Best Michael Moretti Podcasts (2024)

1
Roger Crowley, "Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World" (Yale UP, 2024) 54:31

25m ago54:31

54:31

The spice islands: Specks of land in the Indonesian archipelago that were the exclusive home of cloves, commodities once worth their weight in gold. The Portuguese got there first, persuading the Spanish to fund expeditions trying to go the other direction, sailing westward across the Atlantic. Roger Crowley, in his new book Spice: The 16th-Century…

1
From the East Palestine Derailment Disaster to the Toledo Water Crisis (w/ Mike Balonek & Chris Albright) 39:38

1h ago39:38

39:38

From East Palestine, Ohio, to South Baltimore and beyond, we’ve been connecting you with residents living in the toxic wastelands left by private and government-run industry—ordinary working people who have been thrust into extraordinary fights for their lives. In the latest installment of our ongoing Sacrificed series, we go to Toledo, Ohio, a cit…

1
Richard D. Oram, "Where Men No More May Reap Or Sow: The Little Ice Age: Scotland 1400-1850" (Birlinn, 2024) 1:13:57

3d ago1:13:57

1:13:57

Drawing together the evidence of archaeology, palaeoecology, climate history and the historical record, this first environmental history of Scotland explores the interaction of human populations with the land, waters, forests and wildlife. Where Men No More May Reap or Sow: The Little Ice Age: Scotland 1400–1850 (Birlinn, 2024) by Dr. Richard D. Or…

1
Tim Cooper, "When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter" (Crossway, 2024) 35:38

1h ago35:38

35:38

Our current culture seems to be increasingly divided on countless issues, including those affecting the church. But for centuries, theological disagreements, political differences, and issues relating to church leadership have made it challenging for Christians to foster unity and love for one another. In When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the …

1
Kristie Flannery, "Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024) 59:13

2h ago59:13

59:13

Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) offers a new interpretation of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippine islands. Drawing on the rich archives of Spain’s Asian empire, Dr. Kristie Patricia Flannery reveals that Spanish colonial officials and Catholic missionaries forged alliances with Indige…

1
Teamsters Members React to Sean O'Brien's RNC Speech (w/ Amber Mathwig, Tony, Chantelle, Rick Smith, Zoey Moretti Niebuhr, Jess Leigh, Kat, & Robert Conklin) 1:50:03

10d ago1:50:03

1:50:03

On Monday, July 15, on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, became the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Invited by former president Trump, who is now officially the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, O’Brien’s speech was no o…

1
Anton Howes, "Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation" (Princeton UP, 2020) 1:10:57

25m ago1:10:57

1:10:57

Over the past 300 years, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has tried to improve British life in every way imaginable. It has sought to influence education, commerce, music, art, architecture, communications, food, and every other corner of society. Arts and Minds: How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nati…

1
Michael J. Douma, "The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700-1827" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 51:29

13d ago51:29

51:29

Original and deeply researched, The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700-1827 (Cambridge University Press, 2024) provides a new interpretation of Dutch American slavery which challenges many of the traditional assumptions about slavery in New York. With an emphasis on demography and economics,…

1
Pekka Hämäläinen, "Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power" (Yale UP, 2019) 40:02

11m ago40:02

40:02

The names of Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse are often readily recognized among many Americans. Yet the longer, dynamic history of the Lakota - a history from which these three famous figures were created - remains largely untold. In Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (Yale, 2019), historian Pekka Hämäläinen, author of The C…

1
Laura Moretti and Satō Yukiko, "Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi" (Brill, 2024) 1:03:36

11d ago1:03:36

1:03:36

Part of a formidable publishing industry, cheap yet eye-catching graphic narratives consistently charmed early modern Japanese readers for around two hundred years. These booklets were called kusazōshi (“grass books”). Graphic Narratives from Early Modern Japan: The World of Kusazōshi (Brill, 2024) is the first English-language publication of its k…

