texas congressman Hatton Sumners, chair of the House judiciary committee, ally of Roosevelt […]

Episode 146: Black Labor in Boston May 23, 2024

The historian Henry Adams once wrote that, “the American boy of 1854 stood nearer the year 1 than to the year 1900.” Changes during that period were indeed profound in Adam’s home town of Boston. And yet, for the majority of the city’s black men and women, life and work in 1900 were not that […]

Episode 145: Student Protests May 09, 2024

Over the course of the academic year, student protests have roiled college campuses like at no other time in recent memory. Going further back though, historians see plenty of parallels — as well as some key differences — with student protest movements focused on Vietnam (1960s/70s) and South Africa (1980s/90s.) Today we’re joined today by […]

Episode 144: Partisanship in the Revolutionary era Apr 25, 2024

Political partisanship is not only a hallmark of US democracy today. There is also a long history of dysfunction and division as old as America. H.W. Brands’s new book, Founding Partisans is a revelatory history of the Revolutionary era’s stormy politics, which includes a look at the nation’s earliest political parties — those of Hamilton and […]

Episode 143: Glen Canyon and Water Infrastructure Apr 25, 2024

Climate change and population growth is creating a new appreciation — and anxiety — around water infrastructure, both in the western United States and around the world. We’re joined today by Professor Erika Bsumek, whose new book, The Foundations of Glen Canyon, focuses on America’s second highest concrete-arch dam. Not simply a massive piece of physical infrastructure it is also […]

Episode 142: World War I and the Hapsburg Empire Apr 25, 2024

The Hapsburg Empire was founded in 1282 (or 1526, depending on who you ask) and lasted until 1918. Despite its increasingly antiquated and illiberal tendencies, it survived the reformation, the thirty years war, the enlightenment, the age of Revolution, the revolutions of 1848, and the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 — but not World War I. […]

Episode 141: Reconstruction From Past to Present Dec 18, 2023

In the wake of the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era emerged as a time of radical change in the 19th century United States. Dr. Peniel Joseph brings this conversation into the 20th and 21st centuries as we discuss his most recent book, The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century.

Episode 140: Ridley Scott’s Napoleon Dec 07, 2023

Ridley Scott’s new film, Napoleon, is a monumental historical epic that has endured mixed reviews since its release last month, due to historical inaccuracies and narrative jumps. But do such criticisms miss the point? Today 15 Minute History is joined by Professor Judith Coffin, who studies and teaches French history at UT Austin, including the […]

Episode 139: New Theory of American History Dec 01, 2023

“How can a nation founded on the homelands of dispossessed Indigenous peoples be the world’s most exemplary democracy?” asks Professor Ned Blackhawk (Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone), author of The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. Today, Dr. Blackhawk discusses what it would look like to build a new theory […]

Episode 138: Sex, Race, and Labor in French Colonialism Nov 17, 2023

Traditionally, we think about European power being built with ships and swords. However, new scholarship uncovers a more nuanced and complex picture. Today, 15 Minute history is joined by Mélanie Lamotte, a historian of the French Empire whose work demonstrates the role that sex, race and labor played in the global expansion of French power […]

Episode 137: Jean Paul Sartre In The Arab World Nov 17, 2023

In 1967, the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre traveled to Egypt and Israel on a quest to understand the region and its conflicts. The trip would challenge and change him — and lead to accusations of betrayal. Today, 15 Minute History is joined by Yoav Di Capua, author of “No Exit Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, […]

Episode 136: Afro-Indigenous Histories of the US Feb 09, 2022

Afro-Indigenous histories are central to the history of the United States, tribal sovereignty, and civil rights. Today, Dr. Kyle Mays (Saginaw Chippewa) author of An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States and Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America, discusses the intersections of Black and Indigenous history through the […]

Episode 135: Connected Histories of Cuba and the United States Jan 26, 2022

While the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War are important aspects of the United States and Cuba’s shared history, they are not the only elements the two share. According to today’s guest and author of Cuba: An American History, Professor Ada Ferrer, there are the centuries of interconnected history between Cuba and the US.

Episode 134: Austin’s Black History Nov 18, 2021

To kick off the new season of 15 Minute History, we sit down with Dr. Javier Wallace, founder and guide of Black Austin Tours. While those familiar with Austin know the George Washington Carver Museum as well as historically Black East Austin, Dr. Wallace unpacks other hidden, and not-so-hidden elements of Black history in the […]

Episode 133: The 1844 Philadelphia Riots May 26, 2021

In 1844, Philadelphia, a hub for Irish immigration to the United States, witnessed a series of violent Nativist riots that targeted Irish Americans and Roman Catholic churches. In our season finale, Zachary Schrag discusses the events leading up to the Philadelphia Nativists Riots of 1844, who was there, and how it fits into the broader […]

Episode 132: History of the Second Ku Klux Klan Apr 28, 2021

Historians argue that several versions of the group known as the Ku Klux Klan or KKK have existed since its inception after the Civil War. But, what makes the Klan of the 1920s different from the others? Linda Gordon, the winner of two Bancroft Prizes and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, writes in The […]

Episode 131: Climate and Environmental History in Context Apr 21, 2021

How do historians teach Environmental History in an age where climate catastrophe fills the headlines? Megan Raby and Erika Bsumek, both History Professors and Environmental Historians discuss what drew them to the field, how they talk about environmental history with their students, and the 2021 Institute for Historical Studies Conference, "Climate in Context: Historical Precedents and the Unprecedented" (April 22-23). "Among many other questions, the conference will ask: Can history offer an alternative to visions of the future that appear to be determined by prevailing climate models, and help provide us with new ways of understanding human agency?"

