On Top of the World

In a surprise announcement last week, the College Board declared they are cutting out the whole first half of the AP World History curriculum (a.k.a. Periods I, II, & III).  The course is now going to be just World History from 1450 CE. We think this is a truck load of bullshit.  Tune in to find out exactly what kind of bullshit this is as well as a few reasonable argument in favor of this change. However, we mostly want to hear from you.  Please leave us a comment with your thoughts on the change.  Or, if you’d like to leave a voicemail that we can play during our next episode send an email to ontopoftheworldhistory@gmail.com, a twitter message to @podhistory, or a message on our facebook page. Recommendations: Dave – Manufacturing Confucianism: Chinese Traditions and Universal Civilization by Lionel M. Jensen Matt – Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History by Richard W. Bulliet

The original “Bro-dels” Matt and Dave tackle Jo Guldi and David Armitage’s The History Manifesto.  How should historians respond to the “crisis of the humanities?”  Your hosts discuss Guldi and Armitage’s ideas of “long-termism,” big data, and the need for public-facing scholarship from the perspective of World History.  While the book has got some great ideas, it seems like the authors have never met any of the world historians, who have been attempting to answer some of the big questions in the Manifesto for the last few decades!  We don’t feel slighted.  Totally not mad. Don’t worry! Y ou can read the Manifesto for free (see link below).  Take a look and then join Matt & Dave in a wide-ranging discussion of hierarchy in the history academy, dropping enrollment, and Canada’s saddest reactionary, Jordan Peterson. Links: The History Manifesto by Jo Guldi and David Armitage “Rise of the humanities” by Peter Mandler “The CANADALAND Guide to Jordan B. Peterson” Prof. Mike Davis: “There Was Once A Generation of Lions” interview by Mohsen Abdelmoumen Recommendations: (00:40:15) Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber Clio Infra (dataset) by the International Institute of Social History 

We’re heading back to the “Blood Lands”  of Eastern Europe for a sobering discussion of the uses and abuses of the history of the holocaust from an ecological and global perspective.  We discuss Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning with special guest Andrew Behrendt.  A great listen for teachers who are grappling with how to apply the lessons of the 20th-century with their students. Recommendations: Dave – The Logic of Violence in Civil War by Stathis Kalyvas Andrew – Modern Hungers: Food and Power in Twentieth-Century Germany by Alice Weinreb Matt – The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times by Odd Arne Westad

Dave and Matt have read Maya Jassanoff’s new book on the life and times of Joseph Conrad, The Dawn Watch.  We discuss Conrad’s life, and the limits of his vision in the turbulent world of the late 19th-century.  This is a story that has remarkable parallels to our own moment in history: a world of transnational corporations, terrorism, immigration, and disruptive technological change.  Plus, why our world is more similar to the lead up to the First World War than you think! For History teachers with students who have read Conrad’s works for a literature course or an English class, we weigh the benefits and drawbacks of using Conrad in a history classroom. Tune in for a tales of Polish nationalism, depression, race, and empire!  Stay to find out why old Józef really, really hates those darn steamships.     Recommendations: Maya Jasanoff – The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World Chinua Achebe – “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness'” and Things Fall Apart Allan B. Calhamer – Diplomacy Greg Grandin – The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World  

On today’s episode, Matt interviews one of his former students, Valeria Alvarado, an immigrant rights activist and an undergraduate History major.  Val co-founded “We, Too, Are America,” an online platform dedicated to fighting the current administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.  The two discuss the undergraduate History experience, navigating the seminar as a woman of color, dealing with tokenism in the classroom, and the importance of understanding colonialism. Recommendations Matt: Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed  Val: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond  We, Too, Are America: https://www.wetooareamerica.org

How do you teach the evolution of race and racism in world history?  From the post-classical era to the Enlightenment and industrial era, Matt and Dave explore the historical construction of race.  How did ideas of race evolve in a world-historical context and how was this social construct then used to justify hierarchies?   Tune in to find out. St. Maurice’s statue at the Magdeburg Cathedral Recommendations: Dave – Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography by Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully Matt – The Mismeasure of Man (Revised & Expanded) by Stephen Jay Gould  

In today’s episode, I talk Great Lakes History Conference as we reach the one-week-to-go mark! With me is Andrew Peterson, a visiting assistant professor at GVSU, and we talk about his panel on “Rethinking the World History Survey.” We chat about his career arc, how to orient a world history survey around the environment, exchange networks, and energy regimes, how to solve problems related to periodization, and why the X-Files monster episodes are redeemable (they are!). The full presentation is planned for October 21 at 3:15pm, and he will be joined by Craig Benjamin (GVSU), Whitney Dirks-Schuster (GVSU), Leah Gregory (SDSU), and Alex Holowicki (Maui College). For more information on other panels and presentations please visit the conference website. Recommendations are: Andrew – Collingham, A Taste of War Dave – Pauketat, Cahokia (and Homefront + Paradise Lost from Deep Space Nine)

