Historiansplaining: A Historian Tells You Why Everything You Know Is Wrong

What is behind the popularity of Outlander? Why have crazed fans of the show from around the world begun to overrun Scottish castles? – and why did the UK Prime Minister secretly meet with TV executives to stop its premier in 2014? We examine the show’s success in light of Scottish history and politics, and in the context of the ongoing romance of Scotland, by which modern people project their longings for tradition, attachment, and honor onto a small, craggy country in the north of Britain. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We trace the waves of crop failure, famine, pestilence, and war that swept over Europe in the 1600s as the climate sank into a “Little Ice Age” and armies literally marched across frozen seas. In the midst of unimaginable crisis, alchemists, astrologers, and apocalypticists scoured the Bible for prophecies to explain the disasters around them as part of the approaching End Times. Many of the defining institutions of the modern world we know today – such as overseas colonization, investor-owned corporations, public education, religious toleration, and scientific academies – have their origins as attempts to cope with the crisis of the seventeenth century and prepare the way for the Second Coming. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry, and in order to have access to patron-only lectures, including "Myth of the Month: The Exodus" -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested Further Reading: Webster, "The Great Instauration"; Yates, "The Rosicrucian Enlight

We trace the roots of the idea of witchcraft in the "cunning folk" of the Middle Ages. We consider how the church and state began to fuel fear of witchcraft and persecute witches in the tens of thousands during the age of the Renaissance and the Reformation. We consider theories of why witch-hunting arose so dramatically in this age, including economic strain and political agendas. Finally, we examine evidence for an enduring shamanic belief system centering on ecstatic night journeys that may have provided the inspiration for the mythical witches' sabbath. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Margaret Murray, "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe"; Norman Cohn, "Europe's Inner Demons"; Carlo Ginzburg, "Ecstasies"; Mary Beth Nortion, "In the Devil's Snare"; John Demos, "Entertaining Satan."

We trace how a small group of scholars, obsessed with classical antiquity, mastered the more ancient form of Latin, thus unlocking the worlds of Roman and Greek politics. Seeing themselves as the peers and equals of the ancient statesmen, the "humanists" called for a new form of learning aimed towards action and ambition. Machiavelli sketched out the path to princely power, Erasmus excavated the original meanings of the Bible, and Michelangelo captured the subtle powers of the human body. The humanists invented the idea of a "modern" era distinct from the "Dark Ages," and furthered the transformation of Europeans' grasp of reality -- from a realm defined by social relationships to one defined by the senses. Please become a patron and contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Jacob Burckhardt, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy"; JGA Pocock, "The Machiavellian Moment"; Pamela Smith, "The Body of the Artisan"

I briefly discuss the growing audience for Historiansplaining, and sketch plans for future shorter lectures on historical myths, some of which will be patron-only. Finally, I pose a hypothetical question for my listeners that may be harder to answer than it seems. Please become a patron and make it possible for these lectures to keep coming! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

All of history is, to one degree or another, mythology -- the weaving of a coherent, usable narrative out of the chaos of people's lives. We consider how societies all over the world, since before the beginning of civilization, have developed myths to explain the world that they experience. We also trace some of the major schools of academic history, which have tried to fashion overarching storylines to give meaning to human struggles -- from Biblical providential history to Marxism to postmodernism. We begin by examining the most central myth of the origins of American society: the "first Thanksgiving." Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Giambattista Vico, "The New Science"; Marc Bloch, "The Historian's Craft"; Hayden White, "Metahistory"

We trace how Portugal and Spain, two previously marginal European kingdoms, rapidly and unexpectedly exploded onto the world scene, building a chain of fortified colonies stretching from North Africa to China, and conquering the larger and richer empires of Mexico and Peru. The early Iberian colonizers sought to continue the tradition of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and saw their foreign conquests as steps towards retaking Jerusalem; the benefited not only from superior weaponry and navigation, but from cataclysmic disease epidemics that brought the Pre-Columbian empires to their knees. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Russell: "Prince Henry 'The Navigator': A Life"; Restall, "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest"; Brading, "The First America."

The early modern era – from the 1400s through the 1700s – is the monarchical age par excellence, with royal courts presiding over consolidated realms and monstrous armies capable of crushing smaller neighbors and internal rivals. The map of Europe transformed, and the reasons were, firstly, technological: the printing press broke through previous barriers to the creation of texts, allowing for the rapid spread of new ideas and propaganda, while new infantry tactics and gunpowder allowed royal governments to batter down the power of mounted knights and castles. Society became ever more centered on royal power and patronage, leaving behind a vestigial nobility to seek out a new role in the world or give way to nostalgia, as dramatized in the first great psychological novel, Don Quixote. We conclude by considering Cervantes’ novel as a touchstone of the shift from the medieval world, where reality is defined by social relationships, to the modern, where reality is defined by the senses. Please contribute wha

The first part of an examination and discussion of Douglas Murray's controversial book, "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam" (Bloomsbury, 2017), and its dire warning that a wave of migrants with beliefs and customs inimical to the West are on the verge of changing Europe forever. We weigh his careful debunking of elite mythology about immigration against his own falsehoods and manipulations of the facts. Finally, we consider his harrowing portrayal of a continent adrift without a sense of purpose, history, or belonging, and the truly difficult questions that it raises. Please contribute what you can in the spirit of knowledge and inquiry! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We trace the shocking and rapid rise of Islam in the 600s, as a confederation of desert towns and tribes unite around Muhammad and his prophesies from the Abrahamic god, then swiftly launch a stunning campaign of conquests against the major empires of the age. We consider the roots of the basic teachings and practices of the new religion, including the Qur'an, the hadiths, the Five Pillars, jihad, shariah, the divide between Sunni and Shiah, and Islamic laws regarding the status of women and of Jews and Christians or "people of the Book." Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 Suggested further reading: Karen Armstrong, "Islam: A Short History"; Michael Cook, "Past Masters: Muhammad."

