We follow how a relatively obscure family of Swiss counts took advantage of the chaos of the late Middle Ages to become the most powerful dynasty in the history of central Europe, towering over European affairs, ruling "an empire on which the sun never sets," and even setting their sights on the dream of global dominion. We then consider the ob ...…

There is no such thing as capitalism. With debates over the relative meanings and merits of socialism and capitalism currently flaring up in the United States, we examine why “capitalism” is an undefinable and meaningless concept, and how it came nevertheless to hold a mythic and almost magical power over the minds of academics and ordinary cit ...…

We unearth the tangled roots of the earliest forms of modern science, beginning with the radical alchemical theories of the rabble-rousing healer called Paracelsus, and running through the heated debates over Galileo's astronomy, which broke down the distinction between the earth and the heavens. Due to these shocks, the old teleological, or pu ...…

What is behind the popularity of Outlander? Why have crazed fans of the show from around the world begun to overrun Scottish castles? – and why did the UK Prime Minister secretly meet with TV executives to stop its premier in 2014? We examine the show’s success in light of Scottish history and politics, and in the context of the ongoing romance ...…

-Sash made of Yucca rope, leather, squirrel pelt, and scarlet macaw feathers-Found in Lavender Canyon, Utah-Dated to Ancestral Pueblo Civilization, ca. 1150 ADMade with more than 2000 tiny macaw feathers, this sash is unique in the archeological record, probably the most complex and the most personal artifact ever found from the ancestral Puebl ...…

We trace the waves of crop failure, famine, pestilence, and war that swept over Europe in the 1600s as the climate sank into a “Little Ice Age” and armies literally marched across frozen seas. In the midst of unimaginable crisis, alchemists, astrologers, and apocalypticists scoured the Bible for prophecies to explain the disasters around them a ...…

We examine the long movement for reform stretching from the Middle Ages through the 1600s, in which Catholic leaders strove to centralize and standardize church teachings. Mystics like Teresa of Avila and artists like Bernini inspired a physically and emotionally compelling form of worship centering on the sufferings of Christ and the Virgin Ma ...…

We examine the origins of racism, or the notion that the human species can be subdivided into distinct and observable biological categories. The notion of human "races" began as a strategy for dividing and controlling workers in European colonies, particularly 17th-century Virginia. We consider the basic logical incoherence of belief in race as ...…

We explore the new, contending forms of Protestant Christianity that sprang up in the wake of Luther, including the strict, austere Swiss Reform embodied in John Calvin’s Geneva, and the radical anabaptism that burst onto the scene in the failed millennial kingdom at Munster. We consider how the new Reformed movement hammered out a shared ortho ...…

PANTHER EFFIGY PIPE-Found in Posey County, Indiana-Carved from Steatite-dated to the MIddle Woodland Period, 200-500 AD.In the first of the series on American objects and artifacts, we examine a tobacco pipe in the form of a wildcat -- specifically a puma, whose name comes from the Quechua word for "powerful." It was most likely used in rituals ...…

We trace the roots of the idea of witchcraft in the "cunning folk" of the Middle Ages. We consider how the church and state began to fuel fear of witchcraft and persecute witches in the tens of thousands during the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. We consider theories of why witch-hunting arose so dramatically in this age, including ...…

We examine how Europe's peasant majority worked, played, and survived in the late Middle Ages and the early modern era, including the elaborate customs governing land tenure, marriage, and inheritance. We consider how, during the recovery following the Black Death, steadily growing population and rising prices put the squeeze on commoners as we ...…

We trace how a small group of scholars, obsessed with classical antiquity, mastered the more ancient form of Latin, thus unlocking the worlds of Roman and Greek politics. Seeing themselves as the peers and equals of the ancient statesmen, the "humanists" called for a new form of learning aimed towards action and ambition. Machiavelli sketched o ...…

There was no Enlightenment. Steven Pinker’s new book, “Enlightenment Now,” is a classic re-statement of the myth of the Enlightenment which holds that in the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans threw off the tired dogmas of the Middle Ages and embraced a new philosophy of Reason, Progress, Science, and Humanism. In fact, the 1700s were a period of confu ...…

I briefly discuss the growing audience for Historiansplaining, and sketch plans for future shorter lectures on historical myths, some of which will be patron-only. Finally, I pose a hypothetical question for my listeners that may be harder to answer than it seems.Please become a patron and make it possible for these lectures to keep coming! -- ...…

