European Imperialism in the Middle East (part 1)

Posted on by

Host: Joan Neuberger, Professor, Department of History, and editor, Not Even Past
Guest: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Artistic rendition of the newly formed U.S. Navy putting down piracy during the Barbary Wars (artist and date unknown)

The relationship between European, North African, and Southwest Asian nations that border the Mediterranean stretches back to antiquity and reflects a long tradition of trade, colonialism, and acculturation. Yet, by the end of World War II, Europe had come to dominate the region politically and militarily. When did this long-symbiotic relationship transform into one of imperialism and colonization?

In this first of a two part podcast, guest and co-host Christopher Rose from UT’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies walks us through the beginnings of European imperialism in the Middle East.

Listen to the Podcast (mp3—right click to download)

Continue reading →

Episode 22: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (Part 2)

Posted on by

Host: Henry A. Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Not Even Past
Guest: George B Forgie, Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, Department of History

Designed to exhibit the comparative area of the free and slave states and the territory open to slavery or freedom by the repeal of the Missouri compromise. With a comparison of the principal statistics of the free and slave states, from the census of 1850.

In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? And, even though it seems like the obvious answer, does a struggle over the future of slavery really explain why the south seceded, and why a protracted military struggle followed? Can any one explanation do so satisfactorily?

Historian George B Forgie has been researching this question for years. In the second half of this two-part podcast, he’ll walk us through five common–and yet unsatisfying–explanations for the most traumatic event in American history.

Listen to the Podcast (mp3—right click to download)

Continue reading →

Episode 21: Causes of the U.S. Civil War (part 1)

Posted on by

Host: Henry A. Wiencek, Assistant Editor, Not Even Past
Guest: George B Forgie, Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, Department of History

Designed to exhibit the comparative area of the free and slave states and the territory open to slavery or freedom by the repeal of the Missouri compromise. With a comparison of the principal statistics of the free and slave states, from the census of 1850.

In the century and a half since the war’s end, historians, politicians, and laypeople have debated the causes of the U.S. Civil War: what truly led the Union to break up and turn on itself? And, even though it seems like the obvious answer, does a struggle over the future of slavery really explain why the south seceded, and why a protracted military struggle followed? Can any one explanation do so satisfactorily?

Historian George B Forgie has been researching this question for years. In this two-part podcast, he’ll walk us through five common–and yet unsatisfying–explanations for the most traumatic event in American history.

Listen to the podcast (mp3—right click to download)

Continue reading →

Episode 20: Reconstruction

Posted on by

Host: Joan Neuberger, Professor of History and Editor, Not Even Past
Guest: H.W. Brands, Dickson, Allen, Anderson Centennial Professor of History, UT-Austin

After the chaos of the American Civil War, Congress and lawmakers had to figure out how to put the Union back together again–no easy feat, considering that issues of political debate were settled on the battlefield, but not in the courtroom nor in the arena of public opinion. How did the defeated South and often vindictive North manage to resolve their differences over issues so controversial that they had torn the Union apart?

Historian H.W. Brands from UT’s Department of History reflects on this issues and how he has dealt with them in his thirty years of experience in teaching about Reconstruction: “It’s one of the hardest parts of American history to teach, in part because I think it’s the hardest to just understand.”

Listen to the podcast (mp3—right click to download).

Continue reading →

Episode 19: Inside the Indian Independence Movement

Posted on by

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Guest: Aarti Bhalodia, Research Associate, South Asia Institute

A train loaded to capacity at a railway station in the Punjab, waiting to take passengers into exile following Partition.

How did an expatriate Indian lawyer who’d been living in South Africa for two decades become the leading figure in the movement for South Asian independence from British colonialism? Who were the other major figures in the push for Indian Independence? And when did the path toward the Partition of the subcontinent become the inevitable outcome?  And what are the lingering effects on South Asian politics today?

Guest Aarti Bhalodia from UT’s South Asia Institute sheds light on one of the most pivotal, and traumatic, events of the 20th century.

