Best Transatlantic Titans Podcasts (2025)

1
158: Waving Frantically 43:30

3d ago43:30

43:30

Greg & Adam got together for a (sort of) NFL Draft preview. Let's face it, we all know what's happening on Day One (or do we), and none of us know what's happening on Days Two & Three (or do we)...... Obviously we wildly speculate anyway. And Myles even drops in with some thoughts from his car. #TarrysTargets…

1
The Titanic: Irish Connections 52:43

13d ago52:43

52:43

The Titanic is unquestionably one of the most famous ships in history. Since it sank in 1912, it has been the focus of an endless stream of books, movies, and documentaries. In this episode, recorded in Titanic's final port of call—Cobh—Fin and Damian explore the Irish connections. It was not only built by Irish workers in an Irish shipyard, but ma…

1
Ted Levin, "The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World" (Green Writers Press, 2025) 30:51

4h ago30:51

30:51

In The Promise of Sunrise: Finding Solace in a Broken World (Green Writers Press, 2025), a former Bronx Zoo zoologist and award-winning nature writer, Ted Levin, spent Covid rediscovering his valley and the joys of watching the season pass, day by day by day. The book is a chronicle of his rediscovery of the Thetford, Vermont hillside on which he l…

1
Pilgrimages Involved Penitent Marches, Visiting Holy Places, and Watching Drunken Emperors Go on Chariot Rides 44:53

3d ago44:53

44:53

Pilgrimages are a universal phenomenon, from China’s bustling Tai Shan to the ancient Jewish treks to Jerusalem. But why? What is it about a grueling penitent march to an isolated temple that has become a prerequisite for a civilization of any size, whether Chicen Itza in the Mayan Empire or the holy sites of Mecca? To explore this is today’s guest…

1
Planetary Boundaries are Non-Negotiable: Kim Stanley Robinson and Elizabeth Carolyn Miller (JP) 50:52

2d ago50:52

50:52

In Season 9, Novel Dialogue set out to find the Venn diagram intersection of tech and fiction—only to realize that Kim Stanley Robinson had staked his claim on the territory decades ago. With influential series on California, on the terraforming of Mars, and on human civilization as reshaped by rising tides, KSR has established a conceptual space a…

1
Britain Learned How to Set Up Its Global Empire on a Tiny Bermudan Island 44:02

5d ago44:02

44:02

Years before Jamestown planters made New World farming profitable by growing tobacco, and years before their countrymen up north in Plymouth Colony managed to overcome their starvation conditions and acclimate to New England’s growing conditions, there was an English settlement in Bermuda that was wealthier, larger, and more prosperous. It was esta…

1
The Great Tea Heist: Secrets Revealed (Part 2) 1:18:31

3d ago1:18:31

1:18:31

Robert Fortune’s journey was far from over. After infiltrating China in disguise, Fortune now sets his sights on the Wuyi Mountains—steeped in legend, veiled in mist, and home to the most coveted tea in the world: black tea. Guided by his newly appointed servant, the enigmatic Sing-Hoo, Fortune pushes deeper into China’s forbidden interior, navigat…

1
Irish Emigrant Nuns: What was convent life like? 51:01

5d ago51:01

51:01

Irish nuns are one of the enduring stereotypes of Irish emigrant communities. Thousands of Irish women joined these religious communities often erving as educators and nurses. In these roles they embedded themselves deeply in the communities they served leaving a lasting memory. In this episode, Damian and Fin interview Dr. Sophie Cooper of Queen’s…

1
Saleem H. Ali, "Sustainability: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2024) 46:19

5d ago46:19

46:19

The growing concern about global environmental change and human impacts on the planet has led to the emergence of a broad field of study on the 'sustainability' of human societies. The term's common usage can be traced back to the advent of the Earth Summit in 1992 when 'sustainable development' was broadly embraced by the international community a…

1
Jennifer Clapp, "Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters" (MIT Press, 2025) 1:04:57

8d ago1:04:57

1:04:57

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of farm machinery, fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion's share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of co…

