Nicholas Dames (The Chapter: A Segmented History from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century) started his latest project with a seemingly simple question: Why do books have chapters? In this episode, as we turn from one year to the next, Jacke talks to an expert in segmentation. PLUS Hamid Dabashi (The Persian Prince: The Rise and Resurrection of an Imperial ... Show More
Today
752 The Brontes' Sibling Rivalry (with Catherine Rayner) | My Last Book with Keith Cooper
Charlotte Brontë wasn't born the eldest child, but she was thrust into a leadership role at the age of ten, as the Brontë children dealt with the tragic deaths of their mother and two eldest sisters. How did this affect their family dynamic? And when the younger two sisters, Emil ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 20
751 Covering Iran's Women-Led Uprising (with Nilo Tabrizy) | My Last Book with Sharmila Sen
In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jîna Amini, died after being beaten by police officers who arrested her for not adhering to the Islamic Republic’s dress code. Her death galvanized thousands of Iranians—mostly women—who took to the streets in one of the country’s l ... Show More
1h 2m
Nov 17
750 A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (with Mark Cirino) | Joyce Carol Oates vs the Trillionaire | My Last Book with Ken Krimstein
It's the 750th episode of the History of Literature, and what better way to celebrate than to talk some Hemingway with repeat guest Mark Cirino? In this episode, Jacke talks to Mark about Hemingway's classic love-and-war novel A Farewell to Arms, including the recent Norton Libra ... Show More
1h 28m
Oct 2024
Alexander the Great, the End of the Persian Empire, and the Descent into India
<p>Alexander the Great's campaigns didn't end once he had defeated the Persian king Darius III and conquered the heart of his empire; he went still further, into the vastness of the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia, and then south into India.</p><p><br></p><p>Patrick's book is no ... Show More
40m 30s
May 2024
Echoes of History: A New Chapter
<p>Introducing a new chapter of Echoes of History, the podcast that explores the incredible real-life stories and events that inspire the locations, characters, and storylines of the legendary Assassin’s Creed.</p><br><p>Join your host, historian Matt Lewis, and regular contribut ... Show More
1m 43s
Apr 2025
The Egyptian Revolution & Nasser's Era w/ Ahmad Shokr (AR&D Ep. 7)
With this episode of Guerrilla History, we roll into our next case study in our series African Revolutions and Decolonization. Here, we turn our focus to Egypt, and particularly the 23 July Revolution in 1952 and the rise of Nasser. However, to tell this story, we turn back to th ... Show More
1h 42m
Sep 26
Ancient Historical Fiction with Dr. Colleen Darnell
My guest today is Dr. Colleen Darnell, who will speak to us about New Kingdom literature (featuring rulers like Ramesses, Thutmose III, Seqenenra, and more). It’s a fun discussion, ranging from the calamitous death of Seqenenra Tao, to the triumphs of Thutmose III and Ramesses II ... Show More
1h 1m
Dec 2024
Movie Discussion: A Knight's Tale (2001)
As my gift to you all, enjoy this newly-edited (just for audio issues, not for content!) discussion of the 2001 movie A Knight's Tale with myself, Allison Epstein, and Lana Wood Johnson! Spoiler: we all LOVED it.
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2h 22m
Jul 2025
How the Horse Changed the World: Interview with Author David Chaffetz
<p>David Chaffetz, author of the recent and truly outstanding book Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires, joins Tides to talk about the long and intertwined history of horses and people in Central Asia and beyond. The trade in horses, not silks and spice ... Show More
40m 8s
Jan 2025
Book Club: Let’s Talk About Alan Hollinghurst’s ‘Our Evenings’
<p>The novel “Our Evenings,” by Alan Hollinghurst, follows a gay English Burmese actor from childhood into old age as he confronts confusing relationships, his emerging sexuality, racism and England’s changing political climate in the late 20th and early 21st century. It’s the st ... Show More
47m 52s
Feb 2025
Season 4, Episode 5: Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History
Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and historian Eugene Rogan, professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at Oxford, as they delve into the complex history of the Arab world, from the Ottoman conquest in 1516 to today’s geopolitical crises of the modern Middle East. Throu ... Show More
52m 39s