Host: Joan Neuberger, Department of History, UT-Austin
Guest: Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, University of California, Berkeley
Historians have long assumed that white women in the U.S. south benefited only indirectly from the ownership of enslaved people. Historians have neglected these women because their behavior didn’t conform to the picture we have of the patriarchal culture of the 18-19 century marriage. In an extraordinary new book, Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers shows that “slave owning women not only witnessed the most brutal features of slavery, they took part in them, they profited from them, and they defended them.”
Prof. Jones-Rogers joins us today to talk about the narratives of formerly enslaved people, whose testimony changes the way we view those white women and the lives of the enslaved in the U.S.
Host: Augusta Dell’Omo, Department of History
Guest: Eddie Watson, Department of History
The Beatles arrived for their first concert in the United States on February 11, 1964 to rabid fanfare. Legions of screaming women greeted John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr on every stop of the U.S. tour, leading to observers dubbing the period as “Beatlemania.” As one of the most commercially successful and influential musicians of all time, almost every pop music artist cites their influence over their music. Yet who were the Beatles? What was their music like? And why were they so popular?
Ph.D. student in history Eddie Watson takes us deep into the history of the Beatles first tour in the United States, and reveals why we should understand these popular cultural movements. But perhaps most importantly, Eddie tells us who is the best Beatle, reveals their greatest hits, and regales us of his own attempt at the Beatle bowl cut.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest: Megan Raby, Department of History
Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentieth century, ecologists took advantage of growing U.S. landholdings in the circum-Caribbean by establishing permanent field stations for long-term, basic tropical research.
Megan Raby describes how, from these outposts of U.S. science, a growing community of American “tropical biologists” developed both the key scientific concepts and the values embedded in the modern discourse of biodiversity.
Host: Augusta Dell’Omo, Department of History
Guest: Alberto Martinez, Department of History
The subject of endless speculation, fascination, and laudatory writings, German physicist Albert Einstein captured the imaginations of millions after his discoveries transformed the field of physics. Hailed as a god, saint, a miracle, and even a canonized angel by his biographers and contemporaries alike, Einstein seems a figure worthy of his larger than life status. Not so fast says today’s guest, Dr. Alberto Martínez. We go deep into the personal life of Einstein, discussing his damaged relationships, intellectually incoherent views on pacifism and religion, and his own eccentric worldview.
Guest Dr. Martínez of the University of Texas at Austin joins us today to discuss who Einstein really was, and how science really is done – reminding us that Einstein was not Jesus Christ, not Harry Potter, but just a normal man.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest: Lior Sternfeld, Department of History and Jewish Studies, Penn State
Iran is home to the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. At its peak in the 20th century, the population of Jews was over 100,000; today about 25,000 Jews still live in Iran. Iranian Jews rejected the siren call of the Zionist movement to instead participate in the Iranian nationbuilding process, welcoming European refugees during World War II, and participating in international exchanges between Iran and Israel.
Guest Lior Sternfeld from Penn State discusses the rich history of Iran’s Jewish community in the 20th century, and discusses the unique place of the community in Iran under the Shah, and how Jews even contributed to the 1979 revolution.
Host: Augusta Dell’Omo, Department of History Guest: Monica Martinez, Brown University
Between 1910 and 1920, an era of state-sanctioned racial violence descended upon the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas Rangers, local ranchers, and U.S. soldiers terrorized ethnic Mexican communities, under the guise of community policing. They enjoyed a culture of impunity, in which, despite state investigations, no one was ever prosecuted. This period left generations of Texans with a deep sense of injustice, and representations of this period in popular culture still celebrate police violence against ethnic Mexicans. Yet families fought back, demanding justice for atrocities against Mexican-American communities.
Guest Monica Martínez of Brown University joins us today to discuss what happened on the Texas border a hundred years ago. She also reveals the striking similarities of the period to the Trump administration’s November 2018 decision to send military troops to the border.
Host: Brooks Winfree, Department of History Guest: Nakia D. Parker, Department of History
Many American Indian cultures, like the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, practiced a form of non-hereditary slavery for centuries before contact with Europeans. But after Europeans arrived on Native shores, and they forcibly brought African people into labor in the beginning of the 17th century, the dynamics of native slavery practices changed. Supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War, how did traditional native slavery transform in the Indian Territory throughout the 18th and 19th centuries into something resembling the unchangeable enslavement system of the American South?
Guest Nakia Parker joins us to discuss the African American slave-holding practices of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians during the 19th century, tells us how this system evolved, and reveals the claims to tribal citizenship from this enslavement persisting to the present day.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest: Ben Wright, Department of History and Briscoe Center for American History
The year 1968 was a momentous and turblent year throughout the world: from the Prague Spring and the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F Kennedy, to the Tet offensive and the surprise victory of Richard Nixon (possibly the most normal thing that happened all year). Apollo 8’s trip around the moon is said to have saved the year from being all bad news.
Guest Ben Wright has helped curate an exhibition on 1968 at UT’s Briscoe Center for American History called The Year the Dream Died, and discusses why 1968 looms large in our collective memory.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest: Lisa Moore, Department of English
On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk and George Moscone were murdered in San Francisco’s City Hall. Milk was one of the first openly gay politicians in California, and his short political career was not only emblematic of the wider gay liberation movement at the time, but his death and legacy inspired a new generation of activism which was seen not only during the 1980s AIDS crisis, but has lingering impacts four decades later.
In this episode, we are joined by Lisa Moore from the University of Texas’s English Department and incoming chair of the new LGBTQ Studies portfolio program, to discuss the legacy of Harvey Milk on the 40th anniversary of his assassination.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guests: David F Crew and Charters Wynn, Professors of History, The University of Texas at Austin
On November 11, 1918, the guns fell silent in Europe as the armistice with Germany ended World War One. World War I changed the face of Europe and the Middle East. The war had brought bloodshed on an unprecedented scale: tens of millions of people were dead, and millions more displaced. The German and Russian economy were in ruins, and both nations rebuilt in different ways before meeting on the battlefield again a generation later.
In this second roundtable on the legacy of The Great War, we are joined by David Crew and Charters Wynn from UT’s History Department to discuss the war’s impact on Germany and Russia.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History Guests: Mary Neuburger, Departments of History & Slavic Studies; Yoav Di-Capua, Department of History
On October 30, 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed a treaty of capitulation to the Allied Powers aboard the HMS Agamemnon, a British battleship docked in Mudros harbor on the Aegean island of Lemnos. Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were the first of the Central Powers to formally end their participation in World War I. Five days later, the Austro-Hungarian Empire followed suit, and finally the guns fell silent with the capitulation of Germany on November 11. World War I dramatically changed the face of Europe and the Middle East. The war had caused millions of deaths and millions more were displaced. Two great multinational empires–the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire–were dissolved into new nation states, while Russia descended into a chaotic revolution.
In this first of two roundtables on the legacy of World War I, I am joined by Mary Neuburger, Professor of History and Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and Yoav Di-Capua, Professor of Modern Arab History, to discuss the war’s impact on Southeastern Europe and the Middle East.
Host: Marcelo Domingos, Department of History Guest: Andreia Menezes, Department of Linguistics, Literature and Humanities, Federal University of São Paulo
The first notes of the samba and the tango instantly capture ones attention, transporting the listener to Bahia and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the River Plate in Argentina. Seen as national symbols for their respective countries, the samba and the tango are more than just popular musical and dance genres. A deeper dive into the development of these musical genres reveals a conflict between African slaves, indigenous people, and European migrants over musical identity and Latin American state formation.
Andreia Menezes, a linguistics and literature professor at the Federal University of São Paulo in Brazil, joins us to explain how the samba and the tango transformed from the music of the socially marginalized to an important issue for national intellectuals.
The US Marine Corps may now proudly boast to be the home of the few and the proud, but this wasn’t always the case. In the early part of the 20th century, it was the poorest funded and least respected branch of the military, and at the end of World War Two there was actually a movement to shut them down. How, then, did this transformation from relative unpopularity to the most prestigious armed service in the United States occur?
Aaron O’Connell, a history professor at UT Austin, joins us today to describe how, as the Cold War heated up, Marines utilized their own internal culture to win power and influence throughout U.S. political and social circles.
Host:Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest:Ahmad al-Jallad, Sofia Chair of Arabic Studies, The Ohio State University
Like digging through archaeological layers, documenting the development of language and writing provides important clues about historical events. Recent discoveries in the deserts of Syria and Jordan are yielding clues not only about the origins of the Arabic writing system, but also about the rich history of the Arabs in the periods just before and after the rise of Islam. A new archaeological find seems to provide the first contemporary evidence of a major figure in the early history of Islam–and even more fascinating, it appears to have been written by a loyal Christian Arab subject.
Ahmad al-Jallad, the incoming Sofia Chair of Arabic Studies at the Ohio State University, discusses his work in the desert of Jordan, and describes recent finds that paint a picture of a vibrant Christian Arab community in Syria, decades after the Islamic conquest.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest:Robert Weinberg, Isaac H. Clothier Professor of History and International Relations, Swarthmore College
In Kiev, in 1911, a Jewish factory manager named Mendel Beilis was indicted for murdering a young boy. Many believed that Beilis had carried out the murder as part of a ritual known as the “blood libel,” in which Jews used the blood of gentile children for baking Passover matzo. Where the idea of the “blood ritual” come from and why did people all over the world believe it? And what happened to Mendel Beilis?
