On Top of the World

On Top of the World episodes:

• 09.20.2019

  Ep 48: Buy My Book

  Your hosts discuss Dave's new book: World History Through Case Studies: Historical Skills in Practice. Dave tells us about how studying things like the history of veiling, yoga, or the World Cup will engage your students and help them think like a...

  
• 08.08.2019

  Ep 47: The New AP World History CED with Eric Beckman

  The new AP World History Course and Exam Description (CED) is out and we have to figure out the best and most responsible way to teach it.  In this episode, Matt interviews Eric Beckman, a veteran teacher and winner of...

  
• 07.12.2019

  Ep 46: How to Hide an Empire

  Are mountains of bird sh*t, a doctor giving his patients cancer, and the width of screw threads central to the rise of American imperialism? Yes! Matt and Dave discuss How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States...

  
• 03.07.2019

  Ep 45: Against the Grain

  Dave and Matt return from a winter break to discuss the future of AP World and review James C. Scott's book Against the Grain.  Recommendations: Dave: Webb, Humanity's Burden and Klieman, "The Pygmies Were Our Compass" Matt: Wrangham, Catching Fire...

  
• 12.28.2018

  Ep 44: Texting in Class - Panorama

  Texting in Class makes a triumphal return! Matt and Dave review Panorama: A World History by Laura J. Mitchell and Ross E. Dunn.   Recommendations: Dave - Empires of Ancient Eurasia: The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE – 250 CE by Craig Benjamin...

  
• 12.28.2018

  Ep 43: Playing with Paradox Games

  Matt and Dave are joined by special guests Henrik Lohmander and Peter Nicholson, computer game designers and historians with Paradox Interactive. We discuss their fascinating jobs working on the historical strategy games, how to break into historical game development, and...

  
• 12.17.2018

  BONUS: Document Analysis Practice

  New episodes are on the way! In the meantime, you can listen to Matt and Dave talking through some primary source analysis best practices, document analysis, and lesson ideas. We hope that you or your students find this episode helpful!...

  
• 10.31.2018

  BONUS: The Traitor Baru Cormorant

  Put on your masks and get out your account books! Matt and Dave are joined by a very special guest, Dungeon Master Rob! They discuss Seth Dickinson's groundbreaking fantasy novel, The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Although it is a work of fiction,...

  
• 10.16.2018

  Ep 42: The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt

  Dave and Matt sit down with Michael Vann to talk about his new graphic history, The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam. Your hosts discuss the joy of finding unexpected things in the archive, the necessity of...

  
• 09.19.2018

  Episode 41 - The Cold World War

  Reminder: Free registration for the 2018 Great Lakes History Conference! What is the Cold War to a World Historian? Dave and Matt use Odd Arne Wested's Bancroft-winning book as a launching pad to examine the longue durée of the...

  
• 07.20.2018

  Ep 40 - It's Just Me Against the World

  Matt and Dave discuss the story of the worst (best?) dinner party in World History! Starting in 1780 in colonial Peru, the rebellion that followed said dinner party was one of the bloodiest of the Age of Revolutions.  Led by...

  
• 07.19.2018

  Ep 39 - AP WH Revision: College Board Makes It Worse

  Lord help us, but College Board is back on its bullshit. All our writing, discussing, and protesting got us a whole 250 years! The new start date is 1200 CE.  College Board still doesn't get World History.  Matt and Dave...

  
• 06.27.2018

  Ep 38 - Live from Milwaukee!

  Listen in on Dave and Matt's panel and Q&A; at the World History Association in Milwaukee, WI! Your hosts talk history podcasting and the history of this podcast.  Listen in to hear our plans for the future of the...

  
• 06.10.2018

  Ep 37b – A Solomonic Halving: Rick talks AP Exam Changes, Pt. 2

  Matt and Dave continue their interview with Rick Warner! We discuss the announced halving of the AP World History course and the College Board’s condescending and dismissive attitude to the concerns of teachers and professors.  We talk about the CB...

  
• 06.09.2018

  Ep 37a – The Helicopter and the Truffle Hunter: An Interview with Rick Warner, Pt. 1

  Matt and Dave sit down with World History veteran Rick Warner to discuss the long arc of the field and the AP exam.  The AP exam revision will be discussed in part 2 of the interview.  Rick argues for the...

  
• 06.08.2018

  Ep 36 - AP WH Revision Bullsh*t

  In a surprise announcement last week, the College Board declared they are cutting out the whole first half of the AP World History curriculum (a.k.a. Periods I, II, & III).  The course is now going to be just World History...