Episode 130: Black Reconstruction in Indian Territory Apr 14, 2021

Nineteenth-Century Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma) was home to a wide array of groups including Native American Nations, enslaved Indian Freed-people, African Americans, White settlers, and others. In a conversation on Black Reconstruction in Indian Territory, Alaina Roberts discusses what Reconstruction might have meant for Black people in what is now called Oklahoma in the years immediately following the Civil War, and why it should be included in broader conversations about Reconstruction. Roberts' new book, I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), ties African American and Native American history tightly together, revealing a western theatre of Civil War and Reconstruction in which Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians, their Black slaves, and African Americans and whites from the eastern United States fought military and rhetorical battles to lay claim to land in Indian Territory that had been taken from others.

Episode 129: Slavery in the West Apr 07, 2021

In the antebellum years, freedom and unfreedom often overlapped, even in states that were presumed "free states." According to a new book by Kevin Waite, this was in part because the reach of the Slave South extended beyond the traditional South into newly admitted free and slave states. States like California found their legislatures filled with former Southerners who hoped to see California and others align with their politics. "They pursued that vision through diplomacy, migration, and armed conquest. By the late 1850s, slaveholders and their allies had transformed the southwestern quarter of the nation – California, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Utah – into a political client of the plantation states." But it didn't end there. The "continental South" as Waite calls it, had visions of extending into Central and South America as well as the Pacific. In West of Slavery, Waite "brings to light what contemporaries recognized but historians have described only in part: The struggle over slavery played out on a transcontinental stage."

Episode 128: The Racial Geography Tour at U.T. Austin Mar 31, 2021

For almost two decades, Edmund (Ted) Gordon has been leading tours of UT Austin that show how racism, patriarchy, and politics are baked into the landscape and architecture of the campus. According to the now digitized tour’s website, “What began as lectures about UT’s Black history turned into a more sustained research project about the […]

Episode 127: History of the U.S.-Mexico Border Region Mar 24, 2021

In recent years, conversations about the US-Mexico border have centered around the border wall. However, according to today’s guest, C.J. Alvarez, the wall is one of many construction projects that have occurred in the border region in the last 30 years. "From the boundary surveys of the 1850s to the ever-expanding fences and highway networks of the twenty-first century, Border Land, Border Water examines the history of the construction projects that have shaped the region where the United States and Mexico meet."

Episode 126: Postwar Lesbian History Mar 11, 2021

Stereotypes of the 1950s family generally include a hardworking husband, a diligent housewife, their children, and a white picket fence. However, research by Lauren Gutterman and others suggests a much more flexible family system that could sometimes include same-sex relationships. In today's episode, we talk to Dr. Gutterman about the postwar family, her book, Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage, the stories of the women who "who struggled to balance marriage and same-sex desire in the postwar United States" and how this new history expands the landscape of LGBTQ history in this period to include the "homes of married women, who tended to engage in affairs with wives and mothers they met in the context of their daily lives: through work, at church, or in their neighborhoods."

Episode 125: Environmental Justice and Indigenous History Mar 03, 2021

In the Spring of 2016, protests concerning the Dakota Access Pipeline dominated national headlines. For many people, it was the first time they'd thought about the relationship between Indigenous peoples and environmental justice. However, what occurred at Standing Rock and the #NoDAPL movement was part of a long history of Indigenous resistance and protest. In today’s episode, Dina Gilio-Whitaker describes the importance of those events and how they are connected to other movements, past and present. Her most recent book, As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock, Gilio-Whitaker (a citizen of the Colville Confederated Tribes) explores this history through the lens of “Indigenized Environmental Justice” through the " fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle.”

Episode 124: The “Spanish” Influenza of 1918-1920 Mar 25, 2020

In the age of COVID19 and coronavirus, lots of people are talking about the Spanish flu. What was the Spanish flu, and what can it teach us about the current crisis?

Episode 123: Scientific, Geographic & Historiographic Inventions of Colombia Oct 02, 2019

Today's guest, Lina del Castillo, recently published a book titled Crafting Republic for the World: Scientific, Geographic, and Historiographic Inventions of Colombia, which offers a new understanding of how Gran Colombia--which split from Spain at the beginning of the 19th century, and then further subdivided into Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador--came to deal with its own past, and the role that science, geography, and history came to play alongside politics as the former colonies grew into nationhood.