1
Nuria Silleras-Fernandez, "The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:00:17

2h ago1:00:17

1:00:17

The Politics of Emotion: Love, Grief, and Madness in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Nuria Silleras-Fernandez explores the intersection of powerful emotional states—love, melancholy, grief, and madness—with gender and political power on the Iberian Peninsula from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. U…

1
Jacob Lee, "Masters of the Middle Waters: Indian Nations and Colonial Ambitions Along the Mississippi" (Harvard UP, 2019) 1:33:50

11h ago1:33:50

1:33:50

America’s waterways were once the superhighways of travel and communication. Coursing through a central line across the landscape, with tributaries connecting the South to the Great Plains and the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River meant wealth, knowledge, and power for those who could master it. In Masters of the Middle Waters: Indian Nations and …

1
Emily Wilbourne, "Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:07:06

2h ago1:07:06

1:07:06

Grounded in new archival research documenting a significant presence of foreign and racially-marked individuals in Medici Florence, Voice, Slavery, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Florence (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Emily Wilbourne argues for the relevance of such individuals to the history of Western music and for the importance of sou…

1
Toby Green, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2019) 49:04

3h ago49:04

49:04

All too often, the history of early modern Africa is told from the perspective of outsiders. In his book A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Toby Green draws upon a range of underutilized sources to describe the evolution of West Africa over a period of four…

1
Mark Peterson, "The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power" (Princeton UP, 2019) 2:23:07

1h ago2:23:07

2:23:07

In the vaunted annals of America’s founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary “city upon a hill” and the “cradle of liberty” for an independent United States. Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired clichés, The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power (Princeton University Press, 2019), highli…

1
James D. Fisher, "The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power and Agrarian Capitalism in Britain, 1660–1800" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 56:20

18d ago56:20

56:20

The rise of agrarian capitalism in Britain is usually told as a story about markets, land and wages. The Enclosure of Knowledge: Books, Power and Agrarian Capitalism in Britain, 1660–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. James Fisher reveals that it was also about books, knowledge and expertise. It argues that during the early modern perio…

1
Ed Simon, "Devil's Contract: A History of the Faustian Bargain" (Melville House, 2024) 50:31

23d ago50:31

50:31

From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one’s soul in return for untold riches and power—has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations. In Devil's Contract: A History of the Faustian Bargain (Melville House, 2024), Dr. Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, fro…

1
Dispatch from Labor Notes & Railroad Workers United Conferences (Chicago, 2024) 1:29:28

11d ago1:29:28

1:29:28

Two months ago, from April 17-21, workers and labor organizers of all stripes convened in Chicago for the bi-annual Labor Notes conference, which overlapped with the Railroad Workers United convention. As the registration website rightly noted, “Labor Notes Conferences are the biggest gatherings of grassroots labor activists, union reformers, and a…

1
Tabitha Stanmore, "Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic" (Bloombury, 2024) 33:13

6d ago33:13

33:13

Imagine: it's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do? In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might have been cunning folk: practitioners of “service mag…

1
Timothy Grieve-Carlson, "American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:05:11

7d ago1:05:11

1:05:11

American Aurora: Environment and Apocalypse in the Life of Johannes Kelpius (Oxford UP, 2024) explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensivel…

1
Elizabeth Storr Cohen and Marlee J. Couling, "Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World" (Amsterdam UP, 2023) 47:33

27d ago47:33

47:33

Elizabeth Cohen, Professor Emerita at York University, joins Jana Byars to talk about her new volume, Non-Elite Women's Networks Across the Early Modern World (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), edited with Marilee Couling. Non-elite or marginalized early modern women-among them the poor, migrants, members of religious or ethnic minorities, abused …