In this episode Matt and I look at controversies over historical statues around the world, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. I describe my visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, how I stumbled upon a Place de la Force Publique in Kinshasa, and then go in depth (over a couple beers!) discussing how the Herero Genocide was remembered in public spaces. Monuments to the Herero dead, the Schutztruppe rider, Eugen Fischer‘s skull experiments, and Namibia’s Heroes Acre are all discussed, as is the vicious counterinsurgency war that led to the genocide. A great BBC documentary and an article by Reinhart Kössler are key sources on the subject. The extermination order and an image of Herero survivors after crossing the Kalahari can be found here and here. Recommendations are: Matt – Dickinson, The Traitor Baru Cormorant; Frederickson, Racism: A Short History; Andrews, Afro-Latin America; Manning, The African Diaspora Dave – Gewald, Herero Heroes (HT for the episode title!)

Today, Matt and I talk about the ongoing controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments in the United States and the importance of public history to our discipline. Matt recently made the case for the removal of the statue in Houston named “The Spirit of the Confederacy.” We argue that we make choices in terms of how we remember the past, and that celebrating those who resisted slavery, like Virginia Boyd, is a more appropriate use of public space. Matt’s speech, the letter from Virginia Boyd to her slave master in 1853, the Washington Post call to action for medievalists, Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told, an article on the German military myth that they were not involved in the Holocaust, and even links to the book written by Judge Norman G. Kittrell (who gave a speech at the unveiling of the statue) are all available online. Those who wish to contribute to the Gofundme’s for a Houston student injured in Charlottesville, those arrested in Durham, or the family of Heather Heyer can follow the links here. Our next episode will look in more depth at other examples from world history that can help contextualize the current situation in the US. Recommendations are: Matt – Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves Dave – Atieno-Odhiambo and Lonsdale (eds), Mau Mau and Nationhood

In this episode, Matt and I sit down over some fine 90s music (and a PC Pils from Founders for the Big Pitcher!) to discuss an important article published after the end of the Cold War; Benjamin Barber’s “Jihad vs McWorld.” In it, Barber describes two futures – one marked by the violent forms of ethno-nationalism he terms jihad, and the other by the globalist consumerism of McWorld. The twist is that he argues neither of these futures is good for democracy. We debate the coherence of capitalism, war profiteering, the value of local democracy, and the merits of Terminator 2, Hackers, Jurassic Park, and Independence Day (the celebrations Matt mentions are here). Recommendations are: Dave – Mitchell, Carbon Democracy Matt – Wright, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa

For the first time ever, this podcast is part of a conference! And in this special mini episode, my conference co-coordinator (Mike Huner) and I discuss this years Great Lakes History Conference in Grand Rapids, MI. Hosted by the Grand Valley State University History Department, this conference has been going for 40 years, and the theme this year is research in action – specifically, how historical research makes its way into the public sphere, either through teaching, the media, or political engagement. The plan is to include panels of interest to both high school and university instructors, and there will also be a number of workshops focused on pedagogy (including a day-long session on Reacting to the Past!). We are also proud to welcome our keynote speaker, Michelle Moyd from Indiana University – Bloomington. She published Violent Intermediaries: African Soldiers, Conquest, and Everyday Colonialism in German East Africa in 2014, and more recently featured in The Guardian writing about languages of resistance.  Her lecture is entitled “Radical Potentials: World War I as Global South War,” and she will also be leading a discussion on the work of filmmaker Raoul Peck. All podcast listeners are welcome to attend, and registration is FREE! The call for papers has detailed info on how to submit a paper/panel (due July 15), and detailed conference info can be found on the podcast website.

Matt and I have been together in Utah for the AP World History reading, and today we managed to find some time in the evening to talk about environmental history and its place in the study of the Age of Revolutions. Key sources are Mosquito Empires and Pox Americana as we look at how differential immunity played a crucial role in the fate of the Haitian and American Revolutions respectively. We also discuss ways to give disease an important place in events without giving in to environmental determinism, a discussion that was well lubricated by whiskey from High West Distillery. A source for Kwame Nkrumah’s suggested mosquito statue in Accra can be found here. Recommendations are: Matt – Miller, An Environmental History of Latin America Dave – Dubois, Avengers of the New World  

In our second interview with a professor teaching food history, Matt and Andrew discuss how to teach a World History course through food.  Come for the pedagogical insights, stay for the singing canned corn. Recommendations: Rachel Laudan, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History.  An essential text for instructors interested in incorporating food history into their courses.   Prof. Laudan’s excellent blog on food and food history: http://www.rachellaudan.com/ Andrew Behrendt’s Syllabus and pörkölt recipe: World History through Food History Syllabus Beef stew with spætzle, Hungarian-style recipe  The Soviet Union’s first television commercial:

In this episode, I sit down with Lauren Janes, an assistant professor at Hope College in Holland, MI. We discuss her recently published book, her new project on using food case studies to illuminate key themes in world history (potatoes = Columbian Exchange, sugar = Trans-Atlantic slave trade, curry = imperialism, maize = US food aid and Green Revolution), the use of food in world history surveys, and her upper level seminar entitled “A Modern History of Global Food.” We discuss maize and GMOs in Zambia,  Mann’s writing on potatoes, the history of curry, tete de négre (a French dessert created in the late 19th century that you can read about here), the awesomeness of Sidney Mintz, the Algerian wine industry, refrigeration (using Freidburg’s book) and how to make our classes less depressing as we reach the 19th and 20th century. Recommendations are: Lauren – Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors Dave – Hamilton, Trucking Country    

In today’s episode, Matt and I discuss two books that connect food and world history – Planet Taco by Jeffrey Pilcher and Just Food by James McWilliams. Along the way we mention John Wick, Seafall, taco kits, a hilarious new Old El Paso commercial (and check out this older gem!), Primanti sandwiches, life cycle assessments, Bt crops, and lots of restaurants (Tako in Pittsburgh and Donkey Taqueria and Taqueria San Jose in Grand Rapids). Recommendations are: Matt – Rick Bayless, Mexico: One Plate at a Time Dave – Pho Anh Trang in Grand Rapids   Get it on Stitcher  

In this episode, Matt and I start a three-part arc on food and world history. We discuss how to teach sugar (using Sidney Mintz and Eric Williams) and milk (using this article on the Leche Project), before moving on to kumis and nomadic peoples as well as the role of salt and tobacco smuggling in the French Revolution. We conclude by recommending two books on food and world history that we will be discussing in our next episode: Matt – Pilcher, Planet Taco Dave – McWilliams, Just Food   Get It on Stitcher

This mini-episode was originally recorded in May 2016 with Tammy Shreiner and was intended to be part of a series of “short cuts” discussing world history resources online. My contribution was an article by Michael Lind about the future of American politics, and how some of the divisions he described seemed quite similar to those I have encountered in the field of world history (and history more broadly). One caveat: this is not intended as a polished piece of scholarly work, but as a reflection on some of the “big pitcher” ideas that shape us as world historians! Recommendations: Dave – Bender, A Nation among Nations Tammy – Guarneri, America in the World   Get It on Stitcher

In this episode, Dave and his favorite certified genetic counselor, Katey Mayberry, take a look at the genetic evidence for the settlement of the Americas. The first article, by Rasmussen et al in Nature, deals with the controversial origins of Kennewick Man/the Ancient One, a skeleton found in Washington State and dating back at least 8400 years. The second article, written by Llamas et al in Science Advances, deals more generally with the early migrations into the Americas. Over a couple Canadian beers, we talk about Y-DNA, mtDNA, haplotypes, TMRCA, single-nucleotide polymorphism, and high posterior density with varying levels of success! Follow along at home as I try to make sense of the charts on p.4 of Llamas et al!  This is a highly specialized field, but as Katey makes clear, if used carefully it can be extremely useful to world historians of all types. Recommendations are: Katey – Genetics Home Reference Dave – Dillehay, The Settlement of the Americas   Get It on Stitcher

For our 20th episode we bring in Bill Strickland from East Grand Rapids High School to discuss the upcoming changes to the AP world history exam. The acronyms come fast and furious as we go through the SAQs, DBQs, and LEQs and discuss a variety of teaching strategies. We also discuss the infamous “Western penetration” DBQ, Dungeons and Dragons, mapping the Roman Empire, and AP training videos. Recommendations are: Dave – AHA Digital History Reviews by John Rosinbum Bill – HistoryHaven.com by John Henderson Matt – The Economic Role of Women in World History, 600-1914 by Linda Black   Get It on Stitcher  

In Episode 4, I mentioned I used the book Bloodlands by Timothy (not Zack) Snyder when teaching WWII in my world history survey. Our guest Andrew Behrendt was underwhelmed with that choice. Today, Andrew and I enter the Thunderdome and strap into our bungee harnesses as we debate whether this book is useful for world historians. Needless to say, there is some bad blood as he grabs a chainsaw (claiming Snyder poorly defines his geographical space!), I swing a hammer (suggesting that Snyder’s top-down approach may be a necessary corrective to the historiographical turn towards local understandings of violence!), and Matt frantically tries to blow his bosun’s whistle (Snyder’s synthesis does not contain an explicit argument!). Yeah, this one gets nerdy, so nerdy Stathis Kalyvas gets name checked. There are even two Simpson’s references in here! Recommendations are: Andrew – Prusin, The Lands Between; Collingham, The Taste of War Dave – Gross, Neighbors; Gross, Fear Matt – Von Ryan’s Express (1965); Lazare, “Timothy Snyder’s Lies”   Get It on Stitcher