Episode 122: The History of Sexual Orientation Conversion Therapy in the U.S. Sep 18, 2019

Sexual orientation conversion therapy, the attempt to change one's sexual orientation through psychological or therapeutic practice, has now been banned in 17 American states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, three Canadian provinces, one state in Australia and several nations in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Beyond the merits of sexual orientation conversion therapy as a medical practice, however, lies a social importance of what the practice represents for a segment of American society.

Episode 121: The Case for Women’s History Sep 04, 2019

Today's guests are the editors of the Oxford Handbook of American Women's and Gender History. Ellen Hartigan O'Connor and Lisa Matterson, both professors of history at the University of California, Davis, join us to discuss the field of women's studies, which as they've argued in the introduction to the book, is not an esoteric topic at all, but actually quite critical to our understanding of American history.

Episode 120: Slave-Owning Women in the Antebellum U.S. Mar 29, 2019

Historians have long assumed that white women in the U.S. south benefited only indirectly from the ownership of enslaved people. Historians have neglected these women because their behavior didn’t conform to the picture we have of the patriarchal culture of the 18-19 century marriage. In an extraordinary new book, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers shows that “slave […]

Episode 119: Beatlemania and the 55th Anniversary of the First Beatles Tour to the US Mar 11, 2019

The Beatles arrived for their first concert in the United States on February 11, 1964 to rabid fanfare. Legions of screaming women greeted John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr on every stop of the U.S. tour, leading to observers dubbing the period as “Beatlemania.” As one of the most commercially successful and […]

Episode 118: The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science Feb 22, 2019

Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentieth century, Megan Raby details how ecologists took advantage of growing U.S. landholdings in the circum-Caribbean […]

Episode 117: Albert Einstein – Separating Man from Myth Feb 08, 2019

The subject of endless speculation, fascination, and laudatory writings, German physicist Albert Einstein captured the imaginations of millions after his discoveries transformed the field of physics. Hailed as a god, saint, a miracle, and even a canonized angel by his biographers and contemporaries alike, Einstein seems a figure worthy of his larger than life status. […]

Episode 116: Jewish Life in 20th Century Iran Jan 25, 2019

Iran is home to the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. At its peak in the 20th century, the population of Jews was over 100,000; today about 25,000 Jews still live in Iran. Iranian Jews rejected the siren call of the Zionist movement to instead participate in the Iranian nationbuilding process, welcoming European refugees during World War II, and participating in international exchanges between Iran and Israel.

Episode 115: Violent Policing of the Texas Border Jan 11, 2019

Between 1910 and 1920, an era of state-sanctioned racial violence descended upon the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas Rangers, local ranchers, and U.S. soldiers terrorized ethnic Mexican communities, under the guise of community policing. They enjoyed a culture of impunity, in which, despite state investigations, no one was ever prosecuted. This period left generations of Texans with […]

Episode 114: Slavery in Indian Territory Dec 17, 2018

Many American Indian cultures, like the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, practiced a form of non-hereditary slavery for centuries before contact with Europeans. But after Europeans arrived on Native shores, and they forcibly brought African people into labor in the beginning of the 17th century, the dynamics of native slavery practices changed. Supporting the Confederacy during […]

Episode 113: 1968 – The Year the Dream Died Dec 07, 2018

The year 1968 was a momentous and turbulent year throughout the world: from the Prague Spring and the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F Kennedy, to the Tet offensive and the surprise victory of Richard Nixon (possibly the most normal thing that […]

Episode 112: Harvey Milk, Forty Years Later Nov 26, 2018

On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk and George Moscone were murdered in San Francisco’s City Hall. Milk was one of the first openly gay politicians in California, and his short political career was not only emblematic of the wider gay liberation movement at the time, but his death and legacy inspired a new generation of […]

Episode 111: The Legacy of World War I in Germany and Russia Nov 09, 2018

In this second roundtable on the legacy of The Great War, we are joined by David Crew and Charters Wynn from UT's History Department to discuss the war's impact on Germany and Russia.

Episode 110: The Legacy of WWI in the Balkans and Middle East Nov 05, 2018

On October 30, 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed a treaty of capitulation to the Allied Powers aboard the HMS Agamemnon, a British battleship docked in Mudros harbor on the Aegean island of Lemnos. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were the first of the Central Powers to formally end their participation in World War I. Five days […]

Episode 109: The Tango and Samba Sep 25, 2018

The first notes of the samba and the tango instantly capture ones attention, transporting the listener to Bahia and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the River Plate in Argentina. Seen as national symbols for their respective countries, the samba and the tango are more than just popular musical and dance genres. A deeper dive into the development of these musical genres reveals a conflict between African slaves, indigenous people, and European migrants over musical identity and Latin American state formation.

Episode 108: A History of the U.S. Marine Corps Sep 10, 2018

The US Marine Corps may now proudly boast to be the home of the few and the proud, but this wasn’t always the case. In the early part of the 20th century, it was the poorest funded and least respected branch of the military, and at the end of World War Two there was actually […]

Episode 107: The Yazid Inscription Jun 12, 2018

A new archaeological find seems to provide the first contemporary evidence of a major figure in the early history of Islam–and even more fascinating, it appears to have been written by a loyal Christian Arab subject.

