History Today Podcast

In this podcast, History Today Editor Paul Lay is joined by David Abulafia, winner of the 2020 Wolfson History Prize, for his book The Boundless Sea.

The Boundless Sea traces the history of human movement and interaction around and across the world's greatest bodies of water, charting our relationship with the oceans from the time of the first voyagers. 

David also wrote an article for the November 2019 issue of History Today, which you can read on our website: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/virgin-islands-atlantic

Image: Caravel from 'Atlas of Lázaro Luis (detail), 1563. Bridgeman Images.

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The hero of the Haitian Revolution’s lonely death in a French prison cell was not an unfortunate tragedy but a cruel story of deliberate destruction.

This article is from the June issue of History Today: buy a copy of the issue from our website, or read it via the History Today app, available on Google Play and the App Store.

Introduced by History Today editor, Paul Lay. Read by Greig Johnson. Written by Marlene L. Daut.

Music: Kai Engel.

Image: Portrait of Toussaint Louverture, chromolithograph by George DeBaptiste, c.1870 © Getty Images.

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Join Marlene Daut in conversation with History Today Editor, Paul Lay, as they discuss the background of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, and the revolution's legacies.

Marlene has written an article for the June issue of History Today on 'The Wrongful Death of Toussaint Louverture', which is also available to listen to as an audio long read on our podcast.

Buy a copy of the June issue from our website, or read it via the History Today app, available on Google Play and the App Store.

Marlene L. Daut is Professor of African Diaspora Studies at the University of Virginia and author of Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Liverpool University Press, 2015).

Image: Toussaint Louverture fighting the French in Saint-Domingue, 19th-century engraving © Getty Images.

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The city of Thebes was central to the ancient Greeks’ achievements in politics and culture. For many centuries it has been largely – and often deliberately – forgotten.

Join Paul Cartledge in conversation with History Today Editor, Paul Lay, as they discuss Paul Cartledge's article on 'Thebes: The Forgotten City', which is in the June issue of History Today.

Buy a copy of the June issue from our website, or read it via the History Today app, available on Google Play and the App Store.

Paul's latest book, Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece is published by Picador.

Image: Illustration for Seven Chiefs Against Thebes, c. 1794, John Flaxman. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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In the 17th century, fanciful solutions to the mystery of the swallow’s whereabouts were the result of an intense battle over the nature of scientific reasoning, which had been raging for centuries – and which is still raging today.

This article is from the May issue of History Today. Buy a copy of this issue from our website, or read it via the History Today app, available on Google Play and the App Store.

Written by Alexander Lee. Read by History Today Editor, Paul Lay.

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Myanmar’s colonial legacy includes racial hierarchies and authoritarian government. In the new nation state, not everyone is welcome.

To understand why Rakhine State is in such turmoil we need to follow the threads of ethnic nationalism back to before Myanmar existed.

This article is from the May issue of History Today. Buy a copy of this issue from our website, or read it via the History Today app, available on Google Play and the App Store.

Introduced by History Today editor, Paul Lay. Read by Greig Johnson. Written by Ewan Cameron.

Music: Kai Engel. Illustration: Ben Jones.

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Four historians discuss what we learn from history about how diseases spread, and how we respond to them.

Buy a copy of the April issue of History Today from our website: www.historytoday.com

John Henderson: ‘Strategies to cope with plague have formed the basis for later policies’. Read by Paul Lay.

Patricia Fara: ‘Fear and suspicion multiply more rapidly than any virus’. Read by Katie Holyoak.

Samuel Cohn: ‘Epidemics strike from the outside and are carried in’. Read by Paul Lay.

Sandra Hempel: ‘Smallpox remains the only human disease to be eradicated’. Read by Katie Holyoak.

Introductions read by James Gribben. Music by Kai Engel.

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France’s attraction to right-wing populism has been a constant, if shape-shifting, presence in its politics since the end of the 19th century.

This article appeared in the April 2020 edition of History Today. Read the article online or buy a copy of this issue from our website.

Written by Martin Evans

Read by Greig Johnson

Produced by History Today

Music by Kai Engel

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In 1942, Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Soviet frontline sniper, was sent on a mission to convince US and British allies to open up a Second Front against Hitler’s forces.

Her arrival in Washington DC coincided with a historic moment of American-Soviet friendship, even while the press found the female sniper, with her claimed tally of 309 German kills, rather shocking.

Historian Dr Julie Wheelwright in conversation with History Today Editor, Paul Lay.

Julie's Article 'A Woman's Place', on Lyudmila Pavlichenko will be the April cover story of History Today, on sale from Thursday 19 March. Pre-order your copy now on the History Today website.

Julie's book 'Sisters in Arms: Female Warriors from Antiquity to the New Millennium' is published by Osprey.

Music: Kai Engel.

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In March 1876, the young Sigmund Freud arrived in Trieste, looking for the testicles of an eel. For centuries past, these troublesome organs had proved elusive. Despite the most intensive – not to say intimate – research, no one had managed to track them down. 

This article appeared in the March 2020 edition of History Today. Read the article online or buy a copy of this issue from our website.

Written by Alexander Lee

Read by Greig Johnson

Produced by History Today

Music by Kai Engel

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