History books turned into sharp conversation.
History with Jackson pairs Jackson Van Uden with historians, researchers, and authors for direct, accessible conversations about their latest work. The show favors sharp questions, concrete examples, and the slow correction of familiar myths.
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History with Jackson is an interview-led history show centered on recent books and the arguments behind them. Jackson Van Uden acts less like a lecturer than a guide, asking guests to explain what drew them to a subject and what the evidence changes. The structure is straightforward. A book opens the door, then the conversation follows motive, setting, character, and consequence. Recent episodes move widely across time and place, from Stalin’s spies and Rasputin’s court influence to Nuremberg, Enver Hoxha, Themistocles, Auschwitz, and American historical memory. The show is strongest when a familiar story turns out to be less settled than it first appears. It lingers on the moment where myth gives way to a sharper account. A road trip through the United States becomes a way to think about local memory, national identity, race, class, and division. A biography of Enver Hoxha becomes a question of sources, perspective, and how a tyrant has been written about before. A conversation about the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz faces the terrible contradiction of music being used as both survival and abuse. The Nuremberg discussion moves through access, manipulation, and the behavior of men facing judgment. The Soviet espionage episode is alert to ideology, vanity, loyalty, and self-deception. The tone is measured, but not cold. It can handle grave subjects without flattening them into summary. It can also leave space for strange details, awkward personalities, and the human inconsistencies that make history hard to tidy up. Listeners get clear signposts, named examples, and enough context to follow unfamiliar material. The show fits people who enjoy historical argument but do not want academic distance. It treats history as something argued through evidence, not simply recited.
Made for: For listeners who like serious history, author interviews, and clear explanations of complicated people, places, and regimes. It especially suits those who enjoy biographies, political history, war history, and the way public memory gets made.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its steady interview craft: it starts with the guest’s book, then presses toward motive, context, and the evidence behind contested stories. It covers a wide historical range while keeping the conversation plain-spoken and anchored in examples.
Join Historian Jackson van Uden as he brings up-to-date historical research and stories from historians, researchers and authors to you in an accessible and digestible way every Sunday! If you want to get in touch with History with Jackson email: [email protected] To support History with Jackson to carry on creating content subscribe to History with Jackson+ on Apple Podcasts or become a supporter on Buy Me A Coffee: https://bmc.link/HistorywJackson To catch up on everything to do with History with Jackson head to www.HistorywithJackson.co.uk Follow us on Facebook at @HistorywithJackson Follow us on Instagram at @HistorywithJackson Follow us on X/Twitter at @HistorywJackson Fo…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Jackson van Uden turns historians' evidence and interpretive choices into clear conversations about how historical narratives are built.
Jackson van Uden builds each conversation around a historian or author and the choices behind a particular work. His questions move quickly past the premise into the machinery of historical argument: what evidence survives, how reputations form, and why people act against their…
A king requests falcons, and your curiosity about Anglo-Saxon trade suddenly has somewhere to go.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A festival conversation that balances intelligence history, Soviet recruitment, and the ugly rewards of loyalty.
This festival conversation with Antonia Senior centers on Stalin's Apostles, intelligence history, Soviet recruitment, and the dark logic of a revolution that ends up turning on its own people.
A road-trip history conversation linking Medora, Theodore Roosevelt, and the country's larger divisions.
The episode frames Beverly Gage's This Land Is Your Land as a sweeping road-trip history of the United States, moving across places that tie local texture to a larger national story.
Nuremberg studies its defendants through the uneasy relationships they did, and did not, form with psychiatrist Kelly.
Nuremberg centers on psychiatrist Kelly and the uneasy connections he forms with men facing charges at Nuremberg. Rudolf Hess becomes the most striking case.
Rasputin's influence is traced through court churn, bad appointments, and the road to revolution.
The episode situates Rasputin inside Romanov court politics, with Anthony Beaver and Jackson Van Uden returning to the empress's growing role after the Tsar went to the Stavka in 1915.
A chilling account of music as both exploited spectacle and fragile protection at Auschwitz.
Anne Seba discusses The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, A Story of Survival, with Jackson Van Uden drawing out the terrible conditions under which Alma Rosé brought musicians into the orchestra and helped keep its members alive inside an extermination camp.
A lively, character-led discussion of parliamentary rogues and the contradictions behind public misbehavior.
Debbie Kilroy's conversation about Members Behaving Badly treats parliamentary misconduct as something more revealing than a parade of scandals.
A brisk conversation about how the Assassins and Templars behaved when politics mattered most.
Steve Tibble's conversation with Jackson Van Uden presents the Assassins as practical actors, willing to pursue their interests wherever they could, including alongside Christians when that suited them. It also brings in contacts with King Amalric and St.
A Mercian history built from fragments, trade goods, and the records that did not survive.
Max Adams uses this History with Jackson discussion to open up Mercia, the stretch of pre-Norman conquest history that resists neat framing. He builds the picture from what survives: a Kentish king's gifts to Boniface, imported lava quern stones, books moving to the continent,…
Dramatized deep dives into American history, from the Galveston hurricane to Harper Lee's Mockingbird.
Curious facts, kid-sized and quiz-ready.
Historian Jackson van Uden interviews Dr.
Historian Max Adams discusses his book 'The Mercian Chronicles,' exploring the rise of Mercia as England's first medieval state.
Sarah Liscoe discusses her journey to becoming one of the first female sailmakers in the UK, inspired by her love of sailing and a challenge to gender norms in 1986.
Author and historian Dr.
Historian Estelle Paranque discusses her book on Anne Boleyn, focusing on the French perspective in Tudor history.
Historian Paul Woodadge discusses his accidental career as a D-Day expert and explains the origin of the term 'D-Day'.
Author Sam Leith discusses his book 'The Haunted Wood' and the foundational role of childhood reading in shaping adult literary tastes.
Antonia Senior says her book Stalin's Apostles shifts the Cambridge Five story away from Reform Club mythology and toward Stalin’s strategic use of British intelligence.
Beverly Gage’s book This Land is Your Land uses road trips across the United States to trace 250 years of American history, from Independence Hall in Philadelphia to Disneyland in Southern California.
Jack El-Hai traces how a reference to Douglas Kelly's 1938 American Psychiatric Association stage-magic show led him to Kelly's Nuremberg papers, including 15 boxes that had sat untouched in the family since 1946.
Interview with historians Robert C.
Historian Michael Scott discusses his new book on Themistocles, the Athenian naval mastermind, in an interview with host Jackson Van Uden.
Antony Beevor discusses Rasputin and the Downfall of the Romanovs with Jackson Van Uden, using Nicholas II, Alexandra, and the Provisional Government to show why Rasputin mattered.
History with Jackson speaks with Anne Sebba about The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, a book shaped by May 24, 1945, when her father's Belsen record and a Red Cross concert intersected in her research.
Historian Debbie Kilroy joins host Jackson Van Uden to discuss her book Members Behaving Badly: A History of Britain in 52 Parliamentary Rogues, tracing scandal through Parliament from 1603 onward.