Historian Robert Weinberg, who teaches Russian history at Swarthmore College is here to answer these questions.
Host:Brooks Winfree, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest:Manisha Sinha, Draper Chair in American History, University of Connecticut
It’s well known in American history that slavery was abolished with the 13th amendment to the constitution, however, the debate over slavery and the movement to abolish it is as old as the American republic itself. Who were abolitionists? How did they organize? What were their methods? And, considering that it took a Civil War to put an end to slavery, did they have any real effect?
Yes, they did! Dr. Manisha Sinha from the University of Connecticut joins us to discuss her research on the deeper legacy of abolitionists–men and women, blacks and whites, Northern and Southern–and how the debate over slavery shaped American history from the Revolution to the Civil War.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest:Lisa Kirschenbaum, Professor of History, West Chester University
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), which pitted a left-leaning Republic, suported by the Soviet Union, against right-leaning nationalists, supported by the Nazi, more than 35,000 people from more than 50 countries went to Spain to fight against fascism for the Republic.
Today’s guest, Lisa Kirschenbaum of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, talks about who some of those people were and what role the Soviet Union played in training them and welcoming them as exiles.
Host:Christopher Rose, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest:Julia Gossard, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Utah State University
In the 17th and 18th centuries, France had its eyes on creating a worldwide trading empire. French merchant families began sending young men–teenagers by modern definitions–to the Ottoman Empire, India, and Southeast Asia, where they were expected to learn local languages and trading customs, while representing French values and serving as the vanguard of French imperialism. However, things didn’t always go according to plan.
Guest Julia Gossard shares her research into the fascinating world of child ambassadors who were expected to live in two worlds and create lasting relationships between France and a global network of allies.
Host: Augusta Dell’Omo, Department of History Guest: Lauren Henley, Department of History
In 1885, the world’s attention was focused on a series of grisly murders that took place in the otherwise quiet town of Austin, Texas. Several African-American women were murdered in the middle of the night, leading the press to dub the unknown assailant “the Servant-Girl Annihilator.” The serial killer phenomenon was so new that some even went so far as to speculate that Jack the Ripper was the same person.
Lauren Henley describes America’s first (known) serial killer, what the events tell us about the racial history of the region and the reason why true crime fascinates so many.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest:Sheila Fitzpatrick, Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, University of Chicago and Professor of History, University of Sydney
It’s been 100 years since the Emperor of Russia was overthrown by a group of left wing revolutionaries espousing a radical change in politics and economics, who turned the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The echoes of 1917 reverberated around the world, and, at the close of 2017, historians did what historians tend to do: look back at what happened and try to encapsulate the global significance of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Today’s guest, Sheila Fitzpatrick, discusses some of the myriad interpretations that have been given to the 1917 revolutions, judgments about its success and importance, and offers insight into Russia’s own subdued attitude toward the centenary.
We’ve made it to 100 episodes! Join co-hosts Joan Neuberger and Christopher Rose as they look back on the origins of 15 Minute History, relive the awkwardness of the first few outings in the studio, recap their favorite episodes, share embarrassing moments with impressive guests in the studio, ponder the phenomenon of being asked to entertain serious questions at weddings, and give short glimpses into those April Fools’ episodes that we never quite got around to recording.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History Guest:Ben Wright, Associate Director for Communications, Briscoe Center for American History
With America’s entry into World War One in April 1917, life immediately changed for many young Americans. Nowhere was this change more evident than on college and university campuses. The University of Texas, with its 3,000 students, was a typical example: the liberal arts were set aside in favor of military drills for young men, and nursing classes for young women.
As we near the 99th anniversary of Armistice Day, Ben Wright from UT’s Briscoe Center for American History, takes a look at World War One on our very own home front: the storied Forty Acres of the University of Texas at Austin.
Host: Marcelo Jose Domingos, Department of History Guest: Gustavo Cerqueira, Department of African and African Diaspora Studies
Nearly half of the ten million Africans brought to the Americas over the course of the Atlantic Slave trade were brought to the shores of Brazil. Yet, despite having the largest African descended population of any country outside Africa, Brazil has long struggled to deal with the legacies of slavery and the racial equality that has persisted in its society. In the years after WWII, a new movement called teatro negro sought to put black bodies front and center in a rapidly changing Brazilian culture, a development that has been seen as political, social, and cultural.
Guest Gustavo Cerqueira explores the cultural sterotypes that centuries of slavery left in post-emancipation Brazil, and the ways that teatro negro sought to re-position Afro-Brazilian people–literally–on the national stage.
Host:Augusta Dell’Omo, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest:Tatjana Lichtenstein, Professor, Department of History, and Director, Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies, UT-Austin
After World War 1, the Zionist movement – the Jewish nationalist movement that had the creation of a national homeland as its ultimate goal – took root in the new country of Czechoslovakia. However, through the mechanisms of the Zionist movement itself, Czechoslovak Jews realized their collective power as an organized group within their own country for the first time. What happened next was a struggle between the goals of international Zionism and the potential reality of what Czechoslovakian Jewry could attain through collective bargaining – until the rise of Hitler and WWII tipped the scales.
Guest Tatjana Lichtenstein has studied the Zionist movement in Czechoslovakia and gives us a glimpse into the interwar period when Czech Jewish leaders saw the possibility of being accepted into European society, ironically through the mechanisms of a movement that’s become associated with immigration to the Middle East.
Host:Christopher Rose, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest:Julia Gossard, Assistant Professor of History, Utah State University
Satanic masses. Child sacrifice. Renegade priests who deal in love potions and black magics. And a secret tribunal set up to weed out the unholy members of nobility who use them, all desperate to get close to an asbolute monarch who keeps the entire nation under his thumb. It’s not the subject of Dan Brown’s latest book, it’s something that really happened in 17th century France at the court of Louis XIV, “The Sun King.”
Julia Gossard, an alumna of UT’s History Program, now an Assistant Professor of French History at Utah State University, has read through the archives of the secret court and walks us through the connections between Louis XIV’s absolutist rule and a fantastic series of events that’s become known as “The Affair of the Poisons.”
Host:Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest:Jeremi Suri, Mack Brown Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, LBJ School of Public Affairs and Professor, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin
Over the past two and a half centuries, the expectations placed upon the office of the President have changed and evolved with each individual charged with holding the position. From George Washington to Barack Obama, each occupant has left his mark on the office. However, since WWII, the occupant of America’s highest office has aspired to do more and more, but seems to have accomplished less and less. Have the expectations placed upon the office actually made the position less effective?
In his new book The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office, returning guest Jeremi Suri (UT-Austin) takes a long historical look at what has made presidents successful in the role of chief executive, and asks whether the office has evolved to take on too much responsibility to govern effectively.
Populism seems to describe everything in America these days, from politics to styles of communication. Some might say that it’s used so often, and in so many context, that it’s lost most of its meaning. But populism, or the movement from which it gets its name, arose in a specific context in American history at the end of the 19th century, and revisiting the history of this specific movement can help us understand how and why the term is used the way it is in present day politics.
Our guest for this episode, Dr. Steven Hahn of New York University, literally wrote the book on populism and helps us turn this political buzzword into a historical phenomenon from a time period in American history that has a number of parallels with our own.
Guest: Andrea Gutierrez, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Asian Studies
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History
Male-dominated narratives, male authors, and male-centered agency and priorities have been the norm throughout history, until the latter half of the 20th-century. So it’s no surprise that in ancient literature and epics, if you consider something like Homer’s Odyssey or other classics, even the Ramayana, the story of King Rama in early India, you see male authors telling the stories, adventures, and histories of men. In the Tamil literature of South India, however, we see something different.
Guest Andrea Gutierrez introduces us to epic South Asian poems from the beginning of the first millennium that past the Bechdel test, when women’s narrative critiqued, cajoled, narrated, and provided guidance for the devout.
Host: Augusta Dell’Omo, Graduate Student, Department of History Guest: John Carranza, Graduate Student, Department of History
Americans with disabilities compose approximately 50 million people today, and yet remains largely removed from the historical record. The road to recognition has been long and varied; from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s use of a wheelchair while in office, to the popularity of “freak shows,” wherein physical ailments were put on display. How have organizations and activist groups groups dealt with stigma and asked for rights to be able to participate in the public sphere in the United States?
First year history graduate student John Carranza, specializing in disability history, sheds some light on historical representations of disability, and how modern understanding of disability is informed by the past.
“Kids today.” Everyone says it, it seems, in reference to the idea that children today are spoiled, raised with poor values, and somehow have it worse than their parents generation. This notion dominates discussions from political debates to stand up comedy acts. But, what defines the stages of life and how people are supposed to act in each? Has it always been that way?
Steven Mintz has long been interested in the transformations of family life through the ages and, in this episode, talks about how nearly everything we think we know about family life would be unrecognizable even a century ago.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest:Peniel E. Joseph, Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, and Founding Director, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, LBJ School of Public Affairs, and Professor, Department of History, UT-Austin
Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for “Black Power” during a speech one Mississippi night in 1966. A firebrand who straddled both the American civil rights and Black Power movements, Carmichael would stand for the rest of his life at the center of the storm he had unleashed that night.
This week, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph, author of Stokely: A Life, winner of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change National Book Award (2014), discusses Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century.
