In this episode of Historically Thinking, we begin not with a historian’s voice, but with the voice of a seventeenth-century woman.

Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley—born in England, twice widowed, and married in 1670 to Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia—speaks from the midst of crisis. Jamestown has burned. Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion has fractured the colony’s political order. Her husband has been recalled to England to answer charges before the Crown. Lady Berkeley, left behind, attempts to make sense of loyalty, loss, honor, and exile.

That voice is brought to life by my second guest, Amy Stallings, a historian and historical interpreter who believes the past is best understood not only through documents, but through embodied experience. Together, we explore Bacon’s Rebellion from an unfamiliar vantage point, the interior world of Lady Frances Berkeley, and the intellectual stakes of historical reenactment itself: what it reveals, what it risks, and what it makes newly visible.

00:00 - Introduction

00:28 - Lady Frances Culpeper Berkeley Introduces Herself

00:58 - Writing to Her Husband in England

02:55 - Sir William Berkeley's Accomplishments in Virginia

04:23 - The Royal Commissioners and Personal Betrayal

05:47 - Berkeley's Loyalty During the English Civil War

07:17 - Berkeley's Resistance to Parliament

08:15 - Berkeley's Return to Power and Jamestown's Glory

09:39 - Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion Begins

11:08 - Bacon Surrounds the State House

12:57 - Introducing Amy Stallings

13:41 - Theater and History Intertwined

14:27 - The Dissertation on Ballroom Politics

21:40 - Dance as Political Resistance

24:25 - English Country Dancing Before the Waltz

28:53 - First Character: Susan Binks, Tobacco Bride

28:53 - Learning History Through First-Person Interpretation

39:14 - Developing Lady Berkeley's Character

46:52 - Lady Berkeley's Isolation and Loss

46:52 - Lady Berkeley's Inheritance and Legal Battles

55:00 - The Challenges of Colonial Communication

57:00 - Sewing Period Costumes

61:51 - Conclusion

According to Chinese Communist official Xi Zhongxun, his first revolutionary act was an attempt to poison one of his school’s administrators when he was 14. He was faithful to the revolution, and the Chinese Communist Party, until his death at age 88 in 2002. In between those ages was a remarkable life. He fought Nationalists and Japanese. He was a right-hand man to both Zhou Enlai in the 1950s, and Hu Yaobang in the 1980s. As the Party administrator responsible for dealing with religious groups, he negotiated with the Dalai Lama–and would show off the wristwatch that the Dalai Lama gave him. 

But Xi also spent sixteen years in house arrest, internal exile, under suspicion, or at least out of power, from 1962 to 1978. “In the early 1990s, Xi even boasted to a Western historian that although Deng Xiaoping had suffered at the hands of the party on three occasions, he had been persecuted five times.” All this would make Xi Zhongxun fascinating simply as a psychological study of a Communist functionary who, despite everything, remained devoted to the system that oppressed him. But Xi Zhongxun was also the father of Xi Jinping, now effectively the dictator of China. If we are to understand the younger Xi, argues my guest Joseph Torigian, then we must understand his father.

Joseph Torigian is an associate professor in the School of International Service at American University in Washington, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a center associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. He was previously on the podcast to discuss his book Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China after Stalin and Mao, a conversation that was published on May 23, 2022. His latest book is The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping was released with Stanford University Press in June 2025. It was a Financial Times Book of the Summer and an Economist Best Book of the Year So Far.

00:00 — Introduction

02:19 — Overview of Xi Zhongxun's Life

07:15 — Early Life and Revolutionary Beginnings

11:44 — Growing Up as a Peasant in Shaanxi

15:02 — Path to the Communist Base Areas

19:21 — The United Front Work

24:10 — Work with Ethnic Minorities

26:00 — The 1935 Arrest by Fellow Communists

27:56 — Patronage and Party Relationships

30:51 — The Northwest Bureau and China's Territorial Expansion

33:43 — Personal Life and Family

36:37 — The 1962 Purge

41:50 — Sixteen Years of Persecution

44:37 — Why Bring Him Back?

46:53 — Deng Xiaoping's Distrust

50:55 — Grudges and Party History

52:33 — Xi Jinping and His Father's Legacy

59:17 — Conclusion

The red flowered plant that shows up everywhere at this time of year–I saw a forest of them in Wegman’s this morning– is called in Mexico the cuetlaxochitl, or the noche buena; but Americans know it by as the namesake of man who introduced it to the United States: poinsettia. Yet Joel Roberts Poinsett was a more interesting organism than that plant given his name. 

