Over the course of the Almoravid (1040–1147) and Almohad (1121–1269) dynasties, mediaeval Marrakesh evolved from an informal military encampment into a thriving metropolis that attempted to translate a local and distinctly rural past into a broad, imperial architectural vernacular. In Marrakesh and the Mountains: Landscape, Urban Planning, and Identity in th ... Show More
Apr 2025
Davida Siwisa James, "Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries" (Fordham UP, 2024)
For last 100 years, the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City has stood as the capital of Black America and the capital of the global African diaspora. Yet Harlem is so big and so varied that it contains smaller sections with distinct identities and histories of their own. Davi ... Show More
45m 41s
Today
Agents of Inertia: Business, Urban Crisis, and Economic Decline in Twentieth-Century Calcutta with Gaurav C. Garg (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In the first half of the twentieth century, Asia's colonial trade, commerce, and enterprise pivoted on five cities- Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Calcutta, and Bombay. Today, among these, only Calcutta no longer plays a significant role in the Asian or global economy. Why? Agen ... Show More
1h 9m
Nov 3
Death in Westminster: 1. The Station
To listen to the entire four-part series, subscribe here.In 2018, Gyula Remes died in the underpass at Westminster tube station, just steps from the Houses of Parliament and luxury developments worth millions. How could this happen in one of the richest cities on Earth?Episode on ... Show More
28m 4s
Apr 2024
Cristiana Strava, "Precarious Modernities: Assembling State, Space and Society on the Urban Margins in Morocco" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
What does living “precariously” mean in Casablanca? In 2014 it meant being labeled tcharmil (seeming to endanger public order) and swept up by the police, if you were an unemployed young man sporting a banda haircut and gathering with your mates on a street corner. Cristiana Stra ... Show More
1h 29m
Apr 2024
Eric Calderwood, "On Earth Or in Poems: The Many Lives of Al-Andalus" (Harvard UP, 2023)
During the Middle Ages, the Iberian Peninsula was home not to Spain and Portugal but rather to al-Andalus. Ruled by a succession of Islamic dynasties, al-Andalus came to be a shorthand for a legendary place where people from the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe; Jews, Christ ... Show More
36m 35s
Sep 2025
Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, "Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East" (UP of Colorado, 2025)
Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East (University Press of Colorado, 2025) by Dr. Tiffany Earley-Spadoni offers an in-depth exploration of the Urartian empire, which occupied the highlands of present-day Turkey, Armenia, and Iran in the early first ... Show More
58m 49s
Aug 2023
Stephanie Barczewski, "How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023)
How the Country House Became English (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Stephanie Barczewski is an exploration of the evolution of the quintessentially English country house. Country houses have come to be regarded as quintessentially English, not only in terms of their architectural style ... Show More
54m 44s