James Hawes @jameshawes2 is a former professional archaeologist and university lecturer in German, Doctor of German literature in the lead-up to WW1, novelist and Kafka biographer.
Priya Atwal joined me on the pod to discuss the Sikh Empire, which stretched throughout northwestern India into Afghanistan and Tibet. We discuss the story of this empire’s spectacular rise and fall.
Jill Lepore joined me on the podcast to discuss The Simulmatics Corporation. Founded in 1959, it mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge—decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica.
At the end of World War One, the Allies seized the German fleet and held it at Scapa Flow, in Orkney, until the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced. At least, that was the plan. The German navy covertly scuttled their own boats under the noses of their captors, rendering the fleet us...
