Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong

We compare the ongoing series, "History of the United States in 100 Objects," which has been running on historiansplaining podcast since 2018, to the new series of the same title, launched earlier this year by 99% Invisible and BBC Studios -- and to the earlier prototype for both, the "History of the World in 100 Objects" based on the British Museum Collection.

We consider the differences between archaeological artifacts and modern mass-produced commodities, between history based on physical records vs. based on written texts, and between storytelling based on a preconceived agenda vs. improvised. We consider some favorite or most impactful episodes in this series, including the most-played episode on the Hiawatha Belt.

Finally, we hear an excerpt from the latest episode, no. 26, on the preserved thumb of George Whitefield, which is held in the Methodist Archives at Drew University.

Sign on as a patron of historiansplaining in order to keep this series coming -- without ads! -- and in order to join in the live discussion with patrons on Oct. 15th.

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We read poems dealing with the religious and intellectual history of New England & grappling with the legacies of Puritanism, the Great Awakening, and Transcendentalism: Robert Lowell's "Mr. Edwards and the Spider" and "Jonathan Edwards in Western Massachusetts," about the colonial minister, philosopher, and fire-and-brimstone preacher, Jonathan Edwards; and Anne Sexton's "Kind Sir: These Woods," addressed to Henry David Thoreau.

Please sign on as a patron at any level, to make it possible to keep this podcat coming, and to hear patron-only lectures, including the upcoming lecture on the preacher George Whitefield's preserved thumb: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

A colony built on cod: We follow how the massive seasonal fishing industry of the 1500s, with its intense competition among Spanish, English, French, Basque, & Portuguese mariners in the frigid North Atlantic waters off of Newfoundland, eventually went ashore and began to construct year-round “plantations” around coves on the rugged shoreline, usually without state involvement or approval. We observe how planters, migratory fishermen, and aristocratic proprietors vied for control of the makeshift colonies in Newfoundland, leading to the emergence of a free-wheeling and hard-drinking colonial society, and ultimtately, to a cataclysmic war between France and England for control of the world’s richest fishing grounds.

Please sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures, including “The Successful Failure” on Jamestown and the founding of Virginia: https://www.patreon.com/u5530632

Our previous lecture on “The Elizabethan Dream: How England Became a Sea Power” -- https://historiansplaining.com/episodes/the-elizabethan-dream-how-england-became-a-sea-power/

Image: Scene of a Newfoundland cove with fishing ship & “stage,” from a French woodcut, via Heritage Newfoundland & Labrador, “The French Newfoundland Fishery in the 17th Century”

Sources: Pope, “Fish Into Wine: The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century”

Post on patreon for patrons only for 6 months: We tackle the deepest mystery surrounding the ancient bog bodies: why were people ritually killed and deposited in bogs for millennia? Were they targets of murder, execution, or sacrifice? We analyze the long and tense debate over Britain’s most famous bog body, Lindow Man, who met a brutal end in a bog in Northwest England in the 1st century AD, and in so doing, we refute the accident and criminal-murder (or “Iron-Age mugging”) theories. We carefully dissect the notion of the “threefold death,” which purports to link bog bodies like Lindow Man to ancient Celtic gods and myths. Finally, we explore the more difficult and nuanced question of whether bog killings were primarily executions or sacrifices, weighing evidences ranging from preserved last meals to manicured nails to Julius Caesar’s macabre account of the “Wicker Man” sacrifice in ancient Gaul. Finally, we return to Lindow Moss, and consider the possibility that Lindow Man’s death was a desperate wartime measure to combat the Roman advance.

