Conflicted: A History Podcast

Fake coffee. Rotten meat. Poison milk. This is the story of a few good men and their bitter fight to make America’s food supply safe. Hounded by enemies and discredited at every turn, a handful of scientists and activists challenged the titans of the 19th century food industry – and won.

SOURCES:

Blum, Deborah. The Poison Squad: One Chemists Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. 2018.

Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. 1979

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906.

Hilts, Philip J. Protecting America’s Health: The FDA, Business, and One Hundred Years of Regulation. 2003.

Wilson, Bee. Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee. 2008.

When the Prophet Muhammed died in 632 AD, it triggered a succession crisis amongst his followers. After the dust settled, two divergent branches of the faith remained – Sunni and Shi’a. It is a deeply misunderstood story that has been unearthed and repackaged in the 21st century to inflame political animus and give superficial labels to complex tensions. In this episode, we will examine the very human, very relatable drama that unfolded against the backdrop of the rise of the Islamic Empire in the 7th century.

THE CAST

Muhammed – The Prophet. A merchant-turned-messenger from God.

Aisha – The Prophet’s favorite wife; Charming, fiery, and envious.

Ali – The Prophet’s cherished son-in-law. Lion of God. Humble, loyal, and honorable to a fault.

Fatima - Daughter of the Prophet and wife to Ali.

Abu Bakr – Aisha’s father, Muhammed’s close friend, and first Caliph.

Hussein – Grandson of the Prophet. Murdered at Karbala. Martyr of the Shi’a faith.

SOURCES:

Hazleton, Lesley. The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammed. 2013.

Hazleton, Lesley. After The Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shi’a-Sunni Split in Islam. 2009.

Louer, Laurence. Sunnis and Shi’a: A Political History. 2020.

Hoyland, Robert G. In God’s Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire. 2014.

Betts, Robert Brenton. The Sunni-Shi’a Divide. 2013.

Charles Rivers Editors. The History of the Sunni and Shia Split: Understanding the Divisions Within Islam. 2014.

Armstrong, Karen Keishin. MuhammedL A Prophet for Our Time. 2007.

Cole, Juan. Muhammed: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires. 2018.

Safi, Omid. Memories of Muhammed. 2009.

Holland, Tom. The Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire. 2012.

How a handful of mercenaries, explorers, and pirates destroyed the Aztec Empire and burnt its capital city to the ground. Two cultures collide in the first of a two-part series on the Conquest of Mexico.

SOURCES:

Levy, Buddy. Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs.

Sheppard, Si. Tenochtitlan 1519-1521. 2018.

Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. 1993.

Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Mexico. 1843

Cortes, Hernan. Five Letters. 1519-1526.

Restall, Matthew. When Montezuma Met Cortez: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History. 2018.

Sea battles, tiger hunts, and a mountain of human noses. This is the Shakespearean saga that triggered centuries of bad blood between Korea and Japan.

SOURCES:

Samuel, Hawley. The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China. 2005

Turnbull, Stephen. The Samurai Invasion of Korea. 2008.

Turnbull, Stephen. War in Japan, 1467-1615. 2002

Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Hideyoshi. 1982

Kristof, Nicholas D. “Japan, Korea, and 1597: A Year That Lives in Infamy”. Sept 1997

The Marquis De Sade was a pariah in his time, a monster on the page, and a genius in death. But what crimes did the namesake of “sadism” actually commit? Where did his real-life appetites end...and his literary fantasies begin? (Explicit, obviously)

SOURCES:

Thomas, Donald. The Marquis de Sade. 1976.

Du Plessix Gray, Francine. At Home with the Marquis de Sade. 1998.

Lever, Maurice. Sade. 1994.

Schaeffer, Niel. The Marquis De Sade: A Life. 1999.

Gorer, Geoffrey. The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade. 1933.

Marquis de Sade. The 120 Days of Sodom.

Marquis de Sade. Letters from Prison.

African berserkers, graceful samurai, and deadly Soviet fighter pilots. A three-part, globe-trotting tour of remarkable female soldiers and the complicated lives that they led.

SOURCES:

Vinogradova, Lyuba. Defending the Motherland. 2015

Alpern, Stanley B. Amazons of Black Sparta. 1998.

Dash, Mike. “Dahomey’s Women Warriors”. Smithsonian.com. Sept 2011

Busch, Jenna. “Meet the Dahomey Amazons, the Inspiration for the Dora Milaje”. SyFy Wire. Nov 2018.

