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 174: Polybius of Megalopolis
“In terms of time, my work will start with the 140th Olympiad” wrote the historian Polybius at the beginning of his History:
Before this time things happened in the world pretty much in a sporadic f…
01:05:30 |
Wed 26 Aug 2020
Episode 173: Thinking is Human, or, Lost in Thought
Hello, the French thinker Blaise Pascal wrote this when considering the ability of humans to think:
Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need…
01:06:07 |
Wed 19 Aug 2020
Episode 172: The Last Voyage of the Whaling Ship Progress
In 1892, the whaling ship Progress under the command of Captain Daniel W. Gifford made an unusual voyage, not out to sea for a two to three year voyage, but up the St. Lawrence River and into the Gre…
01:08:08 |
Wed 12 Aug 2020
Episode 171: The Gunpowder Revolution, or, China and the West
In 1280 a enormous eruption disturbed the peace of the Chinese city of Yangzhou. It was “like a volcano erupting,” wrote one who experienced it, “a tsunami crashing.” Ceiling beams three miles away w…
00:58:03 |
Wed 05 Aug 2020
Episode 170: Bound by War, or, the Philippines and the United States in the First Pacific Century
My great-grandfather Louis Corsiglia emigrated to the United States as a boy from Genoa, and he was a lifelong anti-imperialist Democrat. So it followed from those two things that a dictum of his was…
00:53:02 |
Wed 29 Jul 2020
Episode 169: The History of the Future
This week’s conversation is a rather unusual. There’s one guest, as there usually is, but this time there are two hosts—or, two people asking the questions.
The guest is David Staley, whom longtime …
00:58:17 |
Wed 22 Jul 2020
Episode 167: How Black Americans Created American Citizenship
On January 15, 1817, a group of some of the most prominent African-American leaders called a public meeting at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, which had at that time one of…
01:03:11 |
Thu 16 Jul 2020
Episode 166: Beauty and Terror, or, the Italian Renaissance Re-envisioned
In the movie The Third Man, Orson Welles delivered this sensational adlibbed speech:
You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and…
01:05:17 |
Wed 08 Jul 2020
Episode 165: Western Civ Has Got to…
In 1728, philosopher, theologian, and Anglican minister George Berkeley wrote these verses:
The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better…
01:03:37 |
Wed 01 Jul 2020
Episode 164: The Open Sea, or, the Economies of the Ancient Mediterranean
For generations historians have talked about "the ancient economy". When they want to be more specific, they have written of "the ancient Mediterranean economy." Given the diversity of the ancient Me…
00:59:19 |
Wed 24 Jun 2020
Episode 163: The First Martyr of the American Revolution
On June 18, 1775, 245 years ago tomorrow, Abigail Adams took up her pen to write to her husband John, far away in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress:
The Day; perhaps the decisive Day is…
00:57:21 |
Wed 17 Jun 2020
Episode 162: The First Scottish Enlightenment
Typically the "Scottish Enlightenment" is the term for the great burst of intellectual creativity, centered on Edinburgh and Glasgow and beginning in the 1720's. It saw advances made in philosophy, l…
00:54:38 |
Wed 10 Jun 2020
Episode 161: In the Matter of Nat Turner
In early November 1831, Thomas Ruffin Gray was searching for a publisher.
He had been one of those whites who had travelled from his home in Richmond to Southampton County, Virginia, to put down the…
01:29:03 |
Wed 03 Jun 2020
Episode 160: The Original Refugees
On October 22, 1685, King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, the decree promulgated by his grandfather Henri IV which provided French Protestants with a degree of limited toleration. Th…
01:04:41 |
Wed 27 May 2020
Bonus Episode: Okinawa, the Crucible of Hell
Just to remind you, this is Memorial Day weekend–do not be alarmed if you have forgotten that it's a weekend, let alone that it's Memorial Day. As Professor Wikipedia might tell you, Memorial Day was…
01:07:31 |
Sat 23 May 2020
Episode 159: Other People’s Money
Imagine, if you would, a world without either money or banks. How could anyone conduct business? How could anyone procure goods and services? How could you have a diversified economy? How could a per…
01:15:28 |
Wed 20 May 2020
Episode 158: Priests of the Law
My guest today is Thomas J. McSweeney, Professor of Law at the William and Mary Law School in Willamsburg, Virginia. He earned both his JD and his PhD in History from Cornell University, and is the a…
00:53:34 |
Wed 13 May 2020
Episode 157: They Knew They Were Pilgrims
Most Americans think they know something about the Pilgrims, based on a dimly remembered High School textbook, or perhaps from a second-grade Thanksgiving pageant: that the men wore stove pipe hats w…
00:53:38 |
Wed 06 May 2020
Episode 155: The Second World War, or, the Napoleonic Wars
Winston Churchill termed the Seven Years War (what Americans think of as the French and Indian War) the “First World War” since its battles took place from Germany to western Pennsylvania to Manila. …
01:29:00 |
Wed 29 Apr 2020
Episode 156: Stories Told by Trees
Trees, as you may know, have rings. I don't know about you, but I remember the wonder I first felt when my Dad showed me tree rings. He explained that I could tell about the tree's life from the ring…
01:01:57 |
Wed 22 Apr 2020
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