Host: Christopher Rose, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest: Lydia Pine, Research Affiliate, Institute for Historical Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Over the last century, the search for human ancestors has spanned four continents and resulted in the discovery of hundreds of fossils. While most of these discoveries live quietly in museum collections, there are a few that have become world-renowned celebrity personas–ambassadors of science that speak to public audiences. But how does a fossil become a celebrity?
Lydia Pine, historian, author, and fellow of UT’s Institute for Historical Studies, has written a book about seven of the world’s most famous human fossils–appropriately titled Seven Skeletons. In this episode, she shares vivid examples of how human ancestors have been remembered, received, and immortalized.
Host: Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History Guest:Heather Andrea Williams, Presidential Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania
One of the most callous and tragic aspects of slavery in the United States was the slave owners’ practice of dividing families: children were taken from parents, husbands and wives were separated, brothers and sisters too. Why was this practice initiated? How did it impact families? Did the slaveowners feel any responsibility or remorse? And, after the Civil War, how did families scattered across the south try to reconnect?
Our guest today, Heather Andrea Williams, Presidential Professor and Professor of Africana Studies, has written a moving book about on the subject, Help Me To Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery.
Editor’s note: this is a much longer episode than normal, however we have decided to leave the interview in its entirety. So, for this week, we are 50 Minute History!
Humanitarian intervention has become such an accepted part of international relations, and our news headlines are full of stories about humanitarian efforts from the Balkans in the 1990s to Syria today. But it wasn’t always the case – the concept of humanitarian intervention originates at a specific time and place, as today’s guest explains.
Brian McNeil specializes in history of United States foreign relations, and is currently revising his book manuscript titled, Frontiers of Need: the Nigerian Civil War and the Origins of American Humanitarian Intervention, the subject of this episode.
Thousands of years before recorded human history, anthropologists have traced the evolution of human society from a nomadic hunter-gatherer phase to the rise of agricultural practices, which allowed people to stay settled in one place, form complex societies, and ultimately early civilizations. This transition, it is said, was so momentous that it has become known as the Agricultural Revolution. A few decades ago, however, a scholar posited that humans lost leisure time in the process, becoming virtual slaves to their new agricultural lifestyles that required hours of maintenance daily. This counterargument declared that the Agricultural Revolution was nothing less than the greatest disaster to ever befall mankind.
Not so fast, says our guest this week. Rachel Laudan, a renowned food historian and author of Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, argues that this thesis, which has found a champion in Jared Diamond’s best-selling Guns, Germs & Steel, fails to take food preparation into account. Our interview offers a different perspective and raises some new questions about the social impact of the beginnings of agriculture.
Host:Christopher Rose, Department of History Guest:Philippa Levine, Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professor in the Humanities; Co-Director, Program in British Studies
On June 23, 2016, British voters stunned many political observers (if not themselves) by voting to leave the European Union. To many outside observers, the election result was unthinkable, provoking a major political shakeup in the UK as well as an identity crisis within the EU. The factors that led Britain’s electorate to reject the EU, however, are rooted in decades of uneasy alliance with former rivals and enemies in the European bloc.
Philippa Levine from UT’s Department of History and Program in British Studies walks us through the contemporary British politics and rocky history of Britain and the EU that contributed to this historic decision.
Fifty years ago, on August 1, 1966, twenty-five year old student Charles Whitman killed 16 people and wounded at least 32 more at UT Austin. A former Marine sharpshooter, he went to the 28th-floor observation deck of the UT Tower and began shooting people on the ground as they walked by or tried to hide. A news cameraman set up a camera under the tower so the shooting was broadcast on television. Several police officers and a recently retired Air Force officer made their way to the top of the tower not knowing what they would find and, after the rampage had lasted 96 minutes, Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez killed the sniper. Later it was found that Whitman had killed his mother and wife in the early hours of the morning.
These events were seared into the memory of everyone living in Austin, but historians have neglected the story and, for decades, the university avoided and eventually suppressed it. A small plaque on a hard to locate rock was only erected in 2008. Why?
In Spring 2016, as the fiftieth anniversary neared, graduate students in the UT History Department’s Public History seminar led by Joan Neuberger decided to make the history of the tower shooting more widely available and accessible to the public. They examined documents in local archives and wrote a collection of historical essays on many important aspects of that day’s events, as well as on the historical context, and the aftermath. And they put these essays on a website. In this episode, Neuberger discusses the project with four of those students: Itza Carbajal, Maria Hammack, Rebecca Johnston, and John Lisle.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin Guest: Judith Coffin, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin
Simone de Beauvoir was one of the most important intellectuals, feminists, and writers of the 20th century. Her life and writings defied the expectations of her birth into a middle class French family, and her philosophies inspired others, including Betty Friedan. Her seminal work, The Second Sex, is a dense two volume work that can be intimidating at first glance, combining philosophy and psychology, and her own observations.
Fortunately, Judith Coffin from UT’s Department of History, is here to help contextualize and parse out the context, influences, and impact of one of the 20th century’s greatest feminist works.
In most world history survey courses, Arabia is introduced for the first time only as backstory to the rise of Islam. We’re told that there was a tradition of oral poetry in Arabic, a language native to central Arabia, and that the Qur’an was the zenith of this oral tradition. New evidence, however, suggests that Arabia was linguistically diverse, that the language we’ve come to know as Arabic originated in modern day Jordan, and that the looping cursive writing system that’s become the language’s hallmark wasn’t the original system used to write it. What to make of all this?
Guest Ahmad al-Jallad co-directs archaeological/epigraphic projects in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, uncovering new inscriptions thousands of years old, and shares his research that’s shedding new light on the writings of a complex civilization that lived in the Arabian peninsula for centuries before Islam arose.
Host:Kristie Flannery, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest:Ashleigh Dean, Assistant Professor of Asian History, Monmouth University
With the establishment of Manila as a Spanish trading port in 1571, one of the most important economic links in the pre-modern world was established. Spanish silver flowed from the mines of Potosí (in modern Bolivia) through Manila to Ming-dynasty China. The interplay between these two empires created a global financial system that linked far flung parts of the world in a way that mirrors the 20th century phenomenon that has become known as “globalization.”
Guest Ashleigh Dean just completed her doctorate in history at Emory University examining the impacts of this pre-modern trans-Pacific linkage whose far-reaching impact touched nearly every part of the globe.
Part of the civilizing mission of European powers in their colonies in Asia and Africa was an interest in encouraging hygiene and health among the population, according to recently established medical practices in Europe. Diseases such as cholera and plague were often targeted, but in sub-Saharan Africa, British colonial officials were especially concerned with sexually transmitted diseases (or, rather, what were assumed to be sexually transmitted diseases), which allowed colonial officials to tackle both the disease as well as what was assumed to be the licentious behavior that led to its spread.
Guest Ben Weiss has been studying the history of public health in Africa from the colonial era through to the current HIV/AIDS epidemic, and discusses these earliest encounters between indigenous Africans and European medical practitioners.
After World War II, governments and international aid agencies were looking for a way to ameliorate the widespread hunger and malnutrition that populations faced in areas devastated by war, poverty, and other ‘natural’ disasters. They found an unlikely suspect in fishmeal, and with it, lit up the economies of South America along the Humboldt Current. But the fish, as it turned out, had other ideas.
Guest Kristin Wintersteen has worked on the history of industry subject to the temperaments of on-again off-again current cycles in the Pacific, and how the boom and bust of one of the first superfoods has led to new discussions about global nutrition.
Following World War II, a large part of the world was in the hands of European powers, established as colonies in the previous centuries. As one of the nations that came out on top of the geo-political situation, the United States was looked to with hope by aspiring nationalist movements, but also seen as a potential source by European allies in the war as a potential supporter of the move to restore the tarnished empires to their former glory. What’s a newly emerged world power to do?
Guest R. Joseph Parrott takes a look at the indecisive position the United States took on decolonization after helping liberate Europe from the threat of enslavement to fascism.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest:John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History, Yale
For four months in 1871, angry citizens of Paris seized control of the city after a humiliating defeat against the Prussian Empire and the collapse of the Second Empire. The radical and revolutionary government and its brutal suppression was the inspiration for Karl Marx’s “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Although the experimental regime met a violent end, it has become part of the French national narrative.
John Merriman, Charles Seymour Professor of History at Yale, has just published a book about the Paris Commune that takes a new look at how a radical government managed to find support from rich and poor, conservative and liberal, to try to regain dignity in the face of France’s brutal defeat.
Host:Christopher Rose, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, UT-Austin Guest:Kristie Flannery, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History
At the height of the Spanish Empire, the Manila Galleon – an annual flotilla between Manila and Acapulco – was considered the lifeline of Spain’s economy, bringing silver from the mines of New Spain to the markets of Asia. On the reverse trip, the galleons would be loaded with Asian luxury goods, such as spices, silks — and slaves. This episode presents a micro history of the Trans-Pacific slave trade through the lens of Diego de la Cruz, a chino slave who managed to escape and evade capture for three years in the highlands of Central America.
Guest Kristie Flannery found Diego’s story in the Spanish colonial archives, and narrates his tale in the broader context of the powerful political and economic forces at work in Spain’s global empire.