  
• 06.08.2018

  Ep 35 – The History Manifesto

  The original “Bro-dels” Matt and Dave tackle Jo Guldi and David Armitage’s The History Manifesto.  How should historians respond to the “crisis of the humanities?”  Your hosts discuss Guldi and Armitage’s ideas of “long-termism,” big data, and the need for...

  
• 03.29.2018

  Ep 34 – Black Earth

  We’re heading back to the “Blood Lands” of Eastern Europe for a sobering discussion of the uses and abuses of the history of the holocaust from an ecological and global perspective.  We discuss Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth: The Holocaust as...

  
• 01.31.2018

  Ep 33 - The Dawn Watchers

  Dave and Matt have read Maya Jasanoff’s new book on the life and times of Joseph Conrad, The Dawn Watch.  We discuss Conrad’s life, and the limits of his vision in the turbulent world of the late 19th-century.  This is...

  
• 11.29.2017

  Ep 32 – We, Too, Are History

  On today’s episode, Matt interviews one of his former students, Valeria Alvarado, an immigrant rights activist and an undergraduate History major.  Val co-founded “We, Too, Are America,” an online platform dedicated to fighting the current administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.  The two...

  
• 10.27.2017

  Ep 31 – Scientific Racism

  How do you teach the evolution of race and racism in world history?  From the post-classical era to the Enlightenment and industrial era, Matt and Dave explore the historical construction of race.  How did ideas of race evolve in a...

  
• 10.15.2017

  Ep 30 – Conference Hype!

  In today’s episode, I talk Great Lakes History Conference as we reach the one-week-to-go mark! With me is Andrew Peterson, a visiting assistant professor at GVSU, and we talk about his panel on “Rethinking the World History Survey.” We chat...

  
• 09.05.2017

  Ep 29 – Herero Heroes

  Today, Matt and I talk about the ongoing controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments in the United States and the importance of public history to our discipline. Matt recently made the case for the removal of the statue...

  
• 08.18.2017

  Ep 28 - Remembering Virginia Boyd

  Today, Matt and I talk about the ongoing controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments in the United States and the importance of public history to our discipline. Matt recently made the case for the removal of the statue...

  
• 06.28.2017

  Ep 27 - Absolute 90s

  In this episode, Matt and I sit down over some fine 90s music (and a PC Pils from Founders for the Big Pitcher!) to discuss an important article published after the end of the Cold War; Benjamin Barber’s “Jihad vs...

  
• 06.08.2017

  Ep 26 - Germ Warfare

  Matt and I have been together in Utah for the AP World History reading, and today we managed to find some time in the evening to talk about environmental history and its place in the study of the Age of...

  
• 05.18.2017

  Special Mini Ep - Great Lakes History Conference

  For the first time ever, this podcast is part of a conference! And in this special mini episode, my conference co-coordinator (Mike Huner) and I discuss this years Great Lakes History Conference in Grand Rapids, MI. Hosted by the Grand...

  
• 04.17.2017

  Ep 25b – Global Goulash

  In our second interview with a professor teaching food history, Matt and Andrew discuss how to teach a World History course through food.  Come for the pedagogical insights, stay for the singing canned corn.Recommendations:Rachel Laudan, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in...

  
• 04.15.2017

  Ep 25a – Food and World History with Lauren Janes

  In this episode, Dave sits down with Lauren Janes, an assistant professor at Hope College in Holland, MI. We discuss her recently published book, her new project on using food case studies to illuminate key themes in world history (potatoes...

  
• 02.25.2017

  Ep 24 - Just Tacos

  In today’s episode, Matt and I discuss two books that connect food and world history – Planet Taco by Jeffrey Pilcher and Just Food by James McWilliams. Along the way we mention John Wick, Seafall, taco kits, a hilarious new...

  
• 01.05.2017

  Ep 23 - Introducing Food and World History

  In this episode, Matt and I start a three-part arc on food and world history. We discuss how to teach sugar (using Sidney Mintz and Eric Williams) and milk (using this article on the Leche Project), before moving on to...

  
• 11.16.2016

  Ep 22 - The Politics of World History

  This mini-episode was originally recorded in May 2016 with Tammy Shreiner and was intended to be part of a series of “short cuts” discussing world history resources online. My contribution was an article by Michael Lind about the future of...

  
• 09.27.2016

  Ep 21 - Comfy Genes

  In this episode, Dave and his favorite certified genetic counselor, Katey Mayberry, take a look at the genetic evidence for the settlement of the Americas. The first article, by Rasmussen et al in Nature, deals with the controversial origins of...