Episode 106: The Blood Libel May 16, 2018

In Kiev, in 1911, a Jewish factory manager named Mendel Beilis was indicted for murdering a young boy. Many believed that Beilis had carried out the murder as part of a ritual known as the “blood libel,” in which Jews used the blood of gentile children for baking Passover matzo. Where the idea of the […]

Episode 105: Slavery and Abolition Apr 25, 2018

Host: Brooks Winfree, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest: Manisha Sinha, Draper Chair in American History, University of Connecticut It’s well known in American history that slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment to the constitution, however, the debate over slavery and the movement to abolish it is as old as the American republic itself. Who […]

Episode 104: Foreign Fighters in the Spanish Civil War Apr 04, 2018

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which pitted a left-leaning Republic, suported by the Soviet Union, against right-leaning nationalists, supported by the Nazi, more than 35,000 people from more than 50 countries went to Spain to fight against fascism for the Republic. Today’s guest, Lisa Kirschenbaum, talks about who some of those people were and […]

Episode 103: French Child Ambassadors in the East Feb 21, 2018

Guest Julia Gossard shares her research into the fascinating world of child ambassadors who were expected to live in two worlds and create lasting relationships between France and a global network of allies.

Episode 102: The “Servant Girl Annihilator” Jan 17, 2018

Lauren Henley describes the events of 1884-85, but also discusses how these murders tell us something about the uneasy racial history of the postbellum south, and also asks what drives our fascination with serial killers and unsolved mysteries.

Episode 101: The Bolshevik Revolution at 100 Jan 04, 2018

Today's guest, Sheila Fitzpatrick, discusses some of the myriad interpretations that have been given to the 1917 revolutions, judgments about its success and importance, and offers insight into Russia's own subdued attitude toward the centenary.

Episode 100: Extravaganza Spectacular! Nov 29, 2017

In which we take the occasion to ask the important questions like: how in the world did we get to 100 episodes?

Episode 99: The 40 Acres During World War I Nov 08, 2017

As we near the 99th anniversary of Armistice Day, Ben Wright from UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, takes a look at World War One on our very own home front: the storied Forty Acres of the University of Texas at Austin.

Episode 98: Brazil’s Teatro Negro and Afro-Brazilian Identity Oct 18, 2017

Guest Gustavo Cerqueira explores the cultural sterotypes that centuries of slavery left in post-emancipation Brazil, and the ways that teatro negro sought to re-position Afro-Brazilian people--literally--on the national stage.

Episode 97: The Zionist Movement in Czechoslovakia Sep 27, 2017

Guest Tatjana Lichtenstein has studied the Zionist movement in Czechoslovakia and gives us a glimpse into the interwar period when Czech Jewish leaders saw the possibility of being accepted into European society.

Episode 96: Louis XIV’s Absolutism and the “Affair of the Poisons” Sep 13, 2017

Julia Gossard walks us through the connections between Louis XIV's absolutist rule and a fantastic series of events that's become known as "The Affair of the Poisons."

Episode 95: The Impossible Presidency Sep 01, 2017

Returning guest Jeremi Suri (UT-Austin) takes a long historical look at what has made presidents successful in the role of chief executive, and asks whether the office has evolved to take on too much responsibility to govern effectively.

Episode 94: Populism Mar 08, 2017

Our guest for this episode, Dr. Steven Hahn of New York University helps us turn this political buzzword into a historical phenomenon from a time period in American history that has a number of parallels with our own.

Episode 93: Women and the Tamil Epics Feb 15, 2017

Guest Andrea Gutierrez introduces us to epic South Asian poems from the beginning of the first millennium that past the Bechdel test, when women's narrative critiqued, cajoled, narrated, and provided guidance for the devout.

Episode 92: Disability History in the United States Jan 18, 2017

First year history graduate student John Carranza, specializing in disability history, sheds some light on historical representations of disability, and how modern understanding of disability is informed by the past.

Episode 91: The History of the Family Dec 14, 2016

Steven Mintz has long been interested in the transformations of family life through the ages and, in this episode, talks about how nearly everything we think we know about family life would be unrecognizable even a century ago.

Episode 90: Stokely Carmichael: A Life Nov 30, 2016

Preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph, discusses Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century.

Episode 89: Seven Skeletons Nov 02, 2016

How does a fossil become a celebrity? Lydia Pyne shares vivid examples of how human ancestors have been remembered, received, and immortalized.

Episode 88: The Search for Family Lost in Slavery Oct 19, 2016

Our guest today, Heather Williams, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Help Me Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery.

Episode 87: Nigeria’s Civil War & The Origins of American Humanitarian Interventions Sep 27, 2016

Brian McNeil specializes in history of United States foreign relations, and is currently revising his book manuscript titled, Frontiers of Need: the Nigerian Civil War and the Origins of American Humanitarian Intervention, the subject of this episode.

Episode 86: Rethinking the Agricultural “Revolution” Sep 07, 2016

A few years ago, scholars suggested that the Agricultural Revolution in mankind's deep past might have been nothing short of a disaster. Not so fast, says Rachel Laudan, this week's guest, while raising some new questions of her own.