New episodes are coming soon! In the meantime, fans might be interested in hearing an interview co-host Christopher Rose did about the history and behind the scenes processes that go into producing 15 Minute History with the FIR Podcast Network.
When Chris Rose, Outreach Director at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, launched the 15 Minute History Podcast in 2013, he had no idea that within eight months it would shoot to the number one ranked podcast on iTunesU.
15 Minute History is a podcast about world and US history produced by the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. The series is devoted to short, accessible discussions of important topics in World History and US History led by the faculty and graduate students at the school. The original goal in setting up the podcast was to take the school’s research and make it accessible to the public, something that they seem to be doing quite well as evidenced by the 3,000 – 4,000 downloads per episode.
Host:Samantha Rose Rubino, Doctoral Student, Department of History Guest:Christopher Rose, Assistant Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
In the summer of 2015, an obscure Qur’ān manuscript hidden in the far reaches of the Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham grabbed attention worldwide when carbon dating revealed that the book was one of the oldest Qur’āns known to exist. In fact, it might have been written during the lifetime of the Prophet Muḥammad … or might it even have been written before Muḥammad’s lifetime?
Guest Christopher Rose (yes, our regular co-host) has been following the headlines and puts the discovery of the Birmingham Qur’ān within the larger field of Islamic and Qur’ānic Studies, and explains how the text might raise as many questions as it answers.
In the waning days of China’s Qing Empire, a riot broke out in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. After two years of flooding, a starving woman had drowned herself in desperation after an unscrupulous merchant refused to sell her food at a price she could afford. Three days of rioting followed during which symbols of Qing power were destroyed by an angry mob, which then turned its sights on Changsha’s Western compound. Historians have long assumed the mob was controlled by the landed gentry, but as nearly every dictator knows, a crowd has a mind of its own.
James Joshua Hudson, Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Knox College, describes the riots and some surprising finds he made conducting fieldwork in Hunan that offer a glimpse into the deeply layered tensions on the eve of the downfall of the Qing dynasty.
In the early part of the 20th century, Texas became more integrated into the United States with the arrival of the railroad. With easier connections to the country, its population began to shift away from reflecting its origins as a breakaway part of Mexico toward a more Anglo demographic, one less inclined to adapt to existing Texican culture and more inclined to view it through a lens of white racial superiority. Between 1915 and 1920, an undeclared war broke out that featured some of the worst racial violence in American history; an outbreak that’s become known as the Borderlands War.
Guest John Moran Gonzales from UT’s Department of English and Center for Mexican American Studies has curated an exhibition on the Borderlands War called “Life and Death on the Border, 1910-1920,” and tells us about this little known episode in Mexican-American history.
Moderator:Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Featured Guests:Stephennie Mulder, Department of Art & Art History / Middle Eastern Studies David Stuart, Department of Art & Art History / Mesoamerican Center Debora Trein, Department of Anthropology
Straight from the headlines: ISIS destroys the temple of Bal at Palmyra. Looters steal friezes from Greco-Roman sites in Ukraine under the cover of conflict. A highway is built through an ancient Mayan city in the Guatemalan highlands, the legacy of decades of near-genocidal internal conflict. Why is the loss of human patrimony important, especially in the context of the loss of lives? How can we begin to explain why both are worthy of our consideration? And what can high school or college educators and their students do about it?
Our first roundtable features three experts from the University of Texas who’ve taken the destruction of sites where they’ve worked and lived seriously, and are working to raise awareness of the importance of antiquities in danger around the world, and share simple steps to raise awareness about the problem and how to get involved.
Host:Christopher Rose, Assistant Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Mike Loader, Doctoral Candidate, King’s College, London
For a period in the 1950s known as the Khruschev Thaw, the Soviet Republics enjoyed a brief moment of relative autonomy from the heavy handed leadership of Moscow. Latvia, a small republic on the Baltic Sea, took prime advantage of this period of liberalization under the leadership of a group called the Latvian National Communists. They saw a way forward that diverged considerably from Moscow, and took concrete steps to resist Russification of Latvia’s politics and culture. The Thaw was short lived, however, and the Latvian National Communists were eventually thwarted and the republic brought back into the Soviet fold.
Guest Mike Loader gives an enthusiastic look at this high drama at the peak of the cold war, which gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Soviet Union from a different perspective.
Host: Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UT-Austin Guest:Beeta Baghoolizadeh, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
The untimely death of a black man causes a stir in the press, causing intellectuals and activists to point to a long history of slavery and institutionalized racism in America. This isn’t a headline from 2015 (although it could be); it’s a description of how the Iranian press treated the assassination of Malcolm X. Iran, like many countries in North Africa and West Asia, has its own history of slavery, one that has been slowly forgotten in the century since its abolition; a history that is finally coming to light with a new generation of Iranian and Iranian-American historians.
Beeta Baghoolizadeh, a UT alumna who is now a doctoral candidate in History at the University of Pennsylvania, shares both the history of abolition in Iran and some personal observations on the difficulties of researching a topic long considered taboo in Persian society.
Host: Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Jessica Werneke, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin
In its early days, photography occupied an awkward middle ground between documentation and an art form, a debate which dragged on in the west for decades. The debate took place in the Soviet Union as well, where it was encouraged, discouraged, and then encouraged again in a roller-coaster of official policies between the eras of Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev. This interplay reveals a surprising amount about the lives of the artistically inclined Soviet middle class.
Guest Jessica Werneke has just completed her doctorate that looks at this oft-overlooked aspect of Soviet society, and discusses the turbulent world of amateur photography in the Soviet Union.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past & Professor, Department of History Guest:Dominic Lieven, Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science; Fellow, British Academy; Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
World War I is often described as “the war to end all wars,” a global conflagration unprecedented in human society whose outbreak reshaped the face of Europe, and led to the collapse of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviet Union. But did the war really come out of nowhere? What else was going on in Europe—and around the world—that led to the outbreak of this “global” conflict?
Our guest, Dominic Lieven of the London School of Economics, has spent his career examining problems of political stability in Europe in the 19th century, and the history of the Russian Empire’s waning days, and helps us understand the world on the eve of its first global war.
Host:Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UT-Austin Guest:Leonard Greenspoon, Professor of Near Eastern Civilizations and Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, Creighton University
Any student of a foreign language knows that the process of translating a text can be laden with unexpected choices about words, sentence structure, and phrases that don’t make sense in the target language. Now imagine the added pressures of translating a sacred text whose language is well known and imbued with religious significance and symbolism. Our guest Leonard Greenspoon from Creighton University has done just that with translators of the Jewish Bible over the centuries.
In this episode, Dr. Greespoon takes us on a fascinating journey into a Jewish perspective on how and why translating the Bible is necessary, and how and why it matters.
Host: Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:James Martin, Doctoral Student, Department of History
At 2:30 pm on Saturday September 21 1969, US president Richard Nixon announced ‘the largest peacetime search and seizure operation in history.’ Intended to stem the flow of marijuana into the United States from Mexico, the three-week operation resulted in a near shut down of all traffic across the border and was later referred to by Mexico’s foreign minister as the lowest point in his career.
Guest James Martin from UT’s Department of History describes the motivations for President Nixon’s historic unilateral reaction and how it affected both Americans as well as our ally across the southern border.
Host: Joan Neuberger, editor, Not Even Past Guest: Adam Shapiro, Lecturer in Cultural and Intellectual History, Birkbeck University, London
Controversies over the theory of evolution are well documented in American society: according to a Gallup poll conducted in the late 1990s, 44% of the American public rejects it in favor of the Biblical account of creation. Has this always been the case? Did Charles Darwin and early proponents of evolution encounter the same objections when the theory was first proposed in the late 19th century? And did evolution come out of nowhere as a radical new idea, taking the world by surprise? Not necessarily, as it turns out.
In an episode recorded on location in London, Adam Shapiro from Birkbeck University describes how evolution was first received in the United States, and the debates that led up to its most famous test–the Scopes “Monkey Trial” held in Dayton, Tennessee, in the 1920s.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History Guest:Julia Guernsey, Professor, Department of Art and Art History
The Preclassic period of Mesoamerican history (1500 BC – 200 AD) has left fascinating historical clues about what life was like in the form of monumental sculptures hewn out of boulders commonly called “pot bellies” (barrigones in Spanish) due to their distinctive shape. Yet, despite the fact that writing emerged during this time, the pot bellies lack any sort of description of historical context. Who built them and why?
Professor Julia Guernsey from UT’s Department of Art and Art History has recently published a book in which she combines the methodology of history, art history, and archaeology to offer a new look into this mysterious period at the beginning of recorded history in the Americas.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Richard Bautch, Associate Professor of Humanities, St Edward’s University, Austin
The authorship of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament–known as the Torah or the Pentateuch–has been traditionally attributed to Moses. This raised some questions, however: would the most humble of men really describe himself as such? During the Enlightenment, scholars identified four distinct authors of the Pentatuch, creating the long-standing “Documentary Hypothesis.” In the past twenty five years, a new trend in Biblical Studies has begun to challenge this long held view.
Guest Richard Bautch from St Edward’s University in Austin is one of the scholars taking a new look at the Biblical figure Ezra and his relationship to this critical text. In this episode, we discuss current thinking about the formation of the Pentateuch during the time of Ezra.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest: Stephennie Mulder, Assistant Professor of Art History and Middle Eastern Studies, UT-Austin
After the decline of the Fatimids, the medieval Middle East entered a period called the Sunni Revival, in which Shi’ism was officially discouraged and Shi’i institutions were closed and replaced with Sunni institutions. Or, at least, that’s what the official chroniclers tell us. The buildings themselves tell us a different story–one that tries to bring decades of conflict to an end by accommodating different beliefs.
