This episode focuses on Louis the Pious, Charlemagne's deeply misunderstood son and heir. This is the fifth episode in a series covering the Holy Roman Empire. Sources & further reading: - Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire (Peter H. Wilson) - The Carolingian World (Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, Simon MacLean) - The Demanding Drama of Louis the Pious (Courtney M. Booker) - Past Convictions: The Penance of Louis the Pious and the Decline of the Carolingians - The Frankish...
Mar 06, 2024•46 min
We all saw the interview. Sources & further reading: The Story of Russia (Orlando Figes) Peter the Great: His Life and World (Robert K Massie) The Romanovs: 1613-1918 (Simon Sebag Montefiore) Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair (Simon Sebag Montefiore) Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Simon Sebag Montefiore) Young Stalin (Simon Sebag Montefiore) The Cambridge History of Russia: From Early Rus to 1689 (Kollektiv Avtorov) The Cambridge History of Russia: From 1689 to...
Feb 22, 2024•43 min
In this episode, we cover Charlemagne's coronation, the Carolingian Renaissance, the administrative aspects of his vast realm, and conclude with an examination of Charlemagne the man. We start with his coronation... By this point, Charlemagne had mastered the art of wartime logistics and organization, handed down news ways of governance and worship to conquered peoples, and soon he would inaugurate the Carolingian Renaissance, a period of renewed interest in the arts, sciences, and learning in g...
Nov 05, 2023•1 hr 19 min
The founder of the Carolingian empire, Charlemagne, is often called the “father of Europe.” For the French and German people alike, he’s a little bit like a medieval George Washington. But unlike Washington, Charlemagne was not just statesman and general. He was an empire-builder living in a very different time, when might made right. There is no single battle or campaign that earned Charlemagne his place in history. No fight against overwhelming odds or swift toppling of another empire. Instead...
Oct 23, 2023•56 min•Season 2Ep. 3
In the course of only twenty five years, Clovis -- the first of the Merovingians -- had united the Frankish people, adopted Roman Christianity, and laid the foundations for a kingdom that would last about two and half centuries. In the vision of Clovis' father, Childeric, he imagines that the Merovingian dynasty would transmogrify from a procession of mythic creatures into a pack of wild bears, wolves, and dogs. This is their story... as well as the prelude to the Carolingians. The vaunted ances...
Oct 06, 2023•58 min•Season 2Ep. 2
So there’s a lot of guys thinking about the Roman Empire lately, but that’s nothing new. Though the western half of their empire fell more than 1500 years ago, the Romans have never really gone away, leaving behind traces -- material and immaterial -- of their achievements in so many different realms of human endeavor: from civil engineering and hydraulics to political and legal reforms to linguistic and literary developments, and so much else. More than any other empire-builders in the Western ...
Sep 28, 2023•27 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Following in the footsteps of greatness is never an easy thing, especially at the dawn of history. This was the Bronze Age, when glory could not be bought or borrowed or bartered, except with the price of blood. Sure, there was praise to be earned for building roads and consecrating temples and giving grain to the hungry. All of that was very well and good. However, it was the virtues of war, not peace, that enabled a man to be great. There was no other playbook -- only the one written by Sargon...
Sep 19, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Let us, just for the moment, take a brief respite from the epic tales of gods, great men, and battles that dominate our narrative. Rest assured that we will return to these subjects soon enough because of how prominently they figure in the two centuries of Akkadian rule, so much so that normally sober-minded historians have referred to it as “the heroic chapter” of Bronze Age History. It is all too easy to forget that there were ordinary people out there, the playthings of these heroes, who spen...
Sep 14, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 3
What kind of man does it take to build an empire? And not just any empire, but the very first in the history of man? What would it take to bring it into being when only kingdoms and cities had come before? For an answer, we can look at the story of Sargon of Akkad: Lover to Ishtar, Father to Enheduanna, Lord of Lies, King of Battle, Prophet of Empire. In The Birth Legend of Sargon of Akkad, we are told that, as a mere infant, he was sent down the Euphrates in a basket of rushes sealed with bitum...
Sep 06, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Since there can be no firm understanding of the Sargonic empire without a passing familiarity with the Sumerian city-states that preceded it, this episode is devoted to them, their leading representative being Uruk. With this context established, we will be able to make sense of the Akkadians as well as their successors, because as certainly as day follows night, so too does one empire follow another. Theme track used: The Age of Empire (Zero Project)
Aug 29, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 1
An introduction to the Empires podcast. Theme track used: The Age of Empire (Zero Project)
Aug 24, 2023•4 min