Joubeaud, Edouard. The Women Soldiers of Dahomey. UNESCO Digital Library. 2014

“Three Months in Captivity in Dahomey”. The Sydney Morning Herald. Oct 1890

Budnik, Ruslan. “Dahomey Amazons - The Only Elite All-Female Warrior Regiments”. War History Online. Oct 2018

Okoh, Lize. “Meet the Dahomey Amazons: The All-Female Warriors of West Africa”. Culture Trip. May 2018.

Turnbull, Stephen. Samurai Women, 1184 -1877. 2012.

Hoffman, Michael. “Women Warriors of Japan”. The Japan Times. Oct 2011.

Hastings, Cristobel. “How Onna-Bugeisha, Feudal Japan's Women Samurai, Were Erased From History”. VICE. Sept 2018.

The Rated-R-for-Russian story of the Red Army’s horrific campaign of vengeance against Nazi Germany.

SOURCES:

Beevor, Antony. The Fall of Berlin 1945. 2003.

Huggler, Justin. “Fall of Berlin: ‘Of course I was afraid. I was 17 years old.’”. The Telegraph UK. May 2015

Johnson, Daniel. “Red Army troops raped even Russian women as they freed them from camps”. The Guardian. Jan 2002.

Ash, Lucy. “The Rape of Berlin”. BBC News. May 2015.

Fitzgerald, Nora. “Berliners recall Red Army atrocities”. Chicago Tribune. September 2002.

Car bombs, hitmen, and hunger strikes. How "The Troubles" tore Northern Ireland apart.

SOURCES:

Toolis, Kevin. Rebel Hearts. 1995

McKittrick, David. Making Sense of the Troubles. 2000

Coogan, Tim Pat. The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal and the Search for Peace. 1995.

Edwards, Aaron. The Northern Ireland Troubles. 2014.

O'Doherty, Malachi. The Trouble With Guns. 1998.

Collins, Eamon. Killing Rage. 1997.

Bingham, John. "Margaret Thatcher: Seconds from death at the hands of IRA bomber." April 2013.

Moriarty, Gerry. "Internment Explained: when it was introduced and why". August 2019.

Simonson, Robert. "The Irish Car Bomb". March 2018

How a single week in 1967 changed the Middle East, and the world, forever. This is the action-packed, heartbreaking origin story of Israel and the Six-Day War.

SOURCES:

Oren, Michael B. Six Days Of War. 2002.

Pressfield, Steven. The Lion’s Gate. 2014.

Churchill, Randolph S. The Six Day War. 1967

Dana, Seif. “The 1967 Naksa: The Making of the New Middle East”. Al Jazeera. June 2016.

Samuel, Sigal. “How the Six Day War Transformed Religion”. The Atlantic. Jun 5 2017

Land, Graham. “Was the Great Jewish Revolt Against Rome a Preventable Tragedy?” HistoryHit. July 2018

Josephus. The Works of Josephus. The Wars of the Jews, Book 7

After weeks of uncertainty and fear, the Great Crash finally arrives on October 24th, 1929. While America’s financial infrastructure burns, Jesse Livermore makes $100 million in a single week. Wall Street’s great cheerleader, Sunshine Charlie Mitchell, schemes and maneuvers to puff up the bull market and preserve his legacy. Amidst the wreckage of the Great Depression, a scrappy immigrant lawyer named Ferdinand Pecora leads a Federal investigation into Sunshine Charlie and National City Bank that shakes the very bedrock of American financial law.

SOURCES:

Ahamed, Liaquat. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World. 2009.

Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. 1931

Blumenthal, Karen. Six Days in October. 2002.

Charles Rivers Editors. Jesse Livermore. 2021.

Charles Rivers Editors. Wall Street. 2020.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash 1929. 1955.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. A Short History of Financial Euphoria. 1990.

Geisst, Charles R. Wall Street: A History. 1997.

Klein, Maury. Rainbow’s End. 2001.

Morris, Charles R. A Rabble of Dead Money. 2017.

Nations, Scott. A History of the United States in Five Crashes. 2017.

Parker, Selwyn. The Great Crash. 2008.

Perino, Michael. The Hellhound of Wall Street. 2010.

Rubython, Tom. Jesse Livermore: Boy Plunger. 2016.

Thomas, Gordon. Morgan-Witts, Max. The Day the Bubble Burst. 1979.