1
The Hatfield-McCoy Feud Started Over a Pig and Nearly Escalated Into a Regional War 45:20

10d ago45:20

45:20

The origins of the Hatfield-McCoy conflict (between the Hatfield family of West Virginia, led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, and the McCoy family of Kentucky, led by Randolph "Old Randall" McCoy) begins with a dispute over a pig. From here, it escalated from minor disagreements to violent encounters that spanned decades, nearly sparking…

1
María de Los Ángeles Picone, "Landscaping Patagonia: Spatial History and Nation-Making in Chile and Argentina" (UNC Press, 2025) 1:08:53

11d ago1:08:53

1:08:53

In late nineteenth-century Latin America, governments used new scientific, technological, and geographical knowledge not only to consolidate power and protect borders but also to define the physical contours of their respective nations. Chilean and Argentine authorities in particular attempted to transform northern Patagonia, a space they perceived…

1
The 1845 Potato Blight Struck Across Northern Europe. Why Did Only Ireland Starve? 48:41

12d ago48:41

48:41

In 1845, a novel pathogen attacked potato fields across Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia—but only in Ireland were the effects apocalyptic. At least one million Irish people died, and millions more scattered across the globe, emigrating to new countries and continents. Less than fifty years after the union of Ireland with the rest of Great Britain,…

1
The Great Tea Heist: Mission Received (Part 1) 1:10:39

12d ago1:10:39

1:10:39

The British thirst for tea had become insatiable by the mid-19th century, but there was one problem: nearly all of it came from China. For the East India Company, this dependency was a costly vulnerability. What they needed wasn’t more silver to trade but a way to break China’s monopoly entirely. Enter Robert Fortune: a Scottish botanist with a tal…

1
A Simple Tennessee Preacher Transformed Abolitionism from a Deeply Unpopular Radical Movement to a Centrist Cause 51:18

17d ago51:18

51:18

Sitting high above the small community of Ripley, Ohio, a lantern shone in the front window of a small, red brick home at night. It was a signal to slaves just across the Ohio River. Anyone fleeing bondage could look to Reverend John Rankin’s home for hope. To the slaveholders they fled from, Rankin’s activities as a “conductor” on the Underground …

1
Rebecca Zorach, "Temporary Monuments: Art, Land, and America's Racial Enterprise" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 1:04:41

16d ago1:04:41

1:04:41

Art has long played a key role in constructing how people understand and imagine America. Starting with contemporary controversies over public monuments in the United States, in Temporary Monuments: Art, Land, and America’s Racial Enterprise (University of Chicago Press, 2024), Dr. Rebecca Zorach carefully examines the place of art in the occupatio…

1
Ståle Holgersen, "Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World" (Verso, 2024) 54:50

17d ago54:50

54:50

In Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World (Verso, 2024), Ståle Holgersen develops a conceptualization of 'crisis' that moves beyond simplistic understandings of societal turbulence or even disaster, arguing that crises have come to mean something very specific. Where previous analyses have treated economic and ecological crises …

1
How Benjamin Franklin’s Stove Invention Kept Early America From Freezing 41:53

19d ago41:53

41:53

The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypo…

1
Duncan Watson, "Everyone's Trash: One Man Against 1.6 Billion Pounds" (Peter E. Randall Publisher, 2024) 39:45

18d ago39:45

39:45

Each day, every single person in the United States, all 324 million, discards about five pounds of waste. Be it a bottle that gets placed in a recycling bin or a piece of paper crumpled and tossed into the waste bin, every bit of the daily 1.6 billion pounds cast-off has a story. Everyone's Trash: One Man Against 1.6 Billion Pounds (Peter E. Randal…

1
The History of Chili Peppers (Part 2) 47:26

20d ago47:26

47:26

When Portuguese traders arrived on India’s western shores in the early 1500s, they brought more than religion, colonial ambition, and a lust for spice - they also carried with them a tiny, crimson fruit that would set Asia ablaze. In part two of their deep dive into the scorching history of chili peppers, John and Patrick trace the pepper’s path ac…