Episode 85: Brexit Aug 24, 2016

Philippa Levine from UT's Department of History and Program in British Studies walks us through the contemporary British politics and rocky history of Britain and the EU that contributed to this historic decision.

Episode 84: Behind the Tower: New Histories of the UT Tower Shooting Aug 01, 2016

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman climbed the iconic Main Building tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus with a small arsenal of weapons and opened fire.

Episode 83: Simone de Beauvoir and ‘The Second Sex’ May 11, 2016

Simone de Beauvoir's seminal work, The Second Sex, is a dense two volume work that can be intimidating at first glance, combining philosophy and psychology, and her own observations.

Episode 82: What Writing Can Tell Us About the Arabs before Islam Apr 27, 2016

Guest Ahmad al-Jallad shares his research that’s shedding new light on the writings of a complex civilization that lived in the Arabian peninsula for centuries before Islam arose.

Episode 81: The Trans-Pacific Silver Trade and Early-Modern Globalization Apr 13, 2016

Guest Ashley Dean just completed her doctorate in history at Emory University examining the impacts of this pre-modern trans-Pacific linkage whose far-reaching impact touched nearly every part of the globe.

Episode 80: Colonial Medicine and STDs in 1920s Uganda Mar 30, 2016

Guest Ben Weiss discusses the earliest encounters between indigenous Africans and European medical practitioners.

Episode 79: Fishmeal—The Superfood That Never Was Mar 02, 2016

Guest Kristin Wintersteen has worked on the history of industry subject to the temperaments of on-again off-again current cycles in the Pacific, and how the boom and bust of one of the first superfoods has led to new discussions about global nutrition.

Episode 78: The U.S. and Decolonization after World War II Feb 10, 2016

Guest R. Joseph Parrott takes a look at the indecisive position the United States took on decolonization after helping liberate Europe from the threat of enslavement to fascism.

Episode 77: The Paris Commune Jan 27, 2016

This episode takes a new look at how the Paris Commune's radical government managed to find support from rich and poor, conservative and liberal, to try to regain dignity in the face of France’s brutal defeat.

Episode 76: The Trans-Pacific Slave Trade Jan 13, 2016

Guest Kristie Flannery found Diego's story in the Spanish colonial archives, and narrates his tale in the broader context of the powerful political and economic forces at work in Spain's global empire.

Episode 75: The Birmingham Qur’ān Nov 04, 2015

Guest Christopher Rose has been following the headlines and puts the discovery of the Birmingham Qur'ān within the larger field of Islamic and Qur'ānic Studies, and explains how the text might raise as many questions as it answers.

Episode 74: The Changsha Rice Riots of 1910 Oct 21, 2015

James Joshua Hudson describes surprising finds he made conducting fieldwork in Hunan that offer a glimpse into the deeply layered social tensions on the eve of the downfall of the Qing dynasty.

Episode 73: The Borderlands War, 1915-20 Oct 07, 2015

In the early part of the 20th century, Texas became more integrated into the United States with the arrival of the railroad. With easier connections to the country, its population began to shift away from reflecting its origins as a breakaway part of Mexico toward a more Anglo demographic, one less inclined to adapt to existing Texican culture and more inclined to view it through a lens of white racial superiority. Between 1915 and 1920, an undeclared war broke out that featured some of the worst racial violence in American history; an outbreak that's become known as the Borderlands War. Guest John Moran Gonzales from UT's Department of English and Center for Mexican American Studies has curated an exhibition on the Borderlands War called "Life and Death on the Border, 1910-1920," and tells us about this little known episode in Mexican-American history.

Episode 72: Roundtable – Antiquities in Danger Sep 23, 2015

Our first roundtable features three experts who've taken the destruction of sites where they've worked and lived seriously, and are working to raise awareness of the importance of antiquities in danger around the world.

Episode 71: The Rise and Fall of the Latvian National Communists Sep 09, 2015

Guest Mike Loader gives an enthusiastic look at high drama at the peak of the cold war, which gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Soviet Union from a different perspective.

Episode 70: Slavery and Abolition in Iran Aug 26, 2015

Our first episode of Season 4 explores the little known history of slavery in Iran, how it came to be abolished in the 19th century, and how Iranian society has slowly forgotten its involvement with the human trade.

Episode 69: The Amateur Photography Movement in the Soviet Union May 27, 2015

Guest Jessica Werneke has just completed her doctorate that looks at this oft-overlooked aspect of Soviet society, and discusses the turbulent world of amateur photography in the Soviet Union.

Episode 68: The Russian Empire on the Eve of World War 1 May 13, 2015

Dominic Lieven of the London School of Economics has spent his career examining problems of political stability in Europe in the 19th century, and helps us understand the world on the eve of its first global war.

Episode 67: How Jews Translate the Bible and Why Apr 29, 2015

Imagine the pressures of translating a sacred text whose language is well known and imbued with religious significance and symbolism. Leonard Greenspoon from Creighton University has done just that with translators of the Jewish Bible over the centuries.

