I wanted to let you know my latest book, Rome and Attila, is now available on Amazon in ebook and paperback, links in the episode notes. It’s about one of the most infamous figures in history—Attila the Hun. He’s a household name, but remarkably little is known about him and his popular legend as a brutal tyrant is not necessarily correct. I delve into the primary sources in search of the real Attila and find someone very different from the legend—a complex, captivating personality who despised ostentation, admired bravery and valued loyalty. Thanks for your time and I hope you enjoy it! Link to buy the book Amazon.com Link to buy the book Amazon.co.uk
Please take a look at my website nickholmesauthor.com where you can download a free copy of The Byzantine World War, my book that describes the origins of the First Crusade.
Soon after correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez starts working at New Folsom prison, he gets caught up in a bad incident. An incarcerated man ends up in the hospital with horrific injuries, and the prison starts an investigation. Valentino feels pressured to back up his fellow officers' version of the story, even though he thinks it might not be the truth. Then he gets an opportunity he's dreamed of-- to join an elite unit investigating crimes in the prison.
Resources
If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
For years something strange has been happening online, but most of us have no idea what’s really going on.
Ethnic conflict in Myanmar. A chemistry professor is killed in Ethiopia. A teenager dies in her bedroom in London. A mob storms the Capitol in Washington DC.
And that’s the moment that catches Jamie Bartlett’s eye. A few days after the riot, on January 9th 2021, the outgoing leader of the United States is suspended on social media. First Twitter, (renamed X), and then Facebook. A President silenced. It’s a glimpse behind the curtain. For the first time millions of us can see the power of technology companies.
They can delete you. They can amplify you. They can change your life. Social media has conquered the world.
Jamie Bartlett follows the roots of this story back to San Francisco : the home of Big Tech, where he meets one of the early pioneers of social media who tells him about a strange hand bound book, passed around hippy communes in the summer of love, and how it turned the world upside down.
Archive Credits: Wolf of Wall Street, Paramount Pictures; Telecommunications Bill sign in, C-Span 1996; Bloomberg's TicTic 2019; Fox News 2020
Presenter: Jamie Bartlett
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Music: Jeremy Warmsley
Story Consultant: Kirsty Williams
Researchers: Rachael Fulton, Elizabeth Ann Duffy and Juliet Conway
Executive Producer: Peter McManus
Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke.
A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
Covering Their Tracks is the extraordinary story of a young man’s escape from a moving train bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, and his fight to hold the French national rail company, the SNCF, accountable for their actions as they later bid for lucrative high-speed rail contracts in the United States.
For more information visit http://tabletmag.com/coveringtheirtracks or search for Covering Their Track wherever you get your podcasts.
It all started with a crazy idea to realise a hippie dream of building a “global consciousness”. The plan was to build a connected world, where everyone could access everyone and everything all the time; to overthrow the old gatekeepers and set information free.
But social media didn’t turn out that way. Instead of setting information free – a new digital elite conquered the world and turned themselves into the most powerful people on the planet.
Now, they get to decide what billions of us see every day. They can amplify you. They can delete you. Their platforms can be used to coordinate social movements and insurrections. A content moderator thousands of miles away can change your life. What does this mean for democracy – and our shared reality?
Jamie Bartlett traces the story of how and why social media have become the new information gatekeepers, and what the decisions they make mean for all of us.
We’re back with a second season of On Our Watch from KQED! “New Folsom” traces the footsteps of two whistleblowers in an elite investigative unit in California’s most dangerous prison. Host Sukey Lewis and co-reporter Julie Small piece together a gripping narrative about broken promises and unwritten rules. It’s a story about who gets hurt when the system that promises to keep us safe is bent on protecting itself. New episodes drop weekly, starting February 6.
At the very edge of Empire, inscribed on a beautifully carved tombstone, there’s a story of love across the tracks. On Hadrian’s Wall a slave girl from Hertfordshire and a lonely traveller from Syria meet and marry. The story of Regina and Barates has inspired poets and writers eager for a simple love story to illuminate a dark and dangerous world. But how true might this be? What brought this couple together across cultures and thousands of miles? Was their alliance true love or forced marriage?
Mary Beard tracks our couple from Palmyra to South Shields, revealing the cultural mix of the Empire and the power dynamics of slave and master with the help of Syrian poet, Nouri Al-Jarrah.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Greg Woolf, University of California Los Angeles and Frances McIntosh, English Heritage
Cast: John Collingwood Bruce played by Josh Bryant-Jones and reading of The Stone Serpent by Tyler Cameron
Translation of The Stone Serpent: Catherine Cobham
Arabic Translation: Samira Kawar
Special thanks to Alex Croom and Tyne and Wear Museums
What does it take to run an Empire? Armies and slaves, of course, but also bureaucrats. At its height the Roman Empire employed thousands of men charged with keeping Rome and its provinces fed, watered and content. This was no easy job. A remarkable set of papyrus scrolls reveals the life of Roman Egypt's very own David Brent, preparing for a a visit from the fearsome Emperor Diocletian.
Infuriated by hopeless staff and venal local politicians and continuously harassed by his superiors, Apolinarius of Panopolis becomes increasingly desperate as Diocletian approaches and the tension cranks up. Mary Beard follows Apolinarius's story to reveal the messy realities of Roman administration.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Colin Adams, Liverpool University and Margaret Mountford
Cast: Apolinarius played by Josh Bryant-Jones
Special thanks to Jill Unkell and the Chester Beatty collection, Dublin
For an aspiring medic it was a dream assignment- official team doctor to the gladiators of Pergamon. The top names in the arena were worth a lot of money and it was up to young Galen to keep them alive. Slash and stab wounds had to be closed quickly and cleanly and diets devised to maintain the perfect balance of fat and muscle for the finest fighters. It gave Galen unrivalled insight into the workings of the human body, knowledge he would use as he went on to treat emperors and write the textbooks that would guide doctors for hundreds of years.
Mary Beard traces the career of Rome's greatest medic from its highs to its lowest of lows- the moment when a great fire swept through Rome, threatening to wipe out his life's work.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Helen King, Open University and Matthew Nicholls, Oxford University
Special thanks to the British Museum and the Parco Archeolgico del Colosseo, Roma
Imagine the feeling in the pit of your stomach as you take to the stage in front of 7000 people to recite a complex poem you’ve just made up on the spot. 11 year old Sulpicius Maximus knows that the Emperor is in the front row and his parents are counting on his success in Rome’s premier festival of the arts.
Mary Beard tracks down the clues behind an extraordinary story of Roman life, revealing the reality of Roman childhood and the desperate attempts of the poet's parents to escape the shadow of their slave roots and rise through the ranks of Roman society.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Valentina Garulli, Bologna University and Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University
Poetry Translation: Barbara Graziosi
Cast: Sulpicius played by Joseph Goodman and oration read by Tyler Cameron
Special thanks to Barbara Nobiloni at the Centrale Montemartini Museum, Rome