1
Jeremy Black, "Defoe's Britain" (St. Augustine's Press, 2023) 24:15

8d ago24:15

24:15

The Weight of Words Series continues with Defoe's Britain (St. Augustine's Press, 2023), as historian Jeremy Black uses this writer to interpret Britain in the late 1600s, and likewise looks to the times to interpret the fiction. As seen in previous studies on Christie, Smollett, Fielding, and the Gothic novelists, Black tells the story of the stor…

1
"Safe Staffing Now!": Baltimore Nurses at Largest Catholic Health Network in US Fight On for First Contract (w/ Nicki Horvat) 23:40

11d ago23:40

23:40

On the morning of Thursday, June 20, unionized nurses at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore held a rally outside the hospital to raise awareness of their efforts to secure a first contract and to show management that they’re not backing down from their core demands for safe staffing and an operational model that puts patients and patient car…

1
Denva Gallant, "Illuminating the Vitae Patrum: The Lives of Desert Saints in Fourteenth-Century Italy" (Penn State UP, 2024) 52:54

14d ago52:54

52:54

During the fourteenth century in Western Europe, there was a growing interest in imitating the practices of a group of hermits known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Laypeople and religious alike learned about their rituals not only through readings from the Vitae Patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers) and sermons but also through the images that b…

1
Matthew Goldmark, "Forms of Relation: Composing Kinship in Colonial Spanish America" (U Virginia Press, 2023) 39:32

15d ago39:32

39:32

Drawing on literary texts, conversion manuals, and colonial correspondence from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain and Peru, Forms of Relation: Composing Kinship in Colonial Spanish America (University of Virginia, 2023) shows the importance of textual, religious, and bureaucratic ties to struggles over colonial governance and identities. Dr.…

1
Nicola Clark, "The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens" (Norton, 2024) 59:57

15d ago59:57

59:57

Every Tudor Queen had ladies-in-waiting. They were her confidantes and her chaperones. Only the Queen's ladies had the right to enter her most private chambers, spending hours helping her to get dressed and undressed, caring for her clothes and jewels, listening to her secrets. But they also held a unique power. A quiet word behind the scenes, an a…

1
In Brazil, the Climate Crisis Is Already Turning Working People into Climate Refugees (w/ Michael Fox) 54:29

19d ago54:29

54:29

“Southern Brazil is facing its worst climate tragedy ever," Latin-America-based journalist Mike Fox wrote from Brazil for the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) in early May. "Unprecedented floods have impacted 1.4 million people and forced more than 160,000 people from their homes... The images are shocking. Downtown Porto Alegre, th…

1
Matthijs Lok, "Europe Against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Making of the Past" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 56:51

20d ago56:51

56:51

Contemporary Europe seems to be divided between progressive cosmopolitans sympathetic to the European Union and the ideals of the Enlightenment, and counter-enlightened conservative nationalists extolling the virtues of homelands threatened by globalised elites and mass migration. Europe Against Revolution: Conservatism, Enlightenment, and the Maki…

1
Henry Reece, "The Fall: The Last Days of the English Republic" (Yale UP, 2024) 36:11

21d ago36:11

36:11

Why did England's one experiment in republican rule fail? Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658 sparked a period of unrivalled turmoil and confusion in English history. In less than two years, there were close to ten changes of government; rival armies of Englishmen faced each other across the Scottish border; and the Long Parliament was finally dissolve…

1
Judith Vitale et al., "Drugs and the Politics of Consumption in Japan" (Brill, 2023) 1:13:15

1M ago1:13:15

1:13:15

In early modern Japan, upper status groups coveted pills and powders made of exotic foreign ingredients such as mummy and rhinoceros horn. By the early twentieth century, over-the-counter-patent medicines, and, more alarmingly, morphine, had become mass commodities, fueling debates over opiates in Japan's expanding imperial territories. The fall of…

1
Genji Yasuhira, "Catholic Survival in the Dutch Republic: Agency in Coexistence and the Public Sphere in Utrecht, 1620-1672" (Amsterdam UP, 2024) 1:04:49