Art Historian Stephennie Mulder has spent the past decade working in Syria and shares a new look at history of Sunni and Shi’a in Syria during the medieval period; and how both histories are threatened by ISIS and the Syrian Civil War.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Shainool Jiwa, Head of Constituency Studies, Institute for Ismaili Studies, London
Around the first millennium of the Christian era, a small group of Ismaili Shi’i Muslims established a dynasty that rapidly conquered North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. At the height of their power they conquered Egypt, where they founded the city of Cairo, and their Imam-Caliphs had their names read out in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, rivaling the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. And yet, despite three centuries of rule by a powerful Shi’i empire, North Africa remained—and remains—Sunni with nary a trace of its Shi’ite past.
In this episode, guest Shainool Jiwa from the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London illuminates an often overlooked chapter in the history of Islamic sectarianism, one in which religious differences were used to unify diverse populations under the rule of a minority government, rather than to divide and alienate them.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Ben Wright, Public Information Officer, Briscoe Center for American History, UT-Austin
What role did Texas play in the American revolution? (What–Texas? It wasn’t even a state yet!) And yet, Spain and its empire–including what is now the Lone Star State, did play a role in defeating the British Empire in North America. New archival work is lending light on the ways that Spain, smarting from its loss of the Floridas to Britain in the Seven Years War, backed the American colonists’ push for independence.
Ben Wright of UT’s Briscoe Center for American History has been working with the Bexar archives and documents how Spain’s–and Texas’s–efforts to divert sources of food and funding to the American troops helped to tip the balance of power in North American forever.
We at 15 Minute History are proud and honored to have been included as one of iTunes U’s “Best Podcasts of 2014.” We’ve had a terrific year—we have exceeded half a million downloads, and have acquired nearly 60,000 subscribers.
And we’re not done yet! We’ll hit 60 episodes with an installment on Texas and the American Revolution coming next week. Looking ahead to 2015, we have more installments in our ongoing series on sectarianism in Islam, plus episodes detailing new thinking about the Old Testament, rescuing antiquities from looters and plunderers, Nixon’s drug wars against Mexican cartels, and even more.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Henry Wiencek, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History
Perhaps no individual in American history has achieved such meteoric heights as John D. Rockefeller, who embodies the image of the self-made man who rose from humble origins to become one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. He has also become the archetype of the ruthless capitalist, singlehandedly crushing competition and ignoring attempts to restrict or regulate his activities. Love him or hate him, his name casts a long shadow over the early 20th century.
Guest Henry Wiencek explores the deep contradictions and equally varied representations of John D. Rockefeller, the self-made millionaire whose name became synonymous with industry and free enterprise.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Shahrzad Ahmadi, Doctoral Student, Department of History
In 7th century Arabia, the Islamic community was nearly torn apart by a civil war over the assassination of the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656), and the accession to the caliphate of Muhammad’s adopted son Ali, supported by Uthman’s assassins. The events of the first fitna, as it is known, are often portrayed as a struggle over the right to rule the Islamic community, but it was much more—a power struggle between Muhammad’s wife Aisha and Ali, and a dispute over who had the right to avenge the murder of Uthman.
In picking up where Episode 57 left off, guest Shahrzad Ahmadi describes this tragic turn of events that sent shockwaves through the nascent Islamic community, and that continue to reverberate today.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Shahrzad Ahmadi, Doctoral Student, Department of History
Nearly every world history textbook on the market explains the origins of sectarianism in the Islamic world as a dispute over the succession to Muhammad. Sunnis, they say, wanted an egalitarian society in which the leader was chosen from the people; the Shi’a, however, wanted the leadership of the nascent Islamic community to remain within Muhammad’s family. It seems simple—but is it really?
In the first of a series on the origins in Sectarianism in Islam, UT’s Shaherzad Ahmadi expands on this vastly oversimplified version of the story to introduce us to the key players involved—and to the intense rivalry between Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife, and his adopted son Ali.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Michelle Daneri, Doctoral Student, Department of History
In the late 17th century, Native American groups living under Spanish rule in what is now New Mexico rebelled against colonial authorities and pushed them out of their territory. In many ways, however, the events that led up to the revolt reveal a more complex relationship between Spanish and Native American than traditional histories tell. Stories of cruelty and domination are interspersed with adaptation and mutual respect, until a prolonged famine changed the balance of power.
Guest Michelle Daneri helps us understand contemporary thinking about the ways that Spanish and Native Americans exchanged ideas, knowledge, and adapted to each others’ presence in the Southwest.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Brian Levack, John E. Green Regents Professor in History, University of Texas at Austin
Stories of witches and witch-hunting in early modern Europe have captivated us for centuries. During the early modern period of European history, stretching from roughly 1450 to about 1750, about 100,000 people—most of them women—were tried for the crime of witchcraft. About half of these people were executed, in most cases by burning at the stake. But witchcraft is more than just a Halloween story–for the men and women involved it was a very real, very frightening aspect of daily life.
Guest Brian Levack explains that, at its heart, accusations of witchcraft and sorcery are based in the all too human need to explain the ordinary cycles of birth, death, sickness, wellness, and the constant struggle between rich and poor.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guests:Daina Ramey Berry, Associate Professor, Department of History Leslie Harris, Department of History, Emory University
When most people think about slavery in the United States, they think of large agricultural plantations and picture slaves working in the fields harvesting crops. But for a significant number of slaves, their experience involved working in houses, factories, and on the docks of the South’s booming cities. Urban slavery, as it has come to be known, is often overlooked in the annals of slave experience.
This week’s guests Daina Ramey Berry, from UT’s Department of History, and Leslie Harris, from Emory University, have spent the past year collaborating on a new study aimed at re-discovering this forgotten aspect of slave experience in the United States.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest: Francesca Consagra, Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings, and European Paintings, Blanton Museum of Art
Our first episode of season 3 features the curator of the exhibition In the Company of Cats and Dogs. We consider some of the inherent personalities and temperaments of these animals as well as those imposed or projected by humans onto them. Throughout history, these animals have been viewed and represented as family members, hunters of prey, strays, and as figures and symbols in mythological, religious, political, and moral images.
Guest Francesca Consagra helps us make connections across centuries and genres and underscores our complex relationships to these animals, revealing the many ways in which they say as much about us as we do about them.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Ann Twinam, Professor, Department of History
It’s become more and more widely known that, before first contact with Europe, the Americas were populated by advanced civilizations with complex systems of writing, government, and technological innovation. A number of these civilizations were clustered in the area known as Mesoamerica, which presented geographic difficulties for its inhabitants due to its harsh climate and environment, and yielding few natural resources. So, how did Mesoamerican civilizations thrive?
Guest Ann Twinam from UT’s Department of History discusses three of the major Mesoamerican civilizations: the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec (Mexica), and their once-forgotten contributions to human civilization.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UT-Austin Guest: Fred M. Donner, Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago
The story of Islam’s beginnings have been told and retold countless times. The traditional narrative says that the Prophet Muhammad, an illiterate orphan from the town of Mecca, became a prophet of God and founded a community that conquered much of the known world in little more than a century after his death. But what do we really know about Muhammad and the time in which he lived, based on historical evidence? How has this led some to reinterpret the origins of Islam?
Our guest, Fred M. Donner from the University of Chicago, has spent much of his career studying the earliest history of Islam. He offers his hypothesis on what the early Islamic community may have looked like, and describes an exciting new find that may shed new light on an old puzzle.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Carla Kaplan, Professor of American Literature, Northeastern University
During the explosion of African American cultural and political activity that came to be known as the Harlem Renaissance, a number of white women played significant roles. Their involvement with blacks as authors, patrons, supporters and participants challenged ideas about race and gender and proper behavior for both blacks and whites at the time.
Guest Carla Kaplan, author of Miss Anne in Harlem: White Women of the Harlem Renaissance, joins us to talk about the ways white women crossed both racial and gender lines during this period of black affirmation and political and cultural assertion.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Frank Guridy, Professor, Department of History and Director, John L. Warfield Center for African and African-American Studies.
In the early 20th century, an unprecedented cultural and political movement brought African-American culture and history to the forefront of the US. Named the Harlem Renaissance after the borough where it first gained traction, the movement spanned class, gender, and even race to become one of the most important cultural movements of the interwar era.
Guest Frank Guridy joins us to discuss the multifaceted, multilayered movement that inspired a new generation of African-Americans—and other Americans—and demonstrated the importance of Black culture and its contributions to the West.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Susan Douglass, doctoral candidate, George Mason University
In the late 15th century, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and conquered the Indian Ocean, bringing the rich trade under the direct control of the crowned heads of Europe and their appointed Indian Ocean Trading Companies. Or did he? Did Europe ever really come to dominate the 90,000 year old trade, or did it become just another in a series of actors competing for attention in an antique system of exchanges and commodities?
