In 1945, Kim Il-Sung was a minor figure with no political power in Korea. Within months, he was elevated by Soviet authorities to lead North Korea. Historian Fyodor Tertitskiy joins us to discuss The Accidental Tyrant, his new biography of Kim, and explains how this obscure guerrilla commander became one of the most durable dictators of the 20th century—and the founder of a regime that still rules today long after the Cold War ended.
This is a crossover episode of Historically Thinking. That's because my guest today is Michael Robinson. He’s Professor of History at Hillyer College, of the University of Hartford. He’s the author of two books: The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture, winner of the 2008 Book Award from the Forum for the History of Science in America, takes up the story of Arctic exploration in the United States during the height of its popularity, from 1850 to 1910; and The Lost White Tribe: Scientists, Explorers, and the Theory that Changed a Continent. So why is this is a crossover episode? Because Michael also has a great podcast called Time to Eat the Dogs, “a weekly podcast about science, history, and exploration.” It's eclectic and interesting, one of my favorites. We talk about Time to Eat the Dogs, how it came about, academic and historical podcasting, his first book The Coldest Crucible...and then we're on to talk about a big subject, the sub discipline of history called the history of science.
Giambattista Vico first published his masterwork The New Science in 1725. He revised it twice more before he died. It was intended to be nothing less than a reinterpretation of the history of human civilization, resulting in a new science of history. It’s influence was somewhat less than Vico might have hoped; it took more than a century and a half after its first publication, before the book emerged from obscurity. Arguably it was in the late 20th century that Vico’s influence was finally felt, and perhaps at no other time has his work been as widely read as it is now. Yet The New Science is not an easy work to read: obscure allusions, an unusual method, eccentric terminology, are all combined along with the occasional stunning aphorism or turn of phrase that land on the reader like a hammer. With me to discuss Giambattista Vico are the two most recent translators of The New Science, an edition published early this year by Yale University Press. Jason Taylor is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Regis College; and Robert Miner is Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University. As you'll see from the conversation, the picture above is actually very, very important.
What is a people? What is a nation? Why do some peoples insist that nations must be synonymous with their particular group of people? And why are others content to be simply part of larger nations composed of many peoples? These are some of the questions that John Connelly addresses in his new book From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe, published early this year. Nor are they the only questions with which Connelly is preoccupied. Why exactly is the history of Eastern Europe over the last two centuries one of conflict? Was this inevitable? Were these peoples always atagonistic towards one another? The answers that he gives may surprise you. John Connelly is Professor of History and Director of the Institute for East European, Eurasian, and Slavic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Past books by Professor Connelly include Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-1956 (University of North Carolina Press, 2000) and From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews (Harvard University Press, 2012).
Between 1870 and 1900, the Congo River basin became "one of the most brutally exploited places on earth." Traders in slaves and natural resources; explorers; and builders of would-be empires entered it from the west, east, and north. They were Arab, English, Belgian, French, and even occasionally American. What they entered into was an ecosystem and culture dominated by the Congo River and its navigation, a complex world that was soon irreparably destroyed. Robert Harms in his new book Land of Tears: The Exploration and Exploitation of Equatorial Africa does not focus simply on the interlopers into the Congo, or what happened after they entered, but what existed before their arrival. Nor does he allow villains to be easily chosen; it is soon clear that even those with the best of intentions in the Congo ended up assisting in villainy. Robert Harms is the Henry J. Heinz Professor of History and African Studes at Yale University. Professor Harms has written on both African history, and on the slave trade from and within Africa.