  
• 08.19.2016

  Ep 20 - #FreeBillStrickland

  For our 20th episode we bring in Bill Strickland from East Grand Rapids High School to discuss the upcoming changes to the AP world history exam. The acronyms come fast and furious as we go through the SAQs, DBQs, and...

  
• 08.02.2016

  Ep 19 - Bloodlands: Beyond Thunderdome

  In Episode 4, I mentioned I used the book Bloodlands by Timothy (not Zack) Snyder when teaching WWII in my world history survey. Our guest Andrew Behrendt was underwhelmed with that choice. Today, Andrew and I enter the Thunderdome and...

  
• 07.15.2016

  Ep 18 - The WHAppening

  No, it’s not an M. Night Shyamalan film, it’s our recap of the World History Association Annual Meeting in Gent, Belgium. We talk Bancroft Prizes (the very nsfw Onion article is here!), podcast stats, a great paper on mapping by...

  
• 06.17.2016

  Ep 17 - The New DB-Cool

  After a week in Salt Lake City grading the AP World History exams, Matt and I take a quick look at the changes coming to the document-based question (DBQ). Based on the powerpoint released at the PD event there, we...

  
• 05.17.2016

  Ep 16 - An Interview with Niklas Frykman

  In this episode, Matt and I chat with Niklas Frykman about the Age of Revolutions! We start by discussing life on an 18th century ship (including a mention of the Diligent by Robert Harms), impressment, cosmopolitan sailors, and why Master...

  
• 05.02.2016

  Ep 15 - The Vikings

  In this episode Matt and I discuss the Vikings with Jack Bouchard, a returning guest and graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. As we drink three delicious beers, we discuss the question I asked the students in my survey...

  
• 04.25.2016

  Ep 14 - An Interview with Molly Warsh

  In this episode, Matt and I talk to Molly Warsh, an assistant professor in the history department at Pitt and associate director at the World History Center there. We talk about her research on the pearl industry, the future of...

  
• 03.31.2016

  Ep 13 - “Texting in Class” Review of Strayer

  In this episode, Matt and I debut a new segment in this podcast called “Texting in Class.” During this segment we review a popular world history textbook and provide some insights into its strengths and weaknesses. We start with one...

  
• 03.11.2016

  Ep 12 - F*ck Niall Ferguson

  In this episode, Matt and Dave discuss Niall Ferguson’s controversial bestseller Civilization: The West and the Rest with Matt's grad school colleague Jack Bouchard. It is safe to say that none of us are huge fans of the “six killer...

  
• 02.15.2016

  Ep 11 - An Interview of Tamara Shreiner

  In this episode I interview Tammy Shreiner, an assistant professor of social studies education at Grand Valley State University. She describes her work on the “World History For Us All” project, a collaborative endeavor between K-12 teachers and university professors...

  
• 02.01.2016

  Ep 10 - The Transition from High School to University

  In this episode Matt and Dave discuss how teachers can prepare students for the transition from high school to university. We are joined by three of our close friends from the AP World History reading to help us with this...

  
• 01.20.2016

  Ep 9 - An Interview with Eric Jones

  In this episode, Matt and Dave discuss the place of Southeast Asia in world history with Eric Jones, an associate professor of history as well as assistant director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University. During...

  
• 12.30.2015

  Ep 8b - An Interview with Craig Benjamin: Part 2

  This episode is the second part (first part is here) of an interview with leading “big-historian” Craig Benjamin. Over a couple of Fosters we discuss big-history critics, first-year courses, world history textbooks (including his own), the AP reading, and the...

  
• 12.29.2015

  Ep 8a - An Interview with Craig Benjamin: Part 1

  In this episode Dave speaks with Craig Benjamin on his career as a world historian. He describes his graduate work at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and his fateful meeting with David Christian that led him to become an important...

  
• 12.01.2015

  Ep 7 - A Presentation on African Topics in World History

  Due to a busy holiday travel schedule, Matt and I were unable to record a new podcast for early December. Instead, we are offering bonus content! In October I presented at the Great Lakes History Conference in Allendale, MI on...

  
• 11.17.2015

  Ep 6 - Assessment

  In this episode, Matt and Dave discuss how we evaluate our performance in the classroom over a round of Shiner Bock beer. We reminisce about our favorite lectures during our undergrad days, me at a small liberal arts college in...

  
• 10.27.2015

  Ep 5 - Easter Island

  This episode expands on our Easter Island subject guide, and critiques how most textbooks deal with its history. This remote locale is famous for its mysterious moai, the massive stone heads which have become iconic for the hubris of its...