Sep 30 2024238 In the Garden of Monsters with Crystal King

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Crystal King is a long-time friend of the program, and has appeared previously to talk about her debut novel Feast of Sorrow, and her follow-up The Chef’s Secret. Her newest novel, In the Garden of Monsters, blends Greek and Roman mythology, the history of postwar Italy, and surrealism into a page-turning gothic romance. In our interview we talked about the unique setting of her book, the mythological elements she drew upon, and Salvador Dali.

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Mar 26 2024237 A Danger Shared with Bill Lascher

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A Danger Shared: A Journalist’s Glimpses of a Continent at War is the latest book from Portland journalist and author Bill Lascher. Bill joined us to talk about WWII in Asia through the eyes of journalist Melville Jacoby, his own connection with Jacoby, and what he learned from going through an archive of images that included Macau, the Philippines, Vietnam, and beyond. Jacoby’s coverage included scenes of everyday life as battle raged on, up-close images of conflict, and the human faces behind a world at war.

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May 11 2023236 Piracy in the South China Sea with Rita Chang-Eppig

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By all reasonable metrics Shek Yeung, who raided the South China Sea in the early 1800s, is one of the most successful pirates of all time. In her new novel Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea author Rita Chang-Eppig tells a fictionalized version of the pirate queen’s life, her rise to power, and her relationship with powers both temporal and spiritual.

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Oct 09 2022233 The Golden Fortress with Bill Lascher

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During the Dust Bowl city officials in Los Angeles, fueled by anti-communist paranoia and xenophobia, were determined to keep migrants out of California. To that end, they dispatched the LAPD to remote border crossing points far outside the city in order to keep out anyone who looked like they were fleeing blight or didn’t have work. Author Bill Lascher spoke with us about his new book The Golden Fortress, which outlines how in 1936 LA law enforcement went to the far reaches of the Golden State to keep California closed.

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Jul 11 2022232 Navigating the Asian Maritime World with Eric Tagliacozzo

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Eric Tagliacozzo is a professor of history at Cornell University, and his new book In Asian Waters: Oceanic Worlds From Yemen to Yokohama outlines five centuries of maritime history in the Asian world. In this wide-ranging interview, we discussed how China created trade routes that stretched all the way to Africa’s Swahili coast, the ocean-going history of Vietnam, and the role of consumer goods, piracy, slavery, and religion in the Indian Ocean, South China Sea, Pacific, and beyond.

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Jan 23 2022231 The History of Archaeology with Ann R. Williams

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Archaeology has changed considerably over the past century. In this episode, we spoke with Ann R. Williams of National Geographic about the new book Lost Cities Ancient Tombs, significant discoveries from the past century, and what it means to dig up the past.

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Oct 12 2021229 Douglas Wolk on All of the Marvels

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The Marvel Universe is massive. Marvel comics go back well over half a century, and span thousands upon thousands of pages. Reading all of them would be a Herculean undertaking. And one man, Douglas Wolk, did exactly that, and wrote a book about it. We talked his new release All of the Marvels, and about how one of the most well-known fictional universes in the world has dealt with real-world history, like war, civil rights, crime, AIDS, Watergate, and more.

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Jul 15 2021226 Sara and Jack Gorman on Denying to the Grave

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Covid-19 has killed and sickened hundreds of thousands of people, and transformed our economy, how we work, and how we relate to each other. Even in the midst of this world-historic crisis, though, people deny it. Conspiracy theorists and naysayers claim covid is a hoax, and others refuse to get vaccinated for a variety of pseudoscientific reasons. This denialism isn’t new. During past crisis, such as the AIDS pandemic, plenty of conspiracy theorists claimed that it wasn’t real, or that HIV didn’t cause AIDS, and vaccine denialism has a long, horrible pedigree. Sara and Jack Gorman are the authors of Denying to the Grave, which gets into why unscientific ideas get so popular, and how we can more effectively engage with people who don’t engage with facts or evidence, even when it’s all around them.

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Jan 24 2021224 Carlton F.W. Larson on Treason in the U.S.

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Treason is the only crime specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution, and talk of treason has been in the air for the last four years. Carlton F.W. Larson is a professor of constitutional law at University of California at Davis, and the author of On Treason: A Citizen’s Guide to the Law. He joined us to discuss how treason is defined in the U.S., why it’s defined in that particular way, and the U.S.’s checkered past when it comes to actually prosecuting (or not prosecuting) people for treason.

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Sep 18 2020221 Sasha Abramsky on Lottie Dod

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Sasha Abramsky is a journalist and author whose new book Little Wonder tells the story of Lottie Dod, the modern world’s first female sporting celebrity. Dod came to prominence as a tennis prodigy and later excelled in other sports like golf, archery, and mountain climbing before voluntarily giving up her celebrity and fading into obscurity.

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Aug 07 2020220 Michel Paradis on Last Mission to Tokyo

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Today’s show is a conversation with Michel Paradis, attorney and author of Last Mission to Tokyo. Early in WWII the U.S. launched the Doolittle Raids against Japan, attacking the Japanese mainland for the first time. Most of the raiders were able to land safely in allied China, but some were captured by the Japanese and put on trial for the attack. After the war, the Japanese officers who put the raiders on trial were, themselves, put on trial by the Americans. Last Mission to Tokyo tells the story of that trial, and plays out like a legal thriller or detective story, except the stakes are on the level of war crimes and international relations.

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Oct 20 2019207 Les Klinger on H.P. Lovecraft

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Les Klinger is an editor, Sherlock Holmes expert, and annotator of classic fiction. He joined us to talk about his newest book The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham. He talked about Lovcraft’s life, fiction, and how Lovecraft’s racism and xenophobia informed the content of his fiction.

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Jul 02 2019201 Duncan Ryuken Williams on American Sutra

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Duncan Ryuken Williams’s new book, American Sutra, explores Japanese Internment with a focus on Buddhism. Most Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans were Buddhists, and before and during internment these members of the Japanese-American community were treated very differently than those who’d converted to Christianity. Buddhists in internment camps found ways to practice their faith, despite it being discouraged, and Buddhist soldiers were crucial to the American war effort, both in Europe and the Pacific.

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Jun 24 2019200 Q&A Dinosaur Party Extravaganza!

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We’ve hit two hundred episodes! To celebrate we’re taking your questions. Designer, photographer, and all-around superhero Sarah Giffrow joined Joe to answer talk about how to think about history, the state of podcasting, and dinosaurs.

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