Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong
History lectures by Samuel Biagetti, a historian (and antique dealer) with a Phd in early American history; my dissertation was on Freemasonry in the 1700s. I focus on the historical myths and distortions, from "the Middle Ages" to "Race," that people use to rationalize the world in which we live. More info at www.historiansplaining.com Please see my Patreon page, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632, if you want to keep the lectures coming, and to hear the patron-only materials.
Episodes
May 8, 2024 • 119 mins
Unlocked after one year on Patreon for patrons only:
What is "culture"? And how did a metaphor from gardening invade social-science discourse in 19th-century Germany and America and then take the world by storm? We consider the myriad, often contradictory, ways that "culture" is deployed in current rhetoric, usually to sneak in hidden value judgments; then we trace how an ancient Latin term for gardening came to refer to the "cu...
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May 7, 2024 • 129 mins
This is the audio track of my latest video:
"Red, White & Royal Blue: A Historian's Analysis, pt. 1: "We Really Need to Get You a Book on English History" -- The Historical Context of RW&RB"
We start our detailed analysis of the recent gay romcom, Red White & Royal Blue, by considering the expansive historical background that gives meaning to the fictitious love affair between a British prince and a son of the US President -- from...
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April 20, 2024 • 101 mins
We examine the prophetic warnings from scholars and bureaucrats that a great-power war in the twentieth century would lead to bloody stalemate, mass destruction, and a wave of revolutions; and we trace how war strategists and generals reacted to the prophets of doom, formulating new war plans, from Russia’s blundering steamroll, to Germany’s precarious and ill-fated Schlieffen plan, to Britain's devious and mercurial scheme of econ...
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March 26, 2024 • 104 mins
The scale and horror of the First World War were possible only after the Nineteenth Century's double revolution in the nature of war. Warfare -- including weaponry, strategy, and command -- had remained mostly unchanged for three centuries, from the early integration of firearms in the 1400s until the French Revolution; the campaigns of Napoleon unleashed a new era of mass mobilization and nationalistic fury, while a series of haph...
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March 9, 2024 • 88 mins
In 2022, I was asked to contribute to a symposium at Yale Law School on the question, "How can the humanities inform tech policy and design to promote 'healthier' discourse and democracy online?" The ultimate result was this article, published in the 2023 symposium issue of the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities.
A scanned pdf of the article can be found as an attachment here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/100047377
I also...
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March 2, 2024 • 9 mins
A sample from, "Origins of the First World, pt. 10 -- Japan"
To hear the entire lecture, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/origins-of-first-99483180
We trace the evolution of Japanese society -- including the tensions between its peaceable, Buddhist-inspired aspect and its martial aspect; its extraordinary transformation in the Meiji period, from an antiquated hermit kingdom to a dynamic modern power; and its crucial al...
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February 22, 2024 • 75 mins
Audio track from my recent video -- "Red, White & Royal Blue: A Historian's Analysis -- Introduction: 'I Know I Owe You an Explanation'" --
We consider the political, literary, and artistic dimensions of the recent movie, "Red, White and Royal Blue" -- a gay romance on the international theme -- beginning with an overview of its origins as an escapist novel in the Trump and pandemic period, its unusual status as a same-sex "roman...
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January 30, 2024 • 64 mins
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:
In the second half of the nineteenth century, many of the most brilliant and ambitious minds in both Europe and America were bent upon solving the problem of capturing sound waves from the air and playing them back. Most of their efforts, including the earliest "phonautograms" from more than a decade before Edison's invention of the phonograph, were either forgotten or lost to decay and deg...
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January 20, 2024 • 94 mins
We consider the efforts of the British state, in the Victorian era and in the early 20th century, to maintain its position as the premier naval and imperial power on Earth, and to contain the political and military challenges from the borderlands of the empire, the German challenge from Europe, and the series of internal threats to the British social system -- including the radicalized labour and women's suffrage movements and the ...
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December 29, 2023 • 113 mins
In keeping with a Historiansplaining holiday tradition, we try to make sense of the various struggles and conflicts of this yearby uncovering their deeper historical contexts, including:
--the roots of the Israel/Palestine conflict in the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire;
--the precedents for the bitter House Speakership struggle;
--the gradual realignment in the international balance of power, instantiated in the expansion of BR...