He was a South Carolinian who spent years away from the state, and was a committed nationalist and anti-nullifier; a world traveller when few Americans were; a slaveowner who other slaveowners regarded as potentially anti-slavery; an international investor who also labored for South Carolina local improvements; a diplomat who spent years if not decades trying to find a way to be a soldier. And that’s leaving a few facets of his identity out. As my guest Lindsay Schackenbach Regele sums him up, “He was not the same, anywhere.”

Lindsay Schakenbach Regele is with me to discuss Joel Poinsett, his era, and what he reveals about it. She was previously on the podcast in a conversation that dropped on April 3, 2019, which focused on her book Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776–1848 (Hopkins, 2019). Her latest book is Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism, and it is the focus of our conversation today.

For more information and links, to to our Substack at www.historicallythinking.org

00:00 – Introduction 00:22 – Joel Roberts Poinsett: A Complex Figure 02:47 – Early Life: A Loyalist Family's Journey05:19 – Education in New England and England 06:50 – European Travels and Grand Tour 08:56 – Mission to Latin America 11:11 – Journey Down the Volga River 13:38 – Botanical Interests and Scientific Pursuits 18:34 – Secret Agent in South America 21:41 – Supporting Independence Movements 23:38 – Return to South Carolina 25:24 – South Carolina Politics and Public Works 26:32 – First Mission to Mexico 30:02 – Masonic Lodges and Political Influence 32:43 – Mining Investments and Financial Dealings 35:57 – The Nullification Crisis 42:35 – Understanding Nullifiers vs. Anti-Nullifiers 46:15 – Secretary of War 47:44 – The Trail of Tears and Indian Removal 50:38 – The Seminole War and Bloodhounds 51:44 – Later Life: Cuba and Final Years 54:06 – Evaluating Poinsett's Legacy 57:36 – Meeting Tocqueville59:48 – Next Project: Francisco Miranda 1:02:28 – Closing

The Greek philosopher Plato is famous for writing his teachings in the form of dialogues. But there are additionally a series of seven letters attributed to Plato. Over the centuries much ink has been spilt in arguments over their authenticity. My guest today argues that these letters are actually epistolary philosophical novel which are if nothing else a “ripping great yarn”.

“In the pages of Plato’s letters,” writes Ariel Helfer, “we find Plato the teacher, the counselor, the ally, the statesman; intrigue and faction in the court of a tyrant; grand political hopes dashed as famous utopian dreams become living nightmares—it is a stunningly dramatic and dynamic portrait of Plato and his philosophy.” An alll this is set in the exotic setting of Hellenized Sicily during the 5th century BC, which has a cultural and political complexity that makes the head spin uncontrollably. 

Ariel Helfer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wayne State University, and the most recently editor and translator of Plato’s letters in an edition titled Plato’s Letters: The Political Challenges of the Philosophic LIfe . He was last on Historically Thinking to discuss Plato’s dialogue Alcibiades, and the broader subject of political ambition, in a conversation that was published on September 30, 2020.

For show notes, resources, and our archive, go the Historically Thinking Substack

Chapters

1. Introduction and Background — 00:22
2. The Authenticity Debate of Plato's Letters — 03:25
3. Arguments for Authenticity and Unity — 11:27
4. Textual History and Preservation — 18:36
5. Historical Context: Plato in Syracuse — 26:19
6. Themes in the Letters — 33:55
7. Letter One: A Dramatic Opening — 40:51
8. Letter Six: Philosophy, Law, and Playfulness — 47:35
9. Philosophy vs. History: Different Perspectives — 56:24
10. The Herculaneum Scrolls and Future Discoveries — 1:03:20

On October 16, 1843, William Rowan Hamilton was taking a walk with his wife Helen. He was on his way to preside over a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy. As Hamilton came to Broome Bridge, over the Royal Canal, the solution to a vexing problem finally emerged in front of him. He was so excited, and perhaps so afraid that he might forget, that he pulled out his penknife and carved the equation he had so suddenly conceived on the stonework of the bridge.

