Show Notes
How can the past help us live better, happier, healthier and more productive lives today? That's the question at the heart of our series Life Lessons from History, which is back for a new run – and today on the HistoryExtra podcast, we're bringing you a taste of what's on offer. In this episode, historian Peter Jones tells David Musgrove about why the seven deadly sins were more a guide to practical self-knowledge than a list of religious prohibitions – and how medieval thinkers anticipated many modern ideas about wellbeing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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How do you make history hilarious without mangling the facts? As Ghosts: The Possession of Button House arrives on the big screen, co-creator, writer and actor Laurence Rickard (AKA Robin and Sir Humphrey Bone) reveals how the team brought the much-loved sitcom characters back to life for the feature film. Talking to Elinor Evans, he shares the team’s approach to historical accuracy, discusses why our understanding of the past is always changing, and explains how Ghosts has become an unexpected source of comfort for many.
From the middle of the 19th century, Chinese people in the United States found themselves increasingly policed, as legislation was introduced that contained and controlled their economic and cultural lives. Historian Beth Lew-Williams tells Elinor Evans about her work uncovering this wide-reaching set of laws for her book John Doe Chinaman, and reveals how Chinese people resisted and avoided discrimination.
He was barely a toddler when he was paraded as a captive in a Roman triumph in 46 BC, but young North African prince Juba went on to marry a daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and rule an African kingdom. Andrew Kenrick, author of Rex Juba: 15 Glimpses of an African King, unravels his amazing life, in conversation with David Musgrove.
In 1665 the Portuguese Inquisition arrested Crispina Peres, a powerful slave trader in the west African port of Cacheu. The records of her case provide a remarkable window into everyday life in 17th-century west Africa, and form the basis of Toby Green's latest book, The Heretic of Cacheu. In this episode he is joined by Rob Attar to explore the story of Crispina and the lost world she inhabited.
What was 'nidgeting'? How did women know they were pregnant before modern tests? And what did people in the past believe a mother’s imagination could do to her unborn child? In this episode, Lauren Good speaks to historian Erin Maglaque about her book Presence, which explores the history of the female body – and society's longstanding beliefs about it.