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PODCAST

BlomCast

The BlomCast looks at turning points in history, which have always fascinated me. My name is Philipp Blom, I am a historian and broadcaster and author of many books about the Enlightenment, the story of modernity and climate history. The climate catastrophe places us at the greatest historical turning point hin human history. What, if anything, can we learn from moments in the past in which a model of life seemed to change, or had to change, in which whole societies were transformed?If you want to

society & culture social sciences

All Episodes

53:07

[41] Luuk van Middelaar — Can Europe do Power?

BlomCast ·

2025/06/08

Send us a text Luuk van Middelaar is head of the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics, as he points out an ironic name, because until very recently Brussels and geopolitics rarely occurred in the same sentence. But things have changed, and in a new world in which Russia is invading Ukraine and the USA are, as Luuk put it, “the sun leaving the solar system” Europe will have to find a completely new stance. This ist big history, and we’re right in it. But what could a good European future b...

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55:13

[40] Julia Fischer — Wann wurden Primaten zu Menschen?

BlomCast ·

2025/06/01

Send us a text In dieser Folge gehe ich zurück zum frühesten aller Wendepunkte der menschlichen Geschichte. Die Primatologin Julia Fischer studiert Paviane und besucht seit vielen Jahren dieselbe Gruppe von Tieren, um ihre Kommunikation und ihr Sozialverhalten besser zu verstehen. Obwohl andere Pavian-Arten brutal und hierarchisch sind, sind diese Tiere anders, sanfter, und haben flachere Hierarchien. Wie entstehen die Strukturen einer Primatengesellschaft? Sind die Unterschiede zwischen Ihne...

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61:08

[39] Ulrich Schmid — von der Oktoberrevolution in die...

BlomCast ·

2025/05/25

Send us a text Ulrich Schmid ist Slawist und unterrichtet an der Universität Sankt Gallen. Sein Wendepunkt ist die Revolution 1917 und besonders die Rolle von Lenin dabei. Einmal mehr stellt sich die Frage, ob Revolutionen wirklich radikale Umbrüche sind, oder ob sie nicht auch viele Kontinuitäten kaschieren. Die Art der Machtausübung und das Verständnis davon, wie das Verhältnis zwischen Regierenden und Regierten funktioniert, ist jedenfalls bemerkenswert stabil geblieben, argumentiert Ulric...

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54:19

[38] Bas van Bavel — How Markets Captured Societies

BlomCast ·

2025/05/18

Send us a text The “Golden Age” during the seventeenth century was a period of unparalleled power, wealth, and splendour in the Netherlands. It was made possible by the maritime trade with Asia and the economic growth the East India Company brought to the country. But it carried the seed of its downfall. As the rich grew richer they not only speculated with tulips, but they increasingly bought themselves political power and became an oligarchy. Bas van Babel is an economic historian and resea...

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63:21

[37] Padraic Scanian — What the Irish Potato Famine...

BlomCast ·

2025/05/11

Send us a text The so-called Irish Potato Famine between 1845 and 1852 killed up to one million people and led to the emigration of hundreds of thousands of others. It left a deep imprint on Irish, European and American history and memory. But this was not a natural catastrophe, argues economic historian Padraic Scanian. He sees the famine as a result of globalisation, and of a very Victorian determination to let the market do its work and discipline the undeserving poor. The stereotype of th...

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58:55

[36] Jörg Baberowski — Macht und Herrschaft in...

BlomCast ·

2025/05/03

Send us a text Die russische Geschichte ist voller dramatischer Wendepunkte — von Peter dem Großen und Katharina II. bis zur Revolution und dem Fall der Sowjetunion — aber hinter den Ereignissen steht eine große Kontinuität von Macht, davon, wie sie funktioniert und worauf sie sich gründet. Macht in Russland hat schon seit Jahrhunderten anders funktioniert als im Westen, erzählt Jörg Baberowski, einer der profiliertesten Russland-Historiker. Das liegt nicht an einer “russischen Seele” oder ei...

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61:07

[35] Trevor Jackson — Capitalism and the Impunity of...

BlomCast ·

2025/04/20

Trevor Jackson is an economic historian teaching at Berkeley. I talk to him about the current political situation of the universities and the science, and about his own research area, the history of capitalism, which has always been prone to crashes and other crises. The development of a capitalist economy is also the story of the elites learning to evade responsibility for the failures, while reaping the rewards of markets. What role does elite impunity play in the current crisis of politica...

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74:12

[34] Kwame Anthony Appiah — On Tribalism and...

BlomCast ·

2025/04/13

In a life lived between Ghana, Britain and the USA, Kwame Anthony Appiah has had ample opportunity to reflect on identities and difference, as well as what binds us together. Our conversation starts with the struggles of decolonisation and moves towards trying to understand the role and importance a liberal education for functioning democracies. Are people in charge of their own lives or do they need to be empowered to take charge of them, and of their societies? And have Western democracies ...

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56:28

[33] Sunil Amrith — The Burning Earth

BlomCast ·

2025/04/06

The current crisis of democracy and governance goes back a long way, and has a lot in common with the development of capitalism, says my guest Sunil Amrith, professor of history at Yale University. The logic of profit and exploitation not only damaged natural systems, it profoundly changed societies and their ways of organising themselves and understanding themselves. From its very beginnings, from the stock exchange Amsterdam to the foundation of Singapore, from the sugar plantations of Made...

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60:32

[32] The Collapse of the West and European Futures

BlomCast ·

2025/03/26

The first episode in this new series of the BlomCast looks at a truly historic event: the end of the “West”. With the new US administration, the transatlantic alliance has practically collapsed leaving Europe exposed to a dictator on its eastern flank whose war has already cost some one million lives. Whither Europe? Will it become a collection of colonies and puppet states steered by hostile powers in a neo-imperial world? Or can European find the determination and energy to create a new all...