Episode 66: Operation Intercept Mar 25, 2015

Guest James Martin from UT’s Department of History describes the motivations for President Nixon’s historic unilateral reaction and how it affected both Americans as well as our ally across the southern border.

Episode 65: Darwinism and the Scopes “Monkey Trial” Mar 05, 2015

Adam Shapiro from Birkbeck University describes how evolution was first received in the United States, and the debates that led up to its most famous test–the Scopes “Monkey Trial” held in Dayton, Tennessee, in the 1920s.

Episode 64: Monumental Sculpture of Preclassic Mesoamerica Feb 18, 2015

Professor Julia Guernsey from UT's Department of Art and Art History combines the methodology of history, art history, and archaeology to offer a new look into this mysterious period at the beginning of recorded history in the Americas.

Episode 63: Ezra and the Compilation of the Pentateuch Feb 04, 2015

Guest Richard Bautch from St Edward's University in Austin discusses current thinking about the formation of the Pentateuch during the time of Ezra.

Episode 62: Sunni and Shi’a in Medieval Syria Jan 21, 2015

Art Historian Stephennie Mulder has spent the past decade working in Syria and shares a new look at history of Sunni and Shi'a in Syria during the medieval period; and how both histories are threatened by ISIS and the Syrian Civil War.

Episode 61: The Fatimids Jan 07, 2015

Shainool Jiwa illuminates an often overlooked chapter in the history of Islamic sectarianism, one in which religious differences were used to unify diverse populations under the rule of a minority government, rather than to divide and alienate them.

Episode 60: Texas and the American Revolution Dec 17, 2014

Ben Wright of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History has been working with the Bexar archives to document how Spain’s–and Texas’s–efforts to divert sources of food and funding to American colonial troops.

Episode 59: John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company Dec 03, 2014

Guest Henry Wiencek explores the deep contradictions and equally varied representations of John D. Rockefeller, the self-made millionaire whose name became synonymous with industry and free enterprise.

Episode 58: Islam’s First Civil War Nov 12, 2014

In picking up where Episode 57 left off, guest Shahrzad Ahmadi describes the tragic turn of events that sent shockwaves through the nascent Islamic community, and that continue to reverberate today.

Episode 57: The Succession to Muhammad Oct 29, 2014

Nearly every world history textbook on the market explains the origins of sectarianism in the Islamic world as a dispute over the succession to Muhammad. It seems simple—but was it?

Episode 56: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 Oct 15, 2014

Guest Michelle Daneri helps us understand contemporary thinking about the ways that Spanish and Native Americans exchanged ideas, knowledge, and adapted to each others' presence in the Southwest.

Episode 55: Witch Hunting in Early Modern Europe Oct 01, 2014

Guest Brian Levack explains that medieval accusations of witchcraft are not supernatural at all, but based in the human need to explain the ordinary cycles of birth, death, sickness, wellness, and the constant struggle between rich and poor.

Episode 54: Urban Slavery in the Antebellum United States Sep 17, 2014

Daina Ramey Berry, from UT's Department of History, and Leslie Harris, from Emory University, have spent the past year collaborating on a new study aimed at re-discovering this forgotten aspect of slave experience in the United States.

Episode 53: Cats and Dogs in History Sep 03, 2014

Guest Francesca Consagra helps us make connections across centuries and genres and underscores our complex relationships to cats and dogs, revealing the many ways in which they say as much about us as we do about them.

Episode 52: The Precolumbian Civilizations of Mesoamerica Apr 30, 2014

Ann Twinam from UT's Department of History discusses three of the major Mesoamerican civilizations: the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec (Mexica), and their once-forgotten contributions to human civilization.

Episode 51: Islam’s Enigmatic Origins Apr 23, 2014

Fred M. Donner has spent much of his career studying the earliest history of Islam. He offers his hypothesis on what the early Islamic community may have looked like, and describes an exciting new find that may shed new light on an old puzzle.

Episode 50: White Women of the Harlem Renaissance Apr 16, 2014

Guest Carla Kaplan, author of Miss Anne in Harlem: White Women of the Harlem Renaissance, joins us to talk about the ways white women crossed both racial and gender lines during this period of black affirmation and political and cultural assertion.

Episode 49: The Harlem Renaissance Apr 09, 2014

Guest Frank Guridy joins us to discuss the multifaceted, multilayered movement that inspired a new generation of African-Americans—and other Americans—and demonstrated the importance of Black culture and its contributions to the West.

Episode 48: Indian Ocean Trade and European Dominance Apr 02, 2014

In the late 15th century, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and conquered the Indian Ocean, bringing the rich trade under the direct control of the crowned heads of Europe and their appointed Indian Ocean Trading Companies. Or did he? Did Europe ever really come to dominate the 90,000 year old trade, […]

Episode 47: Indian Ocean Trade from its Origins to the Eve of Imperialism Mar 26, 2014

In the first of a two part episode guest Susan Douglass describes the murky beginnings of trade and travel in the Indian Ocean basin, and the cultural exchanges and influences that the trade had in the days before the Europeans arrived.

