Chalke Talk

The podcast from the Chalke Valley History Festival
Released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings

Chalke Talks for REGION: Asia


  • 09. ISTANBUL: A TALE OF THREE CITIES
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    Award-winning historian, author and broadcaster Bettany Hughes gives a captivating portrait of the momentous life of Istanbul based on meticulous research gathered over a decade and brand new archaeological evidence. A ground-breaking history of this world-class city from its very beginnings in Neolithic times through 8,000 years of human habitation to the present.

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  • CHINA’S WAR WITH JAPAN 1937-45: A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
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    In 1937 the ‘Marco Polo Bridge Incident’ plunged China and Japan into a conflict of extraordinary duration and ferocity – a war that would result in many millions of deaths and completely reshape East Asia in ways that we continue to confront today. Professor Rana Mitter explains how Japan’s failure to defeat China was the […]

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  • 93. JERUSALEM: THE HOLY CITY AND THE MIDDLE EAST
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    Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilisations. Best-selling author Simon Sebag Montefiore tells the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence. 

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  • 102. MODERN IRAN: REVOLUTIONS, REPUBLIC AND WAR
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    Iran remains an enigma to most of us in the West: once Persia, a land rich in culture, exoticism and history, but more recently a country embroiled in wars and an Islamic revolution. In this talk, Ali Ansari, Professor of Iranian History at the University of St Andrews, explains why modern Iran has evolved in […]

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  • 117. EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI
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    Best-selling author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang gives a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China and an intimate portrait of the most important woman in Chinese history. One of the Emperor’s concubines, she launched a palace coup to become the Empress Dowager Cixi, the absolute ruler of a third of the world’s population […]

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  • 172. THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE SULTAN SALADIN
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    Few of history’s heroes can rival Saladin in his enduring attraction. In the Muslim world he is revered for reclaiming Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. In the West he is famed for his chivalric virtue, despite fighting off the armies of the Third Crusade. Professor Jonathan Phillips brings alive this extraordinary man’s legacy, offering […]

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