15 Minute History

Feb 11 2025 153 ep. 21 mins 19
15 Minute History Podcast artwork

15 Minute History is a podcast series is devoted to short, accessible discussions of important topics in World History and US History. The discussions will be conducted by the award winning faculty and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.

  Society & Culture  Education  History
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Episode 153: Horses and Humans throughout History

Feb 11 2025 21 mins  
Horses and humans have gone hand in hand for centuries. Our guest today is CUBoulder professor William Taylor, whose new book “Hoof Beats” takes us across thousands ofyears and miles to explore how horses helped create the human world we live in today. In doingso, Taylor challenges our understanding of prehistory and reflects on what […]

Episode 152: Rethinking the Slave Trade

Feb 11 2025 16 mins  
Beginning in the 15th century, European history took a dark turn with the rapidexpansion of the slave trade. We’re joined today by Emory professor David Eltis, the co-editor of www.slavevoyages.org that draws on thousands of records — ship logs,registers, letters and government records — to understand the mechanics of the trade.His new book, Atlantic Cataclysm, […]

Episode 151: Henri Christophe: First and Last King of Haiti 

Feb 05 2025 22 mins  
Between 1807 and 1820, Haiti was led by it’s first and last king, Henri Christophe. A contemporary of Robespierre and Napoleon, Washington and Hamilton, his life was as colorful, controversial and as tragic as any from his age. He presided over a Haitian state that was opulent and cultured on one hand, brutal and repressive […]

Episode 150: America First: The Debate Then and Now

Dec 09 2024 20 mins  
In the late 1930s, War in Europe seemed inevitable. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, a fierce debate was underway — if war comes to Europe, should America get involved or stay out? On one side of the debate was President Franklin Roosevelt — who favored intervention — and on the other, Charles Lindbergh — the most […]

Episode 149: A crisis of confidence – America in 1876

Dec 04 2024 22 mins  
Two years from now, America will enter its 250th year as a nation. For some, it will be a day to celebrate without question. But, for others it may be something of an anti-climax, or at least a chance to reflect upon the continuing gap between the promise and reality of the American project. Today, I’m joined […]

Episode 148: US China relations in the 1970s

Jul 22 2024 19 mins  
During the 1970s, relations between the US and China were transformed. Previously the two nations were cold war enemies. But Kazushi Minami argues that the ’70s saw Americans reimagine China as a country of opportunities, while Chinese reinterpreted the US as an agent of modernization, capable of enriching their country. Crucial to this process was […]

Episode 147: The Court Packing Crisis

Jun 28 2024 16 mins  
In 1937, American politics was gripped by President Roosevelt’s court packing plan. Frustrated with what he perceived to be an aging, obstructionist Supreme Court, Roosevelt pressed congress to expand the court from 9 to 15 members. Stepping into the ensuing maelstrom was Texas congressman Hatton Sumners, chair of the House judiciary committee, ally of Roosevelt […]

Episode 146: Black Labor in Boston

May 23 2024 28 mins  
The historian Henry Adams once wrote that, “the American boy of 1854 stood nearer the year 1 than to the year 1900.” Changes during that period were indeed profound in Adam’s home town of Boston. And yet, for the majority of the city’s black men and women, life and work in 1900 were not that […]

Episode 145: Student Protests

May 09 2024 25 mins  
Over the course of the academic year, student protests have roiled college campuses like at no other time in recent memory. Going further back though, historians see plenty of parallels — as well as some key differences — with student protest movements focused on Vietnam (1960s/70s) and South Africa (1980s/90s.) Today we’re joined today by […]

Episode 144: Partisanship in the Revolutionary era

Apr 25 2024 22 mins  
Political partisanship is not only a hallmark of US democracy today. There is also a long history of dysfunction and division as old as America. H.W. Brands’s new book, Founding Partisans is a revelatory history of the Revolutionary era’s stormy politics, which includes a look at the nation’s earliest political parties — those of Hamilton and […]