1
Who Did the Irish Support in the American Revolution? 1:06:24

20d ago1:06:24

1:06:24

America won its independence from the British in the 1770s. Although not widely known, the Irish played a significant role in the conflict. They fought in several key battles, and numerous signatories of the Declaration of Independence were Irish – it was even printed by an Irishman. However, that’s not the full story, as many Irish also fought in …

1
Tuomas Tammisto, "Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier" (Helsinki UP, 2024) 2:05:32

21d ago2:05:32

2:05:32

On the podcast today I am joined by socio-cultural anthropologist, Tuomas Tammisto, who is an academy research fellow in Social Anthropology at Tampere University. Tuomas is joining me to talk about his recently published book, Hard Work: Producing Places, Relations and Value on a Papua New Guinea Resource Frontier (Helsinki UP, 2024) Hard Work exa…

1
Roman Churches Had No Involvement in Marriage. How Did It Become a Holy Sacrament by the Middle Ages? 38:25

24d ago38:25

38:25

For much of Christian history, the Church had little involvement in marriage, which was primarily a contract between families. It wasn’t until the fourth century that church weddings emerged, and even then, they were mostly reserved for the elite. Fast forward to the High Middle Ages, and marriage became a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. Si…

1
How a Mess Cook Saved Dozens of Sailors from Shark Infested Waters Off the Coast of Guadalcanal 28:21

26d ago28:21

28:21

On the night of September 5, 1942, the USS Gregory (APD-3), a converted destroyer turned high-speed transport, was caught in a deadly ambush near Guadalcanal. The ship had been supporting U.S. Marine forces, ferrying troops and supplies, when it was mistaken for a larger threat by a group of Japanese destroyers. Outgunned and unable to escape, Greg…

1
Anna Farro Henderson, "Core Samples: A Climate Scientist's Experiments in Politics and Motherhood" (U Minnesota Press, 2025) 47:02

25d ago47:02

47:02

Climate scientist and policy expert Anna Farro Henderson embarks on a remarkable narrative journey in Core Samples: A Climate Scientist's Experiments in Politics and Motherhood (U Minnesota Press, 2025), exploring how science is done, discussed, legislated, and imagined. Through stories both raucous and poignant--of far-flung expeditions, finding a…

1
The History of Chili Peppers (Part 1) 48:51

27d ago48:51

48:51

For millennia, chili peppers have been at the heart of the Americas - long before Columbus set sail, before the Aztecs built their empire, and before the Incas wove them into myth. Originating in what is now Peru and Bolivia, these fiery pods were among the first crops cultivated by humans, shaping the diets, medicine, and rituals of entire civiliz…

1
The Irish in Pennsylvania Coal Country 1:01:38

26d ago1:01:38

1:01:38

Pennsylvania has a long history of coal mining. In the late 19th century, the conditions in the coalfields were atrocious leading to major conflict between the miners and the mine owners. The most notorious incident involved the execution of twenty Irish immigrants for their role in what was dubbed the Molly Maguires, a secret society of miners. Wh…

1
Peder Anker, "For The Love of Bombs: The Trail of Nuclear Suffering" (Anthem Press, 2025) 44:31

27d ago44:31

44:31

The truism that history is written by its winners reflects the literature about how the bomb came about, with apologetic books most often written by U.S. scholars. The physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the nuke’s ‘father’, is repeatedly centre stage, as in the case of the recent film about him. These are elitist stories that more often than not ignore …

1
Jason L. Newton, "Cutover Capitalism: The Industrialization of the Northern Forest" (West Virginia UP, 2024) 55:31

28d ago55:31

55:31

What happened to the loggers of America’s past when lumbermen moved west and south in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? How did these communities continue to create value and meaning in these marginal lands? Cutover Capitalism: The Industrialization of the Northern Forest (West Virginia University Press, 2024) by Dr. Jason L. Newto…

1
Tom Lynch, "Outback and Out West: The Settler-Colonial Environmental Imaginary" (U Nebraska Press, 2022) 1:04:17

1M ago1:04:17

1:04:17

People make sense of the world through stories, and stories about places inevitably shape how we treat, live on, and use those places. In Outback and Out West: The Settler Colonial Environmental Imaginary (U Nebraska Press, 2022), emeritus professor of English at the University of Nebraska Thomas Lynch takes those stories from two places - Australi…