Guest Susan Douglass offers a nuanced view of the last five hundred years of European encounters with a deeply established international economy, makes the case that the remarkable story of this resource rich region isn’t over just yet.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Susan Douglass, doctoral candidate, George Mason University
Every American schoolchild knows that Columbus sailed west to reach Asia with the hope of finding precious metals, expensive fabrics, and exotic spices: all goods that were being traded in the Indian Ocean, and had been for millennia. Ancient Greek texts describe an active Indian Ocean economy. Some scholars have even linked the peopling of Australia to a slow, methodic collecting of resources along the coastal route from east Africa.
In the first of a two part episode guest Susan Douglass, author of the Indian Ocean in World History web site, describes the murky beginnings of trade and travel in the Indian Ocean basin, and the cultural exchanges and influences that the trade had in the days before the Europeans arrived.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Charles King, Professor of International Affairs and Government, Georgetown University
In the first months of 2014, a popular uprising in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine led to the deposition of the Ukrainian president and triggered an intervention of the Crimean peninsula by Ukraine’s neighbor, Russia. No one knows what’s going to happen next in Ukraine, but we can try to understand how we got to this point. What led to such deep and widespread discontent? What are the historical connections between Russia and Ukraine? How does Ukraine’s complex mix of ethnicities contribute to its sense of national identity? What role did economics and global geopolitics play?
Guest Charles E. King from Georgetown University discusses the state of Ukrainian-Russian relations, and historical developments in Ukraine itself, before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 to help us understand the situation in Ukraine today.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Samuel Thrope, Fellow, Martin Buber Society, Hebrew University
Anyone following the news today could be forgiven for thinking that Iran and Israel were natural enemies and had been since the latter was established in 1948. But before Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, the two nations had a close unofficial relationship that extended beyond economic and commercial ties. In 1962, Jalal Al-e Ahmad, arguably the most influential Iranian writer of the twentieth century, visited Israel on an officially sponsored visit and published a travelogue of his experience.
Guest Samuel Thrope, a writer currently based in Jerusalem, has just translated Al-e Ahmad’s Safar beh Velayat-e Ezrael into English as The Israeli Republic, a fascinating look at a time when Iranian socialists looked at Israel as a possible model for what Iran could become—and how that vision soured after the 1967 Six Day War.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Sam White, Department of History, the Ohio State University
What do a failed war by the Ottomans against the Hapsburg Empire, a rural rebellion in eastern Anatolia, the disappearance of the Roanoke colony, and near starvation at Jamestown, Santa Fe, and Quebec City have in common? They all take place during a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, which brought extreme climate conditions, drought, heavy winters, and contributed to rising fuel prices, failing crops and massive civil unrest in places as diverse as North America and the Middle East.
Guest Sam White from Ohio State University makes the convincing argument that environmental and climactic factors are as influential in human history as economic, social, political, and cultural factors, and suggests a cautionary tale for human history as it enters another period of climate change.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Karl Hagstrom Miller, Associate Professor, Department of History
Anyone who’s been to the music store lately (or shopped for digital downloads) is probably familiar with the concept of music categorized not only by genre, but also more subtler categorizations that might make us think of country music as “white” or hip-hop as “black.” It might be surprising that such categorizations were a deliberate mechanism of the music industry and that, even at a time when American society was as racially divided as the late 19th century, such distinctions were usually neither considered nor proscribed onto genres of music.
Guest Karl Hagstrom Miller has spent a career using popular music to explore the economic, social, legal, and political history of the United States. In this episode, he helps us understand how popular music came to be segregated as artists negotiated the restrictions known as the “Jim Crow” laws.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Daina Ramey Berry, Associate Professor, Department of History
Slavery marks an important era in the history of the United States, one that is often discussed in terms of numbers and dates, human rights abuses, and its lasting impact on society. To be sure, these are all important aspects to understand, but one thing that is often given relatively short shrift is what it was like to actually be a slave. What were the sensory experiences of slaves on a daily basis? How can we dig deeper into understanding the lives of slaves and understand the institution as a whole?
Guest Daina Ramey Berry has given this question serious thought. In this episode, she discusses teaching the “senses of slavery,” a teaching tool that taps into the senses in order to connect to one of the most important eras in US history and bring it to the present.
There is no question that the idea of race has been a powerful driving force in American history since colonial times, but what exactly is race? How did it become the basis for the institution of slavery and the uneven power structure that in some ways still exists? How has the idea of what constitutes race changed over time, and how have whites, blacks (and others) adapted and reacted to such fluid definitions?
Guest Jacqueline Jones, one of the foremost experts on the history of racial history in the United States, helps us understand race and race relations by exposing some of its astonishing paradoxes from the earliest day to Obama’s America.
During World War II, the governments of Brazil and the United States made an unprecedented level of joint investment in the economy and infrastructure of the Amazon region. The dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1937-45) trumpeted the colonization and development of the Amazon (christened the “March to the West”) as a nationalist imperative to defend a sparsely settled frontier covering some sixty percent of Brazilian territory.
Guest Seth Garfield shows how a little-known chapter of World War II history illuminates the ways outsiders’ very understandings and representations of the nature of the Amazon have evolved over the course of the latter half of the twentieth century.
Host:Henry Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Not Even Past Guest:Robert Olwell, Associate Professor, Department of History
Between 1754 and 1763, Great Britain, France, and a collection of French-allied Native American tribes fought a brutal war over trading rights in colonial North America. This war, generally called the “French and Indian War,” or “The Seven Years’ War,” resulted in a British victory and a large acquisition of French territory across the eastern half of North America. So, faced with the task of how colonists would settle all of this land, King George III issued a Royal Proclamation in 1763 which attempted to reorganize the boundaries of colonial America, as well as the lives of its inhabitants.
Guest Robert Olwell describes the proclamation, its effects on the history of colonial North America, and ponders whether the Royal Proclamation is really the smoking gun that caused the American Revolution as some have claimed.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Christopher R. W. Dietrich, Assistant Professor, History of U.S. Foreign Relations, Fordham University
Most Americans probably associate the 1973 oil crisis with long lines at their neighborhood gas stations, but those lines were caused by a complex patchwork of international relationships and negotiations that stretched around the globe.
Guest Chris Dietrich explains the origins of the energy crisis and the ways it shifted international relations in its wake.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Mary Neuburger, Professor, Department of History
Southeastern Europe, or the Balkans, grabbed headlines in the 1990s after the collapse of communism with the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the bloody conflicts that followed. At the time, much was made of the region’s unique history, having been separated from Europe and languishing under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. But, was this really the cause of the conflict in the 20th century? What was life in southeastern Europe like under the Ottomans?
Guest Mary Neuburger walks us through current historical thinking about the five hundred year legacy of Ottoman rule in southeastern Europe, and gives us an alternate explanation for the turbulence of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History Guest:Joseph Parrott, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History
With the death of Nelson Mandela in December 2013, attention turned once again to the conditions that brought him international acclaim as the first black president of South Africa, and overseer of a process of national reconciliation that kept the country from falling into bloodshed. But what was the system of apartheid that he and millions of other South Africans had rallied against for so long? Where did it come from? How was it enforced? And what brought it to an end?
Guest Joseph Parrott helps us understand the system of “separateness” that dominated the lives of South Africans of all races for so long, and introduces us to the key organizations and players that fought against it and finally dismantled it.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Sahar F. Aziz, Associate Professor, Texas A&M School of Law, Fort Worth, TX
The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 captivated the imagination of pro-democracy activists worldwide and turned the name of Cairo’s Tahrir Square into a buzzword for freedom and popular resistance. However, since the February 11, 2011 deposition of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s road to democracy has been marred by two miitary coups, a decrease in government transparency, and the erratic reign of a democratically elected president-turned-authoritarian who wasn’t even his own party’s first choice nominee for office.
Guest Sahar F. Aziz helps us understand the political earthquakes in Egypt’s bumpy transition from authoritarian rule to what comes next, and sheds light on what it might take for the country to arrive at the democracy its people demanded in the streets.
Editor’s note: this episode is a bit longer than the usual fifteen minutes. Because this episode discusses an event that is current and ongoing, we decided to leave it as a single, longer episode rather than divide it into a two part sequence.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Michelle Daneri, Doctoral Student, Department of History
Andrew Jackson’s presidency marked the introduction of a real maverick to the White House: a frontiersman from Tennessee, not part of the Washington elite, who brought the ideas of the people to the national government — or, at least that’s what his supporters claimed. But Jackson’s lasting political legacy instead comes from expanding the vote to all white males (not just landholder), and the tragic effects of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Guest Michelle Daneri from UT’s Department of History helps us sort through the political forces that brought Jackson to office, and the long lasting impact of his presidency.
Every veteran of high school American history knows that the rallying cry of the American revolution was “No taxation without representation!” But what did that rallying cry actually mean? What were the greater principles behind it? And, in an empire upon which the sun never set, were the 13 North American colonies the only place that Britain’s colonial subjects were agitating for a larger role back in London?
In this second of a two-part episode, guest James M. Vaughn walks us through the long and often painful process that took our founding fathers away from their original goal of from wanting representation and equal standing with the British motherland to the decision to split off from the world’s most powerful empire and go their own way.
Every year, Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, which commemorates our successful revolution against British colonial rule. It’s an important national moment—but it’s also an important international moment when viewed against the context of the greater British empire. At the time, the Empire was considered the most tolerant and liberal entity in the world—why and how did the American settlers come to the conclusion that they would be best served by breaking free and setting off to their own?
