Best Ellie Rome Podcasts (2025)

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Diogenes, the Father of Ancient Greek Stoicism, Loving Trolling His Audience and Could Out-Shock Borat 49:18

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3d ago49:18

49:18

The famous street artist Banksy shocked the art world in 2018 when his painting, Girl with Balloon, partially shredded itself moments after selling it for over a million dollars. at a Sotheby's auction in London. Banksy had secretly built a mechanical shredder into the painting's ornate frame, turning the destruction into a piece of performance art…

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Blown Off Course: How History’s Windy Turning Points Sank the Armada and Saved Japan from the Mongols 46:23

5d ago46:23

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The greatest energy source for civilization before the steam engine was wind. It powered the global economy in the Age of Sail. Wind-powered sail ships made global shipping fast and cheap by harnessing free, reliable ocean winds to propel large cargo loads over vast distances without needing fuel or frequent stops. It also powered windmills, the fa…

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New Year, New Beginnings: William Damon on Finding a More Purposeful Life 51:01

6d ago51:01

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Before long, holiday celebrations, family gatherings, and gift-sharing will give way to a new year and the question of resolutions and crafting a better self. William (Bill) Damon, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and Stanford University lifespan development psychologist, discusses his decades-long research into the quest for purposefulness in li…

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Maps Have Bigger Problems Than the Mercator Projection. They Invent Mountain Ranges and Usually Eliminate New Zealand 45:39

10d ago45:39

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Maps have always had problems. Five hundred years ago, maps were wildly inaccurate simply because cartographers were drawing the edge of the known world, limited by slow ships and nonexistent satellite data, resulting in continents that were too large, too small, or entirely misplaced. All of those problems have been solved thanks to new technology…

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The Great Mathematicians of the Early 1900s Ran into an Unsolvable Problem. They Realized Math Made No Sense 45:38

13d ago45:38

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In the 1800s, it seemed like mathematics was a solved problem. The paradoxes in the field were resolved, and even areas like advanced calculus could be taught consistently and reliably at any school. It was clearly understandable in a way that abstract fields like philosophy weren’t, and it was on its way to solving humanity’s problems. Mathematica…

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“A 100-Year Storm”: Ben Ginsberg on Bush v. Gore Turning 25, Restoring Confidence in U.S. Elections 50:56

13d ago50:56

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Further evidence that time (and politics) flies by: it was 25 years ago this month that the U.S. Supreme Court settled the final outcome of both Florida’s presidential vote count and America’s choice for its 43rd president. Ben Ginsberg, the Hoover Institution’s Volker Distinguished Visiting Fellow, a preeminent authority on election law and a memb…

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The American Revolution was a World War in All but Name 56:43

18d ago56:43

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The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, known as the "shot heard round the world," marked the first military engagements of the American Revolution. Ralph Waldo Emerson named it that because it launched revolutionary movements in Europe and beyond, marking it as a key moment in the fight for liberty and self-governance. But this moment …

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How Napoleon and Churchill Used Neuroscience to Make a Better Soldier and More Loyal Public 45:23

20d ago45:23

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The brain acts in strange ways during wartime. Even in active combat situations, when soldiers are one mistake away from death, many can’t fire on their enemies because their brain is triggering compassion centers against other soldiers. Studies of World War II show that while soldiers were willing to risk death, only 15% to 20% fired their weapons…

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America’s Class Struggle: Eric Hanushek on Learning Declines and Hope for Revitalizing Education 58:12

20d ago58:12

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If you think America’s schools fell into decline solely as a consequence of 2020’s pandemic and a year of alternate instruction models, guess again. Eric Hanushek, the Hoover Institution’s Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow and a leading scholar on the economics of education, discusses misperceptions in the Covid-education debate (learning and achie…

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William F. Buckley JR.'s Guide to Friendship in a Polarized Era 39:43

24d ago39:43

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William F. Buckley Jr., the charismatic intellectual who defined modern American conservatism, was famously skilled at forging friendships across the ideological divide, a talent that helped him both shape the political landscape and navigate public opinion. His capacity for personal charm allowed him to be a public extremist and a private moderate…

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What it Was Like Living Through the USSR’s Collapse 55:37

27d ago55:37

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The Collapse of the Soviet Union was twice as devastating as the Great Depression for those who lived there. It immediately led to widespread economic chaos and a breakdown of public services, plunging millions into a difficult period where mere survival was the priority. As one Russian described, after hyperinflation wiped out their family's savin…

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The Battle of Agincourt, 1415: Longbowmen, Bands of Brothers, and Henry V’s Triumph 53:15

1M ago53:15

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From Shakespeare's 'band of brothers' speech to its appearances in numerous films, Agincourt rightfully has a place among a handful of conflicts whose names are immediately recognized around the world. The Battle of Agincourt, fought in 1415, is famous for the decisive role of the English and Welsh longbowmen, who—despite being significantly outnum…

