12 U/C West and World Podcast

12 U/C West and World Podcast

By 12 U/C West and World PodcastEducationHistory
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12 U/C West and World Podcast episodes

  • Opium, Rubber, and Empire: The Cost of French Indochina

    Explore the "Scramble for Africa" and the 350-year French conquest of Indochina, where state-sponsored opium addiction and forced labor funded a colonial empire. This episode examines the heavy human and cultural toll behind the massive infrastructure and industrial projects of 19th-century imperialism.

    10 min
  • From Miasmas to Microscopes: Medicine’s 19th-Century Wake-Up Call

    This episode explores how Victorian medicine made sense of disease before microbes, from miasmas and dietary warnings to rest cures, bleeding, and home treatments. It then follows the scientific breakthroughs of cell theory and germ theory that transformed how doctors understood illness and infection.

    23 min
  • Why Europe Had to Pick Sides After 1815

    This episode explores how industrialization, urban poverty, and the upheaval of the French Revolution created a political pressure cooker in Europe. It then compares liberalism and conservatism as rival responses to revolution, from constitutional government and civil rights to order, tradition, and monarchy.

    15 min
  • Napoleon as First Consul: Order, Reform, and Power

    This episode explores how Napoleon rose as First Consul by promising stability after years of revolutionary turmoil, while centralizing power in a highly efficient but undemocratic regime. It also examines his major reforms in religion, law, the economy, and education, including the Concordat, the Code Napoléon, and the rebuilding of French society under state control.

    11 min
  • Scientific Change in the Renaissance: From Bacon to Descartes to Newton
    This episode of the 12 U/C West and World Podcast guides Grade 12 students through the story of scientific change during the Renaissance and early Scientific Revolution. Framed in a narrative, classroom-friendly style, the episode explains how new ways of thinking about knowledge and nature emerged, focusing on three key figures: Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton. Students hear how Renaissance humanism, renewed interest in classical texts, and conflicts with religious authorities created space for experimentation and observation.
    The hosts explore Bacon’s push for empirical, collaborative research and inductive reasoning, Descartes’ method of doubt, rationalism, and mechanistic view of nature, and Newton’s synthesis of mathematics, observation, and experiment into universal laws of motion and gravitation. Along the way, the episode contrasts medieval explanations of the world with the new scientific method, highlights links to figures like Copernicus, Galileo, Vesalius, and Harvey, and shows how these changes laid foundations for modern science.
    Built specifically for classroom use, the episode includes frequent short pauses with clear writing prompts. Students are asked to jot down quick responses about how scientific methods shifted, how Bacon, Descartes, and Newton each contributed differently to this change, and how their ideas still shape how we think about truth and evidence today.
    23 min
  • John Calvin, Calvinism, and the Münster Rebellion: Faith, Power, and a ‘New Jerusalem’
    A dramatic, story-driven conversation for Grade 12 students in which hosts James Schultz, Jane Phillips, and Beth Cartwright unpack John Calvin’s life and ideas, explain the core beliefs of Calvinism, and contrast them with the radical Anabaptist experiment in Münster (1534–35). Through vivid storytelling, myth-versus-reality moments, and classroom-ready explanations, the episode explores how different Reformation visions of God, society, and authority led from scholarly Geneva to the bloody siege of a self-proclaimed ‘New Jerusalem’ in Germany.
    26 min
  • John Wycliffe and Jan Hus: Morning Stars of Reformation
    Beth Cartwright and Jane Phillips explore how John Wycliffe and Jan Hus challenged medieval church authority in their ideas, doctrine, and political context, preparing the way for the Protestant Reformation. Aimed at Grade 12 history students, this episode unpacks key beliefs about Scripture, the church, the Eucharist, and truth itself, while situating both men within the wider crises of late‑medieval Europe and inviting students to pause and reflect along the way.
    21 min
  • John Calvin, Calvinism, and the Münster Rebellion: Mainstream Reform and Radical Revolution
    This episode of the 12 U/C West and World Podcast introduces Grade 12 students to John Calvin and the core ideas of Calvinism, then contrasts them with the radical Anabaptist experiment in Münster (1534–1535). Jane Phillips and Susan Sommerfield unpack key doctrines like predestination, election, and the "five points" later linked to Calvin, and explore how Calvinism shaped church organization and politics. They then turn to the Münster Rebellion as a case study of how apocalyptic belief, social unrest, and radical views on property, authority, and community produced a short‑lived "New Jerusalem" and triggered harsh repression. Throughout, the hosts compare mainstream Reformed thought with the extreme vision of Jan Matthys and Jan van Leiden, helping students understand both the diversity and the dangers within the Reformation era.
    24 min
  • Jan Hus and John Wycliffe: Morning Stars of the Reformation

    This Grade 12 World History episode explores how John Wycliffe and Jan Hus challenged the medieval Catholic Church long before Martin Luther. Guided by host Jane Phillips, students will examine their key beliefs about Scripture, church corruption, and salvation; how their ideas spread through movements like the Lollards and the Bohemian reform; and why later Protestants saw them as "forerunners" or "morning stars" of the Reformation.

    29 min
  • Faith and Fury in France

    Explore the turbulent clash between Catholics and Protestants in 16th-century France, from the fiery Reformation to the fragile peace of the Edict of Nantes. Discover how power, fear, and faith shaped a nation in conflict and transformation.

    11 min

About 12 U/C West and World Podcast

From the publisher's feed

These are a collection of pod casts created for a grade 12 university/college level European History Course that begins with the Renaissance and ends with the Collapse of the Soviet Union.