All of history is, to one degree or another, mythology -- the weaving of a coherent, usable narrative out of the chaos of people's lives. We consider how societies all over the world, since before the beginning of civilization, have developed myths to explain the world that they experience. We also trace some of the major schools of academic hi ...…

We trace how Portugal and Spain, two previously marginal European kingdoms, rapidly and unexpectedly exploded onto the world scene, building a chain of fortified colonies stretching from North Africa to China, and conquering the larger and richer empires of Mexico and Peru. The early Iberian colonizers sought to continue the tradition of the Cr ...…

We explore European monarchs’ early quest to consolidate royal power and establish their subjects’ direct loyalty to the crown. In particular, we trace the early triumphs and slow declines of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, driven by the pioneering ambitions of Isabella of Castile, Philip II of Spain, John II of Portugal, and the formidabl ...…

The early modern era – from the 1400s through the 1700s – is the monarchical age par excellence, with royal courts presiding over consolidated realms and monstrous armies capable of crushing smaller neighbors and internal rivals. The map of Europe transformed, and the reasons were, firstly, technological: the printing press broke through previo ...…

In the second part of our discussion of Douglas Murray’s “The Strange Death of Europe,” we examine the history of social cohesion and identity in Europe. We point out Murray’s failure to mention Brexit as a sign of the inherent weakness in European identity, and consider the complicated and challenging roots of modern-day terrorism in Europe.Pl ...…

The first part of an examination and discussion of Douglas Murray's controversial book, "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam" (Bloomsbury, 2017), and its dire warning that a wave of migrants with beliefs and customs inimical to the West are on the verge of changing Europe forever. We weigh his careful debunking of elite my ...…

We trace the tortured path of Islam over the past 1,000 years, from the “Golden Age” of art, philosophy, and interreligious tolerance under the Abbasid empire to the rise of oppositional movements like sufi mysticism and finally, the Mongols’ sudden rain of destruction. We follow the return to power of new Muslim empires, the deepening of the S ...…

We trace the shocking and rapid rise of Islam in the 600s, as a confederation of desert towns and tribes unite around Muhammad and his prophesies from the Abrahamic god, then swiftly launch a stunning campaign of conquests against the major empires of the age. We consider the roots of the basic teachings and practices of the new religion, inclu ...…

The Americas before Columbus were not an idyll frozen in time. They were a world of struggle and ambition, with a history just as complex and tumultuous as Europe's. We trace how hunting-gathering peoples invented agriculture and built cities and empires that rose and fell across the centuries, all depending on human power, without the benefit ...…

Most of the human story is so-called "pre-history," which in fact is inseparable from history and still going on today. We trace the origins of the human species around 300,000 years ago in Africa, including our early adaptation into long-distance hunters. We examine our long and awkward co-existence with other human-like species such as Neande ...…

What is going on in Catalonia? We trace the long history of the small region in Spain’s northeastern corner, considering how medieval rebellions, dynastic struggles, and radical anarchist unions all helped to lay the groundwork for the separatist movement that today is flirting with unilaterally breaking away from Spain. We also account for the ...…

I trace the locations of my growing base of listeners, from Brazil to Berlin to Michigan to the Philippines, and send a tremendous thank-you to my patrons who have made it possible for this podcast to continue thus far. I preview likely topics for forthcoming lectures and ask for suggestions, questions, and outright condemnations.Please contrib ...…

Exactly five centuries ago this month, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, thus sparking the Protestant Reformation. He was concerned not with freedom of thought nor with abuse of power by the Pope, as moderns might like to think, but with exposing the false doctrine that a person’s good actions can earn them a pl ...…

We trace the winding paths by which Jews, after the diaspora, sought out social and economic niches in which they were able to survive within European Christian society. We uncover the origins of the two main Jewish groups in Europe -- the Sephardic and Ashkenazi -- and consider how they adapted to changing conditions, including the increasing ...…

We examine the enigmatic and elusive figure of Columbus, from his likely Jewish background, to his bizarre and hairbrained scheme of sailing to Asia, his brutal and chaotic invasion of the West Indies, his struggle to defend his honors and titles, and finally his apocalyptic vision of his own role in the End Times. We consider how Columbus, a f ...…

We examine the three pillars of Jim Crow civilization -- segregation, disfranchisement, and terroristic violence -- and their roots in the corrupt bargain of 1877 that ended Reconstruction and the climate of racial pseudoscience that pervaded the late 1800s. We consider the different ways that Jim Crow was enforced in different parts of the cou ...…

