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?
Episodes
48 episodes
[37] Padraic Scanian — What the Irish Potato Famine Tells us About Markets and Merit
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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1:03:21
[36] Jörg Baberowski — Macht und Herrschaft in Russland und Europa
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 funktioni...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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58:55
[35] Trevor Jackson — Capitalism and the Impunity of the Elites
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 cr...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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1:01:07
[34] Kwame Anthony Appiah — On Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism
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 move...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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1:14:12
[33] Sunil Amrith — The Burning Earth
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 ...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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56:28
[32] The Collapse of the West and European Futures
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 easter...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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1:00:32
[31] Danilo Brozovic — How Societies Collapse
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 empir...
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Season 1
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Episode 31
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1:22:18
[30] Raoul Schrott — Der Sternenhimmel oder, wie Homo sapiens die Welt eroberte
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 U...
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Season 1
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Episode 30
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1:34:46
[29] Richard Cockett — Vienna, City of Ideas
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 p...
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Season 1
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Episode 29
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1:07:44
[28] Musa Al-Gharbi — Symbolic Capitalism and the Pitfalls of Moral Righteousness
"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 livin...
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Season 1
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Episode 28
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1:23:47
[27] Franz Essl — Über Wendepunkte reden
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%. Fra...
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Season 1
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Episode 27
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1:09:26
[26] Samuel Moyn — Has the Liberal Dream Collapsed
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 sub...
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Season 1
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Episode 26
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1:00:44
[25] Philipp Blom — Zerrissene Jahre
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 ha...
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Season 1
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Episode 25
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26:43
[24] Roman Krznaric – History for Tomorrow
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 S...
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Season 1
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Episode 24
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1:09:14
[23] Gaia Vince – Climate and a World in Motion
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 o...
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Season 1
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Episode 23
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57:05
[22] Richard Whatmore – The End of Enlightenment?
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 an...
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Season 1
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Episode 22
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58:49
[21] Katy Hessel — The Story of Art without Men
In this episode I talk about the amazing history of women artists, and of who is written into history, and who isn’t. Katy Hessel writes not only about female artists, but also about ways of seeing, of telling stories, and of telling the story ...
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Season 1
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Episode 21
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59:34
[20] Olivier Roy — the Crisis of Culture
Four great forces have changed human cultures, says Olivier Roy distinguished political scientist and expert on radical Islam: a change in sexual mores since 1968, the internet, the liberalisation of global finance, and the free movement of peo...
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Season 1
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Episode 20
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1:05:06
[19] Maja Göpel — wie man eine Zukunft baut
Maja Göpel ist nicht nur die wohl bekannteste Zukunftsforscherin Deutschlands, sie ist auch eine anregende Gesprächspartnerin und Analystin. Die Energiewende und die Stärkung der Demokratie sind Themen, die sie besonders umtreiben. Wir sprechen...
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Season 1
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Episode 19
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51:40
[18] From the Invention of Race and to Identity Politics
Kenan Malik is simply one of the most nuanced and profound thinkers about race and cultural identity I know. You may have seen his columns in the Observer or his books The Quest for a Moral Compass or Not So Black And White. Here we talk about ...
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Season 1
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Episode 18
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1:14:15
[17] The collapse of the liberal project? Part 2
Is the polycrisis a side effect of progress and victorious liberalism? The victory of the liberal world has dramatically transformed life on this planet in a very short space of time. In the process, many of the basic liberal ideas have been di...
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Season 1
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Episode 17
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49:06
[17] Der Zusammenbruch des liberalen Projekts? Teil 2
Ist die Polykrise eine Nebenwirkung des Fortschritts und eines siegreichen Liberalismus? Der Sieg der liberalen Welt transformierte das Leben auf diesem Planeten innerhalb kürzester Zeit auf dramatische Weise. Dabei sind viele der liberalen Gru...
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Season 1
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Episode 17
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1:09:32
[16] The collapse of the liberal project? Part 1
Almost exactly a generation ago, the triumphant West proclaimed the victory of the liberal world, of the liberal project. From now on, there would be only one model for societies: liberal democracies in a global market. Things have turned out q...
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Season 1
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Episode 16
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49:41
[16] Der Zusammenbruch des liberalen Projekts? Teil 1
Vor ziemlich genau einer Generation verkündete der triumphierende Westen den Sieg der liberalen Welt des liberalen Projekts. Von nun an würde es nur noch ein Modell für Gesellschaften geben: liberale Demokratien in einem globalen Markt. Es ist ...
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Season 1
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Episode 16
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50:35
[15] Transformationen — Wenn die Welt eine andere wird
Philipp Ther erforscht Transformationen in der Geschichte. Der Wittgenstein Preis-Träger und Autor historischer mehrerer Bestseller beschäftigt sich besonders mit Phasen, in denen die Welt sich radikal verändert. Ich frage ihn, ob wir in der Ge...
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Season 1
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Episode 15
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59:31