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Clarence Dillon: The Roaring 20s Wall Street Baron Who Wrote the Rules for Corporate Takeovers, Junk Bonds, and Bankruptcy 45:11

1M ago45:11

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J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Charles E. Mitchell are names that come to mind when thinking of the most prominent icons of wealth and influence during the Roaring Twenties. Yet the one figure who has escaped notice is an enigmatic banker by the name of Clarence Dillon. In the 1920s, as he rose in wealth and influence, Dillon became one of t…

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California Update: Prop 50 Legalities, L.A. Fire Confusion . . . and Bad News for Billionaires? 1:03:15

1M ago1:03:15

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After a lopsided victory earlier this month, can California’s redistricting Proposition 50 survive a legal challenge? And why do last January’s devastating fires in Los Angeles continue to raise unsettling questions? Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind w…

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A Utah Indian Chief Controlled the 1800s Mountain West Through Slave Trading, Building Pioneer Trails, Horse Stealing, and Becoming Mormon 1:00:05

1M ago1:00:05

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The American Indian leader Wakara was among the most influential and feared men in the nineteenth-century American West. He and his pan-tribal cavalry of horse thieves and slave traders dominated the Old Spanish Trail, the region’s most important overland route. They widened the trail and expanded its watering holes, reshaping the environmental and…

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Why Did Rome Fall? Wrong Question. How Did it Last 2,000 Years Despite Changing its Religion, Language, and Government? 53:46

1M ago53:46

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Rome began as a pagan, Latin-speaking city state in central Italy during the early Iron Age and ended as a Christian, Greek-speaking empire as the age of gunpowder dawned. Everything about it changed, except its Roman identity. This was due to a unique willingness among Romans to include new people as citizens, an openness to new ideas, and an unpa…

1351
The Real Deadwood: A Gold Rush Town Built in a War Zone but Obliterated in an Inferno 37:30

2M ago37:30

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Gunslinging, gold-panning, stagecoach robbing, whiskey guzzling – the myth and infamy of the American West is synonymous with its most famous town: Deadwood, South Dakota. The storied mining town sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, destined to become food for the imagination and a nostalgic landmark that n…

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“Don’t You Dare Apologize for the Military”: Admiral James Ellis on Veterans Day, Honoring Service 54:42

2M ago54:42

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If you’re confused about the differences between Veterans Day, Memorial Day, and Armed Forces Day here in America, you’re not alone. Decades of government meddling and mixed messages have blurred the lines between honoring those who once served their country, those still on active or reserve duty, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice for freed…

1451
America's Pacific Dawn: The Spanish-American War Ushered In Global Reach and Savage Conflict 55:59

2M ago55:59

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Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross, was in Havana in 1898, investigating the terrible conditions endured by Cubans whom the Spanish government had forced into concentration camps, where an estimated 425,000 people died of disease and starvation. While she was there, the American warship USS Maine exploded in Havana's harbor, which served as…

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The Unhealed Wounds of WW2 POWs and Combat Veterans 50:10

2M ago50:10

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Nearly 16.4 million Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, and for millions of survivors, the fighting left many of them physically and mentally broken for life. There was a 25% death rate in Japanese POW camps like Bataan, where starvation and torture were rampant, and fierce battles against suicidal Imperial Japanese forces, l…

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From Stalinism To Reaganism: Daniel Flynn On Frank Meyer And “Fusion” Conservatism 59:59

2M ago59:59

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How does one man whose formative years are largely defined by five “s’s” – sex, satanism, suicide, secret agents, and Stalinism – somehow wind up as a defining intellectual behind the rise of America’s conservative movement? Daniel Flynn, a Hoover visiting fellow and author of The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, …

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Robert McNamara Thought Enough Data Could Win Any War. Instead, It Led America to the Vietnam Quagmire 1:00:21

2M ago1:00:21

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Robert S. McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during JFK and LBJ’s administrations, and one of the chief architects of the Vietnam war, made a shocking confession in his 1995 memoir. He said “We were wrong, terribly wrong.” McNamara believed this as early as 1965, that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Yet, instead of urging U.S. forces to exit, h…

1851
The Philistine Connection: Do the Roots of October 7 Go Back 3,000 Years? 36:24

2M ago36:24

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The October 7th attacks of Hamas on Israel were an unprecedented, surprise incursion by land, sea, and air that stunned the world and prompted Israel to declare war. The attacks, which included massacres in Israeli communities and a music festival, resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and the capture of some 251 hosta…