That might not seem like such a revolutionary moment. But as my guest Robyn Arianrohd explains, Hamilton’s equation was the result of long centuries of mathematical effort. And its consequences would be immense. Because Hamilton’s thought made possible the concepts known as vectors and tensors. And vectors and tensors underlie much of modern science and technology, because they are used whenever a scientist or an engineer wants to use locations in space–everything from designing a bridge, to predicting the path of a gravitational wave; and there’s quite a lot of territory in between those two applications. That moment by the Broome Bridge ushered in a new era.

Robyn Arianrohd is a mathematician, and a historian of science. Her previous books include Thomas Harriot: A Life in Science, which she and I discussed in a conversation that was published on April 30, 2019. Her latest book is Vector: A Surprising Story of Space, Time, and Mathematical Transformation.

For show notes, resources, and our archive, go the Historically Thinking Substack

Chapters

1. Thomas Harriet and the Birth of Modern Algebra
2. Navigation, Collisions, and Early Vector Concepts
3. Newton's Definition of Force and Direction
4. Augustus De Morgan and the Formalization of Algebra
5. Hamilton's Breakthrough: Quaternions and Four Dimensions
6. The Non-Commutative Revolution
7. James Clerk Maxwell and Electromagnetic Theory
8. Maxwell's Equations and the Nature of Light
9. The Vector Wars: Quaternions vs. Vectors
10. Tensors: Beyond Vectors to General Relativity
11. The Playful Seriousness of Mathematical Discovery
12. Conclusion: The Journey into History of Mathematics

“Oral history is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving, and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.” That is the definition provided by no less an authority than the Oral History Association. 

And yet this brief, simple, and seemingly authoritative definition is accompanied by some ambiguity. On the one hand the Oral History Association proclaims that oral history is the oldest type of historical inquiry, stemming back to the origins of humanity itself. But on the other hand, oral history is one of the newest types of historical discipline, owing its birth to the invention of recording technology, and its rapid technological , from the introduction of magnetic tape recorders as consumer devices in 1947, to in 2025 the widespread field use of the superb digital recording studio and processor you typically refer to as your “phone”.

With us to explain the basics of the discipline of Oral History is Douglas A. Boyd. He is an oral historian, archivist, folklorist, musician, author and currently Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. He is co-editor of Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, Engagement (2014), producer of the documentary Kentucky Bourbon Tales: Distilling the Family Spirit, and author of Crawfish Bottom: Recovering a Lost Kentucky Community. But most recently he is the author of Oral History: A Very Short Introduction, which is the subject of our conversation today.

For more show notes, and our full archive, go to the Historically Thinking Substack

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Introduction: Defining Oral History
• 00:01:53 The Ambiguity and Multidisciplinary Nature of Oral History
• 00:07:34 The Modern History of Oral History and Recording Technology
• 00:21:07 Early Recording Technology and the Evolution of Interviews
• 00:34:27 Oral History vs. Oral Tradition
• 00:36:51 What Makes an Oral History Interview Different
• 00:41:17 The First Question: Tell Me About Yourself
• 00:47:19 Avoiding Leading Questions
• 00:50:37 The Power of Silence and Active Listening
• 00:54:07 The Art of Being Prepared Without Being a Know-It-All
• 01:03:26 The Digital Archive and Preservation Challenges
• 01:07:47 Enhancing Access and Discovery in the Digital Age
• 01:14:16 Ethical Access and Privacy Concerns
• 01:15:33 Practical Advice for Thanksgiving Interviews
• 01:19:49 Getting Started: Simple Questions and Curiosity
• 01:23:09 The Value of Multiple Sessions and Follow-Up Interviews
• 01:25:56 Closing Remarks

“Two years and a half years ago, when coming down the Nile in a dahabiah, I stopped at . . . Tel el-Amarna. In the course of my exploration, I noticed . . . the foundations of a large building, which had just been laid bare by the natives. . . . A few months afterwards the natives, still going on with their work of disinterment, discovered among the foundations a number of clay tablets covered with characters the like of which had not previously been seen in the land of Egypt.”

Those were the words of Archibald Henry Sayce, linguist, valetudinarian, and eventually first Professor of  Assyriology at the University of Oxford. What he had noticed was the uncovering of the Amarna Letters, a set of clay tablets written in cuneiform, about which Sayce–and many others–would be intensively concerned. Finding these letters was like uncovering a file cabinet in the Pharoah of Egypt’s foreign ministry, suddenly providing a set of written sources that illuminated unknown areas of the past.

With me to talk about the Amarna letter is Eric H. Cline. He is professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University, and author most recently of Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed. This is his third appearance on the podcast.

