The History of England Podcast

A well-ordered romp through a green and pleasant land

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John Everett Millais, An Idyll of 1745

Somewhere in Oxfordshire stands a shed, and in the shed sits a clever man with a very fine beard who makes double-plus good audio programs on the subject of the many Englands that used to be. Better yet, he has, since the days of yore (that is, 2011), been making these podcasts in chronological order, thereby creating a soup-to-nuts history that begins with folk who said hwæt a lot and (when finished) will end with the great dousing of lights of 1914.

Each of the component programs of The History of England Podcast strikes a nice balance between solid research and light-hearted accessibility. Thus, while certainly familiar with the weighty tomes produced by school-bound scholars, he never forgets that history is, first and foremost, a matter of telling compelling stories about interesting people faced with thorny problems.

As the thorny problems in question often resulted from earlier solutions to earlier condundra, listeners will want to enjoy the component episodes of The History of England Podcast in the order in which they were published. That is, the best place to begin is the beginning.

Listening to the podcasts in chronological order, moreover, will help self-directed learners to create a filing system for historical events that occurred in places other than the Green and Pleasant Land. That is, a good understanding of the flow of English history provides a framework for storing information about any events, whether English or Foreign, that took place during the past fifteen centuries or so.