1
Humanity’s Past Suggests We Only Have 10,000 Years to Change or Go Extinct 53:19

1M ago53:19

53:19

We are living through a period that is unique in human history. For the first time in more than ten thousand years, the rate of human population growth is slowing down. In the middle of this century population growth will stop, and the number of people on Earth will start to decline - fast. As Gee demonstrates, our population has peaked, and is dec…

1
The 16th Century Ottomans Nearly Conquered Europe. Why Did European Kingdoms Make So Many Alliances With Them? 51:05

1M ago51:05

51:05

The determined attempt to thwart Ottoman dominance was fought by Muslims and Christians across five theaters from the Balkans to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, from Persia to Russia. But this is not merely the story of a clash of civilizations between East and West. Europe was not united against the Turks; the scandal of the age was the al…

1
Death by Olives (Livestream) 39:28

1M ago39:28

39:28

On August 23, 1919, a celebratory dinner at the Lakeside Club in Canton, Ohio, was held in honor of Col. Charles C. Weybrecht’s return from France at the end of the First World War. But what began as a joyous occasion soon turned tragic, as guests fell ill - and over the following days, several would die. In this month’s History of Fresh Produce li…

1
The Airline Name Code Episode! 20:09

1M ago20:09

20:09

Every airline in the world has a two-character designator code that represents the airline’s name identity across reservation systems, flight information displays, ticketing details, luggage tags, and all of the other places where showing an airline’s full name can be simplified by substituting that recognized designator code. The development of th…

1
V. Chitra, "Drawing Coastlines: Climate Anxieties and the Visual Reinvention of Mumbai's Shore" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:04:16

1M ago1:04:16

1:04:16

Drawing Coastlines: Climate Anxieties and the Visual Reinvention of Mumbai's Shore (Cornell UP, 2024) reveals the ways that technical images such as weather infographics, sea-level projections, and surveys are fast remaking Mumbai's coasts and coastal futures. They set in place infrastructural interventions, vocabularies of development and conserva…

1
Typhoid Mary: Victim or Villain 1:13:42

1M ago1:13:42

1:13:42

'Typhoid Mary' is one of the most recognisable names in 20th-century American history, but the history behind this Irish woman is often lost in sensationalism. Born Mary Mallon in County Tyrone in 1869, she emigrated to the USA, where she enjoyed a successful career as a cook. However, in 1907, she found herself at the center of a public health sca…

1
Royce Kurmelovs, "Slick: Australia's Toxic Relationship with Big Oil" (U Queensland Press, 2024) 34:49

1M ago34:49

34:49

A riveting expose of the global oil industry' s multi-decade conspiracy to muddy the waters around the science of climate change and use the Australian government to undermine worldwide efforts to address environmental devastation. Researched and written by one of Australia' s most fearless investigative journalists, Slick: Australia's Toxic Relati…

1
Book Chat: "A Taiwanese Eco-Literature Reader" with Ian Rowen 24:50

1M ago24:50

24:50

In this episode, our host, Ti-han, invited one of her co-editors, Dr Ian Rowen, to talk about their forthcoming book publication, A Taiwanese Eco-literature Reader, soon to be published by Columbia University Press. This anthology brings together translations of nine compelling stories from Taiwan, examining Taiwan’s most vibrant literary genre and…

1
157: Where's My Feed 1:03:01

1M ago1:03:01

1:03:01

Adam, Greg, Brian & Neil are all here to chat about free agency and the Titans' moves. We speculate (again) about what might happen at the top of the draft, and then talk a few things non Titans related, including some proposed law changes in the NFL.