Episode 46: Ukraine and Russia Mar 12, 2014

Guest Charles E. King from Georgetown University discusses the state of Ukranian-Russian relations, and historical developments in Ukraine itself to help us understand the situation in Ukraine today.

Episode 45: An Iranian Intellectual Visits Israel Mar 05, 2014

Guest Samuel Thrope offers a fascinating look at a time when Iranian socialists looked at Israel as a possible model for what Iran could become—and how that vision soured after the 1967 Six Day War.

Episode 44: Climate Change and World History Feb 26, 2014

Guest Sam White from Ohio State University makes the convincing argument that environmental and climactic factors are as influential in human history as economic, social, political, and cultural factors.

Episode 43: Segregating Pop Music Feb 19, 2014

Guest Karl Hagstrom Miller helps us understand how popular music came to be segregated as artists negotiated the restrictions known as the "Jim Crow" laws in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Episode 42: The Senses of Slavery Feb 12, 2014

Guest Daina Ramey Berry she discusses teaching the "senses of slavery," a teaching tool that taps into the senses in order to connect to one of the most important eras in US history and bring it to the present.

Episode 41: The Myth of Race in America Feb 05, 2014

Guest Jacqueline Jones, one of the foremost experts on the history of racial history in the United States, helps us understand race and race relations by exposing some of its astonishing paradoxes from the earliest day to Obama's America.

Episode 40: Developing the Amazon Jan 29, 2014

Guest Seth Garfield shows how a little-known chapter of World War II history illuminates the ways outsiders’ understandings of the nature of the Amazon have evolved over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Episode 39: The Royal Proclamation of 1763 Jan 22, 2014

Guest Robert Olwell describes the Royal Proclamation of 1763, its effects on the history of colonial North America, and ponders whether it is really the smoking gun that caused the American Revolution as some have claimed.

Episode 38: The International Energy Crisis of 1973 Jan 15, 2014

Guest Chris Dietrich explains the origins of the oil crisis and the ways it shifted international relations in its wake.

Episode 37: The Ottoman Balkans Jan 08, 2014

Guest Mary Neuburger walks us through current historical thinking about the five hundred year legacy of Ottoman rule in southeastern Europe, and gives us an alternate explanation for the turbulence of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Episode 36: Apartheid Dec 18, 2013

Guest Joseph Parrott helps us understand the system of "separateness" that dominated the lives of South Africans of all races for so long, and introduces us to the key organizations and players that fought against it and finally dismantled it.

Episode 35: The Egyptian Revolution Dec 11, 2013

Guest Sahar F. Aziz helps us understand the political earthquakes in Egypt's bumpy transition from authoritarian rule to what comes next, and sheds light on what it might take for the country to arrive at the democracy its people demanded in the streets.

Episode 34: The Social Legacy of Andrew Jackson Dec 04, 2013

Guest Michelle Daneri from UT's Department of History helps us sort through the political forces that brought Andrew Jackson to office, and the long lasting impact of his presidency.

Episode 33: The American Revolution in Global Context, Part 2 Nov 27, 2013

In this second of a two-part episode, guest James M. Vaughn walks us through the long and often painful process that took our founding fathers to the decision to split off from the world's most powerful empire and go their own way.

Episode 32: The American Revolution in Global Context, Part I Nov 20, 2013

Guest James M. Vaughn helps us understand the little known international context of a well-known national moment, pondering questions of politics, economics, and ideas that transcend national boundaries.

Episode 31: Who are the Turks? Nov 13, 2013

Carter Vaughn Findley has spent a career working on the Turkic peoples and helps us trace their long migration from the Gobi to the Bosphorus, adapting, absorbing, and transforming themselves and the societies they interact with along the way.

Episode 30: Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an Nov 06, 2013

Guest Denise A. Spellberg sheds light on a little known facet of American history: our earliest imaginings of the Islamic world, and comes to some surprising conclusions about the extent of religious freedoms envisioned by one of the key founding fathers.

Episode 29: The Slavic Vampire Oct 30, 2013

Guest Thomas Garza takes us on the trail of vampires from their eleventh century origins to the days of Stoker, Harris, and Meyer, and helps us learn a thing or two about how society copes with its deepest fears along the way.

Episode 28: “Demonic Possession” in Early Modern Europe Oct 23, 2013

In this supernatural-themed episode (just in time for Halloween!), guest Brian Levack talks about his research into the deeper social causes and meanings of alleged “demonic possessions” in early modern Europe.

Episode 27: History of the Ottoman Empire, Part 2 Sep 18, 2013

Guest Barbara Petzen returns to walk us through the cobbled lanes of Istanbul, past bath houses and coffee houses, to help us look at the Ottoman Empire as a nuanced, complex, and changing entity that defies the traditional story of "decline and fall."

Episode 26: History of the Ottoman Empire, Part I Sep 11, 2013

Guest Barbara Petzen helps to shed some light on the origins and rise of the empire that rivaled Europe for centuries.

Episode 25: Mexican Migration to the U.S. Sep 04, 2013

An overview of the history of Mexican Migration to the U.S. since 1848.

