I have written about history podcasts in this space before, and as we wait in this long winter for a new season of Mike Duncan’s Revolutions, I’d like to call your attention to another excellent history podcast. This is Matthew Rothwell’s fine People’s History of Ideas. The podcast’s project is to “contribute historical knowledge to the communities of people who are thinking about and confronting the crises the world is facing” so right off the bat we are in a more idealistic framework than I’ve come to expect from history podcasts. He goes into great detail on the Chinese revolutions of the 20th century as a sympathetic historian. This kind of perspective is sadly lacking in English language popular and academic treatments of China and Mao in particular. I’m still only halfway though, but have learned a lot, and has opened my eyes to the ways in which our own received histories contain unexamined ideologies as well.
“Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research. And when you see that you’ve got problems, all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours. Once you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight.” — Malcolm X, Message to the Grass Roots
