Before the West w/ Ayşe Zarakol

Featuring Peter Linebaugh on the Luddites’ machine-breaking revolt against the enclosure of handicraft production, the central role played by capital punishment in the consolidation of the capitalist state, and remaking the struggle against enclosure for the 21st century. Support ...  Show more

Featuring Peter Linebaugh on the long histories of commons and commoning, connections between enclosures in Europe and imperial conquest abroad, and writing history from below. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy Engineered Conflict: Structural Violence and the Future of Bl ...  Show more

After victory in China, Genghis Khan goes west and takes on the Khwarezmians, surprising his enemy with a daring assault. He conquers all in his path and now controls the biggest empire the world has ever seen. But whose shoulders are broad enough to become his successor? Listen ...  Show more

“And from that moment on, he was addressed as emperor and Augustus!” The coronation of Charlemagne on Christmas Day 800 AD, is one of the landmark moments in all world history. More than three centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the emperors had returned on ...  Show more

Before the Mongol Empire dominated the Asian Continent, there was no empire to speak of, only nomadic tribes in perpetual battle. That is, until a precocious teenager with a knack for strategy forged a dynasty that reshaped the entire world in his own image. Hosted by Simplecast, ...  Show more

As both the Qianlong Emperor's extensive reign and the Eighteenth Century itself comes to a close, the Qing Empire faces - in spite of its outward posturing of timeless grandeur and invulnerability - an ever more uncertain future. By this time his successor, the Jiaqing Emperor, ...  Show more