Episode 24: European Imperialism in the Middle East (part 2) May 29, 2013

In the second half of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies discusses the lingering effects of 20th century European imperialism in the region and the transition to independence.

Episode 23: European Imperialism in the Middle East (part 1) May 22, 2013

In this first of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies walks us through the beginnings of European imperialism in the Middle East.

Episode 22: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (Part 2) May 08, 2013

In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself?

Episode 21: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (part 1) May 01, 2013

In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself?

Episode 20: Reconstruction Apr 24, 2013

After the chaos of the American Civil War, Congress and lawmakers had to figure out how to put the Union back together again–no easy feat, considering that issues of political debate were settled on the battlefield, but not in the courtroom nor in the arena of public opinion. How did the defeated South and often […]

Episode 19: Inside the Indian Independence Movement Apr 17, 2013

Aarti Bhalodia discusses the push for South Asian independence from British colonial rule which resulted in the mass migration of 100 million people, one of the most pivotal, and traumatic, events of the 20th century.

Episode 18: Eugenics Apr 10, 2013

Philippa Levine explains the wide-reaching effects of the eugenics movement, which at its best inspired the eradication of harmful diseases, but at its worst led to compulsory sterilization, and the horrific experiments of the Nazi death camps.

Episode 17: The Buddha and His Time Apr 03, 2013

Who was the historical Buddha? When and where did he live? And what were the social currents and forces in his own time that shaped his worldview and led him to renounce the world in an effort to save humanity from itself?

Episode 16: The First Illegal Aliens? Mar 13, 2013

Madeline Y Hsu discusses the tumultuous experience of Chinese immigration to the U.S., the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and sheds light on the lingering immigration issues first discussed in the 19th century.

Episode 15: The “Era Between The Empires” of Ancient India Mar 06, 2013

Guest Patrick Olivelle from UT’s Department of Asian Studies describes the Maurya and Gupta Empires and the flourishing period of South Asian history “between the empires.”

Episode 14: Early Drafts of the Declaration of Independence Feb 27, 2013

Guest Robert Olwell takes a deeper look to get insight into Jefferson, the workings of the Congress, and the psyche of the American colonists on the eve of revolution—plus, we’ll put that whole treasure map thing to rest once and for all.

Episode 13: Simón Bolívar Feb 20, 2013

Guest Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra from UT’s Department of History discusses the intricacies of Simón Bolívar, an enigma who is still revered and reviled two centuries after his death.

Episode 12: America’s Entry in to World War I Feb 13, 2013

World War I ended the long-standing American policy of neutrality in foreign wars. What forces conspired to bring the United States into World War I, and what was the reaction at home and abroad?

Episode 11: The Haitian Revolution Feb 06, 2013

Guest Natalie Arsenault from UT’s Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies discusses the Haitian Revolution and its significance within the narrative of the political revolutions of the 18th century.

Episode 10: The Spanish Inquisition Jan 30, 2013

Guest Miriam Bodian from UT’s Department of History separates truth from legend and reveals the intricacies of the Spanish Inquisition’s processes and inner workings.

Episode 9: The End of Colonialism in South Asia Jan 23, 2013

Guest Snehal Shingavi from UT’s Department of English examines the nature of British colonialism in South Asia and its lasting legacy sixty years after decolonization.

Episode 8: America and the Beginnings of the Cold War Jan 15, 2013

Historian Jeremi Suri discusses the beginnings of the Cold War, its origins in the “unfinished business” of World War II, and the ways that it changed the United States in just five short years between 1945 and 1950.

Episode 7: Russia’s October 1917 Revolution Jan 03, 2013

In the second episode discussing the tumultuous year 1917 in Russia, we examine the reasons for the failure of the February Revolution (discussed in Episode 1).

Episode 6: Effects of the Atlantic Slave Trade on the Americas Dec 03, 2012

Guest Natalie Arsenault from the University of Chicago explores the oft-ignored impact of the slave trade on other parts of the Americas.

Episode 5: Mapping Perspectives of the Mexican-American War Nov 26, 2012

Guest Chloe Ireton looks at the intriguing history of maps as propaganda and the role of two publishing houses not only in rewriting the history of the Mexican-American war, but in influencing the outcome of the war even as it was still ongoing.

Episode 4: Perspectives of the Founding Fathers Oct 25, 2012

In this episode, we’ll examine some of the lesser known Founding Fathers, and examine the ranges of opinions they held about issues from slavery to states’ rights and their opinions on the form of the new American Republic.

Episode 3: The Scramble for Africa Oct 24, 2012

This episode provides an overview of the Scramble for Africa and how the 1885 Berlin Conference changed European colonialism on the continent.

Episode 2: Islamic Extremism in the Modern World Oct 18, 2012

In this episode, we tackle “that pesky standard” in the Texas World History course that requires students to understand the development of “radical Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent use of terrorism by some of its adherents.”

Episode 1: The February Revolution of 1917 Oct 18, 2012

Guest Joan Neuberger from UT’s Department of History discusses the long-simmering causes of the revolution and discontent in Russia, and what finally lit the spark that caused the uprising that toppled the three hundred-year old Romanov dynasty.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected