The 16th century was a time of economic, demographic and religious ferment and change for English towns. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart for another in his ongoing series on English urban history.Oleh Black's History Week

The medieval English town was subject to fire, flood, plague — and revolution. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss how growing wealth fueled urban conflict.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart continue discussing the history of the English town, from the Saxon period to the Norman era and the early Medieval periodOleh Black's History Week

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the birth, development and decline of British towns in the Roman and Dark Ages.Oleh Black's History Week

Must a city have a cathedral? Must a place with a cathedral be a city? Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the often contested evolution and definition of English towns and their historical significance.Oleh Black's History Week

In this new series on the history of English towns, Professor Jeremy Black talks about various aspects of town life, including social experiences, economic opportunities, political views, and cultural aspirations.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the future of higher education. How can institutions be more efficient and effective? Find out in this final episode on our mini-series on the academia.Oleh Black's History Week

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss why the teaching of military history in decline at our universities.Oleh Black's History Week

In a new episode of their series on higher education, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the pathologies of university administration, grade inflation and why “older” does not always mean “better”Oleh Black's History Week

Jeremy Black, historian of Exeter University, reflects on his own experience of the shifting demands and priorities on campus.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss declining scholarly standards, the state of peer review and the sycophantic treatment of subpar work.Oleh Black's History Week

From perverse incentives and failing financial models to the declining focus on teaching and the student experience, Jeremy Black explores what's gone wrong at British universities.Oleh Black's History Week

In the first episode of this two part series, Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the financial, corporate and cultural forces undermining the quality of British and American higher education.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the decline of waterways in the 20th Century as competing transport systems vie for government support and investment.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss how, in competition with the railways, British canals and canal boats were adapted to embrace steam power.Oleh Black's History Week

On this week's Black's History Week podcast, continuing our series on the history of British waterways. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss how Britain created a national system of canals connecting resources, industry, cities and maritime trade.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart guide the boat of their new series on waterways into the 1800s, and discuss the politics and economics of the development of the British canal network.Oleh Black's History Week

In the second episode of their new series on canals, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss travel, commerce and innovation on the rivers of Tudor and Stuart BritainOleh Black's History Week

All aboard! Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart begin a new series on canals by discussing the importance of transport on rivers in medieval Britain.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the bleak state of roads in modern Britain. Infrastructure is underfunded. People who are dependent on cars are being neglected. The future of electric vehicles is uncertain. Are we crawling to a standstill?Oleh Black's History Week

Jeremy Black discusses with Graham Stewart how motorways and bypasses changed getting about Britain from the late 1950s to the 1990s.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the slow development of British roads and automobiles in the 20th Century, the gradual increase in affordability, and how films and literature magnified the romance of the motor car.Oleh Black's History Week

The 19th Century is most famous for its railways, but Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart are here to tell us that roads were significant as well. How did they develop, in scale and in quality? What sort of science and engineering was involved? And what accidents took place?Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss whether turnpikes transformed travel in eighteenth century Britain or represented a means of revenue-raising from traffic whilst offering marginal improvement in return?Oleh Black's History Week

On the long journey from the middle ages to the early modern period, the British road underwent radical changes in both purpose and design. Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart walk the winding path of British transport history.Oleh Black's History Week

What have the Romans done for us? For one thing, they built a lot of roads. In the first episode of a new series of podcasts on transport, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the development of British roads.Oleh Black's History Week

Ridley Scott's Napoleon bends history to breaking point. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk historical fact and fiction.Oleh Black's History Week

How does geopolitics help us to understand international relations today? In the last episode of their series on geopolitics, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart attempt to transcend the glib explanations one finds elsewhere to reflect on technology, conflicting interests and the evolution of thought in the field.…

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the subtle nature of Chinese geopolitics, with its debt servitude and its self-serving propaganda.Oleh Black's History Week

The 1990s were supposed to be the decade of American triumph – and for a time, it seemed like it was. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk post-Cold War geopolitics.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the Cold War in the 1980s, its different military and diplomatic manifestations and the weaknesses of elegant geopolitical narratives.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss Ostpolitik and Atlanticism in a post-Vietnam age and the surprising level of agency enjoyed by the less powerful states in the Cold War.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk 1960s geopolitics, the Cold War, and the long war in South East Asia.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the Cold War in the 1950s, the role of air forces and the development of nuclear brinksmanship.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the evolution of Cold War thought, the errors of FDR, the complexities of containment and the unpredictable nature of foreign policy commitments.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black speaks with Graham Stewart about geopolitics at the end of World War Two. Were there reasonable prospects for optimism about a new, more peaceful future? Or had power just been rearranged into differently dangerous forms? All this and China, the British Empire and more.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss geography, logistics and materiel in World War Two, and whether geopolitics represents the lens through which to see conflict or just one useful field of study.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss geopolitics in the United States in the approach to the Second World War, and the underrated importance of logistics and materiel in statecraft.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss geopolitics in Nazi Germany and the United States, and explore the questionable influence of intellectuals and the predictive value of geopolitical theories.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss British air power, geopolitics and the relationship between ideas and technological progress.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss how geography and infrastructure affected the First World War, but also how geopolitics is as much a rhetoric of power as a description of the world.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the academic roots of the field of geopolitics and the intellectual overratedness of a key essay of Halford Mackinder.Oleh Black's History Week

The term “geopolitics” is flung around a lot these days, but what does the concept mean? Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart begin their exploration of world politics and theoryOleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart finally reach the station as their series on the history of railways ends — discussing the slower rate of innovation and the complexities of investment.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss why rail projects often end up mired in delays and cancellations, from Facebook’s bridge to nowhere to HS2.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the realities of modern rail — from the costs of construction to the limits of geography.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart avoid train triumphalism in discussing the complex political and environmental circumstances that surround modern rail.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss rail in Britain in the 20th century, and why the infamous Beeching cuts must be seen in their proper historical context.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the evolution of railways in the mid-to-late 20th Century, and their influence on the evolution of the age, considering labour disputes, nationalisation and the Cold War.Oleh Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the use of rail travel in WW2, from the logistics of war to the architecture of genocide.Oleh Black's History Week