After the 1844 Paris expo, Robert-Houdin turned his efforts to creating his own stage show. He created automata tricks that still delight today, and quickly became a very famous magician.
Mar 2020
Jeffrey James Byrne, "Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order" (Oxford UP, 2016)
In his brilliant, category-smashing book, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (Oxford University Press, 2016), Jeffrey James Byrne places Algeria at the center of many of the twentieth-century’s international dynamics: decolonization, the Cold ... Show More
1h 24m
Jul 2023
Oppenheimer: “destroyer of worlds”
When the atom bomb was dropped in 1945, how did its inventor, J Robert Oppenheimer, feel? To mark the release of Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster Oppenheimer, biographer Kai Bird joins Elinor Evans to discuss the man behind the creation of nuclear weaponry, and the difficult m ... Show More
37m 56s
Jan 2022
The Complicated World of the Bronze Age Near East: Interview with Aaron Burke
<p>The reality of the Bronze Age Near East was much messier and harder to understand than a straightforward story of city-states, empires, and kings. Different ethnolinguistic groups, lifestyles, dynasties of would-be rulers, migrating mercenaries, and ephemeral states were all e ... Show More
46m 38s
Dec 2021
Hittites, Trojans, and the Late Bronze Age World: Interview with Professor Trevor Bryce
<p>The late Bronze Age world of the Near East was an incredibly rich and complex place, full of long-distance trade, the exchange of ideas, bickering kings, and empires rising and falling. Among those empires, one of the most powerful and enigmatic was that of the Hittites, whose ... Show More
45m 21s