1901
The Thucydides Trap: How A Rising Athens Made The Peloponnesian War Inevitable 46:29

2M ago46:29

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The Peloponnesian War is considered one of the most famous wars of the ancient world not only because it was a massive and devastating conflict that reshaped the Greek world, but also because its thorough documentation by the historian Thucydides transformed how we understand history and war. On the face of it, the Peloponnesian War, fought over 20…

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The Free French Army in North Africa, 1940-1945 49:37

2M ago49:37

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One of the principal architects of Allied Victory in North Africa during World War Two was French General Louis Dio. His importance in North Africa lies in his role as a key leader of the Free French forces and a trusted subordinate to General Philippe Leclerc. He participated in every battle from Douala to the Fezzan Campaigns in the early 1940s. …

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An Inventor’s Quest to Build a Pneumatic Subway System in 1870s New York 45:11

2M ago45:11

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Alfred Beach built America’s first operational subway in secret beneath 1860s Manhattan, decades before the city’s official electric subway line in 1904. He designed and commissioned a 300-foot-long, eight-foot-diameter tunnel 20 feet underground, built with a tunneling machine he invented for this purpose. The car moved quietly and silently, pushe…

2301
Spirited Rivalry: Did Ireland or Scotland Invent Whisky? 48:53

2M ago48:53

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There’s a divide between Scotland and Ireland as fierce as the Protestant/Catholic split during the Thirty Years’ War or the battles between Sunnis and Shias in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. It’s the debate over who invented whisky. Both Ireland and Scotland claim to have originated the spirit. Ireland cites its early monastic traditions and the …

2401
The Horse That Ate the Legion: Rome’s Cavalry's Triumph Over the Infantry 41:21

3M ago41:21

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The cavalry 'wings' that probed ahead of the Roman Army played a key role in its campaigns of conquest, masking its marching flanks and seeking to encircle enemies in battle. However, at the very beginning of Rome’s history, it didn’t even have a cavalry, and relied on Greek-style phalanx formations instead. It began as a small cavalry arm provided…

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Beyond Joan of Arc and Agincourt: How the 100 Years War Crushed Medieval Europe and Launched its Global Order 58:41

3M ago58:41

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Modern France and Britain were forged in the fires of the Hundred Years War, a century-long conflict that produced deadly English longbowmen, Joan of Arc’s heavenly visions, and a massive death toll from Scotland to the Low Countries. The traditional beginning and end of the Hundred Years' War are conventionally marked by the start of open conflict…

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Reverse Ellis Island: American Migrants Who Fought for Mussolini and Built Stalin’s USSR 38:33

3M ago38:33

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By History Unplugged

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California Update: The 50-50 Proposition 1:03:58

3M ago1:03:58

1:03:58

As California enters the final phase leading up to its Nov. 4 special election and a vote on Proposition 50, plenty of unknowns surround the fate of the controversial ballot measure that would redraw California’s congressional districts to offset a Republican-led gerrymander in Texas. Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow…

2801
Don’t Use Rome as a Model of Why Societies Collapse; Use Crime Syndicates and Somalia Instead 49:42

3M ago49:42

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12,000 years ago, human history changed forever when the egalitarian groups of hunter-gathering humans began to settle down and organize themselves into hierarchies. The few dominated the many, seizing control through violence. What emerged were “Goliaths”: large societies built on a collection of hierarchies that are also terrifyingly fragile, col…

2851
A Union General Found a Loophole in the Fugitive Slave Act, Causing 1 Million Slaves to Flee North 45:21

3M ago45:21

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After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, enslaved people feared running away to the North, as their return was mandated, and they faced brutal punishment or even death upon return to deter others from escaping. But that changed during the Civil War. Black slaves in Confederate Virginia began hearing rumors that they could receive their …

3001
The Civil War’s Brutal Finale: A War of Attrition as Terrible as WW2-Pacific and the Napoleonic Wars 47:55

3M ago47:55

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In 1864, the American Civil War reached a critical juncture with Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, including the brutal battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, which claimed over 60,000 casualties, surpassing Gettysburg as the Americas’ deadliest clash. Abraham Lincoln faced a contentious re-election against George B. McClellan, while Confe…

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Camp David Looks Like a 1970s Lakeside Retreat. Why is it the Site of the World’s Biggest Political Summits? 41:42

3M ago41:42

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Camp David, nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, spans about 125 acres, making it significantly smaller than other presidential getaways like Lyndon B. Johnson’s sprawling 2,700-acre Texas ranch or the vast 1,000-acre Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Compared to grand diplomatic venues like the White House or international summit …

3201
How British Scientists' Self-Experiments on Underwater Rebreathing Created D-Day Submarine Tech (And Nearly Killed Them in the Process) 53:29

3M ago53:29

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In August 1942, over 7,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, in a largely forgotten landing, with only a small fraction surviving unscathed. The raid failed due to poor planning and lack of underwater reconnaissance, which left the Allies unaware of strong German coastal defenses and underwater obstacles. Inadequate submersible…

