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
April 29, 2025 • 109 mins
We follow Korea's thousand-year struggle to maintain its integrity and independence, fending off cataclysmic invasions by the Mongols, the Manchus, and the samurai of Japan, and repeatedly transforming itself -- from a confederation of Buddhist warrior-nobles, to a strictly Confucian surveillance state, to a fledgling modern industrial nation -- before finally falling to Meiji Japan.
Suggested reading: Han Woo-Keun, “The History o...
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April 11, 2025 • 8 mins
I give an update on the progress of the podcast, and an important caution on how to sign up as a patron while avoiding Apple's new fees. I give an excerpt from my latest episode for patrons, "History of the United States in 100 Objects -- 24: Beaver-Fur Stovepipe Hat, ca. 1590-1670" --
On this episode: A tall “stovepipe” hat, which was made in the 1600s out of felt from beaver fur and likely belonged to a powerful member of the ...
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March 13, 2025 • 92 mins
We examine the origins of the Korean people and state – from prehistoric migrations and technological advances, through the formation of warrior confederations, the rise and fall of the Chinese colony, the tumult and intrigue of the “Three Kingdoms” era, and the arrival of Buddhism, and finally to the unification of most of Korea under the Silla kingdom.
Suggested reading: Han Woo-Keun, “The History of Korea”; Michael J. Seth, “A ...
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We journey through the different eras and incarnations of Troy as archaeologists have reconstructed them from the excavations at Hissarlik. We then explore the surviving evidence -- including linguistic theories, newly discovered tablets from the ancient Hittite capital, and the long-lost and rediscovered "Priam's Treasure" that Schliemann unearthed-- to form a picture of who the Trojans were and what sort of city they created in t...
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February 27, 2025 • 123 mins
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only -- 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 alliance with its European mirror image, Great Britain – which set the stage for its role in the First World War.
Dan Carr...
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February 20, 2025 • 113 mins
It is one of the foundational achievements of archaeology, and one of the most momentous discoveries ever made in any field --
We follow the long debate over whether and where the remains of the ancient legendary city of Troy could be found, and we see how the mystery was solved by the excavations overseen by the brilliant, ruthless, and indefatigable German businessman, explorer, and serial liar, Heinrich Schliemann.
Pt. 2 will ...
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January 27, 2025 • 9 mins
A sample from a lecture on Patreon for patrons only for one year:
We trace the strugles of Venice, through conquest, revolution, and depression, to fashion a place for itself in the modern world, to channel or keep at bay the new floods -- of rising seas, of diseased canals, and of tourist hordes -- and most of all, to somehow square the circle of preservation and modernity.
Sign up as a patron at any level to hear this lecture: ...
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January 16, 2025 • 188 mins
We use a recent controversial murder case as a way to reconsider recent world events--such as war in Europe and the return of Trump--from the perspective of the epistemological crisis and the decline of trust in Truth, Facts, and Reality.
CHAPTERS:
0:00:20 – Intro & Disclaimers
0:11:45 – The Great Witch Hunt: overview
0:28:25 – The Great Witch Hunt: midwives & caregivers
0:45:10 – The Lucy Letby Case: narrative
1:15:55 – The Lucy ...
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December 25, 2024 • 120 mins
We trace Venice's remarkable flowering between the 1300s and 1500s, in which it astonished Europe as a center of commercial and imperial power, learning, and art, as well as its repeated struggles -- with the bubonic plague, the Ottoman Turks, the rival Italian states, and the Catholic Church -- that forced Venice to give up its empire, and to transform into a pleasure-ground of music, theater, sex, and revelry -- arguably becoming...
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November 9, 2024 • 127 mins
We trace the tortuous path by which a scattering of villages in a marshy lagoon, founded by refugees from violence and political breakdown, forged their own stable and cohesive independent republic which would last for a thousand years, and with it a splendrous city where East and West mingled, a sprawling trade network linking Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and finally a waterborne empire that was the forerunner of the modern ...
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October 24, 2024 • 9 mins
A randomly-chosen sample from the deepest most thorough analysis that you can find anywhere of the profoundly ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, on patreon for patrons only for one year:
We examine the Epic of Gilgamesh as a piece of literature, for its strange dream-like style and form, its points of similarity to Biblical and ancient Greek and European mythology, and finally, its deep levels of psychological and political allegory, ultim...
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October 18, 2024 • 6 mins
Two randomly selected excerpts from Myth of the Month 24, on the Epic of Gilgamesh:
He is the earliest human being whose name and life story are known to history. We examine the origins and contents of the most ancient narrative ever found anywhere on Earth, and trace how it has been rediscovered, re-used, and re-translated in the modern world, becoming a living and evolving text in a time of anxiety over the fate of civilization.
...
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October 1, 2024 • 120 mins
Unlocked after 1 year for patrons only:
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 t...
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September 12, 2024 • 97 mins
We examine the complex and tumultuous history of the lands around the Caribbean basin, including the rise of the massive sugar-plantation colonies of Jamaica and Saint Domingue, which depended upon an enormous traffic in enslaved African workers, the emergence of distinctive creole languages and spiritual practices, the flourishing of piracy amidst inter-imperial wars, and the long struggle of resistance by slave rebels and defiant...
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August 23, 2024 • 43 mins
We examine the tumultuous history--from the Portuguese Inquisition to the American Revolution to modern-day multi-million-dollar legal fights--surrounding a pair of rare colonial Jewish ceremonial artworks called "rimonim" or Torah finials. We consider the unique life and career of the Jewish silversmith who made them, and the symbolism that they encode, centering on life, hope, and regeneration.
Please support this podcast! -- ht...
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July 31, 2024 • 8 mins
Sign up as a patron at any level to hear this full lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls, on patreon for patrons only: https://www.patreon.com/posts/doorways-in-time-109054869
The most massive and momentous manuscript discovery of modern times, the Dead Sea Scrolls blew the lid off of the long-mysterious world of messianic and apocalyptic ferment before the destruction of the Second Temple—yet it took decades of conflict and struggle to...
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June 26, 2024 • 109 mins
To conclude our series on the origins of World War I, we trace how combat broke out on three different continents in the late summer and fall of 1914, and then examine the various real and imagined causes of the Great War, from the Anglo-German naval rivalry to French revanchism, and finally consider the deeper transformation in the idea of sovereignty in the West that gave a feud between an old empire and a new nation-state in the...
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June 21, 2024 • 117 mins
We consider the rich, often mysterious, and fraught history of Bosnia -- a longtime borderland of East and West, disputed between rival empires, religions, and civilizations -- and trace how the politics of this small, mountainous Slavic country set the stage for the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and in turn, the outbreak of a global war.
Image: interior of the "Painted Mosque," Travnik, Bosnia
Please sign...
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May 28, 2024 • 12 mins
We review the diplomatic landscape of Europe on the eve of war in the summer of 1914—and then follow the dizzying cascade of events that followed after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. We trace on the ensuing crisis that ricocheted through embassies, banquet halls, and barracks all across Europe, and plunged all the great powers of the continent into a war that soon spread around the w...
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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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