The past is a mysterious place. From Ancient Egypt to 15th Century China, and the age of European colonization to the Russo-Japanese War, there are so many questions that remain unanswered. And even more questions to learn about..
I suppose that you’re reading this as you have an interest in history. Whether as somebody who served in a conflict and wants to understand how other wars were fought. Whether as somebody who is fascinated by how people lived before you. Whether as somebody who enjoys historic monuments, podcasts or books. Or, whether as somebody who is studying history and is here because they do not want to fail their exams.
Whether you are none, one or all of them, as long as you have an interest in history, read on to find out how we can help you understand the past.
But, why on earth should you listen to what we’re telling you?
Or, who are we?
We’re a group of friends, amateur historians, who have always been fascinated by and passionate about history. The lessons you can learn from it, the events that happened, the differences between different ages and countries. Understanding where we as human beings have come from. And it’s not just the big things, but the small things too. Thinking about Neanderthal man in his hunt for food or how Napoleon Bonaparte spent the evenings before major battles. Between us we have discussed and shared knowledge of a wide variety of historical events over the years.
In short, we love learning about the past, and have decided to take our passion one step further. So we have read far and wide to share our passion with people like you..
So, just how can we help you understand the past?
Well, when we decided that we wanted to share our knowledge, there were a number of options open to us. Like many other sites we considered developing a series of in-depth podcasts on one topic (like Ancient Greek History or World War I), but we realized that we have disparate interests and limited time. Then we thought that there is so much that we want to learn about the past – different conflicts, people, and centuries – that it would be better if we brought you introductions to history. This way we can get your shoots of curiosity going – introducing you to one subject so that you can go off and research it in more depth! Or move on to the next subject in history.. As we shall be doing!
That’s because our history podcasts will allow you to quickly and effectively learn about the past – in just 28 minutes (well, more or less!). What we’ve done is to take complex historical subjects and dissected them down to the key points. And we’ve taken the podcasts one step further by creating books on the subjects we cover.
We’re now starting to write a (hopefully!) regular blog. And what we’re really hoping is that we will be able to get some experts to write for us occasionally. Then, if that works out, who knows? A magazine where we go into still more detail and start gathering controversial opinion on topics in history is the dream!
In short, we want you to understand the past with us, then come back and teach us. We don’t know everything.. Far from it! We want you to give us an introduction to history too.
Er, so what can we teach you about?
Our world is the past, but there are a few topics that we will be focusing on in the podcasts:
- 20th Century history. That’s vague, we know, but as it is so relevant to so many of us, we want to focus on our ‘living past’ where we can. Indeed, one of the reasons why we started with our series on the Cold War was that people can ask their relatives about it and how it affected them. Another of our ‘generalist’ areas and one in which we have several series planned is the 19th Century. Just because.
- Civil War. Civil wars always seem to be fascinating affairs. I remember learning about the English Civil War while at school, and my further reading on different civil wars, continues to intrigue me. As well as our series on the Spanish Civil War, we shall be looking at the America, Chinese, Russian and English Civil Wars, as well as the French Revolution.
- The rise and fall of Communism. Both of the previous topics are related to this. The rise of Communism is an intriguing event in 20th Century history for so many reasons. The system came to dominate much of the world before falling away. We shall be looking at how it arose and what happened in Communist societies in more detail.
- Colonialism. Colonialism is vital in understanding the modern world and world history. And it’s breadth is astonishing. I was fortunate enough to visit Ilha de Mocambique in Mozambique a few years ago. The place oozes faded colonial grandeur. And if you don’t know about ‘Ilha’, you soon will! On a larger scale, we plan to cover a number of major events in our history. The voyages during the Age of Discovery provided me with fascinating bed-time reading when I was younger and I hope that the tales will be enjoyable for you too. We also plan to cover the American Revolutionary War, the Boer War and British India among other colonial topics.
And that’s not all.. There may well be some special podcasts this year – stay with us for more information!
Finally, we’re not Wikipedia, but..
In the meantime, what we shall do is to provide you with (sometimes) humorous ‘117-second History’ introductions to the topics we mention above as well as many other topics in history*.
* - that’s the plan anyway, but as history teaches us, unexpected events can throw a spanner into the works of the very best plans (and we can’t claim that ours are the very best plans).
Now, over to you!
What else would you like to see us create podcasts and books about?
One of the reasons we created the Spanish Civil War History podcasts as our second major series was that it was suggested to us by a friend, so we will listen to you (well, some of you at least!).
George Levrier-Jones
This will be the first in a regular
series of blog posts. Listening options for the History in 28-minutes podcasts are
available by clicking here. The first episode in the latest series on the Spanish Civil War is below.