23d ago1:04:49

1:04:49

Even in adversity, Catholics exercised considerable agency in post-Reformation Utrecht. Through the political practices of repression and toleration, Utrecht’s magistrates, under constant pressure from the Reformed Church, attempted to exclude Catholics from the urban public sphere. However, by mobilising their social status and networks, Catholic …

1
Harry R. McCarthy, "Boy Actors in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 44:27

28d ago44:27

44:27

Boy Actors in Early Modern England: Skill and Stagecraft in the Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Harry McCarthy provides a new approach to the study of early modern boy actors, offering a historical re-appraisal of these performers' physical skills in order to reassess their wide-reaching contribution to early modern theatrical cul…

1
"CSX has got to go!" Industrially Polluted South Baltimore Residents March to "Evict" Rail Giant from Their Community 40:22

26d ago40:22

40:22

On June 10, in the working-class community of Curtis Bay in South Baltimore, over 50 residents, activists, and supporters from around the city marched through the streets of Curtis Bay to hold CSX Transportation accountable for polluting their community, homes, and bodies with toxic coal dust. Even after an expansive scientific study co-sponsored b…

1
Carlos M. N. Eire, "They Flew: A History of the Impossible" (Yale UP, 2023) 53:57

29d ago53:57

53:57

In the early modern era, seemingly impossible stories of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft were common and believable. The important question of the time was not if these things happened, but why. This was particularly true as the rise of Protestantism began to challenge Catholic beliefs in miracles and continued to be the case even after scie…

1
Sudev Sheth, "Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 52:36

1M ago52:36

52:36

Running and securing an empire can get expensive–especially one known for its opulence, like the Mughal Empire, which conquered much of northern India before rapidly declining in the eighteenth century. But how did the Mughals get their money? Often, it was through wealthy merchants, like the Jhaveri family, who willingly—and then not-so-willingly–…

1
Chloe Wigston Smith, "Novels, Needleworks, and Empire: Material Entanglements in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World" (Yale UP, 2024) 51:22

1M ago51:22

51:22

In the eighteenth century, women’s contributions to empire took fewer official forms than those collected in state archives. Their traces were recorded in material ways, through the ink they applied to paper or the artefacts they created with muslin, silk threads, feathers, and shells. Handiwork, such as sewing, knitting, embroidery, and other craf…

1
Bronagh Ann McShane, "Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) 37:56

2M ago37:56

37:56

Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) by Dr. Bronagh Ann McShane investigates the impact of the dissolution of the monasteries on women religious and examines their survival in the following decades, showing how, despite the state's official proscription of vocation living, rel…

1
Liz Oliva Fernández 1:23:27

1M ago1:23:27

1:23:27

For the past six years on this show, we've talked to working people from across the United States, from virtually every walk of life, about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles. But today, we’re going to talk about what it’s like to live and work in a country that has been designated a political enemy of US empire, a country that sits only 90 m…

1
Joseph A. Skloot, "First Impressions: Sefer Hasidim and Early Modern Hebrew Printing" (Brandeis UP, 2023) 56:29

2M ago56:29

56:29

Joseph A. Skloot joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, First Impressions: Sefer hasimdim and Early Modern Hebrew Printing (Brandeis UP, 2023). First Impressions uncovers the history of creative adaptation and transformation through a close analysis of the creation of the Sefer Hasidim book. In 1538, a partnership of Jewish silk makers in the…

1
Vince Brown, Caribbean Vectors (EF, JP) 45:51

2M ago45:51

45:51

The largest slave uprising in the 18th century British Caribbean was also a node of the global conflict called the Seven Year’s War, though it isn’t usually thought of that way. In the first few days of the quarantine and our current geopolitical and epidemiological shitshow, John and Elizabeth spoke with Vincent Brown, who recently published Tacky…

1
Stephanie Joy Mawson, "Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines" (Cornell UP, 2023) 49:19

2M ago49:19

49:19

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty. But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The …