Please sign on as a patron at any level to hear this lecture and all other patron-only lectures! -- https://www.patreon.com/u5530632/posts/doorways-in-time-165082926?pr=true

Alternatively, non-patrons may purchase the "Doorways in Time" playlist on the great archaeological discoveries, for one small up-front fee: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2127051?view=condensed

Image: English schoolchildren singing with “Lindow Man” t-shirts, with image of putative facial reconstruction of the bog body, from video for “Lindow Man, We Want You Back Again,” 1987 (video link below)

Video of song, “Lindow Man, We Want You Back Again,” by Lindow Primary School, 1987: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aguYZH2_oxg

SOURCES:

Books:

-Miranda Aldhouse-Green, “Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe’s Ancient Mystery”;

-Ross & Robbins, “The Life and Death of a Druid Prince: The Story of Lindow Man, an Archaeological Sensation”;

-Karin Sanders, “Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination”;

-Stead, Bourke, & Brothwell, eds., “Lindow Man: the Body in the Bog”;

-Melanie Giles, “Bog Bodies: Face to Face with the Past”;

-Peter Glob, “The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved”

MA Theses:

-Solen Ruffy, “The Violent Deaths of Kings and Priests in Ireland and Britain: Case Study of the Iron Age Bog Mummies,” etc., U. of Western Brittany, 2023, https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-04560083v1/file/Memoire-2023-LCCC-RUFFY_Solen.pdf

-Lydia Stewart, “Bog Bodies: Archaeological Narratives and Modern Identity,” Victoria University of Wellington, 2020

Articles:

-Van Beek, et al, “Bogs, bones and bodies: the deposition of human remains in northern European mires,” Antiquity, Jan. 2023;

-R.C. Connolly, “Lindow Man: Britain’s Prehistoric Bog Body,” Anthropology Today, Oct. 1985;

-Dalya Alberge, “Lindow Man ‘was a simple murder victim,” The Times, March 22, 2004;

-Ronald Hutton, “What Did Happen to Lindow Man?”, Worthing Archaeological Society Journal, spring 2004

-CS Briggs, “Did They Fall or Were They Pushed? Some Unresolved Questions about Bog Bodies,” in Turner & Scaife, eds., “Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives,” 1995

Lecture:

-Ronald Hutton, “Gods of Prehistoric Britain,” 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjC0lGr4h04

Podcast Series:

-“The Discovery Series: The Bog Bodies,” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-discovery-series-the-bog-bodies/id1852306442

The most exhaustive survey that you will find of the “Bog Bodies” – the highly preserved human remains, often of ancient Iron-Age people whose lives were ended violently, that have been discovered in wetlands all across northern Europe, from Estonia to Ireland, over the past 250 years. We consider how, when, and why these often shockingly intact bodies have been found, what facts can be gleaned about who they were, and finally, when and where the practice of killing people and placing them into bogs originated (hint: it’s in the title).

In the next installment, we will discuss the competing theories as to why these Iron Age people died violently, including murder, execution, and sacrifice.

Please support this podcast at any level to hear the patron-only lectures, including the previous episode of “Doorways in Time,” examining Catalhoyuk, the oldest town site on Earth -- www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Image: The right hand of Old Croghan Man, 300s-200s B.C., discovered in Ireland, 2003

SOURCES:

Books:

Miranda Aldhouse-Green, “Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe’s Ancient Mystery”;

Ross & Dobins, “The Life and Death of a Druid Prince: The Story of Lindow Man, an Archaeological Sensation”;

Karin Sanders, “Bodies in the Bog and the Archaeological Imagination”;

Stead, Bourke, & Brothwell, eds., “Lindow Man: the Body in the Bog”;

Melanie Giles, “Bog Bodies: Face to Face with the Past”;

Peter Glob, “The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved”;

Dick Kirby, “Missing, Presumed Murdered: The McKay Case and Other Convictions without a Corpse”

MA Thesis:

Solen Ruffy, “The Violent Deaths of Kings and Priests in Ireland and Britain: Case Study of the Iron Age Bog Mummies,” etc., 2023, https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-04560083v1/file/Memoire-2023-LCCC-RUFFY_Solen.pdf

Articles:

Van Beek, et al, “Bogs, bones and bodies: the deposition of human remains in northern European mires,” Antiquity, Jan. 2023;

R.C. Connolly, “Lindow Man: Britain’s Prehistoric Bog Body,” Anthropology Today, Oct. 1985;

Dalya Alberge, “Lindow Man ‘was a simple murder victim,” The Times, March 22, 2004;

Ronald Hutton, “What Did Happen to Lindow Man?”, Worthing Archaeological Society Journal, spring 2004

Lecture:

Ronald Hutton, “Gods of Prehistoric Britain,” 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjC0lGr4h04

Podcast Series:

“The Discovery Series: The Bog Bodies,” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-discovery-series-the-bog-bodies/id1852306442

Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:

We follow the tribulations of the Papacy through the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, as the Pope's loyal soldiers in the Jesuit order are expelled from Catholic states and empires, the Church comes under attack in the French Reovlution, and Napoleon takes the Pope prisoner. We then follow the Papacy's gradual recovery of prestige -- through the reactionary rigorism of Pius IX and the 1st Vatican Council; the creation of Catholic social teaching and the intervention of the Church in the class struggle between capital and labor under Leo XIII; and the dramatic reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. We consider the controversies and scandals of the modern church relating to fascism, the Nazi Holocaust, the Vatican Bank, and the suppression of Liberation Theology, and finally, examine the recent shakeup of the Vatican under Pope Francis, the momentous implications of the Synod on Synodality, and the clues presaging a new political assertiveness of the Church under the first American pope, Leo XIV.

Please support this podcast to hear all patron-only lectures when they are posted: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Image: Print showing Pope Pius IX presiding over the First Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica, 1869.

We examine how French Canada and its indigenous allies weathered the apocalyptic disasters of the mid-1600s, giving shape in the process to a new, distinctly Canadian form of mystical and penitential piety. We trace how in the 1660s, the new absolutist regime under the young Louis XIV and Colbert took the colony under direct royal rule, investing immense resources into the colonizing venture, pacifying the enemies of the French, and enabling ambitious imperial officials like Jean Talon to enlarge Canada into a full-fledged province, comprising extensive agricultural lands along the Saint Lawrence, a complex tiered social structure, an autonomous church, and a sprawling network of outposts, forts, and missions stretching as far as the Mississippi and modern-day Manitoba. Finally, we see how English expansion both in the south and in the north ended the interval of peace, reigniting war along new frontiers, and ultimately pulling Canada into a vortex of inter-imperial war from which it would never fully escape.

Please sign on as a patron to support the podcast and to hear all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Image: Reliquary with relics of three of the Canadian Martyrs (Chabanel, Jogues, & Daniel), held by the archives of the Jesuit Province of Quebec

Suggested Further Reading: Riendeau, “A Brief History of Canada”; Moogk, “La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada”; Linteau, “The History of Montreal”; Greg Koabel, “The Nations of Canada” podcast,

No other American colony projected such extensive power with so few people. We recount how the French explored the vast northern region they called “Canada” for decades in pursuit of furs and the Northwest Passage, but repeatedly failed to plant a lasting colony in the harsh and forbidding land—until they found in Samuel de Champlain a leader with the shrewdness and grit to overcome the severe cold, the vast distances, and the treacherous politics of the Saint Lawrence basin. We trace the growth of Quebec from little more than a warehouse in the frozen wilderness to a thriving town, controlling the most critical gateway into the continent and serving as the hub of a lucrative trading network, a vast constellation of mission towns and outposts (including the Christianizing experiment known as Montreal), and most importantly, a formidable indigenous alliance system that dominated the continent from the Atlantic to Lake Superior. Finally, we consider the disasters of the mid-1600s, including deadly epidemics and warfare with the Five Nations, that brought Canada’s most important allies to their knees and threatened to wipe the colony off the map.

Please sign up as a patron to support the podcast! -- https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632

Previous lecture discussing the history of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (aka the Iroquois Confederacy or Five Nations): https://historiansplaining.com/individual-episodes/the-hiawatha-belt/

Previous lecture, discussing the dynamics and importance of the fur trade: “History of the United States in 100 Objects, no. 24 – Beaver-Fur Stovepipe Hat” -- https://historiansplaining.com/individual-episodes/beaver-fur-stovepipe-hat/

Previous lecture on the first French colony on the North American mainland, Acadia: https://historiansplaining.com/individual-episodes/acadia-first-foothold-in-the-north/

Image: Engraving depicting the battle of Lake Champlain, July, 1609, published in Samuel de Champlain’s “Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain,” 1613, based on a drawing by Champlain himself

Suggested Further Reading: Riendeau, “A Brief History of Canada”; David Hackett Fischer, “Champlain’s Dream: The European Founding of North America”; Moogk, “La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada”; Linteau, “The History of Montreal”; Greg Koabel, “The Nations of Canada” podcast, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nations-of-canada/id1531471267

Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only: We reconstruct the complex divisions and conflicts in Italian society as the new state sought to realize the Risorgimento’s unfulfilled promises of national unity and glory. We observe how the struggles among the Papacy, the Crown, and the powerful socialist movement led to Italy’s momentous decision to break with the Triple Alliance and to enter World War One with the Entente powers, and laid the groundwork for the original rise of Fascism.

This series on the origins of the First World War comprises 15 lectures; 7 of them are on Patreon for patrons only:

#2: Serbia

#4: Bosnia & the Assassination

#6: Germany

#8: France

#10: Japan

#12: War Planning & Strategy

#14: Conclusions: Was the Great War Inevitable?

You can gain access to the full series either by signing up as a patron of historiansplaining (https://www.patreon.com/c/u5530632), or alternatively, by purchasing access to the full playlist with on flat fee: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2226364?view=condensed

Suggested further reading: John A. David, ed., "Italy in the Nineteenth Century”; Adrian Lyttleton, ed., “Liberal and Fascist Italy”

Image: pro-intervention rally with Gabriele D’Annunzio, held at Quarto, Liguria, May 5, 1915

For patrons only for 1 year: We trace how the notion of the “industrial revolution” – originally a foreign, Continental idea rooted in German dialectical history – entered into British political discourse and then into sacred national mythology, enshrined by the tourism industry and by Thatcherite politics. Then we examine the evolving debate over whether the alleged revolution was a good or a bad thing—or whether such an event happened at all, considering its narrow limitations in time, space, and scope. Finally, we weigh carefully the arguments that have been advanced in defense of the traditional myth, including the explosive growth of British cities, the wide divergence between Europe and the rest of the world, and the appearance of so-called “proto-industrialization” in the organization of labor before the rise of machines.

Please sign up as a patron to hear the entire lecture, and all patron-only lectures: https://www.patreon.com/posts/myth-of-month-26-159215235

Alternatively, non-patrons can purchase the entire “Myths of the Month” playlist for one flat fee: https://www.patreon.com/collection/2031535?view=condensed

Image: Museum of Sciene and Industry, Manchester, England, UK

Suggested further reading:

Books: Kenneth Pomeranz, “The Great Divergence”; D.C. Coleman, “Myth, History, and the Industrial Revolution”; Eric Hobsbawm, “Industry and Empire: An Economic History of Britain Since 1750”

Articles: Fores, “The Myth of a British Industrial Revolution,” History, 1981; Cameron, “A New View of European Industrialization,” The Economic History Review, Feb. 1985; Quataert, “A New View of Industrialization,” International Labor and Working-Class History, Spring 1988; Razzell, “The Growth of Population in Eighteenth-Century England: A Critical Reappraisal,” Journal of Economic History, Dec. 1993; Davenport, “Mortality, migration and epidemiological change in English cities, 1600-1870,” International Journal of Paleopathology, June 2021