Looting has been a part of warfare since the earliest times. Despite the fact that looting was common for much of history, it was always recognized as an especially harmful and humiliating by-product of armed conflict. By the late 19th century, the looting of sacred objects and culturally significant works of art was widely considered a war crime and was for ... Show More
Nov 18
Episode #239 - Did a Welsh Prince Beat Columbus to the New World?
<p>There's a story that in the year 1170 a Prince from Wales, named Madoc, led a group of Welsh colonists over the Atlantic to North America. This group allegedly mingled with the local indigenous people and eventually assimilated into their culture. However, they left behind the ... Show More
1h 20m
Nov 2023
Ceri Houlbrook,"‘Ritual Litter' Redressed" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Ritual deposition is not an activity that many people in the Western world would consider themselves participants of. The enigmatic beliefs and magical thinking that led to the deposition of swords in watery places and votive statuettes in temples, for example, may feel irrelevan ... Show More
43m 6s
May 2018
Tarak Barkawi, “Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
Tarak Barkawi, a Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics, has written an important book that will cause many of us to rethink the way we understand the relationships between armies and societies. In Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in Worl ... Show More
38m 55s