Arguing History

Marshall Poe

Historians discussing controversial historical topics Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

  1. 3d ago

    Thomas S. Mullaney, "How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information" (W. W. Norton, 2026)

    This is the third time I have the great fortune of interviewing Tom Mullaney. I can hardly think of a more worthy ambassador for the history discipline, and the work we are discussing today, I believe, will serve as the perfect bridge from Tom’s historical scholarship to the wider, reading public. We are discussing Tom’s latest book, How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information (W.W. Norton, 2026). Tom’s book takes on some of the most philosophically rich ideas at the center of both history and memory. Over time, things come apart: objects, archives, ephemera, people, memories, histories. For millennia, we relied on common tools to remember the past: oral tradition, writing, and artifacts. In under 200 years, we developed more advanced information technology like the camera, phonograph, typewriter, computer, and more. The information encoded by these devices has a shelf life too, decaying over time, disintegrating, becoming obscured, getting deaccessioned. How We Disappear explores this process through the lens of family tragedy: the death of Tom’s parents and the attempts to recover and remember the past. What happens when we try to recover the lives of our parents, the people who shape our world, and what do we do when we discover the unexpected? To take us through his brilliant new book, I’m pleased today to have Tom Mullaney on the podcast. Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History and UNESCO Chair in Digital Futures at Stanford University. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    1h 16m

  2. 07/19/2025

    How ClioVis is Transforming Education and Historical Research

    Today I’m speaking with Marcus Golding, historian and Director of Educational Operations at ClioVis. ClioVis is an incredible software and learning tool that allows educators and studies to create digital timelines, network visualizations, and interactive presentations. Founded by UT Austin history professor Erika Bsumek, ClioVis is made for professors and teachers by current professors and scholars. I’m thrilled to get the chance today to speak with Marcus about this software to share with our listeners how they can enhance their own work and teaching. Visit ClioVis' website to learn more: Click Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    22 min

  3. 11/24/2023

    The Idea of "Central Europe" from Naumann to Kundera

    Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe (Basic Books, 2023) Martyn Rady offers the definitive history of the region, demonstrating that Central Europe has always been more than merely the fault line between West and East. Even as Central European powers warred with their neighbors, the region developed its own cohesive identity and produced tremendous accomplishments in politics, society, and culture. Central Europeans launched the Reformation and Romanticism, developed the philosophy of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, and advanced some of the twentieth century's most important artistic movements. Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    44 min

  4. 10/16/2023

    The Gaza War in Military-Historical Perspective

    In this interview military historian Jeremy Black examines ongoing Israeli-Hamas conflict in Israel and the Gaza Strip in historical perspective. Black is the author of Insurgency Warfare: A Global History to the Present (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).  Charles Coutinho, PH. D., Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History and the University of Rouen's online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    20 min

  5. 08/14/2023

    The Cold War as History

    The Cold War, the on again and off again confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union is one of the most famous historical episodes of the short twentieth century. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the Cold War was an event which has divided historians since the beginnings of serious historiography on the subject began in the mid-1960s. With the chief points of contention being: who commenced it and why? When did it begin? How did the parameters of the confrontation between the two Super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union evolve if at all? And why did the seemingly interminable struggle between the two power blocs suddenly end in the Fall of 1989? To help explore these questions and to hopefully provide some answers, will be the topic of the next episode of Arguing History, where Professor Jeremy Black of Exeter University and Dr. Charles Coutinho of the Royal Historical Society explore these questions and more. Professor Jeremy Black MBE, Is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Exeter. And a Senior Associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A graduate of Queens College, Cambridge with a First, he is the author of well over one-hundred & fifty books. In 2008 he was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Lifetime Achievement. Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, and the University of Rouen’s online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    40 min

  6. 08/02/2023

    Why did the Allies win World War II?

    Why did the Allies win World War II? In the this podcast of Arguing History, Professor of History Emeritus at Exeter University, Jeremy Black and Dr. Charles Coutinho of the Royal Historical Society, discuss the the respective roles of military resources vs. fighting quality in the Second World War. One view has it that while the Germans were tactically and operationally superior to the Allies, they simply could not overcome the Allies' superiority in terms of men and materiel. But what role did improvements in Allied military training and tactics during the course of the war prove an equally important variable? Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    36 min

  7. 06/13/2023

    Socialist Cultures and Politics of Secularism and Atheism

    Two new books on secularism and atheism in German and Soviet socialist cultures are reshaping scholarly understandings of the relationship between socialism and religion. Todd Weir and Victoria Smolkin show that socialist secularism and atheism were not concerned solely with destroying a tool of class oppression, as Marx had envisioned, but with creating a positive faith in science and materialism. Todd Weir is Professor on the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen and the author of the forthcoming Socialism and Secularist Culture in Germany, 1800-1933. Victoria Smolkin is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Wesleyan University and the author of A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton University Press, 2018). Stephen V. Bittner is Special Topics Editor at Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History and Professor of History at Sonoma State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    1h 13m

  8. 06/10/2023

    New Histories of Violence in and around the Second World War

    Why does state-led and intercommunal violence occur? How do past episodes of mass violence reverberate in the present? How do victims and perpetrators make sense of each other in the aftermath of mass violence? What are the ethical and professional obligations of historians who uncover episodes of mass violence in the course of their research? These questions, and the difficult search for answers, are at the core of recent books by Nicole Eaton and Max Bergholz about violence in the context of the Second World War. Eaton is the author German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg became Soviet Kaliningrad (Cornell UP, 2023). Bergholz is the author of Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community (Cornell UP, 2016). Stephen V. Bittner is Special Topics Editor at Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History and Professor of History at Sonoma State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

    1h 24m
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Ratings & Reviews

4.3
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

Historians discussing controversial historical topics Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/arguing-history

Information

  • Creator
    Marshall Poe
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © New Books Network
  • Show Website
    Arguing History