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 154: The Cabinet
The Presidential Cabinet has, it would seem, been a reality of the American republic since soon after its foundation. Yet while executive departments are mentioned in the Constitution, the Cabinet is…
01:01:06 |
Wed 08 Apr 2020
Episode 153: Thinking Historically About the Surveillance State
My guest today is Christopher Miller. He’s Assistant Professor of International History at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he is co-director of the school's Russia…
00:27:19 |
Thu 02 Apr 2020
Episode 152: Modern Dance and Modern America, or, Martha Graham and the Cold War
Martha Graham has been described as the “Picasso of modern dance”; she was and remains an icon of modernist high culture. But she was also received at the White House by every President from Franklin…
01:03:18 |
Thu 26 Mar 2020
Episode 151: Time to Eat the Historically Thinking
This is a crossover episode of Historically Thinking. That's because my guest today is Michael Robinson. He’s Professor of History at Hillyer College, of the University of Hartford. He’s the author o…
00:52:11 |
Thu 19 Mar 2020
Episode 150: The Science of History, or, the Thought of Giambattista Vico
Giambattista Vico first published his masterwork The New Science in 1725. He revised it twice more before he died. It was intended to be nothing less than a reinterpretation of the history of human c…
01:30:17 |
Tue 10 Mar 2020
Episode 149: Edges Are Interesting, or, a History of Eastern Europe
What is a people? What is a nation? Why do some peoples insist that nations must be synonymous with their particular group of people? And why are others content to be simply part of larger nations co…
01:12:25 |
Wed 04 Mar 2020
Episode 148: Land of Tears, or, the Exploitation of the Congo
Between 1870 and 1900, the Congo River basin became "one of the most brutally exploited places on earth." Traders in slaves and natural resources; explorers; and builders of would-be empires entered …
01:08:33 |
Wed 26 Feb 2020
From the Archive: Blood Letters
Given events in China, I thought it might be good to go back to the archive and to one of the most important, and also the most moving, conversations I've had. Recorded in Professor Lian Xi's office …
01:15:04 |
Thu 20 Feb 2020
From the Archive: Presidential History
This is a podcast from deep in the past of this podcast; in fact, it's the second ever episode. It in I talk with my old friend and colleague Michael Connolly about "Presidential History." It's a cat…
00:55:19 |
Wed 12 Feb 2020
Episode 146: The Historically Informed Investment Portfolio; or, the Historian as Financial Analyst
My guest is Daniel Peris, a historian trained in the history of modern Russia. But by day he is Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh, PA. He is the …
01:02:48 |
Wed 05 Feb 2020
Episode 145: The Newburgh Conspiracy
On March 15, 1783, a group of some 100 officers of the Continental Army were gathered in the Temple of Virtue, a meeting hall built in their winter encampment near New Windsor, NY (a reconstruction i…
01:17:40 |
Wed 29 Jan 2020
Episode 144: The French Revolution
In 1856, meditating on the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:
When I came to gather all the individual wishes, with a sense of terror I realized that their demands were for the wholesale…
00:59:33 |
Wed 22 Jan 2020
Episode 143: Horace Greeley, American Editor, or, the Method in His Madness
On October 30, 1872, the wife of Presidential candidate Horace Greeley died. On November 6, Greeley lost in a landslide to President Ulysses S. Grant, winning only six out of 37 states in the elector…
01:02:09 |
Wed 15 Jan 2020
Episode 142: Cloak and Gondola, or, on Secret Service for the Republic of Venice
Apologies for the delayed posting of this podcast.
Some of us might not like our siblings, but this is ridiculous:
“Your excellences must know that my ill-born brother, whose name will shortly be re…
01:09:06 |
Wed 08 Jan 2020
Episode 141: Stolen, or, a Journey on the Reverse Underground Railroad
In late August, 1825, a sloop sailed down the Delaware Bay from the port of Philadelphia, bound for the Indian River in southern Delaware. Chained in its hold were five young African-American boys, t…
01:02:01 |
Mon 30 Dec 2019
Episode 140: Christmas Feasting, or, Meat, Sugar, Alcohol
“There is a moment that comes to so many of us in the late afternoon on Christmas Day,” writes my guest Madeline Shanahan, “when we look at the postmeal dining table festooned with scrunched paper cr…
01:04:09 |
Mon 23 Dec 2019
Episode 139: Dominion, or, How Christianity Changed Everything
In the introduction to his new book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, my guest Tom Holland writes:
“For a millennium and more, the civilization into which I had been born was …
00:59:20 |
Wed 18 Dec 2019
Episode 138: Music, a Subversive History
“A recurring phenomenon traced in these pages,” writes Ted Gioia in his new book Music: A Subversive History, “a surprisingly consistent one, despite marked differences in epochs and cultures—finds i…
00:54:50 |
Wed 11 Dec 2019
Episode 137: The Decline and Fall of the Adams Family
Hello, on February 21, 1848, Congressman John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts had just cast a “nay” vote on a resolution thanking American officers and soldiers for the victories of the Mexican War. In…
01:14:01 |
Wed 04 Dec 2019
Episode 136: Thanksgiving and Terroir, or, the South You Never Ate
My guest today begins his newest book with this declaration of purpose. “This is a book about the taste of place and the styles and stories of cooking that define it. It is a book about how people ta…
01:12:01 |
Wed 27 Nov 2019
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