For this episode's show notes, and other resources, go to the Historically Thinking Substack

Chapter Outline

1. Introduction & Discovery of the Amarna Letters (00:00)
2. Illicit Excavations & Context (04:45)
3. The Translation Race (14:52)
4. The World of the Letters: Great Kings & Diplomacy (29:00)
5. Local Rulers & Conflicts (43:08)
6. Social Network Analysis (51:57)
7. Modern Relevance & Conclusion (57:41)

For at least two centuries, ideas of international relations and grand strategy have been premised on the notion of “great powers.” These were mighty states uniquely able to exert their influence through overwhelming military force. In the words of friend of the podcast Leopold von Ranke, a great power was one who could “maintain itself against all others, even when they are united”—but my guest, Phillips Payson O’Brien, argues that this definition is ahistorical nonsense.

Indeed “great power” he says, has always been a tautology. Nor has it been helpful or accurate to focus who has the biggest armies. And dreaming of decisive battle has blinded us to what truly determines victory: the capacity to mobilize and sustain industrial power, logistics, technology, and global reach.

In his new book War and Power: Who Wins Wars and Why, O’Brien dismantles some popular myths of military and diplomatic history and replaces them with a far more dynamic picture—one that redefines how states fight, how they win, and how we should understand power itself in the twenty-first century.

For this episode's show notes, and other resources, go to the Historically Thinking Substack

Chapters & Timestamps

• 00:28 – Introduction: Challenging the Great Power Myth
• 03:25 – The Persistence of Short War Myths
• 08:22 – The Political Nature of Warfare
• 14:06 – Power Rightly Understood: Economic and Technological Strength
• 20:59 – Society, Structure, and the British-American Power Transition
• 27:36 – Constructing and Regenerating Military Forces
• 46:16 – The Importance of Strong Alliances
• 39:23 – Understanding War: Beyond Battles and Single Weapons
• 45:16 – Human Elements: Leadership, Training, and Morale
• 49:54 – Technological Adaptation: From WWI Aircraft to Modern Drones
• 57:30 – Applied History and the Problem of Transparency
• 57:52 – Outro / Credits

The young King was determined to strike. His throne and power had been taken from him; now he would seize them both back. Now his chosen men entered the castle where he was a virtual prisoner, under the watchful eyes of his mother and her lover. Joining them, he led their rush to the Queen Mother’s apartments. There they seized those who had prevented Edward III from truly ruling as King of England. 

Those dramatic events–which occurred in Nottingham Castle, of all places–are just one of many that occur in Michael Livingston’s new book, Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Year’s War. From the origins of the great conflict between France and England, to the last bitter acts, Livingston weaves the story of how not just those two powers but all Europe was riven by a war that last not just for a hundred years, but for two full centuries of war from 1292 to 1492.

Michael Livingston is Citadel Distinguished Professor at The Citadel and the author of many books on medieval military history. The former secretary-general for the US Commission on Military History, he lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

For more information, see the show notes for this episode on Historically Thinking Substack page.

• Defining the 200 Years War: 1292 to 1492
• Cantering Through 200 Years
• Scotland: The Enemy in the Rear
• Doctrine and the Birth of Standing Armies
• The Forgotten Naval War
• Anarchy, Free Companies, and Peasant Revolts
• The Longbow: Myth vs. Reality
• The Papacy and Religious Schism
• The Myth of the Decisive Battle
• Generational Conflict and Modern Parallels
• Conclusion

During the Second World War Germany’s submarines sank over three thousand Allied ships, that figure amounting to nearly three-quarters of Allied shipping losses in all theaters of the war. What would become a war within a war began in the very first days after September 1, 1939. This war–particularly the contest which has become known as the Battle of the Atlantic–has been the focus of numerous studies and arguments. But until now, little has been said about the undersea war from the perspective of the German submariners.

Roger Moorhouse has now remedied that with his new book Wolfpack: Inside Hitler’s U-boat War. It is not simply a story of the undersea war, but a history of those who fought it; who endured the miserable conditions within a German U-Boat, had only a 25% chance of survival, and when they did survive often were psychologically scarred for the remainder of their lives.

Roger Moorhouse is a historian of the Second World War. The author of numerous books, his most recent was The Forgers: The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust’s Most Audacious Rescue Operation, which we discussed in a conversation of November 6, 2023.

For more information, including to resources mentioned in the conversation, go to our Substack page, at www.historicallythinking.org