HistThink

Thinking historically, most of the time

[HistThink @hist_think]

This is the newer Twitter account for Historically Thinking! Please unfollow @HistThink, that account is no longer active.

[HistThink @hist_think]

Kim Philby–Soviet spy within the British Secret Service– ended his life with medals from Franco, Stalin, and Churchill.

Which tells you something about the twentieth century.

https://t.co/2k2gNCMM4q

[HistThink @hist_think]

One of the most fascinating parts of this story is that many people in the 1930s knew perfectly well what Stalinism looked like.

Some simply chose to ignore it.

https://t.co/2k2gNCMM4q

[HistThink @hist_think]

Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross weren't simply betraying Britain.

They were helping build a Soviet empire in Eastern Europe. They were some of the boots smashing human faces.

https://t.co/2k2gNCMeeS

[HistThink @hist_think]

The Cambridge Five–Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross–are usually remembered as glamorous British traitors or symbols of class hypocrisy.

Antonia Senior asks a different question: What did Stalin want from them?

https://t.co/QkvUWOUVe5

[HistThink @hist_think]

History is not one thing but many things.

It is:
cities under siege,
political systems under pressure,
families under coercion,
and technologies changing how humans live together.

Recent episodes at https://t.co/QkvUWOUVe5

[HistThink @hist_think]

Recent episodes of Historically Thinking have ranged from:
• Athens and Sparta
to
• slavery in small Virginia households
to
• how guns reshaped early modern Europe

Different subjects but the same habit of mind.

Go to https://t.co/QkvUWOVt3D

[HistThink @hist_think]

One week:
☢️ nuclear deterrence

Next week:
🛡️ Byzantine walls collapsing under cannon fire

That’s the joy of historical conversation.

More at https://t.co/QkvUWOUVe5

[HistThink @hist_think]

Over the last few weeks on Historically Thinking:

• firearms and state formation
• slavery in intimate spaces
• Europe and historical perspective
• nuclear weapons and international systems
• the fall of Constantinople

History is unruly.

https://t.co/QkvUWOVt3D

[HistThink @hist_think]

The Greeks competed at everything.

Even civilization itself.

🎧 Listen now wherever you find your podcasts, and find out more at https://t.co/QkvUWOUVe5

[HistThink @hist_think]

@zenahitz

[HistThink @hist_think]

Athens.
Sparta.
Rivalry.
Democracy.
War.

🎧 New episode with Adrian Goldsworthy

https://t.co/QkvUWOUVe5

[HistThink @hist_think]

Civil War history is not only battles and generals.

It is also confinement, deprivation, bureaucracy, and survival.

🎧 Listen to Episode 445 of Historically Thinking

https://t.co/ExFIdVJDPm

[HistThink @hist_think]

Prison camps in the American Civil War were not just humanitarian disasters.

They reshaped military policy, racial attitudes, and postwar memory.

https://t.co/ExFIdVJ5ZO

[HistThink @hist_think]

In WWII, an American soldier’s odds of capture were roughly 1 in 100.

In the Civil War, they were closer to 1 in 5.

Captivity was not exceptional—it was a defining experience.

https://t.co/ExFIdVJ5ZO

[HistThink @hist_think]

Why are Civil War prison camps so central to the war—and yet so marginal in how we tell its story?

A conversation on captivity, policy, and memory.

https://t.co/ExFIdVJ5ZO

[HistThink @hist_think]

Andersonville was not an anomaly. It was one of many.

In fact, the American Civil War normalized large-scale prisoner-of-war camps—an innovation that shaped every modern conflict since.

https://t.co/ExFIdVJDPm

[HistThink @hist_think]

During the Civil War, nearly 400,000 Union and Confederate soldiers became prisoners of war.

The odds of capture were roughly 1 in 5.

New episode: W. Fitzhugh Brundage on the rise of prison camps and the making of modern warfare.

https://t.co/ExFIdVJ5ZO

[HistThink @hist_think]

https://t.co/VXX8OUtSHS

[HistThink @hist_think]

From quaternions to gravitational waves: the entangling history of vectors and tensors. @RArianrhod 🎧 https://t.co/QkvUWOVt3D

[HistThink @hist_think]

Why did one equation change engineering, physics, and navigation? @RArianrhod explains in her book "Vector: A Surprising Story of Space, Time, and Mathematical Transformation".

🎧 Listen to it at https://t.co/QkvUWOVt3D