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December 20, 2023 • 122 mins
In the age of absolutism, France had towered over European life and politics -- the only nation that was a major land power on the Continent and a colonial metropole with an overseas empire at the same time. Yet by 1900, tossed about by repeated revolutions and coups and torn asunder by often petty internal culture wars, France was falling behind its rivals to become almost a second-rate power. Once the Radical Party rode the Dre...
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November 19, 2023 • 165 mins
The UFO has been called a "technological angel" and the central mythic symbol of the modern age; we examine some of the extraordinary stories, from throughout history, of strange lights and objects seen flying through the sky, from medieval Italy to modern New Mexico, and consider carefully the problems that they present -- for historians, as well as for government, and for ordinary people who want to fit the strange and anomalous ...
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November 17, 2023 • 32 mins
Unlocked after one year for patrons only:
A silver beaker engraved with figures of Satan, the Pope, and the "Young Pretender" (also known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie") shows how French, Dutch, German, and English colonists in colonial New York united around fear of Catholicism and the Jacobite menace.
Special thanks to the Collections Team at Museum of the City of New York.
Sign on as a patron to hear all patron-only lectures when ...
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October 20, 2023 • 81 mins
Although more often remembered only as a bloody battleground, Belgium -- along with its smaller neighbor, Luxembourg -- was critical to the strategic landscape of Europe, and played a pivotal role in spreading the war in 1914 beyond the European Continent, making it into a true World War. Both created as independent states in the nineteenth century, Belgium and Luxembourg were linchpins in the delicate balance of power, as well a...
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October 3, 2023 • 9 mins
In an extended lecture for patrons -- We consider the turbulent history and politics of the country most often blamed for the outbreak of the First World War -- Germany. The youngest of all the combatant nations in World War I, The German Reich's deep class, regional, and religious divides drove Kaiser Wilhelm and his inner circle to seek national aggrandizement abroad as a source of unity at home--which inadvertently led them to ...
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September 22, 2023 • 137 mins
In the third installment of our Survey of Western Architecture, we will follow the rise of Renaissance geniuses like Alberti, Bramante, & Michelangelo, their efforts to recover Roman grandeur and dignity in the basilica, the church, and the urban palazzo, followed by the outbreak of baroque extravagance from the streets of Palermo to the halls of Versailles, and then the gradual return to classical balance and understatement in the...
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August 30, 2023 • 44 mins
We examine the significance of a kilo pohaku, or "stone mirror" -- a small volcanic stone disk used for viewing reflections -- discovered deep inside the ancient Makauwahi Cave on the island of Kaua'i. This extremely rare specimen encapsulates the great mystery of Hawaiian archaeology, which relies on reconstruction from rare stone, bone, and shell objects, and also the threats facing the historical sites and artifacts of ancient ...
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August 17, 2023 • 105 mins
We examine the geography and history of Russia, from the origins of the Kievan Rus in the Early Middle Ages, to the tumultuous time of industrialization, emancipation, and radical subversion at the start of the Twentieth Century. We try reconstruct the circumstances and mindsets that led the Russian state to back up their allies in Serbia, in order to maintain their tenuous foothold in the Balkans and their pretenses of leading an...
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August 12, 2023 • 241 mins
Where do conspiracy theories come from? Why do people believe them? What do they mean? Did the CIA drug people with LSD against their will? Is Queen Elizabeth a reptilian? We consider the merits and pitfalls of conspiracy theories, trace the history and evolution of the conspiratorial tradition from rumors about lepers in the 1300s to Alex Jones and Q-Anon, and examine the biases and double standards built into the very concep...
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July 29, 2023 • 135 mins
A stunningly complex piece of mathematical craftsmanship, the world's earliest known analogue computer, and the so-called "scientific wonder of the ancient world" -- the Antikythera mechanism was discovered by chance in 1900, by Greek sponge divers who stumbled upon the wreckage of an ancient ship that foundered on its way from Greece to Rome. An object of bafflement, controversy, and misrepresentation for more than a century, tho...
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