Historically Thinking
We believe that when people think historically, they are engaging in a disciplined way of thinking about the world and its past. We believe it gives thinkers a knack for recognizing nonsense; and that it cultivates not only intellectual curiosity and rigor, but also intellectual humility. Join Al Zambone, author of Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life, as he talks with historians and other professionals who cultivate the craft of historical thinking.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 62 minutes
- Episodes
- 312
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
Episode 230: What the Amish Can Do For Us
When people speak of “the Amish” they are using a very simple term that covers over rather than reveals. It’s a term that applies to forty affliations or subgroups, each with a distinctive way of lif…
01:12:16 |
Mon 25 Oct 2021
Episode 229: Mr. Jefferson and His University
Alumni of the University of Virginia enjoy pointing out that while Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone declares his foundation of that university as his third great achievement, it does not so much as menti…
01:03:16 |
Thu 21 Oct 2021
Episode 228: The Intellectual Life in Difficult Circumstances
Joseph Wright, a native of the West Riding of Yorkshire, started working in a factory at the age of 6. He did not learn to read until he was 15, inspired to do so by a workmate who read news bulletin…
00:58:35 |
Mon 18 Oct 2021
Episode 227: The First French Revolution
In the last days of 1358, thousands of French villagers across northern France revolted against a faltering regime, from Normandy in the west, to Picardy and Champagne in the east. Castles and manor …
01:10:26 |
Mon 11 Oct 2021
Episode 226: Adventures Through Time, with Dominic Sandbrook
Go into an American bookshop, and you’ll get the impression that the only two most important events that ever happened in all of human history were the American Civil War and the Second World War. In…
01:06:49 |
Mon 04 Oct 2021
Episode 225: Noble Volunteers, or, The British Soldier in the American Revolution
Sometimes Americans are pretty sure that they know a few things about the British soldiers who fought in the American Revolution. A list of them probably is something like this:
They were the scum…
01:16:08 |
Mon 27 Sep 2021
Episode 224: Disruption
Historians are always interested in how things change over time, and it helps for the survival of the profession that most things do. But there are certain moments in history when things don't just c…
01:16:55 |
Mon 20 Sep 2021
Episode 223: Climbing Denali
Denali, the mountain formerly sometimes known (but not by Alaskans) as Mt. McKinley, is one of the most impressive mountains in the entire world. It is not only the highest mountain in North America,…
01:05:09 |
Mon 13 Sep 2021
Episode 222: The Chemistry of Fear
The wrong food can kill you. The right kind of food can help you live longer. Additives are unnatural. Unnatural food is unhealthy food. These are assumptions that many or most of us have today about…
01:00:30 |
Thu 09 Sep 2021
Episode 221: Prohibition Wasn’t American
Carrie Nation was, of course, a prohibitionist. But so was Leo Tolstoy, Czar Nicholas II, and Vladimir Lenin; in fact, the first nation to prohibit the sale of alcohol was Russia. The first Socialist…
01:16:06 |
Mon 06 Sep 2021
Episode 220: From the Archive, The First Three Weeks of College
For many colleges, this is the first week of class. And that means for both new teachers and new students, it's the beginning of one of three weeks that will influence the rest of their year, and the…
00:47:44 |
Wed 01 Sep 2021
Episode 219: The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome
Edward Gibbon tells us that it was in the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter while listening to the singing of the barefooted friars that he first began to meditate on a history of the decline and fall o…
01:23:08 |
Mon 23 Aug 2021
Episode 218: To Her Credit
In 1756 an unmarried Quaker woman wrote “Deborah Morris, her book, 1756” in, of all things, a book entitled The American Instructor, or, Young Man’s Best Companion. That might seem to have been an od…
01:01:11 |
Mon 16 Aug 2021
Episode 217: When Money Talks
Those of us who still carry coins or cash—and I notice that I do that less and less—carry around “a pocket guide to world history and culture.” Money, writes Frank Holt, provides us with a historical…
01:20:58 |
Mon 09 Aug 2021
Episode 216: The Appalachian Trail
Nearly every introduction to the Appalachian Trail seems to begin by giving its length (about 2,100 miles) and that it goes from Georgia to Maine. Which is strange, when you think about it. No one mu…
00:57:14 |
Mon 02 Aug 2021
Episode 215: The Other Face of Battle
Throughout their history Americans have found themselves fighting “unexpected enemies—foes from different cultural backgrounds, who fought in unfamiliar ways, and against whom they were unprepared to…
01:13:46 |
Mon 26 Jul 2021
Episode 214: Just a Few Questions
This our fourth episode in our year-long series about the skills of historical thinking, and it’s about that terrifying moment which leads to actually writing about history: the question, and the the…
00:56:57 |
Mon 19 Jul 2021
Episode 213: From Rebel to Ruler
In July and August of 1921 a group of young men met in Shanghai to found the Chinese Communist Party. They undoubtedly had great dreams, but even so they might have found it hard to believe that they…
01:26:36 |
Mon 12 Jul 2021
Episode 212: The Perennial Russian Pivot to Asia
Peter the Great is known to history as the ruler who pushed for the westernization of Russia; who defeated Sweden, thereby making Russia a Baltic power; and who then built a great capital on that Bal…
01:01:26 |
Thu 08 Jul 2021
Episode 211: The [Quiet] Russian Revolution
For Russia the year 1837 began with the death of the poet Alexander Pushkin in a duel, and ended with a fire that destroyed the Czar’s Winter Palace. These two happenstance events in the imperial cap…
01:05:48 |
Wed 23 Jun 2021
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are the property of Al Zambone. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by eachpod.com.