Subject to Change
I talk to the world's best historians and let them tell the stories. And the stories are wonderful! (And occasionally I change the subject and talk about films, philosophy or whatever!).
Subject to Change
Latest Episodes
Crimea: from the Golden Horde to Catherine the Great
Donald Rayfield returns for the second of three episodes on Crimea — this time taking the long view, from the Mongol Golden Horde to Catherine the Great's annexation and the early Soviet period.At its height the Crimean Khanate ...
POWs of the Crimean War
The subject today comes out of the Crimean war (1853-1856).I talked to Professor Donald Rayfield, Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian history at Queen Mary University of London, about the war itself and in particular what happene...
The Return of the Emperor (Justinian II - part 2)
Part 1 of the podcast told the sad story of how some shocking misjudgements on the part of Justinian saw him dragged to the Hippodrome where a man with a pair of pliers cut off his nose, cut out his tongue.But in a misjudgement every bit...
Mutilated and exiled (the Emperor Justinian II - part 1)
Justinian II becomes emperor at sixteen. Even allowing for the hostility of our sources the reign is not all plain sailing.I'm joined by Professor David Parnell to work through the first half of one of Byzantium's most extraordinary reig...
Buckingham: the most hated man in England
You don't have to be young and beautiful to get ahead in Stuart England but it really doesn't hurt. The is the story of 'gorgeous George' - that is to say George Villiers (later Duke of Buckingham) who in his early 20's became the favourite of ...