Subject to Change

Jonathan Clements returns to talk about his book on the First Emperor of China and the man who was sent to kill him: facts and fictions in Zhang Yimou’s movie Hero (2002), the evil mirror-universe version of Confucianism, an impossibly well-endowed “eunuch”, the construction of the Terracotta Army, the politics of archaeology, and how to spent a slave labour dividend. And what to do when you had the Mandate of Heaven a minute ago but can't remember where you put it.

It is astonishing to me that we went from the first powered flight of a few hundred feet in 1903 to attempting to fly the Atlantic in 1919. 
The Daily Mail had offered a prize of £10,000 to cross the Atlantic. The pilots called it the Big Hop. Nowadays we think nothing of it but back then they had open cockpits, primitive navigation tools, unreliable weather forecasting and many other problems. This was right on the edge of what was possible at the time. And not always on the right edge!
We talked about:
- the wonderful Hilda Hewlett, a pioneer of British aviation
- how WW1 affected the competition (and the competitors)
- Alcock and Brown and the runners up
- how to keep calm (in your lounge suit) and carry on, even as death is racing to meet you.
It is a wonderful story and David is wonderful storyteller!

Lyndal Roper, Regius Professor of History at Oxford University is on excellent form to talk me through the German Peasant's War of 1524-25. Things I learned:
- take Martin Luther seriously (but not literally)
- monasteries feed the poor and needy (particularly when they are armed and extremely determined)
- the scale of the revolt was off the charts, nothing like it until the French Revolution
- the East German State celebrated its revolutionary past with a mural of the war which needs to be on everyone's 'must see' list (only to collapse a few months later!
All in all this is a terrific and thought provoking episode. The role of Luther in all this surprised me greatly. 
Lyndal's book Summer of Fire and Blood is here.

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Today the thing we find mysterious is why WWI lasted as long as it did. Why continue a pointless slaughter. Comparisions with the war in Ukraine suggest an answer!
My guess is is Professor David Stevenson and for him the mystery is not why it lasted so long but why it ended when it did.
For the German public is was particularly mysterious. Just a few months before the Armistice Germany was all conquering. Russia had been driven out of the war on terms hugely favourable to Germany. And in the West her storm troopers seemed poised to deliver victory on this front too.
And while the tide had clearly turned the German army was falling back in good order. So what compelled Germany to submit to allied terms? Was it a stab in the back as many Germany came to believe, or something else?
David is brilliant at unpicking all of this. As for the answer to the riddle - well, one place to look is in Bulgaria . . 
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Ed West is a journalist and massively popular substacker - do check out his substack The Wrong Side of History. But he has a sideline in history so I got him on the show to talk about 1066 and the battle of Hastings. Ed is on top form so please join us as he talks about:
- why Harold should have listened to his Mum
- Harald Hadrada's absolute last poem
- what made the Norman's so very hard to beat
- and why the Normans were the woke progressives of their day!
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