A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it ... Show More
Feb 19
David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)
In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. T ... Show More
39m 44s
Feb 2
Luca Cottini, "The Rise of Americanism in Italy, 1888-1919" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked a pivotal time for the United States as the nation emerged as a political and industrial powerhouse and fashioned its new value system. Amid waves of emigration and evolving cultural exchanges, Italy’s relationship with Ame ... Show More
59m 3s
Jan 31
Gaoheng Zhang, "Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (Fordham UP, 2025) by Dr. Gaoheng Zhang designs a novel analytical framework to approach transcultural food mobilities, a culinary phenomenon that has been with us for decades as a result of colonialism and globa ... Show More
42m 35s
Mar 2023
Jews & the Inquisition in Italy
<p>Between 1598 and 1785, the Papal or Roman Inquisition in Modena, Northern Italy, put 393 Jews on trial. Regarded as infidels, Jews were accused of, among other things, blasphemy, employing a Christian servant, owning prohibited books, and having sex with Christians. But the tr ... Show More
36m 51s
Feb 2024
A WW2 Polish Diplomat Forged Thousands of Paraguayan Passports to Save Jews from the Holocaust
Between 1940 and 1943, Polish diplomats based in Bern, Switzerland, engaged in a remarkable – and until now, almost completely untold – humanitarian operation. This operation was one of the largest actions to aid Jews of the entire war and far eclipsed the better-known efforts of ... Show More
48m 5s
Jan 2024
409. The Nazis in Power: Hitler's War on the Jews (Part 6)
As Hitler ramps up the German war machine, he remains obsessed with one idea: uprooting Jews from the Reich. The Nazis embark on a campaign of totalitarian oppression against them, persecuting Jewish people in every aspect of life. They are excluded from most professions, forbidd ... Show More
51m 48s
Aug 2022
How 2 Men Escaped Auschwitz, Exposed the Holocaust to the World, and Saved Hundreds of Thousands of Hungarian Jews
Europe’s Jewish population suffered during every stage of the Holocaust, but by the time the Third Reich occupied Hungary and targeted its Jews for deportation and extermination, the concentration camps had reached their most efficient form. Historian Geralt Reitlinger said the H ... Show More
38m 1s
Dec 2020
Anna Hájková, "The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt" (Oxford UP, 2020)
Anna Hájková's new book The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt (Oxford UP, 2020) is the first in-depth analytical history of a prisoner society during the Holocaust. Terezín (Theresienstadt in German) was operated by the Nazis between November 1941 and May 1945 as ... Show More
56m 40s
Jul 2023
Joseph Sassoon, "The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire" (Pantheon, 2022)
Today I talked to Joseph Sassoon about his book The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire (Pantheon, 2022)
They were one of the richest families in the world for two hundred years, from the 19th century to the 20th, and were known as ‘the Rothschilds of ... Show More
1h 4m
Mar 2020
Michael O’Sullivan, "Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965" (U Toronto Press, 2018)
How did Catholic mysticism shape politics and religion in 20th-century Germany? What do seers, stigmatics, and Marian apparitions reveal about broader cultural trends? Michael O’Sullivan’s award winning new book examines how longing for the divine paradoxically drove secularism. ... Show More
1h 17m