1
Matthew Kadane, "The Enlightenment and Original Sin" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 55:14

2M ago55:14

55:14

Matthew Kadane, Professor of History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, talks about his just new book, The Enlightenment and Original Sin (University of Chicago Press, 2024). An eloquent microhistory that argues for the centrality of the doctrine of original sin to the Enlightenment. What was the Enlightenment? This question has been endlessly d…

1
Iris Moon, "Melancholy Wedgwood" (MIT Press, 2024) 1:12:18

2M ago1:12:18

1:12:18

Melancholy Wedgwood (MIT Press, 2024) is an experimental biography of the ceramics entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood that reveals the tenuous relationship of eighteenth-century England to late-capitalist modernity. It traces the multiple strands in the life of the ceramic entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) to propose an alternative view of eightee…

1
Yehonatan Eybeshitz, "Pearls of Wisdom from Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeshitz: Torah Giant, Preacher & Kabbalist" (Gerber's Miracle Publishers, 2021) 31:14

2M ago31:14

31:14

Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeshitz was one of the greatest rabbis of the eighteenth century. Even as a child, he was renowned as one of the rare geniuses of his time. Among the most revered Torah scholars of the last 300 years, Rabbi Eybeshitz was also a prolific writer, preacher, and Kabbalah master. His innumerable writings cover all areas of Jewish Learn…

1
A Veteran Longshoreman's View of the Baltimore Bridge Disaster (w/ John Blom & Marc Steiner) 47:48

2M ago47:48

47:48

Nearly two months have passed since the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and the city is still reeling from the disaster. The bridge collapse immediately rendered the Port of Baltimore inoperable, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs, and billions in wages, business revenue, and state taxes. While channels into the port h…

1
Jason A. Kerr, "Milton's Theological Process: Reading de Doctrina Christiana and Paradise Lost" (Oxford UP, 2023) 32:42

3M ago32:42

32:42

This volume proposes a method for reading Milton's De Doctrina Christiana as an artifact of his process of theological thinking rather than as a repository of his doctrinal views. Jason A. Kerr argues that reading in this way involves attention to the complex material state of the manuscript along with Milton's varying modes of engagement with scri…

1
Assaf Tamari, "God as Patient: The Medical Discourse of Lurianic Kabbalah" (Magnes Press, 2023) 40:56

3M ago40:56

40:56

In a broken world, in which even God Himself is in a state of deep crisis, what is required in order to mend the rupture? How can one heal God and His world? Moreover, what might allow our actions to be effective? These questions stand at the heart of the Lurianic Kabbalah, the apex of the Safedian intellectual and religious renaissance of the sixt…

1
Priya Satia, "Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution" (Bloomsbury, 2019) 53:36

3M ago53:36

53:36

From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution transformed Britain from an agricultural and artisanal economy to one dominated by industry, ushering in unprecedented growth in technology and trade and putting the country at the center of the global economy. But the commonly accepted story of the industrial revolution, anc…

1
Ambereen Dadabhoy, "Shakespeare Through Islamic Worlds" (Routledge, 2023) 1:05:20

3M ago1:05:20

1:05:20

Shakespeare through Islamic Worlds (Routledge, 2024) investigates the peculiar absence of Islam and Muslims from Shakespeare’s canon. While many of Shakespeare’s plays were set in the Mediterranean, a geography occupied by Muslim empires and cultures, his work eschews direct engagement with the religion and its people. This erasure is striking give…

1
Lauren Horn Griffin, "Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England: History, Rhetoric, and the Origins of Christianity" (Brill, 2023) 32:26

3M ago32:26

32:26

Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England: History, Rhetoric, and the Origins of Christianity (Brill, 2023) argues that in order to understand nationalisms, we need a clearer understanding of the types of cultural myths, symbols, and traditions that legitimate them. Myths of origin and election, memories of a greater and purer past, and narrativ…

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