A teenage peasant girl claims God is speaking directly to her—and medieval Europe has a problem.

In Part 1 of The Maid’s Divine Politics, we rewind to the winter of 1429, when France is on the brink of extinction and the Hundred Years’ War looks all but lost. Into that collapse walks Joan of Arc: seventeen, illiterate, unheard of—and utterly convinced that saints are commanding her to save a kingdom. This episode follows Joan from a burned border village to the halls of power, tracing how private religious visions become a public political weapon powerful enough to terrify kings, theologians, and generals alike.

This isn’t the Joan of stained glass and slogans. This is Joan as a revolutionary idea—someone who proves that authority doesn’t only flow from crowns or churches, but can be claimed by ordinary people appealing to something higher. We explore the violence that shaped her childhood, the voices that drove her forward, and the moment she walks into the Dauphin’s court and does something that should have been impossible.

In this episode:

• A France collapsing under occupation, betrayal, and endless war
• A farm girl who hears voices—and refuses to ignore them
• The dangerous theology of direct divine authority
• Joan’s first confrontation with power at Vaucouleurs
• A throne room test that leaves the future king asking one question: What if she’s telling the truth?

This is the beginning of a four-part deep dive into how faith becomes politics, prophecy becomes power, and how one girl rewrites the rules of legitimacy forever.

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We trace how the 1915 U.S. occupation seized Haiti’s gold, reworked its laws, and built security forces that later empowered dictatorship, then follow the same logic into the earthquake era and the politics of foreign aid. The story connects sovereignty, profit, and the long afterlife of imposed institutions.

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We trace Haiti’s leap from independence to isolation, from a flag raised in 1804 to a century of debt that reshaped its economy and politics. We grapple with the 1804 massacres, the split between Christophe and Pétion, and France’s ransom that turned victory into a warning.

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We trace how Toussaint Louverture transforms a burning revolt into a political project with armies, laws, and an economy strong enough to face Europe. The story moves from alliances and betrayals to constitutions and a final trap, ending with the birth of Haiti and the cost of its freedom.

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We trace how Saint-Domingue’s profit machine turned human lives into inputs and why that made Haiti’s revolution not just likely but logical. From Ogé’s failed moderation to Bois Caïman’s oath, we show how terror created its own undoing and how Toussaint began to emerge.

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A mercenary powerhouse loses a single battle and becomes the world’s broker of peace. We trace how Marignano in 1515 forced Switzerland to pivot from exporting violence to exporting trust, and the moral trade-offs that followed into the twentieth century.

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A handful of salt shouldn’t threaten an empire. Yet in 1930, Gandhi turned that simple mineral into a precision tool that cracked the moral shell of British rule. We follow the Salt March from its first quiet steps in Sabarmati to the sunrise moment at Dandi, and then to the brutal, disciplined courage at Dharasana that forced the world to watch—and judge. Along the way, we unpack the mechanics of a different kind of warfare: symbolic targets, global optics, disciplined nonviolence, and a participatory design that let millions join the cause from kitchens, beaches, and village squares.

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We trace the 1960 palace coup, the rise of a critical elite, and the famine that shattered Haile Selassie’s story of gradual reform. The fall of the emperor and the Derg’s ascent reveal how Ethiopian exceptionalism became both a source of pride and a barrier to change.

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Emperor Haile Selassie's journey from Ethiopian modernizer to exiled leader reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of international law when confronted with fascist aggression. His powerful 1936 speech to the League of Nations stands as one of history's great diplomatic addresses, documenting Italian war crimes while challenging world powers to live up to their promises of protection for sovereign nations.

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The Battle of Adwa in 1896 represents a pivotal moment in African history, as Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia decisively defeated Italian colonial forces, thereby preserving Ethiopian independence at a time when the rest of Africa was facing European colonization. This victory created a psychological foundation that shaped Ethiopian identity and influenced African resistance movements for generations to come.

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