3301
Over 200,000 Allied Troops Tried and Failed to Crush the Soviet Revolution After World War One 41:20

3M ago41:20

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The Allied Intervention into the Russian Civil War remains one of the most ambitious yet least talked about military ventures of the 20th century. Coinciding with the end of the first World War, some 180,000 troops from several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Romania, among others…

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How the U.S. Occupation of Japan After WW2 Forged the Most Durable Peace of the 20th Century 1:00:19

4M ago1:00:19

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During World War II, the U.S. and Japan were locked in bitter hatred, fueled by propaganda portraying each other as ruthless enemies, exemplified by dehumanizing "Tokyo Woe" posters in the U.S. and Japanese depictions of Americans as barbaric invaders. After the war, the feelings seemed to turn 180 degrees overnight. By the early 1950s, American se…

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History in the Making: Victor Davis Hanson on Strategika’s Century Mark, Examining Wars Present and Past 59:46

4M ago59:46

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For the past dozen years, Hoover’s online publication Strategika has examined contemporary conflicts and national security challenges by assembling academics of varied thought to re-examine past struggles. On the occasion of its 100th issue, historian Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover’s Martin and Ilie Anderson senior fellow and the man tasked with bring…

3501
Homer Couldn't Have Written the Iliad, But He Probably Dictated it Word for Word 52:53

4M ago52:53

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The Iliad is the world’s greatest epic poem—heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure? To explore these questions is today’s guest, Robin Lane Fox, a scholar and teacher of Homer for over 40…

3651
Depression-Era Planners Thought They’d End Poverty with Public Housing. Instead, They Created the Projects 41:02

4M ago41:02

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In the 1930s, New Deal-era technocrats devised a solution to homelessness and poverty itself. They believed that providing free or low-cost urban housing projects could completely eliminate housing scarcity. Planners envisioned urban communities that would propel their residents into the middle class, creating a flywheel of abundance where poverty …

3701
The Alabaman Jacksonians Who Rejected the Confederacy and Marched with Sherman to the Sea 49:01

4M ago49:01

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As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union soldiers who played a decisive role in the Civil War, only to be scrubbed from the history books. One such group was the First Alabama Calvary, formed in …

3851
Frederick Douglass’s Private Writings on Abraham Lincoln, His Strong Critiques and Stronger Praise 49:05

4M ago49:05

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Frederick Douglass made the strongest arguments for abolition in antebellum America because he made the case that abolition was not a mutation of the Founding Father’s vision of America, but a fulfillment of their promises of liberty for all. He had a lot riding on this personally – Douglas was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818, escaped to …

3901
The Industrial Revolution Was Supposed to Lead to Unlimited Free Time But Only Gave Us Smartphones and Endless Dopamine 31:11

4M ago31:11

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Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it.…

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California Update: Pippa Can’t Win . . . Gavin Can’t Lose? 56:06

4M ago56:06

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The big political news in California: its state legislature agreeing to a Nov. 4 special election to decide whether to temporarily return congressional redistricting to lawmakers – by doing so, California is adding more Democratic House seats and offsetting Republican gains in Texas via that state’s mid-decade redistricting efforts. Hoover senior f…

4051
James Cook Mapped the Globe Before Dying At the Hands of Hawaiians Who Once Worshipped Him 56:56

4M ago56:56

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Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for discoveries, but it was Captain James Cook who made global travel truly possible. Cook was an 18th-century British explorer who mapped vast regions of the Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coast, with unprecedented accuracy. He meticulously conducted soundings to measure…

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All Roads Lead to . . .? Barry Strauss on Jews vs. Rome, the Fate of Empires and Republics 48:56

4M ago48:56

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Three times in ancient history, the Jewish people revolted against the Roman Empire – the end result being genocide, enslavement, exile, and religious oppression. Barry Strauss, the Hoover Institution’s Corliss Page Dean senior fellow and author of the newly released book Jews Vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Peopl…

4151
American Anarchists: The Original Domestic Extremists 39:37

4M ago39:37

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In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, gover…

4301
100 Years Before Ford v. Ferrari, a Horse Breeder Revolutionized Thoroughbred Racing Through a Similar Obsession With Progress 1:14:41

5M ago1:14:41

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Horse racing was the most popular sport in early America, drawing massive crowds and fueling a cultural obsession with horses’ speed and pedigree. In the early 1800s, every town in America with a few thousand people had a horse racing track, with major cities drawing crowds of up to 50,000. In the midst of this was Alexander Keene Richards (1827–18…

4351
Western Rome Fell Due to Germanic Immigration, Mass Inflation, and a Bloated Bureaucracy 39:05

5M ago39:05

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It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire. R…