Subject to Change

Edward Watts startled me with his claim that the Western Roman Empire didn't fall in AD 476. And he has other revisionist takes on Roman history. (Domitian a much better emperor than Trajan??) I love…

Zareer is a a renowned historian and broadcaster. Clive of India is out of fashion these days but Zareer remains an admirer. In this episode Zareer rises to my challenge of a 5 minute history of Indi…

Laurence Bergreen threads the needle for me. He tells Magellan's story in a way that is exciting and moves with pace but leaving in all the 'maybes' and 'buts' that a story like this needs. His book …

It is hard to describe Peter Henderson's adventures without lapsing into cliche. Hair raising, eye popping and so on. A news cameraman and reporter (and latterly an entrepreneur) in some of the world…

Thony Christie has a blog called the Renaissance Mathematicus. It covers the history of science and is one of the wonders of the blogging world. I asked him to talk to me about the history of astrono…

David Rooney is the author of About Time: A History of Civilisation in Twelve Clocks. He talks about clocks (in the widest sense of the word - sundials, waterclocks, orbiting satellites and more) and…

Freddie, Abe and I talk about movies. Three blokes talking about feminism in movies. Well of course. But much more besides. Films discussed include Mad Max Fury Road, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, t…

Julian Sancton is a wonderful guide to the Belgian expedition to Antartica in 1898.  The crew of the Belgica included Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook who went on to become among the most famous exp…

Kenji Tierney is a wonderfully engaging speaker. Starting with memories of being introduced by his grandmother to sumo by way of watching TV with her he gives a wonderfully learned and fascinating ta…

Robin Gaster's book Behemoth, Amazon Rising: Power and Seduction in the Age of Amazon is available to buy on, naturally, Amazon. If you want to understand where Amazon came from, why it is so success…

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. Here she recalls her life as a young girl in Kobe during World War II and we talk also about the kamikaze pilots of…

Roger Crowley tells the story of how Portugal built its empire in the Indian ocean from 1498. The Portuguese were there to trade but also as zealots and crusaders. The story is one of discovery, cour…

Mike Dash wrote the definitive book about the Batavia and its wreck near the coast of Australia in 1629. We talked about the events leading up to the wreck and the bloody reign of terror and murders …

An absolute joy to spend an hour and a half with history professors David Abulafia and Bret Devereaux. We started with the founding of Alexandria and travelled back and forth in time and all around t…

Peter Pomerantsev is the author of two outstanding books. The first is Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible. It has some wonderful stories which he made into programmes while working in Russian…

Bean blogs on naval warfare here. He writes on modern naval warfare (well, from the mid 19th century). His first love is battleships but it goes much wider than this. We talked about battleships (the…

David Goodhart is one of the most acute and level headed observers of British society writing today. His influential The Road to Somewhere unpicked the divisions leading to the Brexit vote and he has…

Professor of ancient history Bret Devereaux concludes his two part evaluation of military strategy in the Lord of the Rings. The Witch King gets two thumbs up. I'm rag tag and bobtail.

Check out the b…

Roger Crowley takes us through the struggles between the Ottoman Turks and the Knights of St John in the Mediterranean in the mid 1500's.  Astonishing stories. My favourite line 'Once the Venetians l…

Bret Devereaux is a teaching assistant professor of history at North Carolina State University and is the author of this magnificent blog that covers ancient history generally with military history a…