Episode 9 – Expert Opinion – Christine Caldwell Ames
Our last stop in the Middle Ages is an interview with professor Christine Caldwell Ames, who is an expert on medieval heresy and inquisition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. […]
Category: Episodes
Episode 8 – The hounds of God – medieval heretics and inquisitors
From the High Middle Ages, Europe developed into a “persecuting society,” obsessed with stamping out the “cancer” of heresy. But questions about how this was accomplished — and the consequences […]
Episode 7 – Expert Opinion – Peter Adamson
In our second expert opinion episode, Jacob Mchangama talks with Peter Adamson, who is a professor of philosophy at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and host of the podcast “History […]
Episode 6 – The not-so-Dark Ages, medieval intellectuals, and freethinkers
In episode 6, we get medieval! Find out why the Middle Ages were as much a period of reason and inquiry as inquisition and superstition. Why was the famous […]
Episode 5 – The Caliphate
Why did the medieval Abbasid Caliphs have almost all ancient Greek works of philosophy and science translated into Arabic? How did the long list of medieval Muslim polymaths reconcile abstract […]
Episode 4 – Expert Opinion – Paul Cartledge
In our first expert opinion segment, Jacob Mchangama talks to Emeritus Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge University Paul Cartledge. With his intimate knowledge of ancient Greece, we dive deeper […]
Episode 3 – The Age of Persecution
Why did the polytheist Ancient Romans persecute the followers of the new Jewish sect of “Christians” in the first three centuries AD”? How high was the price that Christians […]
Episode 2 – Liberty or License
Rome was the most powerful empire in antiquity. But were the Romans free to speak truth to power? Did history’s first successful Women’s March take place in Rome? And who […]
Episode 1 – Who wishes to speak
The democracy of Ancient Athens was the birthplace of equal and uninhibited speech. Or Isegoria and parrhesia to the Athenians. Jacob Mchangama guides you through how oratory was central to […]