What’s this?
The Nomads and Empires podcast is a history show that focuses on tracing the historical trajectory of the Eurasian steppe. This means that we’re going to be looking at many groups beyond the usual trends. Instead of solely focusing on the Mongols as some aberration in history, we’ll cover the groups that came before and after. We’ll examine the historical context behind major developments along the steppes and the sedentary worlds. And especially, we’ll cover the academic trends that have helped further our understanding of this consequential reason.
Why the Substack?
Although the Nomads and Empires podcast will cover a lot of material, there’s a lot more that I want to mention that I can’t in an audio format. Rather than inundate you with a plethora of marginally related content, I’ll be keeping that stuff here. On the Substack, I’ll be providing book reviews and historical analysis on topics that may not be especially relevant on the podcast. It’ll still be interesting content, grappling many tangential regions and peoples beyond the steppes, so feel free to subscribe if that sounds interesting to you!
Booklist
Books I own that are relevant to the podcast (as in, I own it on my bookshelf; I don’t count eBooks, online books, or PDFs, even if I love them still!):
General History
Arthur Cotterell, The Near East: A Cultural History (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2017).
Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years (Scriber: New York, 1997).
Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Vintage Books: New York, 2017)
Herodotus, The History, trans. David Grene (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1987).
Eurasian Nomads
Barry Cunliffe, The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2019).
Carter V. Findley, The Turks in World History (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2005).
Christopher J. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2009).
David W. Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppe Shaped the Modern World (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2007).
David Morgan, The Mongols (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1986).
Iver B. Neumann and Einar Wigen, The Steppe Tradition in International Relations: Russians, Turks and European State Building 4000 BCE-2018 CE (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2018).
Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (Broadway Books: New York, 2004)
Linda Komaroff, eds., Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2011).
Rene Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, trans. Naomi Walford (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1970).
Susan Whitfield, Silk, Slaves, and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2018).
Susan Whitfield, Life Along the Silk Road (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2015).
Other Groups:
Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Faber and Faber: London, 1991).
Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (Basic Books: New York, 2007).
Julius J. Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium (Alfred A. Knopf Inc.: New York, 1997).
Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Little, Brown and Company: Boston, 2003).
Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 2011).
Subscribe!
For the exorbitant cost of free, you’ll get access to episode scripts, citations, book reviews, and other historical articles!