1
Fort Stanwix and the Forgotten Revolutionary War Siege That Convinced France to Help the US 42:07

1M ago42:07

42:07

After a series of military defeats over the winter of 1776–1777, British military leaders developed a bold plan to gain control of the Hudson River and divide New England from the rest of the colonies. Three armies would converge on Albany: one under Lieutenant General John Burgoyne moving south from Quebec, one under General William Howe moving no…

1
Genevieve Guenther, "The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It" (Oxford UP, 2024) 30:32

1M ago30:32

30:32

The Language of Climate Politics (Oxford UP, 2024) offers readers new ways to talk about the climate crisis that will help get fossil fuels out of our economy and save our planet. It's an analysis of the current discourse of American climate politics, but also a critical history of the terms that most directly influence the way not just conservativ…

1
Bryan Caplan, "Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing" (Cato Institute, 2024) 43:07

1M ago43:07

43:07

Economist Bryan Caplan has written—and artist Ady Branzei has illustrated—this new graphic novel about housing regulation (if ‘novel’ can be applied to an imaginative essay on a nonfiction topic), Build Baby Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation (Cato Institute, 2024). The thesis of the work is that regulation has driven up the cost o…

1
Enough is Enuf, Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell 39:21

1M ago39:21

39:21

No language is as inconsistent in spelling and pronunciation as English. Kernel and colonel rhyme, but read changes based on past or present tense. Ough has many pronunciations: ‘aw’ (thought), ‘ow’ (drought), ‘uff’ (tough), ‘off’ (cough), ‘oo’ (through). In response to this orthographic minefield, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill …

1
Richard Buttny, "Unfracked: The Struggle to Ban Fracking in New York" (U Massachusetts Press, 2024) 48:16

1M ago48:16

48:16

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Buttny, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. With a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, his research interests include environmental communication, discourse analysis, and intercultural communication. Richard's latest…

1
The History of Olives 1:05:01

1M ago1:05:01

1:05:01

The story of the olive is one of resilience, empire, and cultural transformation. From its first human interactions in Africa over 100,000 years ago to its role in the economies of the great Mediterranean civilizations, the olive tree has been a silent witness to the rise and fall of history’s greatest powers. In the Eastern Mediterranean, early fa…

1
Season II is coming on Monday March 24th! 6:08

1M ago6:08

6:08

Damian and Fin have been busy recording a new season! In this short episode they share what you can expect! Subscribe to the show at https://linktr.ee/transatlanticpod If you have any ideas for episodes get in touch at @[email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…

1
Sally Coulthard, "A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects" (HarperCollins UK, 2024) 31:43

1M ago31:43

31:43

For most of human history, we were rural folk. Our daily lives were bound up with working the land, living within the rhythm of the seasons. We poured our energies into growing food, tending to animals and watching the weather. Family, friends and neighbours were often one and the same. Life revolved around the village and its key spaces and places…

1
Joseph A. Seeley, "Border of Water and Ice: The Yalu River and Japan's Empire in Korea and Manchuria" (Cornell UP, 2024) 1:01:38

1M ago1:01:38

1:01:38

Icy, unpredictable, and treacherous, the dangers of the Yalu River were heightened in the twentieth century when it became the longest non-maritime border of the Japanese Empire. Border of Water and Ice: The Yalu River and Japan’s Empire in Korea and Manchuria (Cornell University Press, 2024) focuses on this river at this critical juncture, analyzi…

1
Maggie M. Cao, "Painting US Empire: Nineteenth-Century Art and Its Legacies" (U Chicago Press, 2025) 42:53

1M ago42:53

42:53

Painting US Empire: Nineteenth-Century Art and Its Legacies (University of Chicago Press, 2025) by Dr. Maggie Cao is the first book to offer a synthetic account of art and US imperialism around the globe in the nineteenth century. In this work, art historian Dr. Cao crafts a nuanced portrait of nineteenth-century US painters’ complicity with and re…

1
Jade S. Sasser, "Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question" (U California Press, 2024) 59:55

1M ago59:55

59:55

Eco-anxiety. Climate guilt. Pre-traumatic stress disorder. Solastalgia. The study of environmental emotions and related mental health impacts is a rapidly growing field, but most researchers overlook a closely related concern: reproductive anxiety. Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question (U California Press, 2024) is the first comprehensive study of h…

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Transatlantic Titans Podcasts

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