Listen to the podcast (mp3 – right click to download)

Continue reading →

Episode 18: Eugenics

Posted on by

Host: Joan Neuberger, Department of History and Editor, Not Even Past
Guest: Philippa Levine, Professor; Mary Helen Thompson Centennial Professorship in the Humanities; Co-Director British Studies Program

Harry H. Laughlin, The Second International Exhibition of Eugenics held September 22 to October 22, 1921, in connection with the Second International Congress of Eugenics in the American Museum of Natural History, New York (Baltimore: William & Wilkins Co., 1923).

Early in the twentieth century, governments all over the world thought they had found a rational, efficient, and scientific solution to the related problems of poverty, crime, and hereditary illness.  Scientists hoped they might be able to help societies control the social problems that arose from these phenomena. All over the world, the science-turned-social-policy known as eugenics became a base-line around which social services and welfare legislation were organized.

Philippa Levine, co-editor of a newly published book on the history of eugenics, explains the appeal and wide-reaching effects of the eugenics movement, which at its best inspired access to pre-natal care, access to clean water, and the eradication of harmful diseases, but at its worst led to compulsory sterilization laws, and the horrific experiments of the Nazi death camps.

 Listen to the Podcast (mp3 – right click to download)

Continue reading →

Episode 17: The Buddha and His Time

Posted on by

Host: Christopher Rose, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Guest: Keely Sutton, doctoral student, Department of Asian Studies

"Buddha Amoghasiddhi with Eight Bodhisattvas [Tibet (Central regions)] (1991.74)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1991.74 (September 2008)

Buddhism is unquestionably one of the world’s major faith traditions, but its origins are somewhat shrouded in mythology and legend surrounding its founder, Siddharta Gautama, the historical Buddha. Who was he? When and where did he live? And what were the social currents and forces in his own time that shaped his worldview and led him to renounce the world in an effort to save humanity from itself?

Guest Keeley Sutton from UT’s Department of Asian Studies helps us understand the historical Buddha and the era in which he lived.

Listen to the Podcast (mp3—right click to download)

Continue reading →

A Brief Pause

Posted on by

… new episodes are on their way! Our technical folks are backed up preparing the latest episodes for uploading.  Stay tuned for

  • Episode 17: The Buddha and His Time
  • Episode 18: Inside the Indian Independence Movement

and even more–coming soon!

Episode 16: The First Illegal Aliens?

Posted on by

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Guest: Madeline Y. Hsu, Associate Professor, Department of History, and Director, Center for Asian-American Studies

"Another Field of American Industry Invaded by the Chinese": From Harper's Weekly: Harper's Weekly, Vol. 27 (1883).

Fears that the U.S. is being invaded by illegal aliens, of vast numbers waiting to stream across the border and undermine the American working class may seem ripped from the today’s headlines today, but a century and a half ago politicians weren’t looking south toward Mexico when debating immigration policies, they were looking west, toward China. Concerns over Chinese immigration shaped U.S. immigration policies in ways we still observe today.

Guest Madeline Y Hsu from UT’s Center for Asian-American Studies discusses the tumultuous experience of Chinese immigration to the U.S., the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and sheds light on the lingering immigration issues first discussed in the 19th century that continue to concern us in contemporary political debates.

Listen to Podcast (mp3—right click to download)

Continue reading →

Episode 15: The “Era Between The Empires” of Ancient India

Posted on by

Host: Christopher Rose, Outreach Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Guest: Patrick Olivelle, Professor, Department of Asian Studies

The 6th century late Gupta period Dashavatara temple Deogarh, Uttar Pradesh at sunset.

Ancient, or Classical, India (300s BC-400s AD) was a seminal period in history. Nearly everything that is associated with classical India, the epics such as the the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, and great temple architecture, came out of this period. Great kings like Aśoka left their mark on the classical world. Moreover, this was the period when oral traditions were written down, and the classical Vedic religion began to take on a form that we understand as Hindusim.

Guest Patrick Olivelle from UT’s Department of Asian Studies describes the Maurya and Gupta Empires and the flourishing period of South Asian history “between the empires.”

Listen to Podcast (mp3—right click to download)

Continue reading →