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82:18

[31] Danilo Brozovic — How Societies Collapse

BlomCast ·

2025/02/09

Societal collapse is a topic hotly debated not only among climate scientists and activists. But why do formerly prosperous and powerful societies break down? And what makes them resilient? Are the reasons the same for ancient Rome and the empire of the Incas, for the Chinese Tang dynasty and the culture of Rapanui (Easter Islands)? Danilo Brozovic has made a study of literature dealing with societal collapse throughout history. Talking to him was really, really fascinating, and we discussed p...

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94:46

[30] Raoul Schrott — Der Sternenhimmel oder, wie Homo...

BlomCast ·

2025/01/19

Alle Kulturen sehen dieselben Sterne (wenn auch auf beiden Hemisphären unterschiedlich), erzählen sich aber ganz unterschiedliche Geschichten darüber. Tatsächlich gibt es überraschende Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den Sternbildern der Australischen Ureinwohner und der Mesopotamier, der Buschleute und der Maya, die nur schwer zu erklären sind, sagt Raoul Schrott, Dichter und Universalgelehrter. Ich habe aus diesem Gespräch immens viel gelernt und habe jetzt mehr fragen als davor. Was können uns Ster...

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67:44

[29] Richard Cockett — Vienna, City of Ideas

BlomCast ·

2024/12/08

Modernity is a Viennese phenomenon, says historian Richard Cockett, who is currently working as senior editor at The Economist. The cauldron of Vienna ca. 1900 with its dynamism, its migrants and its cultural new beginnings and especially the political and intellectual energies after the First World War created panoply of new approaches which revolutionised life far beyond Vienna, and indeed Europe. As creative minds and experienced city planners, film directors, engineers, philosophers, econ...

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83:47

[28] Musa Al-Gharbi — Symbolic Capitalism and the...

BlomCast ·

2024/12/01

"We Have Never Been Woke" is the title of Musa Al-Gharbi’s brilliantly polemic analysis of an educational and social elite that believes it has all the answers. He calls this professional class symbolic capitalists — people who make their living from manipulating the symbols of our societies, i.e. journalists, academics, creative professions, the media, NGOs, etc. The turning point here is the arrival of wokeness as the ultimate arbiter of truth, coupled with great moral rigidity and intolera...

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69:26

[27] Franz Essl — Über Wendepunkte reden

BlomCast ·

2024/11/17

Die Artenvielfalt bricht weltweit so rasend schnell zusammen, dass die Naturwissenschaft schon von einem Sechsten Artensterben sprechen. In Europa sind beispielsweise die Insekten um bis zu 80% zurückgegangen, die der Singvögel um etwa 50%. Franz Essl ist Biodiversitätsforscher an der Universität Wien. Seine Wahl zum Wissenschaftler des Jahres 2023 verdankt er auch seiner Arbeit in der Wissenschaftsvermittlung und als politischer und wissenschaftlicher Berater verschiedener NGOs. Der Einsatz ...

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60:44

[26] Samuel Moyn — Has the Liberal Dream Collapsed

BlomCast ·

2024/10/06

In this fascinating conversation we explore the history of liberal ideas from Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mills until today. Samuel Moyn is particularly interested in liberalism during the Cold War and the changes these ideas were subjected to during the battle of the ideologies. But we also explore how important theological traditions are for liberal thinking and how the philosophical principles underlying this broad current of ideas — freedom from oppression, emancipation, and hum...

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26:43

[25] Philipp Blom — Zerrissene Jahre

BlomCast ·

2024/09/15

Warum sind so viele Menschen der Meinung, dass ihre Gesellschaften zerrissen sind, dass die Demokratie am Ende ist, dass sie überwältigt werden durch Fremdheit, durch Migration, dass sie in einer Welt leben, die sie nicht mehr verstehen? Das hat mehrere Gründe, glaube ich, aber zwei scheinen mir besonders wichtig: Demographie und Technologie. In alternden Gesellschaften ändert sich vieles, besonders, wenn sie gleichzeitig von neuen Technologien von innen heraus völlig umgekrempelt werden. Ich...

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69:14

[24] Roman Krznaric – History for Tomorrow

BlomCast ·

2024/09/08

It is an age-old question: can we learn from history? Yes! says distinguished political scientist Roman Krznaric in his new book, which looks at the past for inspiration for building a better future. From striking low-caste women in Kerala to Suffragettes in Great Britain, from the first explosion of capitalism in 17-century Amsterdam to the rise of AI and from Ibn Khaldun to an ancient water authority in Spain, he shows that we are often stuck in a constructed version of history and that the...

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57:05

[23] Gaia Vince – Climate and a World in Motion

BlomCast ·

2024/08/25

Celebrated science writer Gaia Vince takes us into a future that is strangely familiar and yet quite different. The future will be determined by managing the immense and irresistible forces of climate change and global migration, and that can only become possible by embracing radical change and making courageous choices. There is no way forward without transformation, says Gaia, but ultimately this transformation will improve the lives even of those who are too trapped in their model of succe...

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58:49

[22] Richard Whatmore – The End of Enlightenment?

BlomCast ·

2024/08/11

Richard Whatmore reads the late eighteenth century very much as a warning to the present. Some of the greatest Enlightenment thinkers were despairing of the fact that their fight against prejudice and fanaticism, against the power or princes and priests, had led to a mercantile state living in a perpetual state of war, and a society whose fanaticism had turned into a blind worship of freedom, individuality, and rights. Richard is a fascinating sparring partner for ideas ranging from a critica...

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72 results

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