The nineteenth-century spread of democracy in Britain and its colonies coincided with an increase in alcohol consumption and in celebratory public dinners with rounds of toasts. British colonists raised their glasses to salute the Crown in rituals that asserted fraternal equality and political authority. Yet these ceremonies were reserved for gentlemen, leav ... Show More
Jun 27
Zachary Gorman, "The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942" (Melbourne UP, 2022)
Sir Robert Menzies is a towering figure in Australian history. The Young Menzies: Success, Failure, Resilience 1894-1942 (Melbourne UP, 2022) explores the formative period of Menzies' life, when his personal outlook and system of beliefs that would help shape modern Australia we ... Show More
1h 5m
May 16
Stuart Ward, "Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
How did Britain cease to be global? In Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2023), Professor Stuart Ward tells the panoramic history of the end of Britain, tracing the ways in which Britishness has been imagined, experienced, dispute ... Show More
1h 15m
Apr 14
Georgina Banks, "Back to Bangka: Searching for the Truth about a Wartime Massacre" (Viking Australia, 2023)
Georgina Banks searches for the truth of what happened to her Great Aunt ‘Bud’, killed in the Second World War. Bangka Strait, Indonesia, 1942. Allied ships are evacuating thousands in flight from Singapore, the island having fallen to Japanese Imperial forces. Facing terrifying ... Show More
49m 22s
Aug 2023
Michael Roper, "Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History" (Manchester UP, 2023)
Afterlives of War: A Descendants' History (Manchester University Press, 2023) by Dr. Michael Roper documents the lives and historical pursuits of the generations who grew up in Australia, Britain and Germany after the First World War. Although they were not direct witnesses to th ... Show More
55m 40s
Oct 2024
Tamara Jacka, "Ginkgo Village: Trauma and Transformation in Rural China" (Anu Press, 2023)
Ginkgo Village: Trauma and Transformation in Rural China (Anu Press, 2023) provides an original and powerfully intimate bottom-up perspective on China’s recent tumultuous history. Drawing on ethnographic and life-history research, the book takes readers deep into a village in a m ... Show More
56m 15s
Jul 2024
Culture and Education: Seeds of Hope in Times of Conflict
When violent conflict erupts, you might think that staging a Shakespearean play would not be a priority. You might think that developing your business skills is a luxury reserved for peaceful times. In this episode of Our World, Connected, Christine Wilson talks to two guests who ... Show More
40m 22s
Dec 2024
Emily Mitchell-Eaton, "New Destinations of Empire: Mobilities, Racial Geographies, and Citizenship in the Transpacific United States" (U Georgia Press, 2024)
In 1986 the Compact of Free Association marked the formal end of U.S. colonialism in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, while simultaneously re-entrenching imperial power dynamics between the two countries. The U.S.-RMI Compact at once enshrined exclusive U.S. military access ... Show More
1h 14m
Nov 2023
Elizabeth M. Perego, "Humor and Power in Algeria, 1920 to 2021" (Indiana UP, 2023)
In times of peace as well as conflict, humor has served Algerians as a tool of both unification and division. Humor has also assisted Algerians of various backgrounds and ideological leanings with engaging critically in power struggles throughout the country's contemporary histor ... Show More
46m 53s
Nov 2024
Andrew Fleming, "The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda" (Birlinn, 2024)
When the last 36 inhabitants of St Kilda, 40 miles west of the Scottish Hebrides, were evacuated in 1930, the archipelago at ‘the edge of the world’ lost its permanent population after five millennia.It has long been accepted that the islanders’ failure to adapt to the modern wor ... Show More
42m 30s
Aug 2021
Eliza Ablovatski, "Revolution and Political Violence in Central Europe: The Deluge of 1919" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
In the wake of the First World War and Russian Revolutions, Central Europeans in 1919 faced a world of possibilities, threats, and extreme contrasts. Dramatic events since the end of the world war seemed poised to transform the world, but the form of that transformation was uncle ... Show More
1h 2m
Oct 2016
Elizabeth Reich, “Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema” (Rutgers UP, 2016)
Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2016) examines how, from the 1940s to the 1970s, the cinematic ... Show More
34m 1s
Feb 2025
Philip Howell, "Pub" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
The pub is an English institution. Yet its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In Pub (Bloomsbury, 2025) a new addition to the Object Lessons series, Dr. Philip Howell takes the public house as an object, or rather as a series of objects: he takes the pub apart and e ... Show More
40m 59s
Apr 24
#9 - The Levant Through War & Words: Mishka Mourani on Culture, Identity & Exile
In this episode of Tak on the Pod, Andrea sits down with Mishka Mourani, a writer, educator, and storyteller whose life has been deeply shaped by the history of the Levant. Born in Alexandria and rooted in Beirut, Mishka has lived through war, displacement, and resilience, using ... Show More
50m 38s