Conservative Historian

Just when we need serious people, serious policies, and are facing serious times, our dialog have reached the unserious stage.  Learn more about unserious acts in history.

Game of Thrones was once a cultural touchstone. A sequel (actually prequel) is coming and the reaction is a big shrug.  What did this show teach us about history and story telling and the real historical record.

In 1974 Gerald Ford faced sky high inflation, even greater than ours in 2022.  This is a tale of how the 38th President addressed this hot BUTTON issue.

History is replete with fakery.  We go from Stuart England to medieval Germany to Cardiff New York to find fakeries.  We also look at fakery being perpetuated today that will be history tomorrow.

For complex, societal problems, including school shootings, there are no easy answers.  We explore this concept through a historical prism.

We dip into the vast well of podcasts to pull out a gem. We talk about the Greeks, history itself, and what it means to be a hero today.

The leaders of our armed services extoll the value of diversity for military success.  What does history tell us about this? We go to the Persians and the Mongols to find out.

I have seen the light, like Paul on the road to Damascus I am completely different and now want to put the woke into historical movies.  I am joined by my brother Gus for this episode and we cover everything from Patton to It's a Wonderful Life.

Money is a proven historical motivator.  We explore the role of money in history, and today.

What do 19th century financier Jay Gould, the Ottoman Sultans and Joe Biden have in common? They were, and are pretty cynical folks.  See just how cynical in this podcast.

We meet Lenin and Stalin and one of the most brutal regimes in history.

Russia, though under the thumb of a brutal dictator is not like Cuba or North Korea.  It has nukes certainly, but it is also the largest nation on Earth.  How did it get so large? And what does Russian Historical expansion have to do with Ukraine.  Learn more in this podcast.

We go to the second of our four part series and explore the time of the first Tsars to the reign of Peter the Great, roughly the late 1400s to 1725.  We see the pulls of East and West, and the establishment of an authoritarianism that exists to the present day.

The horrible war now taking place in Ukraine raises many questions but chief among them is why this war, and why now. Several pundits are providing various reasons or trying to explain Putin's thoughts.  But those provided by the Russian President are false justifications.  We explain why in this podcast.

Who make the best presidents? Legislators? Governors? Veeps? We take a look through American presidents to make that determination.

So many Independent movies have pretentions to insight and poignancy.  Most are rubbish.  But the zany 1980s comedy, Back to School, starring Rodney Dangerfield no less, provides perceptions most "deep" movies miss.

As Biden and his team contemplates a presidential reset, they would be in good company.  Lincoln, Wilson, Clinton and Van Buren all had to reset.  But can Biden do so? We explore the possibilities in this podcast.

What does the late, but still great singer Meat Loaf have to teach us about maturation and mortality? Quite a lot as it turns out.

There have always been ghosts in the machine.  Unanticipated aspects that inadvertently emerge apart from the initial plan.  What are these ghosts in history and in our own society.