This is the type of podcast based around interviews with experts, often authors of fairly recent books. The company has the resources to put out a new episode every day.
History Extra’s choice of topics and perspectives on those topics are British, albeit of a cosmopolitan strain. The hosts assume that listeners, like themselves, have had a traditional British schooling but as adults really want a broader perspective.
Every so often the show airs an “Everything You Wanted to Know” episode, based on asking a scholarly expert questions sent in by readers and pulled off search engine queries. Which means the first question on a given topic is “What is [given topic]?” as if one is finally getting around to researching a school report a few hours before it is due.
At the end of February, History Extra offered “The American Revolutionary War: Everything You Wanted to Know.” And even better, the expert recruited to answer people’s questions on that topic was Prof. Benjamin Carp of Brooklyn College.
Ben is a longtime friend of Boston 1775 and author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America, Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution, and the upcoming The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution. Check out the conversation via that link.
If you like the format, here’s the History Extra page for podcasts. And here’s its page for content tagged “Georgian,” including articles short and long.
I'm very eager to read Prof. Carp's book on the Great Fire of New York. Thanks for alerting me to it.
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