The riots, protests, and boycotts that broke out in North America in the wake of the Stamp Act were only one part of the mass crisis that beset Great Britain in the 1760s, as the discontented poor and middle classes rallied behind the ideals of liberty and freedom of speech, and around “radical Whig” politicians who challenged the power of the Crown and the London oligarchy – none more so than the infamous provocateur, satirist, and “rake,” John Wilkes, who ignited popular passions in London and the colonies and nearly burned down the ruling Whig establishment.

We examine a key specimen of a tiny glass cufflink jewel inscribed with the incendiary slogan, “Wilkes and Liberty,” which was rececntly discovered in an abandoned town in North Carolina, and which has touched off a wave of similar discoveries, revealing the importance of small, almost unnoticeable objects in the spread of discontent and radical rhetoric across the Atlantic in the years before the American Revolution.

Special thank you to: Charles Ewen, East Carolina University; Jim McKee, Brunswick Town / Fort Anderson State Historic Site; Addison Siemon

Please sign on as a patron, including to hear the previous installment of "History of the United States in 100 Objects" -- https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

My lecture on the Interregnum & Restoration, including the origins of the Whig party: https://www.patreon.com/posts/england-and-1650-42722389

My lecture on the Glorious Revolution and the beginning of the Whig ascendancy: https://www.patreon.com/posts/james-ii-and-88-73953596

We examine the origins of the first European colony in America north of Florida – New Mexico – from the rise of the Pueblo civilization, which mastered irrigation and “made the desert bloom,” building monumental complexes in arid plains and rocky canyons, through the repeated Spanish incursions in search of seven cities of gold and the construction of a tenuous European colony riven by struggles between church and state, and finally to the eruption of the largest and most coordinated Native uprising in colonial history, which expelled Europeans from New Mexico and ushered in a temporary restoration of the ancient Puebloan world.

Image: Mission church of S. Esteban del Rey, 1629, at Acoma Pueblo

Suggested further reading: Sanchez, Spude, & Gomez, “New Mexico: A History”; Gutierrez, “When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away”; Brooks, “Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands”; Rodriguez, “Review: Subaltern Historiography on the Rio Grande,” American Ethnologist vol. 21, No. 4 (Nov., 1994)

My earlier lecture series on the history of Florida (first European colony north of the Rio Grande), “Fortresses on Sand: The History of Florida”: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/sets/fortresses-on-sand-the-history

Please sign on as a patron at any level to hear the patron-only lectures, including my most recent on Central Africa: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:

We trace the struggles of Venice, through conquest, revolution, and depression, to fashion a place for itself in the modern world, to channe

We trace the struggles of Venice, through conquest, revolution, and depression, to fashion a place for itself in the modern world, to channel or keep at bay the new floods -- of rising seas, of diseased canals, and of tourist hordes -- and most of all, to somehow square the circle of preservation and modernity.

Image: The Palazzo dei Camerlenghi & Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal in the flood of Nov. 4, 1966

Intro music: Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, overture

Closing music: Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, brindisi / drinking song

On Patreon for patrons only for 1 year:

It is the only large town that has ever been discovered from the Stone Age, making it one of the most important archaeological finds of all time and a critical prize in the heated debates that have divided the field of archaeology. Its striking artworks have fired the imagination, and its extensive ruins, copious burials, and rich grave goods have filled in massive gaps in the story of the origins of civilization, illustrating how the invention of agriculture and the “Neolithic Revolution” made cities and urban life possible. Yet it also remains a stubborn mystery: why are the houses all so identical? Why are there no public buildings or gathering places, or even streets? And why did the town spring up in the middle of a muddy and malarial plain?

Please sign up on Patreon to hear the whole lecture! -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/doorways-in-time-148211879

Suggested Further Reading: Mellaart, “Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia”; Balter, “The Goddess and the Bull”; Newitz, “Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age”; Ian Hodder, “Becoming a Çatalhöyük Person: An Integration of the Evidence,” lecture,

Image: The “Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük,” discovered in 1961

Music: Rameau, "Les Cyclopes", performed by Paul Barton for Feurich

Excerpt of a lecture for patrons only for 1 year:

We explore the tumultuous history of Central Africa, embracing the enormous Congo rainforest, the great rift valleys, the Indian Ocean coast, and the gold fields of the Zambezi basin, as formidable kingdoms—Kongo, the Swahili cities, and the mysterious Great Zimbabwe—emerged in the tropical landscape, adapted to the traumatic incursion of the Portuguese, and eventually struck back against European power, through diplomatic schemes, military struggles, and religious awakenings. This same region of the world produced some of the most remarkable and towering figures in African or world history, such as King Afonso I and Queen Nzingha, as well as many of the first captives to be taken to the New World, including the “twenty-and-odd negroes” that were famously landed at Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619.