Most of the human story is so-called "pre-history," which in fact is inseparable from history and still going on today. We trace the origins of the human species around 300,000 years ago in Africa, including our early adaptation into long-distance hunters. We examine our long and awkward co-existence with other human-like species such as Neanderthals and Ebu Gogo, as well as our slow development of critical technologies like sewing and pottery that allowed us to out-compete them. We trace the dangerous and improbable journey across sea channels and deserts that a small band of our distant ancestors had to make in order to populate the entire world beyond Africa. Finally, we consider the mysterious roots of the technology that eventually allowed for the rise of urban civilization -- agriculture. Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

What is going on in Catalonia? We trace the long history of the small region in Spain’s northeastern corner, considering how medieval rebellions, dynastic struggles, and radical anarchist unions all helped to lay the groundwork for the separatist movement that today is flirting with unilaterally breaking away from Spain. We also account for the refusal of neighboring countries or the EU to say anything about the Spanish crisis, since Catalan independence threatens the survival not only of Spain, but of almost every large nation-state in Europe and the liberal internationalist order that they have built. Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

Exactly five centuries ago this month, Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, thus sparking the Protestant Reformation. He was concerned not with freedom of thought nor with abuse of power by the Pope, as moderns might like to think, but with exposing the false doctrine that a person’s good actions can earn them a place in Heaven. Wracked by guilt and fear of going to hell, Luther had found relief only in the idea of a free, unmerited salvation. We consider Luther’s tactics in his war to reform the church, from his obsession with excrement to his attacks on Jews, all of which stemmed from his fundamental belief that he was engaged in a war for the soul of the Church against Satan and the Anti-Christ. [Contains adult language] Please help to make it possible for these lectures to continue! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We examine the enigmatic and elusive figure of Columbus, from his likely Jewish background, to his bizarre and hairbrained scheme of sailing to Asia, his brutal and chaotic invasion of the West Indies, his struggle to defend his honors and titles, and finally his apocalyptic vision of his own role in the End Times. We consider how Columbus, a fairly obscure and rejected figure after his death, came to be held up as a symbol of both the best and the worst of the American psyche. Please support these lectures to keep them coming! -- https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We explore the history behind the statues being destroyed across America in a wave of iconoclasm -- when and why they were erected, and what they represented. We consider the roots of the Confederacy, which lie in the rapid change in the American view of slavery -- from an embarrassing but necessary evil in the 1780s to a positive good in the 1850s -- that caused a sectional rift between North and South. We examine Confederates' own words to understand why so many Southerners fought for the Confederacy -- and why just as many of them refused. Please support these lectures -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632 More importantly, support the fight against slavery in America and in our world today -- http://www.freetheslaves.net/ https://www.antislavery.org/

We join in the ongoing quest for the historical Jesus -- the struggle to unearth and understand who Jesus really was, what he said and did, and how he inspired a movement. We trace the basic bare-bones facts that can be deduced from early Christian writings and brief references in other texts, including Jesus' baptism and crucifixion. We throw out the flimsy theories of hacks like Reza Aslan and Bill O'Reilly, as well as the junk theory that no Jesus existed at all, and instead examine the new archeological evidence that helps to account for some of the strangest passages in the Gospels. Please support these lectures! -- www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We dissect the origins of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Old Testament by Christians), excavating the deepest layers of the collection of holy books, including the very ancient songs and prayers that were likely passed on orally for centuries before being written down, the scholarly theories of the lost documents that were stitched together to form Genesis and Exodus, and the differing points of view of the various prophets, scribes, and propagandists whose books made their way into the Hebrew canon. Through this excavation, we discover a Bible comprising many voices, many facets, and many hidden meanings. Please help make it possible for this podcast to continue! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We consider how best to understand the origins of the laws and customs of the Jewish people, or what we call "Judaism." We begin by dispelling the notion that Judaism (or any other belief system apart from Christianity) can properly be called a "religion" -- a category that derives originally from Christian practice and does not make sense anywhere else. We further examine the roots of the idea of "Judaism" as a concept for the Jewish way of life, concluding with a careful analysis of the meaning of the ancient Greek word "ioudaismos," which originates in the Book of Maccabees. Finally, we trace the best possible explanation for the origins of the Jewish people in the Bronze-Age Near East, using archaeological evidence including an ancient Egyptian monument and the vandalized ruins of Canaanite temples. Ultimately, we should be able to understand Judaism and its God as the creations of a particular Middle Eastern people not entirely unlike their ancient neighbors. Special thanks to Daniel Boyarin for his

We cap off the series of lectures on the Middle Ages by piecing together how the people of the high and late Middle Ages understood their place in the cosmos. From the lowliest peasants to popes and emperors, medievals believed they formed the limbs of a living, breathing social body, and that body or tree was part of a Great Chain of Being connecting rocks and dirt to stars and planets and ultimately to God. Through these metaphors we can understand why medievals disapproved of commerce and abhorred high finance. We end with a commentary on the great, crowning statement of the late medieval mind, the prologue to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Please support these lectures, at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5530632

We examine how medieval scholars battled over the meanings of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and of the Christian religion, while illiterate artisans made breakthroughs in architecture, engineering, metallurgy, and alchemy. The vast body of medieval scholarship came under attack during the Renaissance as so many "metaphysical obscurities," while today we stand on the precipice of a true Dark Age of ignorance.