Guest James M. Vaughn helps us understand the little known international context of a well-known national moment, pondering questions of politics, economics, and ideas that transcend national boundaries.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Carter Vaughn Findley, Humanities Distinguished Professor in History, The Ohio State University
Over the past two thousands years, the Turkic peoples have migrated and expanded from a small group of pastoral nomads in what is now western China to form Islam’s longest lasting empire, six modern nation-states that bear their names, and large minorities across Eurasia. But … who are the Turks? Do they even form a coherent social category? Where did they come from? And what makes them “Turk”ish?
Guest Carter Vaughn Findley has spent a career working on the Turkic peoples and their history, and helps us trace their long migration from the Gobi to the Bosphorus, adapting, absorbing, and transforming themselves and the societies they interact with along the way.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past & Professor, Department of History Guest: Denise A. Spellberg, Professor, Department of History
In 2006, Keith Ellison, a newly elected congressman from the state of Minnesota, and the first Muslim elected to Congress, took his oath of office on a Qur’an from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library. Why did one of the founding fathers own a Qur’an? What was his opinion of it? And how did it influence his ideas about concepts of religious liberty that would eventually be enshrined in the Constitution?
Guest Denise A. Spellberg, author of a new book called Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders, sheds light on a little known facet of American history: our earliest imaginings of and engagements with the Islamic world, and comes to some surprising conclusions about the extend of religious freedoms envisioned by one of the key founding fathers.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Thomas Garza, Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies & Texas Language Center
Long before Bill and Sookie, Bella and Edward, there was the upyr’, a mythical creature that caused crops to fail, infants to die in their cribs, and plagues to spread throughout the Slavic lands of eastern Europe. How did we go from upyr’ to Vampire: the creature of the night who survives by drinking on blood and sparkles in the sunshine? And, more importantly, what can we learn about medieval Eastern Europe by talking about vampire myths and mythology?
Guest Thomas Garza takes us on the trail of vampires from their eleventh century origins to the days of Stoker, Harris, and Meyer, and helps us learn a thing or two about how society copes with its deepest fears along the way.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History Guest:Brian Levack, John E. Green Regents Professor in History, University of Texas at Austin
Descriptions of common men and women convulsing violently, speaking in tongues, expelling foreign objects like nails and pins, and levitating above their beds seem ripped out of the pages of a bestselling horror novel, or the plot to a (hopeful) blockbuster movie. But, in fact, medieval church records from the 16th and 17th century recount hundreds of cases like these, in which the afflicted was reported to be possessed by a demon or the Devil himself.
In this supernatural-themed episode (just in time for Halloween!), guest Brian Levack talks about his latest book The Devil Within: Possessions and Exorcism in the Christian West, and his research into the deeper social causes and meanings of these alleged “demonic possessions” in early modern Europe.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Barbara Petzen, Director, Middle East Connections
In this second of a two part series, we look at life in the Ottoman Empire for an average person, and the factors that led the Empire to the gates of Vienna … and why Vienna remained an elusive goal. Finally, we re-examine the myth of the Empire’s long “decline and fall,” which lasted longer than English settlement in North America. Was the Empire truly the Sick Man of Europe, or is there another version of this story?
Guest Barbara Petzen returns to walk us through the cobbled lanes of Istanbul, past bath houses and coffee houses, to help us look at the Ottoman Empire as a nuanced, complex, and changing entity that defies the traditional story of “decline and fall.”
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Barbara Petzen, Director, Middle East Connections
The Ottoman Empire has long captured the public imagination in a way that few other royal houses and empires have managed to do. From the days when its armies threatened the gates of Vienna, its long-rumored decline as the “sick man of Europe,” and the Taksim demonstrations of 2013 when Turkish Prime Minsiter Erdo?an was accused of “neo-Ottomanism,” the legacy that the Empire left is long and vast. But who were the Ottomans? Why were they so successful? And why have they lasted so long in the public’s imagination?
In the first of a two part series, guest Barbara Petzen helps to shed some light on the origins and rise of the empire that rivaled Europe for centuries. Turkish in origin, the Ottoman state at its best reveled in its diversity and played up the strengths of its multi-confessional multi-ethnic population.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Miguel A. Levario, Assistant Professor of History, Texas Tech University
The words “Mexican immigration” are usually enough to start a vibrant, politically and emotionally charged debate. Yet, the history of Mexican migration to the U.S. involves a series of ups and downs—some Mexicans were granted citizenship by treaty after their lands were annexed to the U.S., and, until the 1970s, they were considered legally white—a privilege granted to no other group. At the same time, Mexicans crossing the border every day were subjected to invasive delousing procedures, and on at least two occasions were subjected to incentivized repatriation.
Guest Miguel A. Levario from Texas Tech University (and a graduate of UT’s Department of History!) walks us through the “schizophrenic” relationship between the US and its southern neighbor and helps us ponder whether there are any new ideas to be had in the century long debate it has inspired—or any easy answers.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, and editor, Not Even Past Guest:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
World War I had a profound impact on the Middle East and North Africa. With the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, European powers carved the region into mandates, protectorates, colonies, and spheres of influence. Just a few decades later, however, World War II, however, left the colonial powers bankrupt and looking to get out of the empire business as quickly as possible, regardless of the consequences.
In the second half of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies discusses the lingering effects of 20th century European imperialism in the region and the transition to independence.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, and editor, Not Even Past Guest:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
The relationship between European, North African, and Southwest Asian nations that border the Mediterranean stretches back to antiquity and reflects a long tradition of trade, colonialism, and acculturation. Yet, by the end of World War II, Europe had come to dominate the region politically and militarily. When did this long-symbiotic relationship transform into one of imperialism and colonization?
In this first of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies walks us through the beginnings of European imperialism in the Middle East.
Host:Henry A. Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Not Even Past Guest:George B Forgie, Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, Department of History
In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? And, even though it seems like the obvious answer, does a struggle over the future of slavery really explain why the south seceded, and why a protracted military struggle followed? Can any one explanation do so satisfactorily?
Historian George B Forgie has been researching this question for years. In the second half of this two-part podcast, he’ll walk us through five common–and yet unsatisfying–explanations for the most traumatic event in American history.
Host:Henry A. Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Not Even Past Guest:George B Forgie, Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, Department of History
In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? And, even though it seems like the obvious answer, does a struggle over the future of slavery really explain why the south seceded, and why a protracted military struggle followed? Can any one explanation do so satisfactorily?
Historian George B Forgie has been researching this question for years. In this two-part podcast, he’ll walk us through five common–and yet unsatisfying–explanations for the most traumatic event in American history.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor of History and Editor, Not Even Past Guest:H.W. Brands, Dickson, Allen, Anderson Centennial Professor of History, UT-Austin
After the chaos of the American Civil War, Congress and lawmakers had to figure out how to put the Union back together again–no easy feat, considering that issues of political debate were settled on the battlefield, but not in the courtroom nor in the arena of public opinion. How did the defeated South and often vindictive North manage to resolve their differences over issues so controversial that they had torn the Union apart?
Historian H.W. Brands from UT’s Department of History reflects on this issues and how he has dealt with them in his thirty years of experience in teaching about Reconstruction: “It’s one of the hardest parts of American history to teach, in part because I think it’s the hardest to just understand.”
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Aarti Bhalodia, Research Associate, South Asia Institute
How did an expatriate Indian lawyer who’d been living in South Africa for two decades become the leading figure in the movement for South Asian independence from British colonialism? Who were the other major figures in the push for Indian Independence? And when did the path toward the Partition of the subcontinent become the inevitable outcome? And what are the lingering effects on South Asian politics today?
Guest Aarti Bhalodia from UT’s South Asia Institute sheds light on one of the most pivotal, and traumatic, events of the 20th century.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Department of History and Editor, Not Even Past Guest:Philippa Levine, Professor; Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professorship in the Humanities; Co-Director British Studies Program
Early in the twentieth century, governments all over the world thought they had found a rational, efficient, and scientific solution to the related problems of poverty, crime, and hereditary illness. Scientists hoped they might be able to help societies control the social problems that arose from these phenomena. All over the world, the science-turned-social-policy known as eugenics became a base-line around which social services and welfare legislation were organized.
Philippa Levine, co-editor of a newly published book on the history of eugenics, explains the appeal and wide-reaching effects of the eugenics movement, which at its best inspired access to pre-natal care, access to clean water, and the eradication of harmful diseases, but at its worst led to compulsory sterilization laws, and the horrific experiments of the Nazi death camps.
Host:Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Keely Sutton, doctoral student, Department of Asian Studies
Buddhism is unquestionably one of the world’s major faith traditions, but its origins are somewhat shrouded in mythology and legend surrounding its founder, Siddharta Gautama, the historical Buddha. Who was he? When and where did he live? And what were the social currents and forces in his own time that shaped his worldview and led him to renounce the world in an effort to save humanity from itself?
Guest Keeley Sutton from UT’s Department of Asian Studies helps us understand the historical Buddha and the era in which he lived.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Madeline Y. Hsu, Associate Professor, Department of History, and Director, Center for Asian-American Studies
Fears that the U.S. is being invaded by illegal aliens, of vast numbers waiting to stream across the border and undermine the American working class may seem ripped from the today’s headlines today, but a century and a half ago politicians weren’t looking south toward Mexico when debating immigration policies, they were looking west, toward China. Concerns over Chinese immigration shaped U.S. immigration policies in ways we still observe today.
