The late 19th century saw the rise of the English middle class shape urban development.By Black's History Week

As English cities grew, the need for social reform and sanitation grew with them. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk sewers, urbanism and do-goodery.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the politics of urban life in the nineteenth century, from the condition of the poor to concerns about the effects of alcohol.By Black's History Week

19th century English Towns were more than political and industrial centres, they came to shape and influence our collective imagination. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the English city in history and in literature.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart ask whether the eighteenth century English town really offered a higher quality of life. Fortunes could be made, but there was also conflict and disillusionment.By Black's History Week

London expanded and ports boomed, but many provincial towns lagged behind — Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the uneven progress of urban England in the eighteenth century.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the politics of British urban life in the 17th and 18th centuries. How were townspeople represented, and how did they differ from ruralites?By Black's History Week

England's urban landscape was forever transformed by the ravages of plague, and the march of reform. Jeremy Blacks joins Graham Stewart to discuss the 17th century town.By Black's History Week

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss English towns during the Civil War, and how the royalist-parliamentarian divide ran through every community.By Black's History Week

The 16th century was a time of economic, demographic and religious ferment and change for English towns. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart for another in his ongoing series on English urban history.By Black's History Week

The medieval English town was subject to fire, flood, plague — and revolution. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss how growing wealth fueled urban conflict.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart continue discussing the history of the English town, from the Saxon period to the Norman era and the early Medieval periodBy Black's History Week

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the birth, development and decline of British towns in the Roman and Dark Ages.By Black's History Week

Must a city have a cathedral? Must a place with a cathedral be a city? Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the often contested evolution and definition of English towns and their historical significance.By Black's History Week

In this new series on the history of English towns, Professor Jeremy Black talks about various aspects of town life, including social experiences, economic opportunities, political views, and cultural aspirations.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the future of higher education. How can institutions be more efficient and effective? Find out in this final episode on our mini-series on the academia.By Black's History Week

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss why the teaching of military history in decline at our universities.By Black's History Week

In a new episode of their series on higher education, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the pathologies of university administration, grade inflation and why “older” does not always mean “better”By Black's History Week

Jeremy Black, historian of Exeter University, reflects on his own experience of the shifting demands and priorities on campus.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss declining scholarly standards, the state of peer review and the sycophantic treatment of subpar work.By Black's History Week

From perverse incentives and failing financial models to the declining focus on teaching and the student experience, Jeremy Black explores what's gone wrong at British universities.By Black's History Week

In the first episode of this two part series, Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the financial, corporate and cultural forces undermining the quality of British and American higher education.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the decline of waterways in the 20th Century as competing transport systems vie for government support and investment.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss how, in competition with the railways, British canals and canal boats were adapted to embrace steam power.By Black's History Week

On this week's Black's History Week podcast, continuing our series on the history of British waterways. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss how Britain created a national system of canals connecting resources, industry, cities and maritime trade.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart guide the boat of their new series on waterways into the 1800s, and discuss the politics and economics of the development of the British canal network.By Black's History Week

In the second episode of their new series on canals, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss travel, commerce and innovation on the rivers of Tudor and Stuart BritainBy Black's History Week

All aboard! Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart begin a new series on canals by discussing the importance of transport on rivers in medieval Britain.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the bleak state of roads in modern Britain. Infrastructure is underfunded. People who are dependent on cars are being neglected. The future of electric vehicles is uncertain. Are we crawling to a standstill?By Black's History Week

Jeremy Black discusses with Graham Stewart how motorways and bypasses changed getting about Britain from the late 1950s to the 1990s.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the slow development of British roads and automobiles in the 20th Century, the gradual increase in affordability, and how films and literature magnified the romance of the motor car.By Black's History Week

The 19th Century is most famous for its railways, but Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart are here to tell us that roads were significant as well. How did they develop, in scale and in quality? What sort of science and engineering was involved? And what accidents took place?By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss whether turnpikes transformed travel in eighteenth century Britain or represented a means of revenue-raising from traffic whilst offering marginal improvement in return?By Black's History Week

On the long journey from the middle ages to the early modern period, the British road underwent radical changes in both purpose and design. Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart walk the winding path of British transport history.By Black's History Week

What have the Romans done for us? For one thing, they built a lot of roads. In the first episode of a new series of podcasts on transport, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the development of British roads.By Black's History Week

Ridley Scott's Napoleon bends history to breaking point. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk historical fact and fiction.By Black's History Week

How does geopolitics help us to understand international relations today? In the last episode of their series on geopolitics, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart attempt to transcend the glib explanations one finds elsewhere to reflect on technology, conflicting interests and the evolution of thought in the field.…

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the subtle nature of Chinese geopolitics, with its debt servitude and its self-serving propaganda.By Black's History Week

The 1990s were supposed to be the decade of American triumph – and for a time, it seemed like it was. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk post-Cold War geopolitics.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the Cold War in the 1980s, its different military and diplomatic manifestations and the weaknesses of elegant geopolitical narratives.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss Ostpolitik and Atlanticism in a post-Vietnam age and the surprising level of agency enjoyed by the less powerful states in the Cold War.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk 1960s geopolitics, the Cold War, and the long war in South East Asia.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the Cold War in the 1950s, the role of air forces and the development of nuclear brinksmanship.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the evolution of Cold War thought, the errors of FDR, the complexities of containment and the unpredictable nature of foreign policy commitments.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black speaks with Graham Stewart about geopolitics at the end of World War Two. Were there reasonable prospects for optimism about a new, more peaceful future? Or had power just been rearranged into differently dangerous forms? All this and China, the British Empire and more.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss geography, logistics and materiel in World War Two, and whether geopolitics represents the lens through which to see conflict or just one useful field of study.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss geopolitics in the United States in the approach to the Second World War, and the underrated importance of logistics and materiel in statecraft.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss geopolitics in Nazi Germany and the United States, and explore the questionable influence of intellectuals and the predictive value of geopolitical theories.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss British air power, geopolitics and the relationship between ideas and technological progress.By Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss how geography and infrastructure affected the First World War, but also how geopolitics is as much a rhetoric of power as a description of the world.By Black's History Week