Mar 13
Manuela Ceballos, "Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean" (U California Press, 2025)
Manuela Ceballos’ new book Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean (University of California Press, 2025) engages with the life and legacies of two sixteenth-century saints; the Spanish Christian Teresa de Jesús (also known a ... Show More
1h 7m
Feb 19
David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)
In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. T ... Show More
39m 44s
Feb 16
Su Hwa Keum, "From Juche to Jesus: A Study of Worldview Transformation Among North Korean Defector Christians in South Korea" (Pickwick Publications, 2025)
In From Juche to Jesus: A Study of Worldview Transformation Among North Korean Defector Christians in South Korea (Pickwick Publications, 2025), Su Hwa Keum explores the profound spiritual journeys of North Korean defectors as they navigate the transition from Juche ideology to f ... Show More
59m 38s
Jul 2019
Rachel B. Herrmann, "No Useless Mouth: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution" (Cornell UP, 2019)
When the British explored the Atlantic coast of America in the 1580s, their relations with indigenous peoples were structured by food. The newcomers, unable to sustain themselves through agriculture, relied on the local Algonquian people for resources. This led to tension, and th ... Show More
43m 28s
Aug 2017
Anthony Kaldellis, “Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade” (Oxford UP, 2017)
In the 10th century, a succession of Byzantine rulers reversed centuries of strategic policy by embarking on a series of campaigns that dramatically reshaped their empire. This effort and its consequences for the history of the region is the focus of Anthony Kaldellis‘s Streams o ... Show More
56m 57s
Apr 2024
Adele Oliver, "Deeping It: Colonialism, Culture & Criminalisation of UK Drill" (404 Ink, 2023)
Deeping It: Colonialism, Culture & Criminalisation of UK Drill (404 Ink, 2023) by Adèle Oliver shines a critical light on UK drill and its fraught relationship with the British legal system. Intervening on current discourse steeped in anti-Blackness and moral panic, this Inkling ... Show More
48m 10s
Jun 2024
Vince Brown, Caribbean Vectors (EF, JP)
The largest slave uprising in the 18th century British Caribbean was also a node of the global conflict called the Seven Year’s War, though it isn’t usually thought of that way. In the first few days of the quarantine and our current geopolitical and epidemiological shitshow, Joh ... Show More
45m 51s
Jul 2024
The Mighty Ashanti: Rival to the British Empire
<p>At the end of the 17th century, a small clan - the Akan - in West Africa began growing into what would later become the powerful Ashanti Empire. The state grew rapidly in both wealth and land until it spanned most of modern day Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Togo. </p> ... Show More
29m 42s
Mar 2025
235. The Viceroy, The Psychopath, and The Merchant: The Irish in Empire (Ep 3)
Ireland may have been England’s first colony but, by the 17th century, Irishmen were carving out their own imperial legacies in India. Gerald Aungier, an ambitious East India Company official, saw Bombay as a new frontier for plantation and trade. Drawing from his family’s planta ... Show More
51m 58s
Oct 2023
Arunima Datta, "Waiting on Empire: A History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain" (Oxford UP, 2023)
The expansion of the British Empire facilitated movement across the globe for both the colonizers and the colonized. Waiting on Empire: A History of Indian Travelling Ayahs in Britain (OUP, 2023) focuses on a largely forgotten group in this story of movement and migration: South ... Show More
1h 12m
Apr 2024
Boubacar N’Diaye, "Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization" (Routledge, 2017)
Boubacar N’Diaye's book Mauritania's Colonels: Political Leadership, Civil-Military Relations and Democratization (Routledge, 2017), the result of more than a decade of research, focuses on the socio-political dynamics and civil-military relations in a little studied country: Mau ... Show More
1h 35m
In this ambitious book, Max Siollun provides an overview of Nigerian history from 1472 to the 1950s. As such, What Britain Did to Nigeria: A Short History of Conquest and Rule (Hurst, 2021) provides an excellent primer for those interested in learning about the gradual process of colonial conquest and the attendant resistance by local populations, as well as ... Show More
