Stacy Schiff is one of America's most acclaimed historians and biographers. Her book The Witches is a detailed, almost forensic, history... more

Christopher de Bellaigue's book The Lion House is a brilliant history of the first part of Suleiman the Magnificent's reign. I... more

Professor David Abulafia's wonderful book The Great Sea covers so many topics. Today we talked about slavery. Until recently I... more

Scott Sumner is an economist with a well known and much quoted blog. But it is the bit of the... more

I have always found the war Octavian fought against Antony and Cleopatra hard to understand. How did Antony find himself... more

Anna Keay's book The Restless Republic is just brilliant. It covers the period following the execution of Charles I when... more

Following on from last week in this episode things reach boiling point. Marriage alliances are discarded, invasions undertaken D day... more

Tristan Hughes has writen a brilliant book about the years immediately following the Death of Alexander the Great. As Tristan... more

Really thrilled to have Bret Devereaux and Ed Watts on the podcast together. We looked at Gladiator as a film... more

I chatted to Battleship Bean and John Schilling about nuclear war. We discussed the wonderful Dr Strangleove and tried to... more