We explore the history behind the statues being destroyed across America in a wave of iconoclasm -- when and why they were erected, and what they represented. We consider the roots of the Confederacy, which lie in the rapid change in the American view of slavery -- from an embarrassing but necessary evil in the 1780s to a positive good in the 1 ...…

We join in the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus -- the struggle to unearth and understand who Jesus really was, what he said and did, and how he inspired a movement. We trace the basic bare-bones facts that can be deduced from early Christian writings and brief references in other texts, including Jesus' baptism and crucifixion. We throw ...…

We consider the long ideological struggles in the early church that led to the gradual collection of a canon of Christian writings that we now call the New Testament. We trace when, where, and why the various gospels and letters in the New Testament were written (hint: Matthew was not the first, not even close) and how they present different th ...…

We dissect the origins of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Old Testament by Christians), excavating the deepest layers of the collection of holy books, including the very ancient songs and prayers that were likely passed on orally for centuries before being written down, the scholarly theories of the lost documents that were stitched together ...…

We consider how best to understand the origins of the laws and customs of the Jewish people, or what we call "Judaism." We begin by dispelling the notion that Judaism (or any other belief system apart from Christianity) can properly be called a "religion" -- a category that derives originally from Christian practice and does not make sense anyw ...…

We cap off the series of lectures on the Middle Ages by piecing together how the people of the high and late Middle Ages understood their place in the cosmos. From the lowliest peasants to popes and emperors, medievals believed they formed the limbs of a living, breathing social body, and that body or tree was part of a Great Chain of Being con ...…

We examine the ways that medieval people described, displayed, and generally failed to control their sexual appetites. While theologians sermonized on the dangers of carnal lust, parishioners surreptitiously met in churches and stables, kept themselves amused with dildoes, or luxuriated in brothels all over Europe. We also trace how medievals c ...…

I send a thank-you message to my listeners and patrons marking the podcast's 1,000th play, and discuss where in the world -- from South Dakota to Malaysia -- you are located, according to Soundcloud's statistics.

We dissect the results of the dramatic June 8th election in Great Britain – party by party and region by region – in order to understand why the country ended up with a hung parliament and a fragile, tenuous government. The Conservative prime minister hangs on by the skin of her teeth, her party buffeted by record-smashing youth turnout and an ...…

We explore the history and context behind the momentous election taking place this week in Great Britain, including the rise of the British working class and the Labour Party, the ongoing war for the party’s soul, and the shocking rise to leadership of an obscure and irascible gadfly, Jeremy Corbyn. The survival of socialism in the English-spea ...…

We examine how medieval scholars battled over the meanings of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and of the Christian religion, while illiterate artisans made breakthroughs in architecture, engineering, metallurgy, and alchemy. The vast body of medieval scholarship came under attack during the Renaissance as so many "metaphysical obscurities," ...…

We examine the true history of the first brotherhood of warrior-monks, who rose to extraordinary power in the High Middle Ages, functioned as a shadow empire reaching from Jerusalem to the far corners of Europe, and then fell to their ruin amidst lurid accusations of religious and sexual crimes. Apart from the endless myths and conspiracy theor ...…

We examine the long train of crusading expeditions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, from the triumphs of Richard the Lionheart to the trainwreck of the sack of Constantinople. We consider the many ways that modern myths have distorted the Crusades for political purposes and erased the Crusaders' central motivation: control of Jerusalem.…

We follow the bloody deeds and improbable victories of the first crusading army, as it slogs its way through Syria toward the ultimate prize.

We examine the forces that led the Pope to put forward the far-fetched scheme of mobilizing Christian knights to reclaim Jerusalem in 1095, and briefly consider what lesson the launching of the first Crusade holds for our own world almost 1,000 years later.

We discuss how the civilization of the High Middle Ages broke down under the onslaught of the Black Death, peasant uprisings, and the gunpowder revolution.

We examine the flourishing of the Middle Ages between 1000 and 1300, which gave us chivalry, Gothic cathedrals, epics of King Arthur, and nearly all of the romantic images that we still associate with the medieval era, even as the noose of social conformity and repression began to tighten around Europe.…

In the first of three lectures on the three periods of the Middle Ages, we examine the fall of the western Roman empire, the rise of Christianity, and the creation of new hybrid society in Europe. The new medieval order saw a brief flourishing in the spectacular reign of Charlemagne, only to fall back into chaos at the hands of the Vikings.…

The beginning of a series of lectures on the Middle Ages. We start by throwing out the junk, such as the notions that medievals smelled bad and liked to hunt witches, and then look into the mystical and apocalyptic roots of the idea that history should be divided into three ages.