Historically Thinking

We believe that when people think historically, they are engaging in a disciplined way of thinking about the world and its past. We believe it gives thinkers a knack for recognizing nonsense; and that it cultivates not only intellectual curiosity and rigo

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Episode 171: The Gunpowder Revolution, or, China and the West

Posted August 5, 202000:58:03

In 1280 a enormous eruption disturbed the peace of the Chinese city of Yangzhou. It was “like a volcano erupting,” wrote one who experienced it,...

Episode 170: Bound by War, or, the Philippines and the United States in the First Pacific Century

Posted July 29, 202000:53:02

My great-grandfather Louis Corsiglia emigrated to the United States as a boy from Genoa, and he was a lifelong anti-imperialist Democrat. So it followed...

Episode 169: The History of the Future

Posted July 22, 202000:58:17

This week’s conversation is a rather unusual. There’s one guest, as there usually is, but this time there are two hosts—or, two people asking...

Episode 167: How Black Americans Created American Citizenship

Posted July 16, 202001:03:11

On January 15, 1817, a group of some of the most prominent African-American leaders called a public meeting at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church...

Episode 166: Beauty and Terror, or, the Italian Renaissance Re-envisioned

Posted July 8, 202001:05:17

In the movie The Third Man, Orson Welles delivered this sensational adlibbed speech: You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under...