Please sign on as a patron of historiansplaining in order to heat the full lecture: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Image: Bronze crucifix, Kongo, 1650-1750, High Museum of Art

Suggested further reading:

Van Reybrouck, “Congo: The Epic History of a People”;

Edgerton, “The Troubled Heart of Africa: a History of the Congo”;

Wills, “An Introduction to the History of Central Africa”;

Heywood, “Njinga of Angola : Africa's Warrior Queen”

Samuel, “The kingdom of Ndongo and the Portuguese,” ;

Thornton, “The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706”

We follow the rise of civilization and of powerful empires in West Africa before the slave tade, based upon iron-working and the traffic in gold and salt across the Sahara, followed by the spread of wealth and power southward, towards the gold fields and the tropical forests, and finally the reverberating impacts of the arrival of Portuguese traders on the coast, which paved the way for the rise of the Atlantic slave trade.

Suggested further reading: Rodney, “History of the Upper Guinea Coast”; Ajayi, ed., “History of West Africa,” vol. 1

Image: Sculptural head from Ife, bronze & brass, ca. 1300s

Please sign on as a patron to hear patron-only lectures, including upcoming installment on Central AFrica: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

We read ghost-related poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Lola Haskins, & Stanley Plumly, as a thank-you to patrons and a meditation on the field of history.

Please sign on as a patron in order to hear patron-only lectures, and to vote in the current poll on the next archaeological discovery for the series, "Doorways in Time": https://www.patreon.com/posts/announcement-in-142272603

Most of my recent apperance on the Katie Halper show can be seen on youtube, beginning about here: https://youtu.be/aScGDE4CuHk?t=4398

Image: photograph from photobook, "Epitaph," by Brendon Burton

Audio track from the new video, "Red, White & Royal Blue: A Historian's Analysis -- pt. 4: The Political Ideology of RWRB"--

Intro: Why the Politics of RWRB? – 0:00:30

Sec. 1: Idealism vs. Realism – 0:16:21

Sec. 2: The Hidden Agenda – what is left out of RWRB – 0:52:29

Sec. 3: The Trade Wars – 1:28:25

Sec. 4: The Elusive Democratic Majority – 1:40:09

Conclusions: Power & Pride – 1:47:45

We examine Red, White & Royal Blue as a window into the ideology of the Democratic Party and the liberal middle class in the early 21st Century, including its attraction to free trade, the Sun Belt, and particularly Texas, as symbols of the so-called “Emerging Democratic Majority” that would supposedly rule the rest of the century. We question the film’s basic opposition between idealism and realism and all of the implicit value judgments that it carries, and finally consider how the film excludes or avoids discussion of class and material issues, through a comparison with the 2014 British film “Pride.”

View this video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPEb9Zxx9eE

Please become a patron of historiansplaining in order to hear patron-only lectures -- / u5530632 -- and the see this video in its entirety without ads! -- https://www.patreon.com/posts/1420325...

Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only --

We examine the Epic of Gilgamesh as a piece of literature, for its strange dream-like style and form, its points of similarity to Biblical and ancient Greek and European mythology, and finally, its deep levels of psychological and political allegory, ultimately revealing the love between Enkidu and Gilgamesh as a parable of the fraught relationship between civilization and the wild.

Image: Gilgamesh grappling with Enkidu; illustration by Wael Tarabieh.

Our previous lecture on the discovery of the Library of Ashurbanipal, where the Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered: Historiansplaining – Unlocked-the-great-archaeological-discoveries-pt-3-the-library-of-ashurbanipal

The SOAS's recordings of scholars reading Akkadian texts: https://www.soas.ac.uk/baplar/recordings

Suggested further reading: George, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; N.K. Sandars, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; Heidel, "The Epic of Gilgamesh and Old Testament Parallels"; Stephen Mitchell, "Gilgamesh"; Michael Schmidt, "Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem"; Rivkah Scharf Kluger, "The Archetypal Significance of Gilgamesh."

Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:

He is the earliest human being whose name and life story are known to history. We examine the origins and contents of the most ancient narrative ever found anywhere on Earth, and trace how it has been rediscovered, re-used, and re-translated in the modern world, becoming a living and evolving text in a time of anxiety over the fate of civilization.

Please sign on as a patron in order to keep the podcast going and to hear patron-only lectures, including part 2 on the Epic of Gilgamesh! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Image: Sumerian bas-relief sculpture of a man subduing a bull, possibly representing Gilgamesh slaying the Bull of Heaven, 2200s BC.

Our previous lecture on the discovery of the Library of Ashurbanipal, where the Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered: https://soundcloud.com/historiansplaining/unlocked-the-great-archaeological-discoveries-pt-3-the-library-of-ashurbanipal

Suggested further reading: George, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; N.K. Sandars, "The Epic of Gilgamesh"; Heidel, "The Epic of Gilgamesh and Old Testament Parallels"; Stephen Mitchell, "Gilgamesh"; Michael Schmidt, "Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem."