In 1688 the Stuart King James II was ousted from the throne by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, in what is called the Glorious Revolution. This momentous change would set in motion decades of unrest across the British Isles, as the supporters of James Stuart; his son the ‘Old Pretender’ James, and his flamboyant grandson, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, both exiled in France and Italy, sought to restore them to the throne of Britain. In Scotland especially, the hereditary home of th...
Sep 23, 2024•54 min•Season 10Ep. 3
With the accession of James I and VI in 1603, Scotland was assimilated into the composite monarchy of the United Kingdom. James, an eccentric, insecure and rambling figure, preoccupied with witches, was himself an alien in his new English court. Even at this stage though, it seems unlikely that the two nations would be legally combined under one parliament. But, with Scottish interests abroad constantly embattled by a lack of resources and the exclusionist attitude of its English neighbours; the...
Sep 18, 2024•55 min•Season 10Ep. 2
When charting the rise of Scotland’s global influence, few events have been as tragically remarkable as the Darien Scheme of 1698, which saw woefully unprepared Scottish pioneers attempt to settle and colonise the Isthmus of Panama. Scotland during this period was a country bound to England under one crown, originally that of James I and VI, though still in its own right a sovereign state. However, competitive enmity was developing between the two neighbours over the question of empire and their...
Sep 16, 2024•55 min•Season 10Ep. 1
In the 9th century AD, two years after the Holy Roman Empire was established in Western Christendom, another world-shaking empire was rising in the east, more powerful even than that of Charlemagne and far wealthier. Born in what is today Northern Cambodia but long before the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the mighty Khmer empire dominated most of mainland Southeast Asia, stretching as far north as southern China, and far outsizing the Byzantine empire and its peak. In 802 a mighty warrior king, Ja...
Sep 11, 2024•55 min•Season 7Ep. 12
While in the West the legends of King Arthur were being born, a Buddhist tantric magician of immense magical powers - Vajrabodhi - was enshrining himself as the Merlin of first India, and then China. Undeniably one of the most extraordinary characters of the 8th century, Vajrabodhi would play a crucial role in transporting Buddhism to the Chinese court, along with Indian scholarship. After being sent there on an important embassy by his cousin, a mighty Pallava king of Southern India, Vajrabodhi...
Sep 09, 2024•35 min•Season 7Ep. 11
India’s transformation of the ancient world is indisputable, and tangible evidence of this can be found in the magnificent Hindu and Buddhist temples scattered across the landscapes of South East Asia. But what was the process by which India transported its vast empire of art, culture, architecture, technology, religion and even writing to South East Asia? The story largely derives in the ascent of international trade from India across the Bay of Bengal, to places like Malaysia, Thailand and eve...
Sep 04, 2024•51 min•Season 7Ep. 10
Having garnered absolute power through bloody means, Empress Wu Zetian begins seeing apparitions, haunted by her violent schemes. With her husband incapacitated, the Empress at first held counsel on his behalf from behind a curtain. But she soon officially proclaimed herself a divine ruler. Working alongside a prominent Buddhist monk, she built temples and universities in China, creating a new holy land. Yet as the formidable leader enters her seventies, the guilt about how she got to this posit...
Sep 02, 2024•53 min•Season 7Ep. 9
The inculcation of Buddhism from India as the state religion in China was enabled by the violent rise of China’s only ever woman Emperor. Raised by pious Buddhist parents, Wu Zetian left a trail of bodies in her wake as she charted a path to absolute power. From a lowly ranked concubine in the imperial harem to the corridors of power, she used Buddhism to legitimise her unprecedented claim to rule. Listen as William and Anita discuss the unstoppable rise of China’s only woman Emperor to rule in ...
Aug 28, 2024•36 min•Season 7Ep. 8
It was actually India, not China, that was the greatest trading partner of the Roman Empire. During this era, it’s clear that sea travel was the fastest, most economical and safest way to move people and goods in the pre-modern world, costing about a fifth of the price of equivalent land transport. The Golden Road of early east–west commerce, in other words, lay less overland, through a Persia often at war with Rome, and much more across the open oceans, via the choppy waters of the Red Sea and ...
Aug 26, 2024•43 min•Season 7Ep. 7
For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. Listen as Anita and William discuss his new book and the rise of the Indosphere. To fill out the survey: survey.empirepoduk.com To buy William's book: https://coles-book...
Aug 21, 2024•44 min•Season 7Ep. 6
With Richard Nixon now in the White House and not wanting to have his presidency consumed by Vietnam like his predecessor’s was, he begins to search for ways to disentangle America from the war. It begins with Vietnamisation and an attempt to reduce South Vietnamese reliance on the Americans, but soon he goes to China and starts making moves on the world stage to reduce Soviet and Chinese support for the north. Before long the Americans will be out and South Vietnam will be left to its fate. Lis...
Aug 19, 2024•57 min•Season 9Ep. 29
With the death of JFK, Lyndon B. Johnson took over the Presidency and immediately had to wrestle with America’s relationship with Vietnam after the killing of Diem. Right from the start he prophesised that it would be his downfall and so it was. He consistently resented it and the distraction it was from his domestic agenda, the Great Society. Over his five years in charge, LBJ Americanised the war, committing more and more troops to Vietnam, and initiating massive bombing campaigns known as Ope...
Aug 14, 2024•59 min•Season 9Ep. 28
Vietnam, or Indochina as it was known, had been under French colonial rule since the nineteenth century. This was until the Vietnamese nationalist group, the Viet Minh, took on the French in 1946. Ho Chi Minh, son of a Confucian scholar, former chef in Boston, and lover of French literature, was at their head. The fighting came to an end in 1954 with the Geneva conference splitting the country in two. The northern side was to be ruled by the Viet Minh, with close links to the Chinese Communist p...
Aug 12, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 9Ep. 27
Following the fall of Batista, the Cuban revolution took a more radical turn. Castro was not a communist to begin with, but as those around him became increasingly Marxist, the CIA’s desire to regain control of the island grew. With the failure of JFK’s Bay of Pigs invasion, events escalated into the Cuban Missile Crisis as the USSR brought nuclear weapons to America’s doorstep. Listen as Anita and William are once again joined by Alex von Tunzelmann to talk about how the Caribbean almost became...
Aug 07, 2024•56 min•Season 9Ep. 26
It’s 1959 and the swaggering Cuban revolutionary, Fidel Castro, has just overthrown the unpopular American backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Che Guevara, the Marxist physician whose face would become an internationally recognised symbol of resistance, is at his side. But how did the small Caribbean nation go from a profitable outpost of the Spanish empire to a heady American party island, rife with gangsters and gambling, to a hub of revolution? Listen as Anita and William are joined by Alex V...
Aug 05, 2024•59 min•Season 9Ep. 25
The Korean War was a brutal affair. It is estimated that 3,000,000 people were killed in the conflict that absolutely devastated the Korean Peninsula. And the legacy of it is still with us today; it was over the course of this war that the division between North and South solidified into two separate nations. It was also at this time that Kim Il Sung rose to prominence, establishing North Korea's ruling dynasty that exists to this day. Listen as William and Anita are once again joined by Paul Th...
Jul 31, 2024•51 min•Season 9Ep. 24
Whilst we know the Korean Peninsula is split into two quite separate countries, North Korea and South Korea, that has not always been been the case. Korea was an independent, singular nation until the Japanese colonised it at the start of the 20th century. This collapsed after the Second World War, at which time the USA and Russia swept in to create their own spheres of influence, separated by the 38th parallel. Communist Russia in the north, capitalist USA in the south. Listen as William and An...
Jul 29, 2024•47 min•Season 9Ep. 23
By 1943, the price of rice was beyond unaffordable for most in Bengal, and people were dying in the streets. Despite government censorship of letters, news spread about the famine and the tide turned with the introduction of a new Viceroy. Yet when aid eventually did arrive from other regions of India, it was so chaotically handled that some food shipments were halted at the station. Listen as Anita and William are joined again by Kavita Puri to explore the legacy of what is sometimes dubbed “Ch...
Jul 24, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 25
In 1942, in the midst of the Second World War, the British administration feared that Japanese forces would take India as part of their campaign. To prevent access to resources in the event of a potential invasion, colonial forces enacted a “denial policy”, confiscating rice and destroying boats. This, along with a cyclone and political unrest, led to starvation in the countryside of Bengal, forcing people to flee to cities in a desperate search for food. Listen as Anita and William take a break...
Jul 22, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 24
By the end of the Spanish-US war, the Philippines was on the menu. Two battles played out simultaneously on the archipelago: and old and a new empire fought for power over a colony, whilst Filipinos fought for independence. The Philippines honoured the US in their new constitution and flag. But they were betrayed, and a young revolutionary, Emilio Aguinaldo, led the Filipino people in the brutal war against American imperialism. Listen as Anita and William are joined once again by Daniel Immerwa...
Jul 17, 2024•42 min•Season 9Ep. 22
In 1898, whilst his boss was on a break at the osteopath, Teddy Roosevelt basically started a war. A master of the press, he managed to whip up war fever amongst jingoists in Congress, leading the United States to declare war on imperial Spain. Building on an established independence movement in Cuba, the US was ambiguous about its intentions. Was it liberation or colonisation that it wanted for this Caribbean island? Listen as Anita and William are joined again by Daniel Immerwahr to discuss th...
Jul 15, 2024•50 min•Season 9Ep. 21
On 7th July 1898, President McKinley formally annexed Hawaii, making it a colonial territory of the USA. It was not until 21st August, 1959, that it became the 50th state. Orchestrated by the American planter class in Hawaii, led by Sanford Dole, this annexation was the culmination of a process throughout the 19th century which pushed the native Hawaiian population to the side for commercial gain. Listen as William and Anita look at the taking of the 50th state and the attempts by the last Queen...
Jul 10, 2024•47 min•Season 9Ep. 20
Not everyone agrees that the USA should be classed as an empire. But in the late 1800s, after white settlers had colonised western states, America turned to acquiring overseas territories in what could be described as an imperial project. And one surprising commodity catalysed the project… bird poo. Joining Anita and William to answer questions like “how did shit shape the American empire?” and more, is Daniel Immerwahr, author of How To Hide An Empire. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: empirepoduk@g...
Jul 08, 2024•40 min•Season 9Ep. 19
Arizona Territory, April 30, 1871. The canyon known as Aravaipa lies still in the predawn darkness, the only sounds to be heard in the early-morning calm the song of birds and the lilt of running water as it courses its way toward the nearby San Pedro River. But upon this paradise all hell is about to break loose. With Native American land being squeezed and squeezed by settlers, and relations becoming more and more violent as indigenous customs are degraded and exterminated, things are at break...
Jul 03, 2024•51 min•Season 9Ep. 18
A whole genre of movies is based on a relatively short period of nineteenth-century American history. But what is the real story behind battles between Native Americans and white settlers during westward expansion? In the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, settlers flooded to the newly acquired territory and before long, violence was commonplace. Images of battles fought on horseback continue to shape our popular understanding, yet have often overshadowed the cultures and lives that were dec...
Jul 01, 2024•50 min•Season 9Ep. 17
In 1850, 13-year-old Olive Oatman and her family set off on the perilous journey by foot from Missouri to Arizona. Olive and her little sister were captured by a group of Native Americans and then sold to another. Yet rather than being treated as slaves, the girls were treated with kindness and welcomed as kin. But her version of her story was to be twisted and rewritten in the years that followed… Listen as Anita and William are joined once again by Katie Hickman to discuss the extraordinary ex...
Jun 26, 2024•42 min•Season 9Ep. 16
Fort Laramie was once a stockade where European fur traders and Native Americans lived together peacefully. But by the 1850s it became a stop-over along the busy trail of emigrants moving westwards seeking gold and religious utopias. Their effect on the environment increased tensions with the local Lakota, and peace crashed down in 1854 all thanks to the death of a Mormon cow… Listen as William and Anita are joined by Katie Hickman to discuss life at Fort Laramie and the First Sioux War. Twitter...
Jun 24, 2024•47 min•Season 9Ep. 15
Despite having fought alongside them, President Andrew Jackson hated Native Nations. In the early 1800s, he sought to deceive Cherokee tribes into giving up their lands. How did Jackson overturn the precedent of respecting Native sovereignty and force thousands of Native Americans to migrate west? Listen as Anita and William are joined once again by Kathleen DuVal to explore the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [email protected] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Produc...
Jun 19, 2024•41 min•Season 9Ep. 14
North America was never virgin territory. For thousands of years it has been home to established nations of Indigenous people who founded ancient cities like Cahokia. When European settlers arrived on the eastern seaboard, Native Americans never saw them as a threat. But as the United States established itself, how did its notion of a new republic affect those who had always lived there? Listen as Anita and William are joined by Kathleen DuVal to discuss interactions between Native Nations and A...
Jun 17, 2024•46 min•Season 9Ep. 13
The British have surrendered, they’ll be leaving soon. Now the Americans have a new and arguably harder task than before. They have to meld those 13 states, each with their own sense of independence and unique characteristics, into a country. Taking inspiration from Rome, the Enlightenment, and their own experience of British rule, the Founding Fathers created a republic that lasts until today. Listen as William and Anita are joined by Maya for the last of our episodes on the American Revolution...
Jun 12, 2024•39 min•Season 9Ep. 12
