Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II, set in 1911 and 1899, are the most-played American history video games since The Oregon Trail. Beloved by millions, they’ve been widely acclaimed for their realism and attention to detail. But how do they fare as re-creations of history?
In Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent P ... Show More
Mar 2025
Tom Lynch, "Outback and Out West: The Settler-Colonial Environmental Imaginary" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
People make sense of the world through stories, and stories about places inevitably shape how we treat, live on, and use those places. In Outback and Out West: The Settler Colonial Environmental Imaginary (U Nebraska Press, 2022), emeritus professor of English at the University o ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 22
Becky M. Nicolaides, "The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945" (Oxford UP, 2024)
The adoption of the Hart-Celler Act in 1965, triggered a wave of immigration to the U.S. not seen since before the First World War. But these newcomers were now far less likely to have come from Europe than Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. And they were far more likely to s ... Show More
38m 43s
Sep 30
Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Anita Huízar-Hernández eds., "meXicana Roots and Routes: Listening to People, Places, and Pasts" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
Community voices are often an underrepresented aspect of our historical and cultural knowledge of the U.S. Southwest. In this episode, we sit down with Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Anita Huízar-Hernández, editors of meXicana Roots and Routes: Listening to People, Places, and Pasts ... Show More
22 m
Sep 2024
Tore Olsson With What's History on Red Dead Redemption 2 | Episode 389
Can games like "Red Dead Redemption 2" help overcome stereotypes around subjects like history, making them more immersive and relatable? In this episode, we delve deep into the transformative role of video games in education. Our guest, an expert in integrating existing video gam ... Show More
34m 4s
Apr 2025
Season 4, Episode 8: Prof. Lauren Benton, They Called it Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence
Send us a textJoin Professor Jeffrey Sachs and American historian Lauren Benton for a discussion on the hidden histories of empires and the lasting impact of imperial violence. In her book, They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence Benton uncovers how European powers buil ... Show More
46m 17s
Jul 2021
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, "Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
Michel-Rolph Trouillot wrote that “the silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in wa ... Show More
1h 10m
Apr 2025
Britain's Agent | Historical
Professor James Crossland of Liverpool John Moores University uncovers the extraordinary life of a British diplomat-cum-spy in Bolshevik Russia - Robert Bruce Lockhart. A tale of doomed love, assassination, failed coups and bad reputations. From SPYSCAPE, the home of secrets. A C ... Show More
1h 2m
Sep 2024
Why Tupac was fired from Menace II Society
In 1993, a gritty and unflinching crime movie called Menace II Society was released to huge acclaim.The debut picture from the teenage directors, Allen and Albert Hughes, provided a deep dive into the harsh realities faced by many young African Americans growing up in Los Angeles ... Show More
8m 58s