Category Archives: Podcasts 2025

The Ezra Klein Show Best Of: Barbara Kingsolver on ‘Urban/Rural Antipathy’ This episode was recorded some time ago, when Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead had just been released (see my review of the book here) I knew that Kingsolver was from Appalacia, but I hadn’t realized how much she saw this as an Appalacian story and her attempt to breach the chasm of understanding between urban and rural Americans. This was before the Second Coming of Trump, and in many ways she foreshadows it here. Good interview.

The Human Subject (BBC) The Mothers of Gynaecology This is the story of a 17 year old enslaved girl – Anarcha – and the other enslaved women who gave birth to the field of gynaecology. The year is 1845 and Anarcha has just had a baby. But there’s a problem. She was in great pain and her doctor, J Marion Sims, believed nothing can be done about it – at least at first.

She had developed a vesico-vaginal fistula, a hole between her bladder and her vagina. This left her incontinent and in the doctor’s words: “aside from death, this was about the worst accident that could have happened to the poor young girl”. [Many women in third world countries, particularly in Africa, continue to suffer this appalling, life-changing condition]

It was only once Dr Sims worked out a way of getting better access to the vaginal area through the Sims speculum and the ‘Sims Position’ (lying on the left side) that he realized that maybe something could be done. He ‘took over’ Anarcha, as well as a number of other enslaved girls with the same condition, and began experimenting without consent (she was enslaved, after all) and worse still anaesthetic! Anarcha endured 30 surgeries. Ironically, Dr Sims is the one who is celebrated as the ‘father of gynecology’ with his women ‘subjects’ largely unrecognized as the ‘mothers of gynecology’ until recently.

Missing in the Amazon (Guardian) In June 2002 a Guardian journalist, Dom Phillips and an indigenous expert on uncontacted and recently contacted indigenous Amazonian tribes, were murdered. It garnered a lot of attention, probably because Phillips was British, because indigenous rights activists and environmentalists have long been in danger on the Amazon. This is a six-part series published by the Guardian, and pleasingly, the episodes only go for about 1/2 an hour (just the right length!) Episode 1: the disappearance starts with the search for their boat and bodies on the Javari River in the Vale do Javari in western Brazil, right in the middle of South America, near the borders of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. It’s supposedly an indigenous-only zone, but it is a notorious route for drug-trafficking, and illegal mining, fishing and logging. Episode 2: The Journalist and the President looks at Dom Phillips, who started off as a music journalist and ended up being a freelance journalist working all over the world. He had become particularly interested in Brazilian politics and economic and cultural development, and was married to a Brazilian woman and lived in Brazil. When Jair Bolsonaro came to power in 2019 he gave the green light to many illegal activities on indigenous land, and 2 billion trees were lopped during his presidency. Terrible man.

Behind the Bastards Christmas Non-Bastard The Tupamaros of Uruguay Parts 1 and 2 This program delves into the ‘baddies’ but as part of their Christmas Good Cheer, they nominate a non-bastard, and in December 2021, that was Jose Mujica and the Tupamaros. It’s presented by journalist Robert Evans, who has mainly worked on Bellingcat and specializes in extremism. He has read up on other people’s research for this episode, and I did learn some things that I didn’t already know. For example, the fact that there are many old cars in Uruguay because people believe in looking after things and not throwing them out (which fits in well with Jose Mujica’s ‘sobriety’); or the fact that during the 1950s a plebiscite with a very low turnout voted to abolish the position of president, which further cemented the two-party system already in operation. Or the fact that during the 1960s the first highly-educated population of Uruguayan students came of age. Or that during the mid 60s to 1980s, about 300 Tupamaros’ were killed, and they killed about 50 people.

But it was REALLY annoying to hear the way he mangled Mujica’s name, and where on earth is Monty-video (pronounced as if it’s a local video shop in Montmorency) instead of Montevideo?? Ye Gods.

The Rest is History Episode 577 1066: The Norman Conquest (Part 4) So Harald Hardrada is dead; Harold Godwinson is dead, and William of Normandy is now the Conquerer. Why was it game over? Mostly because there was no-one competent left to lead the resistance who had the legitimacy to act as King. The teenaged Edgar Atheling was elected King of England by the Witan in 1066, but it never proceeded any further and he was never crowned. William had behind him a formidable war machine, and when he was crowned using traditional rites as the King of the Anglo Saxons at Westminster Abbey, there was both continuity and rupture. But within 20 years, the fashions had changed, all the dynasties were gone, and the Thanes were destroyed as a social order. Ten Norman families held 1/4 of England, and many families fled to Constantinople. Was this part of William’s plan? Probably not: instead his plan of castle and cathedral building was a response to constant uprisings throughout the country. By the time all the landowners came to pledge allegiance to him at Salisbury in 1086, the Domesday book had worked out who owned what under Edward I and who owned what now. William’s reign saw an end to the rivalry for the throne which had convulsed the country earlier.

Witness History BBC. This BBC program only goes for nine minutes, and they draw from interviews in the BBC archive. As a result, the majority of subjects deal with the 1930s onwards, but in The Russian Revolutionaries nearly stranded in London, it goes back to the 1907 congress of Russian revolutionaries held in London because it was too dangerous in Russia. The congress was attended by Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky but they ran out of money. Journalist Henry Brailsford arranged for them to meet a benefactor, who provided the funds for them to return home, and Brailsford himself was interviewed about it in 1947. This must be the ‘oldest’ witness history in the program because there wouldn’t be many witnesses to 1907!

Background Briefing: Agents of Influence (ABC) Episode 3: The Man Whose Name is All Over Sydney We don’t have quite the same problem here in Melbourne but Len Ainsworth, the 101 year old King of Pokies, has had many buildings named after him. The owner of Aristocrat Leisure, he made a killing from the pokies machines in Sydney’s clubs, and then as other states introduced them as well (to our eternal shame), he made even more money. Philanthropy, yes, but at what cost?

Witness History (BBC) I love Witness History- it features interviews with people from the BBC archives who witnessed a historic event, and only goes for 9 minutes which is just enough to walk to the station, or to drop off to sleep. The Reichstag Fire on 27 February 1933, saw the building that housed the German parliament burned down. This was a key event in the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, as they were able to blame ‘the communists’. Berlin-born journalist, Sefton Delmer, told his story to the BBC World Service in 1967. His contacts with people in Berlin meant that he knew people involved with the Nazi party, and as the building burned down, he wandered around with Hitler and Goring as they ‘tut-tutted’ about the fire.

Half Life (BBC) Episode 5 The Road Through the Mountains Joe travels to the Kurdish region of Tunceli in Turkey, which is the new name for Dersim. Tunceli means ‘bronze fist’ which is appropriate because the area is still heavily miltarized. Poison gas (made by German chemical factories) was used in caverns, and people were bombed from above. In Episode 6 Tranquility Joe’s great-grandfather Siegfried retires to North Carolina in the United States after the war, but by 1957 he was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital. It was there, as a form of therapy, that he began writing his lengthy memoir, which made Joe question whether that changed the status of the document that had set him off on this whole journey.

The Rest is History Episode 553 The Last Viking: Warrior of the New Rome (Part 2). This is the second part of the Harald Hardrada excursion. I’ll let Tom and Dominic describe the episode:

Harald Hardrada; exiled prince of Norway and mercenary, has landed in the greatest city on Earth: Constantinople. There he joins one of the most prestigious military organisations in the world, the Varangian Guard, charged with protecting the Emperor. Almost the next ten years of Harald’s young life are spent at war protecting the city from enslaving raiders. But then, he becomes embroiled in the dark and complex political intrigues and plots of the Byzantine court. Zoe, the formidable wife of the recently deceased Emperor Michael IV, who had been exiled by her husband’s successor, recruits Harald to help her seize the throne. Wealthy, influential and renowned in the world’s most glittering city, things have never seemed better for Harald. But then, does he overreach and embark upon a dangerous affair with the empress herself? Imprisoned for his crimes, Harald manages to slay the terrible serpent haunting his prison cell, and escape at last back to Kyiv.

On his return to Kyiv in 1043, greatly enriched, he finds that his nephew Magnus has taken the throne of Norway and Denmark. After a bit of skirmishing, he and Magnus agree to share the kingdom and the wealth, and when Magnus dies, Harald is now the King of Norway, which is what he always wanted. He modernized Norway and introduced Christianity and taxes, and by 1065 and now 55 years old, was known as Harald Hardrada (i.e. hard leader)

Background Briefing Agents of Influence Ep. 1 The PM’s secret strategists Quite frankly I find the whole idea and terminology of an “influencer” offensive: someone who is important for their effect on other people, rather than for anything they actually do themselves. But apparently they’re all the go in politics today, and politicians are falling over themselves to appear on their shows. I’m getting too old for all this.