Subject to Change

The Odyssey - No sex, terrible food

Armand D'Angour (Professor of Classics at Oxford University and Fellow of Jesus College) gives his take on Chrisopher Nolan's Odyssey and (more to the point) talks about the poem and the poe...

2026-09-08

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The U-Boat Stink

At the start of WW2 the U-Boat threat gave the British sleepless nights. But even during the Happy Time (of which there were two) when ships were being sunk at a terrific rate the German effort was to...

2026-08-18

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Lucy Hughes-Hallett on Gabriele D’Annunzio: Poet, Lover, Monster

This one is about Gabriele D'Annunzio. Italian poet, born in 1863 . . . I can already sense your attention drifting. But hang in there! A more lurid description would be that he is the poet who...

2026-07-27

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Crimea (part 3): The Nazis, Stalin and the bitter end

Professor Donald Rayfield picks up Crimea’s story in spring 1942, when Germany turns south for the Black Sea and oil. Some Tartars can't imagine anyone worse than Stalin. Some can't imagine ...

2026-07-06

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Crimea (part 2): from the Golden Horde to Catherine the Great

Donald Rayfield returns for the second of three episodes on Crimea — this time taking the long view, from the Mongol Golden Horde to Catherine the Great's annexation and the early Soviet period. ...

2026-06-15

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POWs of the Crimean War

The subject today comes out of the Crimean war (1853-1856). I talked to Professor Donald Rayfield, Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian history at Queen Mary University of London, about the war...

2026-05-22

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The Return of the Emperor (Justinian II - part 2)

Part 1 of the podcast told the sad story of how some shocking misjudgements on the part of Justinian saw him dragged to the Hippodrome where a man with a pair of pliers cut off his nose, cut out his t...

2026-04-27

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Mutilated and exiled (the Emperor Justinian II - part 1)

Justinian II becomes emperor at sixteen. Even allowing for the hostility of our sources the reign is not all plain sailing. I'm joined by Professor David Parnell to work through the first half o...

2026-04-20

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Buckingham: the most hated man in England

You don't have to be young and beautiful to get ahead in Stuart England but it really doesn't hurt. The is the story of 'gorgeous George' - that is to say George Villiers (later Du...

2026-03-31

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YEAR ZERO: Jonathan Clements on the First Emperor of China

Jonathan Clements returns to talk about his book on the First Emperor of China and the man who was sent to kill him: facts and fictions in Zhang Yimou’s movie Hero (2002), the evil mirror-universe ver...

2026-03-10

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The Big Hop of 1919

It is astonishing to me that we went from the first powered flight of a few hundred feet in 1903 to attempting to fly the Atlantic in 1919. The Daily Mail had offered a prize of £10,000 to cross the...

2026-02-17

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Martin Luther, serfdom and the German Peasants’ War

Lyndal Roper, Regius Professor of History at Oxford University is on excellent form to talk me through the German Peasant's War of 1524-25. Things I learned: - take Martin Luther seriously (but ...

2026-01-27

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World War I: The surprising victory of 1918

Today the thing we find mysterious is why WWI lasted as long as it did. Why continue a pointless slaughter. Comparisions with the war in Ukraine suggest an answer! My guess is is Professor David Stev...

2026-01-05

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Ed West on 1066 and all that

Ed West is a journalist and massively popular substacker - do check out his substack The Wrong Side of History. But he has a sideline in history so I got him on the show to talk about 1066 and the bat...

2025-12-15

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Edward I - a Great and Terrible King

A six-foot-two prince who loved tournaments, outfoxed a revolution, and nearly died on crusade returns to build castles that still dominate the Welsh coast and to bend Scotland to his will until Rober...

2025-11-24

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Empress Wu Zetian and the Age of Female Rule

“With the heart of a serpent and the nature of a wolf, she gathered sycophants to her cause and brought destruction to the just. She slew her sister, butchered her brothers, killed her prince, and poi...

2025-10-29

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Edward Shawcross on Napoleon III Part 2: The Power of Lust

As promised in part 1 we started the podcast by talking about some of Napoleon III’s many mistresses. Women like Harriet Howard, the Brighton bootmaker’s daughter, Virginia de Castiglione, sent by th...

2025-10-06

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Edward Shawcross on Napoleon III Part 1: The Lust for Power

From exiled prince to emperor, Napoleon III's rise to power reads like a political thriller too wild to be true. Edward Shawcross tells the story of Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, a man who at...

2025-10-01

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From Eunuchs to Corsairs: The World of Islamic Slavery

Fourteen centuries of enslavement, from the Prophet Muhammad's day to modern Mauritania. Justin Marozzi's fascinating book "Captives and Companions" has as its subject the complex...

2025-09-02

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The Tokyo Tribunal: War Crimes, Justice, and Geopolitics

This episode looks at the courtroom drama that helped to shape Asia after World War II with Princeton University's Gary Bass. Far more than a simple account of justice served, the Tokyo War Crime...

2025-08-18

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Subject to Change

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