Traditionally, we think about European power being built with ships and swords. However, new scholarship uncovers a more nuanced and complex picture. Today, 15 Minute History is joined by Mélanie Lamotte, Assistant Professor of History and French at the University of Texas at Austin. Lamotte is a historian of the French Empire whose work demonstrates […]
15 Minutes History – Jean-Paul Sartre In The Arab World
To kick off the new season of 15 Minute History, we talk to Yoav di-Capua, a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “No Exit Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Decolonization.” Professor di-Capua talks about French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1967 trip to Egypt and Israel on a quest […]
Review of The Men Who Lost America: British Command during the Revolutionary War and the Preservation of the Empire (2013)
by Ben Wright O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. The Men Who Lost America: British Command during the Revolutionary War and the Preservation of the Empire. Oneworld, 2013. Several years ago, while visiting Jamestown, Virginia, I had an epiphany; this isn’t American history, it’s English history—these people were English, and the America they strived within was a space […]
Flash of Light, Wall of Fire
“Considering how likely we all are to be blown to pieces by it within the next five years, the atomic bomb has not roused so much discussion as might have been expected.” – George Orwell, 1945. In 2020, an extensive collection of atomic bombing photographs was acquired by UT Austin’s Briscoe Center for American History. […]
Revisiting Into the Wild
In June 2020, controversial monuments began to come down across America. This time, not only were confederate statues on the menu—those of Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Christopher Columbus and even (in Portland, Oregon) George Washington were as well. Tied to larger protests against police brutality and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is no […]
Maurice Cowling and AJP Taylor: What Would They Think of Brexit?
Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920-1924 (1971)A.J.P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945 (1965) After three years of riotous gyrations and mayhem, Brexit has finally happened. The United Kingdom officially left the European Union last week, an official agreement being signed between the two entities that formally severs ties in a (hopefully) orderly manner. Britain […]
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (2008)
In Eric Remarque’s 1921 novel, The Road Back, a group of veterans (now enrolled as students at a local university in Germany) quietly seethe at the back of a classroom while their professor eulogizes their fallen comrades. The professor’s platitudes cause them to wince, but his romanticism of death makes them boil over in angry […]
Episode 113: 1968 – The Year the Dream Died
Inching Towards War: Military Preparedness in the 1930s
The 1936 National Democratic Convention in Philadelphia was a coronation of sorts for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who faced little serious opposition in his pursuit of a second nomination. The convention program was full of articles and photographs that talked up the president’s programs and achievements during his first term. However a closer look […]
Fandangos, Intemperance, and Debauchery
“Can any good come out of San Antonio?” This was the question at the heart of an 1846 letter penned by the Rev. John McCullough. He was writing to his Presbyterian superiors on the East Coast, who had assigned him the task of conducting missionary work on the new American frontier in Texas. McCullough’s letter, […]