Guest Madeline Y Hsu from UT’s Center for Asian-American Studies discusses the tumultuous experience of Chinese immigration to the U.S., the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and sheds light on the lingering immigration issues first discussed in the 19th century that continue to concern us in contemporary political debates.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Patrick Olivelle, Professor, Department of Asian Studies
Ancient, or Classical, India (300s BC-400s AD) was a seminal period in history. Nearly everything that is associated with classical India, the epics such as the the R?m?ya?a and the Mah?bh?rata, and great temple architecture, came out of this period. Great kings like A?oka left their mark on the classical world. Moreover, this was the period when oral traditions were written down, and the classical Vedic religion began to take on a form that we understand as Hindusim.
Guest Patrick Olivelle from UT’s Department of Asian Studies describes the Maurya and Gupta Empires and the flourishing period of South Asian history “between the empires.”
Host:Henry A. Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Not Even Past Guest:Robert Olwell, Associate Professor, Department of History
The Declaration of Independence is arguably one of the most recognizable documents in American history, quoted and recited often. But the first draft that Thomas Jefferson wrote contained passages that were edited and deleted by the Continental Congress before its approval. What did they say? What might have been different about the early Republic if they were left in? And is there really a treasure map hidden on the back of the original document?
Guest Robert Olwell from UT’s Department of History takes a deeper look to get insight into Jefferson, the workings of the Congress, and the psyche of the American colonists on the eve of revolution—plus, we’ll put that whole treasure map thing to rest once and for all.
You can find standards alignments at the bottom of each episode’s page, following the transcript and documents/suggestions for further reading. (Hint: you can click on “Transcript” right under the audio link and it will scroll down to the right space on the page).
Stay tuned for upcoming episodes, including Robert Olwell on early drafts of the Declaration of Independence; Madeline Y Hsu on Chinese immigration to the United States; Philippa Levine on eugenics; Patrick Olivelle on the Gupta and Maurya Empires; and much, much more!
He’s been called Spanish America’s answer to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson combined, but Simón Bolívar was both and yet neither. An orphaned child shuttled between distant relatives, he was educated in the principles of the Enlightenment and cut his political teeth watching Napoleon take over most of Europe. He is revered as the Liberator of Spanish America, even though he held most of his compatriots in disdain and eventually declared himself dictator before dying a political failure on his way to exile.
Guest Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra from UT’s Department of History discusses the intricacies of Simón Bolívar, an enigma who is still revered and reviled two centuries after his death.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History and Editor, Not Even Past Guest:Jeremi Suri, Professor of History and Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs (LBJ School of Public Affairs)
World War I ended the long-standing American policy of neutrality in foreign wars, a policy seen as dating back to the time of George Washington. What forces conspired to bring the United States into World War I, and what was the reaction at home and abroad?
Historian Jeremi Suri walks us through the events and processes that brought the United States into The Great War.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Natalie Arsenault, Director of Public Engagement, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
The Haitian Revolution, which took place between 1791-1804, is significant because Haiti is the only country where slave freedom was taken by force, and marks the only successful slave revolt in modern times. A ragtag force of slaves managed to unify Haiti, defeat Europe’s most powerful army and become the first country in Latin America to gain independence, second only to the United States in the Americas as a whole.
Guest Natalie Arsenault from UT’s Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies discusses the Haitian Revolution and its significance within the narrative of the political revolutions of the 18th century.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History and Editor, Not Even Past Guest:Miriam Bodian, Professor, Department of History
The Spanish Inquisition has cast a long shadow in the public imagination, with Inquisitors playing the role of villain on stage and screen. But what was the Inquisition-really? Established in 1480 to deal with heresies under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the Spanish Inquisition was a highly regulated institution with enormous political and legal power whose influence reached all the way to the Americas for over three hundred years.
Guest Miriam Bodian from UT’s Department of History separates truth from legend and reveals the intricacies of the Inquisition’s processes and inner workings.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Snehal Shingavi, Assistant Professor, Department of English
At the height of the British empire, India was considered the jewel in Britain’s crown. For over 150 years, a handful of British troops maintained control over a country of 300 million. Finally, after two world wars and a popular independence movement, Britain abandoned its imperial project and withdrew from India in 1947. What was Britain’s motivation in keeping India, and how did they accept the inevitability of losing their most valuable colony?
Guest Snehal Shingavi from UT’s Department of English examines the nature of British colonialism in South Asia and its lasting legacy sixty years after decolonization.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History and Editor, Not Even Past Guest:Jeremi Suri, Professor of History and Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs (LBJ School of Public Affairs)
The Cold War dominated international politics for four and a half decades from 1945-1989, and was defined by a rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that threatened—literally—to destroy the world. How did two nations that had been allies during World War II turn on each other so completely? And how did the United States, which had been only a marginal player in world politics before the war, come to view itself as a superpower?
In this episode, historian Jeremi Suri discusses the beginnings of the Cold War (1945-1989) its origins in the “unfinished business” of World War II, the role of the development of atomic weapons and espionage, and the ways that it changed the United States in just five short years between 1945 and 1950.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, and editor, Not Even Past
In the second episode discussing the tumultuous year 1917 in Russia, we examine the reasons for the failure of the February Revolution (discussed in Episode 1). How did the Bolsheviks, a small party on the far left of the political spectrum that barely merited any notice in February, come to dominate the popular revolution during 1917? And how did the Bolsheviks manage to channel their popularity into the power to seize control of the government of the world’s largest country?
Guest Joan Neuberger offers fascinating insights into the events that led to Russia’s October 1917 Revolution.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Natalie Arsenault, Director of Public Engagement, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies
The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most important examples of forced migration in human history. While slavery in the U.S. is well-documented, only ten percent of the slaves imported from Africa came to the United States; the other ninety per cent were disbursed throughout the Americas—nearly half went to Brazil alone. Where did they go? What did slavery look like in other parts of the New World? And what are the lingering effects on the modern world?
Guest Natalie Arsenault from UT’s Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies the oft-ignored impact of the slave trade on other parts of the Americas.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Chloe Ireton, doctoral student, Department of History
This episode looks at US perceptions of Mexico through map making during the US / Mexico War, in which a private publisher sold maps that were reissued annually to reflect ongoing progress in the campaign. Intended for a general, popular audience, these maps served as propaganda in aid of the conflict, but historians and military analysts alike have ignored them until recently—even though they may well have influenced the positioning of the border at the war’s end.
Guest Chloe Ireton looks at the intriguing history of maps as propaganda and the role of two publishing houses—J. Disturnell and Ensigns & Thayer—not only in rewriting the history of the Mexican-American war, but in influencing the outcome of the war even as it was still ongoing.
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Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Henry A. Wiencek, doctoral student, Department of History, and assistant editor, Not Even Past.
American political discourse refers a lot to the ideals of the Founding Fathers, but the Founding Fathers often found themselves at odds with one another with very different religious, political, and economic ideas. In this episode, we’ll examine some of the lesser known Founding Fathers, and examine the ranges of opinions they held about issues from slavery to states’ rights and their opinions on the form of the new American Republic.
Guest Henry A. Wiencek from UT’s Department of History walks us through an era of American history that, it turns out, isn’t so easy to summarize as it might appear.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Cacee Hoyer, doctoral student, Department of History
This episode provides an overview of the Scramble for Africa and how the 1885 Berlin Conference changed European colonialism on the continent. What did colonialism look like before 1885, and how did the Berlin Conference change the ways Europeans behaved? What did colonialism look like in various regions of the continent? And what are the lingering legacies of colonialism and de-colonization that continue to have an impact on contemporary Africa?
Guest Cacee Hoyer from UT’s Department of History helps explain the Scramble for Africa.
Host:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, and editor, Not Even Past Guest:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
In this episode, we tackle “that pesky standard” in the Texas World History course that requires students to understand the development of “radical Islamic fundamentalism and the subsequent use of terrorism by some of its adherents.” This is especially tricky for educators: how to talk about such an emotional subject without resorting to stereotypes and demonizing? What drives some to turn to violent actions in the first place?
Guest Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies offers a few suggestions and some background information on how to keep the phenomenon in perspective.
Host:Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies Guest:Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, and editor, Not Even Past
In February 1917, long summering tensions sparked a revolution that led to the overthrow of Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the establishment of a new government under Kerenski which was later overthrown by a group that became the Communist Party (the October Revolution).
Guest Joan Neuberger from UT’s Department of History discusses the long-simmering causes of the revolution and discontent in Russia, and what finally lit the spark that caused the uprising that toppled the three hundred-year old Romanov dynasty.
15 Minute History is a podcast—with supplementary materials—about World and US history. This is a joint project of Hemispheres, the international outreach consortium at the University of Texas at Austin, and Not Even Past, a website with articles on a wide variety of historical issues, produced by the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin.
This podcast series is devoted to short, accessible discussions of important topics in World History and US History. The discussions will be conducted by the award winning faculty and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.
But the podcasts can be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in History. Each podcast will be accompanied by documents and readings related to the topic for people who want to learn more about the topic.
Our podcasts will be available through the Hemispheres and Not Even Past websites, where listeners and readers can find links to more information about World and US History and Cultures and the resources that we’ve developed.