Jefferson’s Newspaper

I’m one of those people who listens to NPR all day.  In the shower, in the car, while cooking, as a Sunday morning activity with my partner.  I almost never watch television, but I love passively listening to smart people talk, which is not really substantially different than watching dumb people swap wives when you get down to it.  Though I suppose it’s also not unlike sitting in an undergrad history lecture.  The point is, I like to be entertained and I also like to learn.  And I like doing it with my ears, so I can use my eyes and hands for other things.  What follows is an incomplete list of high-quality podcasts dealing with various topics in history.

BackStory:  BackStory is one of my favorite podcasts in any genre.  “On each show, renowned U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh tear a topic from the headlines and plumb its historical depths.”  In addition to the hosts’ impressive knowledge, the show has NPR quality production values and a great sense of humor and relevance. The show is a product of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, who produce a couple other shows (which I’ve yet to hear) through their VFH Radio project.

StuffYouMissedInHistoryClass: This one is produced by HowStuffWorks.com, which initially made me a bit skeptical.  I was quickly won over though.  Historians Candace Gibson and Jane McGrath investigate “the stories behind the lines of your textbooks.”  The topics range from esoteric (e.g. the history of happiness) to  topical (“Historically inaccurate movies”) to explanations (“How the Marshall Plan worked”) and conversations appropriate for younger students (“Did Betsy Ross really make the first American Flag?”).

BingeThinkingHistory:  While the previous two podcasts are conversational and focus on American history, this project – a one man show by Tony Cocks -  is oriented toward British and European history.  Since I know very little about European history, I am both intrigued and confounded by the subject matter.   Luckily the host has a dignified English voice and a knack for telling history in a narrative, documentary style that makes good use of music and background audio (e.g. the sounds of battlefield artillery).  So I like it, even though I don’t really know what he’s talking about.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History has a wide selection of “eminent historians discussing major topics in American history”, which they release as audio podcasts.  My first impression of the project site was that this would be a stuffy, old-school academic series wherein pokey old coots discussed their own greatness by way of displaying their mad lecture skillz.  I also thought it would cater primarily to college students and other academics.  In fact, there are some really interesting and informative lectures here, and it serves as a really great resource for pretty much any group above maybe middle school.  I noticed a handful of  high school teacher comments on the project site, reminding me that some teachers actually challenge their students to do real historical thinking.  Imagine that.

HistoryPodcast/HistoryOnAir … “Jason Watts is the host of History Podcast and an amateur historian. It should be noted that he is not a professional.”  That’s what it says on the site, but ignore that (or sit and quietly appreciate it).  Jason does a good job of documenting his sources and telling historical stories, and has been doing it since 2005.  This is actually a nice little operation, and it looks like Jason is beginning to use video and visualization tools so this is one to watch.  Users can submit topics, ideas, and even scripts for new episodes.  Also of note is the provision of transcripts and citations for each episode, which is handy for students who might want to explore a topic in more detail.  There’s also a big list of additional podcasts you might want to check out.

So there’s a brief list.  I actually have a backlog of additional podcasts in my iTunes library that I haven’t had time to review, so I may add more to this post or continue the topic in a new post as I find more quality podcasts.   Please use the comments section to suggest some others you like.